Dramaworks began its recent season with back-to-back Carbonell-winning gems late last year: William Inge's classically structured, voluminously populated Picnic, with its career-best performance from a virtuosic Margery Lowe; and Alan Bennett's coming-of-age drama The History Boys about, among other things, sexual misconduct in an English grammar school. Don't be surprised if the company accrues more statuettes for its stellar, benchmark-setting work in early 2016 as well. In an era when intermission-less 80-minute plays are the new standard, few companies would subject their audiences to the three-and-a-half-hour family exorcism that is Long Day's Journey Into Night. But Dramaworks' exemplary production forced us to wallow with Eugene O'Neill's demons, the final act representing the most artistically fertile discomfort imaginable. Its follow-up play, the sweet and teary Outside Mullingar, flawlessly exhibited the company's romantic side with a superbly acted, wondrously designed rendition of the John Patrick Shanley hit. These four works added up to a perfect synthesis of source material and production values.
Readers' choice: Broward Center for the Performing Arts