A DUAL CRITICS REVIEW: MAMA MIA! AT ALHAMBRA THEATRE & DINING  Jacksonville’s has opened one of the most successful jukebox musicals ever with Mama Mia! featuring over twenty songs composed by Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus. ABBA-SOLUTELY FABULOUS FUN awaits ticket holders! This show marks the tenth year of the venue’s purchase by Managing Partner and Partners Bill Barnett, Fraser Bruns, and E. Karl Frisch.  The musical, which premiered in London in 1999, has been wildly popular, having played to a worldwide audience of sixty million theatre goers. After making it to Broadway in 2001, it remained for almost six thousand performances before …

A DUAL CRITICS THEATRE REVIEW The 5 & Dime, Jacksonville’s theatre company, , which will remain on stage through August 18, 2019. The production was made possible by the financial support of . The play, written by Lynn Nottage, debuted at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015, was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and opened on Broadway in 2017, where it received three Tony nominations, which included Best Play. The story is that of factory workers facing unforeseen and unimaginable changes in what Nottage has described as the American de-industrial revolution. The script is based on two years …

A DUAL CRITICS REVIEW St. Augustine’s has opened the Florida debut of Fun Home, a moving, heart-gripping musical (July 26 – August 25, 2019), on the Matuza Mainstage. The story has an unusual origin: it was adapted from a graphic true-life memoir written and illustrated by American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, titled “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.”  The book, which took over seven years to complete, was well-received after publication in 2006; both Time Magazine and the New York Times listed it as one of the best books of the year.  The musical adaptation, developed through a number of readings and …

A DUAL CRITICS REVIEW The and the are presenting the 14th annual with the staging of Disney’s Newsies during July 19 – 28, 2019. This wonderful summer program was created by , Director of the Wilson Center and Managing Producer of the Summer Musical. The center is located at 11901 Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville, Florida.  Newsies began as a musical film in 1992, was adapted for the stage in 2011, and debuted on Broadway in 2012, winning Tonys for Best Original Score and Best Choreography. The extravaganza is filled with energetic singing and dancing combined with history.  The story is based …

A DUAL CRITICS REVIEW Jacksonville Beach’s opened Shrek, The Musical, its summer fun-time production on July 19 for a run through August 11, 2019. Players is located at 106 6th Street North in . For reservations call 904-249-0289 or visit playersbythesea.orgthe-musical.  Shrek was a notably successful animated film adapted as a stage musical by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire. The musical debuted on Broadway in 2008, ran for twelve months, and toured afterward. The opening cost was twenty-five million dollars and it was one of the most expensive shows staged at that time. It received eight Tony Award nominations including …

A DUAL CRITICS REVIEW    in staged “The Pillowman” during July 11-13, 2019 under the auspices of The Young Creative Artist Series (YCAS), an educational program which offers a theatre mentorship by the creative team at Players for high school theatre students who would like to take on a project from start to finish. The program is sponsored by Florida Blue.  The play was presented by a group of students from , who were responsible for everything – directing, casting, stage management, technical, and marketing. They had studied “Pillowman” in class but did not consider it suitable for production at …