32 June 23-28, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times b e s T o f m i a m i ® 2 0 2 3 3201 RICKENBACKER CAUSEWAY KEY BISCAYNE, FL | 305.361.3818 WWW.THERUSTYPELICAN.COM BE SOCIAL WITH US! FIND US ON line move to California — thanks to a generous tax credit, the likes of which our state is unwill- ing to offer. But Miami should still thank Rae for the most accurate fictional portrayal of Mi- ami thus far. Seduce and scheme forever! B E S T T H E AT E R CO M PA N Y GableStage 1200 Anastasia Avenue Coral Gables, 33134 305-445-1119 gablestage.org In 2021, after the passing of Joseph Adler, Gable- stage tapped Bari Newport to lead the company into the future. Newport, who’d served as artistic director of the Penobscot Theatre Company in Bangor, Maine, for nine years, took over with the specter of the pandemic still looming over every- thing. Even then, she pulled off a well-received debut season with productions of Authur Mill- er’s The Price, Claudia Rankine’s The White Card, and Tanya Saracho’s Fade. Newport flexed her theatrical muscles for the 2022-23 season, introducing South Florida audiences to We Will Not Be Silent by David Meyers, Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House Part 2, and El Huracán by Charise Castro Smith. The company recently announced its 2023-24 season — also its 25th anniversary — which will feature August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned, the Miami premiere of Jon Marans’ Old Wicked Songs, and the premiere of Alexis Scheer’s Laughs in Spanish. With a lineup like that, a $180 to $360 season pass is more than worth it. B E S T D I R E C TO R Giancarlo Rodaz Area Stage Company areastage.org As associate artistic director of Area Stage Company, Giancarlo Rodaz is a risk taker, un- afraid to challenge his audiences, actors, and even plays. Take for instance the tale as old as time where Rodaz used his magical touch to transform Disney’s Beauty and the Beast into a work that might’ve impressed Walt himself. Re- alizing that if he was going to go big, he couldn’t go home, Rodaz moved his vision from Area Stage’s small South Miami home base to the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio The- ater Center. Rather than sit in theater seats, Rodaz cast the audience as guests at wooden benches and long tables, from which actors not only sang and traded dialogue, but danced, ran, jumped and leaped all around them. B&B was the third in a series of reinventions wherein Rodaz reinterpreted big-scale musicals with abandon: In 2018, he stripped down Shrek The Musical, ditching the green ogre and donkey personas, among others, and presenting human characters (Shrek was distinguishable by a green clown nose) struggling with modern problems. In 2021, his immersive Annie fea- tured eight adult actors in all roles — no kids. Rodaz’s minimalist approach launched these fairy tales to new heights. Next, he’ll take on The Little Mermaid — we can only imagine how he’ll render “under the sea.” B E S T P L AY Create Dangerously Miami New Drama 1040 Lincoln Road Miami Beach, 33139 miaminewdrama.org Create Dangerously and its nonlinear storyline may not precisely fit the standard format of what a play should be. At one point, one of the characters even tells the audience in all honesty, “This isn’t really a play.” But it does make for good theater. It’s an adaptation of the book Cre- ate Dangerously by Miami national treasure and multi-award-winning Haitian-American novel- ist Edwidge Danticat. Miamian Lileana Blain- Cruz (the current resident director at Lincoln Center Theater in New York) was recruited by Miami New Drama to write and direct the adap- tation. During the 90-minute production, six ac- tors portray multiple roles as Danticat’s prose rolls off their tongues. It’s reminiscent of gener- ations of storytelling, and it offers the audience perspective, reflection, and the opportunity to live inside someone else’s stories. B E S T AC TO R I N A M A L E R O L E Gabriell Salgado gabriellsalgado.com @gabriellsalg (Instagram) Gabriell Salgado wins this category three times over. In the past year, he has been seen in almost every local professional theater production that calls for a good-looking Latino. But casting di- rectors don’t just want him for his body. The 2019 New World School of the Arts grad made his professional debut at Zoetic Stage in 2021’s Frankenstein, proving himself a talent to be reckoned with as a hideous creature, skinny, contorted, and covered in makeup that rendered his body and face in scars and stitches. This sea- son, he turned in a gold medal-worthy perfor- mance as professional swimmer Ray in Ronnie Larsen’s production of Red Speedo the Foundry in Wilton Manors and made his GableStage de- but playing comical dual roles in El Huracán. Arts & Entertainment
