Video Was Stand-Up’s Entrée to Comedy

Being a “weird” kid gave Eric D’Alessandro a leg up on his career as a comedian.   “When I was 11 I had a video camera, which was strange to see back then,” said D’Alessandro, who brings his stand-up act to The Straz’s Jaeb Theater Friday, July 14. “Now, every junior high kid is making... Continue Reading →

Dance Nowhere Near Tapped Out

National Tap Dance Day is May 25. The date commemorates the birth of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, one of tap’s greatest practitioners. He may be best known for his stair dance routine with Shirley Temple in 1935’s The Little Colonel. But his career stretched back to vaudeville and minstrel shows and continued through Broadway, movies, radio... Continue Reading →

Audience is UNKNOWN VARIABLE in Shear Madness

All they wanted was a play that had a role for each of them. The play they created has been running for more than 40 years. It’s probably being staged even as you read these words. It’s an interactive-whodunit-murder mystery-comedy that was first produced before anyone used the word “interactive” to describe a theatrical experience.... Continue Reading →

A Vibrant Metamorphosis

The ‘new’ Straz is designed to have something for everyone The Straz’s expansion project will do more than give the performing arts center a bold new appearance. The philosophy behind the project sets The Straz’s direction – outward. Key concept artwork for the redesigned Straz Center campus. The $100 million project is designed to open... Continue Reading →

ARTISTS WE LOVE: Lorraine Hansberry

“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" Groundbreaking playwright Lorraine Hansberry drew the title of her most famous work – A Raisin in the Sun – from the powerful poem Harlem, written by Langston Hughes about the promise of freedom in the Emancipation Proclamation remaining a... Continue Reading →

Hip-Hop’s Influence Spreads Far and Wide

Hip-hop, the “fad” that parents, teachers, government officials and close-minded rockers couldn’t wish away fast enough 40 years ago, now has its own government-sanctioned month. (Pictured above) A dramatic reenactment of the public hearing a hip-hop song for the first time. Last year, Congress designated November as National Hip-Hop History Month, a sign not only... Continue Reading →

ARTISTS WE LOVE TO LOVE: Donna Summer

Broadway was about the only place Donna Summer’s music didn’t dominate during her late ‘70s hit-making heyday. The jukebox musical Summer: The Donna Summer Musical finally brought the Queen of Disco’s catalog to the Great White Way. It would be difficult to overstate Summer’s popularity from the mid-‘70s through the early ‘80s. She had 11... Continue Reading →

I Have Reptiles to Thank for It

A Straz Center exclusive interview with National Geographic LIVE! wildlife photographer Shannon Wild. On Jan. 21, our popular National Geographic LIVE! speaker series kicks-off with Australian-born photographer Shannon Wild. Caught in the Act writer Marlowe Moore caught up with Shannon via phone at her home in Africa, where Shannon is currently working on a documentary... Continue Reading →

Talking With: Nick Offerman

You probably know him as Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation and as a sublimely convincing Dick McDonald in The Founder opposite Michael Keaton. Nick Offerman can also make a super fine cedar-strip canoe by hand out of his woodshop in east L.A., which you may not have known. He also co-wrote the book The... Continue Reading →

We Come from the Land of the Ice and Snow

National Geographic photographer Florian Schulz arrives with stunning images of his love affair with the Arctic. As you know, we here at Caught in the Act usually bring you life-changing interviews with the speakers in our Nat Geo LIVE! series each season. But, these are busy people traversing the globe in herculean efforts to get... Continue Reading →

Bloody Hell, Mate

British Actors and Why We Love Them Is it the accent? Perhaps some Stockholm Syndrome-like attachment to the crown? Aristocracy nostalgia? Probably the accent. Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth in Netflix's The Crown. But that doesn’t explain Charlie Chaplin, now does it? Or British siren Vivien Leigh, who played both Scarlett O’Hara and Blanche DuBois,... Continue Reading →

Finding the Art in Nature

Art and the performing arts are, at their basic level, a means of creating community and expressing our understanding of the world and ourselves. They have been interwoven with our natural world since human beings evolved to make art – our unique language of creativity that has incredible power. Perhaps not unexpectedly, evidence for both... Continue Reading →

Building Instrumental

   The Straz Center invited Los Angeles-based performance ensemble String Theory to turn the riverside corner of Morsani Hall into a working harp with 200-foot strings. This original, site-specific Fin Harp is on display with demonstrations through May 3. Look closely at the design of the newly-installed wooden harp on the river side of Morsani’s... Continue Reading →

The Ghost Light

People have asked us why, in theater, we leave a single cage light center stage when everyone goes home for the night. The answer is obvious:  to appease the ghosts, of course.   We all know there’s no business like show business, and the old joke goes that actors don’t retire; they die. However, even... Continue Reading →

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