PLAY FOR KEEPS
Florida Rep’s 18th season gets national recognition, praised by top drama critic
Florida Rep’s 18th season gets national recognition, praised by top drama critic
Florida Repertory Theatre founder and producing artistic director Robert Cacioppo called donors “angels” at the showing of Twelve Angry Men at the Historic Arcade Theatre, noting that the theater wouldn’t be close to as successful without their help. But performances and staging bring patrons. Wall Street
Journal writer Terry Teachout, for instance, called Florida Rep “one of the top regional troupes in the United States,” recognizing this January’s production as “the finest staging of The Cocktail
Hour” he had ever seen performed. The last production of the 18th season is The Dingdong, playing until May 8. This classic French piece was written in 1896 and was chosen for production during Florida Rep’s PlayLab last May—a festival that gives select playwrights a chance to have their play read aloud and to receive feedback.
The Dingdong was also picked up by a New York producer and had a world premiere only two weeks before the Southwest Florida regional premiere in April.
This adapted bedroom farce, written by Mark Shanahan, puts fidelity to the test when two husbands, two wives, one maid and one call girl meet in an apartment in Paris. Who had an affair with whom? Who is next and why? Can they save their marriage?
Florida Rep patrons each year are in for a heck-of-a-ride season of wonderful dramas, comedies and musicals at the historic Arcade Theatre, which opened in the early 20th century. Then in the 1990s—from funds raised by the City of Fort Myers and ballet/film star Mikhail Baryshnikov—it was renovated and became Florida Rep's permanent home.
One of the top regional troupes in the United States.”
—Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal drama critic in describing Florida Rep Theatre