Mondays are Dark

The summer keeps heating up - and we're not talking about the weather.  Critics and patrons alike are raving about The Donkey Show at the Arsht, Real Men Sing Show Tunes at Actors' Playhouse, and The Fantasticks at Palm Beach DramaWorks.

Just a reminder that Conundrum Stages's weekly Ghost Light Playreading Series continues this Tuesday at Empire Stage. And don't forget you can indulge in the Theatre League's A Taste of Summer Theatre.

Here's your Monday reading list:

Less Than Six Degrees
Florida Theater On Stage explains how the reading of This Little Jew Girl came to take place at GableStage tonight; through personal contacts.  It's a case study in how small the theater world is; the playwright was working with an actor who worked down here, who worked with Laura Turnbull, who's married to Avi Hoffman, who the playwright's mother recognized from his Too Jewish... shows, one thing leads to another, and we get to see it at 7:30 tonight at GableStage.  

BTW, everyone appearing in this show will gain a Kevin Bacon number of three.   Less than six degrees, indeed.

A Mashup for Midsummer
The Miami Herald examines the latest offering from the Arsht Center; Diane Paulus' Miami version of The Donkey Show, an immersive mashup of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with an homage to Studio 54, the dance club that defined Disco in the 1970s.

The Bard Ain't Lost
The Palm Beach Post reports that the Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival is doing its thing in Carlin Park again; this time it's Twelfth Night. And even though it starts with a plane crash on a remote island, it's not a mashup with the TV show Lost. It plays - weather permitting - through July 22.

The Kudos Keep C--, er, Pouring In 
Lake Worth Playhouse, south Florida's most venerated community theater, has been getting lots of praise for its production of Hairspray; Bill Hirschman has mentioned it several times, and South Florida Gay News actually reviewed it.

That Nice Clean-Cut Young Man
Florida Theater On Stage interviews Antonio Amadeo, actors, director, set designer, and co-founder of The Naked Stage, which is getting read to open The Turn of the Screw after a nearly two-year hiatus.  And yes, he's really as nice as everyone says.

A Labor of Love
miamiartzine talks with Kim Ehly, whose new play Baby GirL opened at Empire Stage over the weekend. BroadwayWorld has a production fact sheet up.

Board Brings Ballet to its Knees
The Miami Herald looks into the mess at Miami City Ballet. Faced with mounting debt, the board of directors forced the resignation of artistic director and company founder Edward Villella, the only artist in South Florida who is a Kennedy Center Honors recipient, a National Medal of Arts winner, and an inductee to the National Museum of Dance Hall of Fame.

The board's action came on the heels of the company's incredibly successful performances in Paris and New York, as well as being featured on PBS television.

A Black Hole of Arts Funding?
Eye On Miami believes that some of Miami City Ballet's financial woes can be attributed to the existence of the Arsht Center.

I know the current regime at the PAC is trying its best, but the building was a colossal mistake because the donor base in Miami is so limited. In supporting the building, performing arts organizations have been cheated of opportunities to raise funds themselves.

Of course, Zoetic Stage, The Project Theatre, and Mad Cat Theatre Company might have some views on this matter.

Adding It Up
The Examiner takes a look at the costs of producing theatre in an attempt to understand why theatre companies like the Caldwell, Coconut Grove Playhouse, Promethean, and Florida Stage have all ceased operations.

Reaching Out
Treasure Coast Palm has an interesting story about a cooperative fundraising venture started by Actors Helping All (AHA)

The plan is simple: charities and other organizations looking to raise money with an event that features more than meatballs in a crock pot can contact AHA for either a two-hour doo-wop musical or improv murder mystery with all proceeds going to the benefit.

Knowing Is Half the Battle
Mission Paradox points out that while managers can't control anything related to performance, they can absolutely control the patron's experience in the rest of the building, and that's where management should focus its attention.  Leave the art to the artists. 

Labor's Love Found
The Huffington Post examines how unions benefit the performing arts.

Pay the Piper
You can dance if you want to, but if you use someone's choreography, you owe someone some money.  DanceUSA discusses choreography and copyright law.

Theatre Resource Guide
Stage Directions'  Theatre Resources Directory is finally online.  This is the best resource for finding everything you need to do theatre.  And we do mean EVERYTHING.  It's been available in print for years, but it's taken awhile to catch up to the 21st century.

Meanwhile...
The Coconut Grove Playhouse is still closed.  The Miami Herald reports that Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez was making real progress towards settling the defunct company's debts, a necessary step before anything else can be accomplished, when he ran into a snag.  Aries Development Group rejected a settlement and countered with an offer to move ahead with the same development plan it's been pursuing all along.  Grovites have opposed that plan from the beginning.

Aries needs to get a clue and step aside; they have turned themselves into an obstacle to overcome instead of a partner in the Grove's future.