Steven Miller

BWW Review: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Feels New Again in Outstanding Garden Theatre Production

Director Roberta Emerson has devised an intriguing way to approach the story's outer framework without altering the libretto. The story opens not with an unseen narrator recounting the enchantress's spell on a prideful prince and his servants but instead with a young Black girl (played sweetly by Gabriella Milchman) who opens a storybook in a modern-day bedroom and reads those words aloud from it, soon seeing herself in the story - just in time for the glorious opening notes of 'Belle'...

BWW Review: Garden Theatre's Timely Musical PARADE Puts Anti-Semitism and Southern Justice on Trial

As news of Nazi rallies throughout Orlando and a white nationalist conference just outside of Walt Disney World rock Central Florida, Garden Theatre opens a musical this week that meets the moment: PARADE...

BWW Review: Audacious and Inspiring, Garden Theatre's THE MOUNTAINTOP Puts Us in a Room with Martin Luther King Jr.

THE MOUNTAINTOP is a daring and compelling piece of theatre, powerfully staged this month at The Garden Theatre in downtown Winter Garden, FL. It wastes no time in restoring King from the marble statues and speckled newsreels of history to beating heart and flesh and blood...

BWW Review: Garden Theatre Finds BIG Fun in Seldom-Staged Musical

BIG props to the artistic team behind BIG: THE MUSICAL at Garden Theatre. They built a BIG all-wood roller coaster right on stage. It's a beauty to look at, honestly as dazzling as the famous real-deal I rode at Dollywood two weeks ago. You can't ride the Garden's, but it does move. The show's various scene settings, whether a two-story apartment or a Manhattan office building, are hidden within the coaster's twisting support beams and break out to roll downstage. It makes a BIG Impression...

BWW Review: LOOPED Brings Legendary Diva Tallulah Bankhead to Electric Life at Garden Theatre

Actually, LOOPED is more specific than that. The movie in question is Die! Die! My Darling!, and by the time Act I opens, filming has already wrapped. We meet Ms. Bankhead as she barges into a post-production editing room with an F word so boisterous and stylish it could only leap from the lips of a diva. Film editor Danny Miller needs her to dub over a single line of garbled audio. He hopes to wrap that up in mere minutes. Tallulah’s Scotch-drenched dramatics have other plans. The play proceeds in pursuit of that single successfully uttered sentence over two acts...

BWW Review: Garden Theatre Reimagines MAN OF LA MANCHA as a Tale for Our Time

This latest production puts the classic tale of Don Quixote and its author in an almost shocking new context - one that's as powerful as it is surprising... Though the dialogue stays the same, with references to the Inquisition intact, Cervantes's prison is very clearly a U.S. immigration detention center in the 21st century...

BWW Review: An Act of God at NextStop Theatre Company

Is it time to hold God (inhabiting the body of Jacob Yeh) to account?  God knows – forgive the reference – we have occasion to do so.  Even as we hunker, masked, vaccinated and socially distant, within the confines of NextStop Theatre Company, we add more counts to our indictment – a terrible disease, economic disruption, social unrest. And that’s just for us, the richest country in human history! At least we don’t have to worry about religious maniacs entering our homes and shooting us. Yet.

BWW Review: Garden Theatre's THE BODYGUARD Is Whitney-Worthy and One-Ups the Movie

“THE BODYGUARD on stage sounds fun,” I thought, “but is there really anybody in Winter Garden who can handle Whitney Houston songs for two whole hours?” It turns out there are at least two people up to the task, and The Garden’s got them both...

BWW Review: GODSPELL Is Good News at Garden Theatre

Filling those water-walkin' sandals is Orlando native Eddie Ortega. His is the Jesus of the Bible - cool, chill, funny, sharp, smart, wise, surprising, radical, and full of love. He occasionally sings in Spanish, while his disciples add that and sign language too - your friendly reminder that nobody in the Bible spoke English...

Photo Flash: Garden Theatre Presents A RAISIN IN THE SUN

Central Florida audiences will have the opportunity to see Hansberry’s masterpiece on the Garden Theatre stage as part of the theatre’s 13th season. Directed by Roberta Emerson, the production plays a limited run March 3 - 14, 2021.  

BWW Review: Put on Your Sunday Masks: The Garden's HELLO, DOLLY! Reminds Us There's a World Out There

Fate couldn't have found a more fitting show for the Garden Theatre's 2020 return than one with a whole song about getting out of the house and hitting the town... The Garden has done just about everything a theatre of its size can do to mitigate risk and keep its patrons safe... It did feel very good to be back in a theatre again...

Virtual Theatre Today: Friday, August 21- with Rachel Bay Jones, Elizabeth Stanley and More!

Today (August 21) in live streaming: Rachel Bay Jones visits Backstage Live, Michael Urie and Mercedes Ruehl are guests on Virtual Halston, and so much more!

Guitarist Alex De Grassi Due To Release THE BRIDGE On April 17th

Alex de Grassi is excited to announce his newest album The Bridge due out on April 17th with Tropo Records and Six Degrees Records Distribution!

BWW Review: An Elderly Patron and I Disagree About BEN-HUR: AN EPIC COMEDY! at Garden Theatre

a?oeThat's the worst thing I've ever seen,a?? said an elderly woman on her way out the door. a?oeI couldn't have said it better myself!a?? her friend agreed. Far be it for me to differ a?' they probably saw Ben-Hur in theatres while I still didn't know who was going to win the chariot race a?' but I loved it.

BWW Review: Garden Theatre's VIOLET, An Unfussy Musical with a Worthy Cast

A single-act show, it could use an occasional shot in the arm. Some of the songs drag and none are especially memorable. As bus stories goes, the pacing is a long, long way from Speed. The central love triangle between Violet and two boys on the bus (military officers Monty and Flick) feels all too familiar, and its engagement with the theme of interracial romance (Flick is African-American, Monty and Violet are white) feels underserved in a show that is ultimately about self-shame and misguided faith. Still, the show...

Photo Flash: First Look at A CHRISTMAS CAROL at the Old Vic

Bringing you some Christmas merriment this lunch time, a selection of rehearsal photos have just been released for The Old Vic's A Christmas Carol, starring Paterson Joseph as Ebenezer Scrooge. Returning for its third year, the show begins previews on 23rd November and opens on the 4th December.

BWW Review: The Nonstop Twists and Turns in Garden Theatre's DEATHTRAP Are Both Trick and Treat

DEATHTRAP gets off to a slow start, but by Scene Two - when the third of five characters enters the action - it's off to a fast-paced saga of twists, turns, and fatalities... Hilarity and homicide ensue, but in ways you won't see coming, with so many plot twists and misdirects that even an audience with ESP might gasp, as the Garden's sold-out house did all night long. Well, most of the theater...

Casting Announced For The Old Vic's A CHRISTMAS CAROL

The Old Vic have announced full casting for Matthew Warchus' big-hearted, smash hit production of Charles Dickens' immortal classic A Christmas Carol, joyously adapted for the stage by Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child). The Old Vic's A Christmas Carol returns on 4 December, with previews from 23 November.

Photo Flash: Garden Theatre Presents Ira Levin's DEATHTRAP

What would you do to succeed? Ira Levin's comedy-thriller Deathtrap shows just how far a man will go to get back to the top. Directed by Katrina Ploof, Deathtrap will thrill audiences at Garden Theatre from October 11 - 27, 2019.

Photo Flash: Inside Garden Theatre's FLASHDANCE

Dance like you've never danced before! Flashdance the Musical tells the inspiring and unforgettable story of 18-year-old Alex, a welder by day and 'flashdancer' by night, who dreams of becoming a professional dancer. When a romance complicates her ambitions, she harnesses it to drive her dreams.