We Are Getting There

It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better!

Relationships can be murder! Kevin Veloz (seated front) and Dylan Goike star as the Roaring Twenties’ most notorious killers/lovers in Island City Stage’s mesmerizingly evil musical production of THRILL ME: The Leopold & Loeb Story by Stephen Dolginoff. Playing now through September 3 in Wilton Manors. All photos by Matthew Tippins.

Comedy can be an effective tool for playwrights to deliver messages to audiences. Indeed, once we start at least smiling, or chuckling, we let our guard down. Then, a writer can hammer us with lessons and serious themes.

When playwright Stephen Kaplan was fresh out of college, he wrote the first draft of a comedy about loneliness and the universal longing for connection called TRACY JONES. He cites the famous Beatles’ song “Eleanor Rigby” as inspiration, and if you listen carefully, you can find a few insider references in his show. Fourteen years would pass till Kaplan took up the play again, in 2018. And, like another famous Beatles’ song, it would all fortuitously “Come Together,” culminating in a third Rolling World Premiere Production in 2022/23.

Back in the day, mainstream theater luxuriated in a lovely genre of character-based comedies suffused with smiles and chuckles, and usually ending with a surprising warm and touching denouement.