Nestled in an antique wicker chair, Russell Hibbard sips from a martini glass and leafs through his favorite book, the 1930 edition of The Savoy Hotel Cocktail Guide, as the mournful wailing of blues-harp legend Blind Mississippi Morse floats through the air. Hibbard’s passions for blues music, antique furniture, and…
When the Broward Cultural Affairs Council dubbed the former First Methodist Church in downtown Fort Lauderdale the Vinnette Carroll Theater in 1986, the ornate stained-glass windows of the two-story limestone building were left intact. But inside, tiered seating was installed, and the walls were painted black. Since the makeover, Vinnette…
Thursday July 1 Vaudeville acts — the lousy ones — used to be rousted off the stage with rotten tomatoes. But during the stage version of The Rocky Horror Show, the audience is expected to hurl objects and verbal insults at the actors. So bring along some rice for the…
To hear Spike Lee tell it, Summer of Sam means to be a panoramic view of the summer of 1977 in New York City — when temperatures shot into the high 90s and power blackouts set nerves on edge, when the party agenda included snorting coke at Studio 54 and…
The animated TV show South Park was the big sensation of the 1997-98 season — or at least as big a hit as a cable channel like Comedy Central can manage. It was almost inevitable that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone would take their batch of foul-mouthed eight-year-olds to…
Playwright John Patrick Shanley once told the New York Times that he bought a copy of Baron Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s 19th-century textbook Psychopathia Sexualis because “I have an unhealthy interest in sex and eccentric German people.” (Well, who doesn’t?) It might stand to reason then that he named his 1997…
Donald Singer was working on another ho-hum research project for one of his architecture classes at the University of Florida in Gainesville when he came across drawings by Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959), the American architect whose use of natural forms in design had a huge influence on modern architecture. “For…
Thursday June 24 The Delray Beach Playhouse may be doing more harm than good by hosting a Special Singles Night Performance of Murder at the Howard Johnson’s — or it may be doing singles a favor. The play revolves around Arlene, an underappreciated wife, Paul, her used-car salesman husband, and…
When seventh-century B.C. poet Sappho fashioned erotic lyric poems for the women she nurtured and loved — scenes, for example, of girls lying on plush mats pouring myrrh on each other — her verse was celebrated among scholars as sublime. The ancient Greeks obviously didn’t have hang-ups about homoerotic love,…
Anthology films are an odd-duck genre: Although there once was a time — now long gone — when books of short stories were published with nearly the frequency of novels, their cinematic equivalent has never amounted to even 1 percent of the fictional films released. You could argue that Pulp…
The new Adam Sandler comedy, Big Daddy, isn’t just the funniest movie of the summer, it’s also the most improbable feel-good movie of the season. It’s improbable because practically everything about Adam Sandler seems so unlikely, so strangely back-assward. His whole phenomenal career — from Billy Madison to Happy Gilmore,…
Mixed Emotions! is the name of Richard Baer’s astoundingly popular comedy about two golden agers who fall in love. Since its February opening, the show has been a hit for the Broward Stage Door Theatre, which has extended it through late July. Mixed emotions might also describe a demanding theatergoer’s…
I went to the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale expecting to sift through yet another juried group show. This time it was the “1999 South Florida Cultural Consortium Exhibition,” an annual competition in which more than 350 artists from Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Martin, and Monroe counties were whittled…
Thursday June 17 Q: What’s 3 feet wide, 12 feet long, and green? A: The miniaturized 18-hole course golfers will play during the American Putting Classic today through Sunday at Broward Mall (University Drive and Broward Boulevard, Plantation). For $1 per round, golfers of any caliber can score like pros,…
When you’re a playwright working alone, it can seem like you’re creating the sound of one hand typing. Unlike painting or fiction writing, theater is a collaborative art, and playwrights need feedback to give shape to their work. “You must hear it — you have to have someone read it…
How does a vibrator design get from the conceptual phase to the adult-store shelf? How are the prototypes tested? Broward and Palm Beach county radio listeners will have a forum in which to discuss these probing questions when Thee Fantasy Show debuts at midnight on Sunday, June 20. Larry Leonard,…
Pretentiousness masquerading as profundity; self-indulgence masquerading as art. The Loss of Sexual Innocence, the dreadful new film from writer-director Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas, One Night Stand), joins the ranks of the worst films ever made. A statement that may, on the surface, seem harsh and heartless but that will…
Bernardo Bertolucci’s Besieged is a movie of enthralling visual poetry. Set almost entirely inside a ravishing Roman villa, it is a love story played out in furtive glances and stolen looks by characters on opposite sides of the ethnic divide. Culturally, Mr. Kinsky (David Thewlis) and Shandurai (Thandie Newton) couldn’t…
Like the old adage about good campers who can start a fire with only three matchsticks, the M Ensemble Company has struck a full blaze with Home, a production crackling with inventiveness that defies its low-budget parameters with combustible theater talent. Samm-Art Williams’ drama-in-poetry about a young Southern farmer who…
Dominic Traverzo stands alone in front of a microphone in the dimly lit lounge of Krystals restaurant in Plantation. A multiethnic audience of young men and women sits quietly awaiting the first words of the 22-year-old college student. “The past tense mini-star — not minister, mini-star — wears his fur…
Here’s a little quiz for Hollywood locals: How many times have the words gentrification, renewal, and Harrison Street appeared in print in the same sentence during the last two years? Answer: A number at least equal to Harrison Street’s ever-increasing populace of faux gas lamps and dramatically lit palms. Despite…
Thursday June 10 What was the name of Han Solo’s ship in the movie Star Wars? Too easy a question, you say? Of course it is, since most of us have seen the original George Lucas space flick dozens of times and know the Millennium Falcon as well as our…
