All photos by Erik Bojnansky

Floyd the Rock Artist strikes a post with Graciep0o.

Last night wasn't exactly an ideal night for RAW to make its Miami debut. Aside from being a weekday, and the drenching rains hours earlier, this was the same night the Miami Heat faced the New York Knicks in the playoffs at the American Airlines Arena.

Yet in spite of the obstacles, plenty of people flocked to The Stage in the Design District to witness RAW's first Blend night in Miami. As we explained earlier this week, RAW's mission is to promote artists of all genres at the same time, often at club-like events.

On this particular night, fine art paintings hung on the walls; gobs of paint were spread on models; and an abstract painting was created to the thrashings of an alternative punk band from Cuba. Fashion bloggers were being transformed into models, while a jewelry maker posed for photos with friends. Bartenders sold drinks ranging from $4 to $12, while a food truck prepared tasty treats.
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War is the backdrop in Donald Margulies' stark tale of love and conflict, Time Stands Still, which opened last night at GableStage. The play is ostensibly a study in the impassive cruelty of war through the eyes of a couple drifting towards an uncertain future while fighting to avoid being destroyed by their unspeakable experiences. It's a crisp moving production sustained by some fine performances and a script that moves along with the right measure of humor and striking drama.
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Tara Solomon

Guests at Unix Fine Art in Wynwood last night

One man freed his soul from the prisons of Italian master painters four years ago. One man paints in ribbons and straws and paces by the phases of the moon. One man hijacks Los Angeles billboards to challenge the inane system.

All three are featured in an exhibit that made its debut last night at Unix Fine Art in Wynwood. Attendees who made the rounds at Art Basel's last edition surely recognized several of the pieces, including fabric-like portraits and gooey-looking oversized Blow Pops, among the works that lit up the walls and floors of the intimate gallery space.

Artists Andrea Sampaolo of Italy, Alexi Torres of Atlanta, and Desire Obtain Cherish of Los Angeles were all present at the private preview last night. We had a chance to chat with each to get a sense of their creative processes and intentions.
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Michael Brosilow

The cast of Death and Harry Houdini

Forget the over-the-top spectacles of David Blaine and Criss Angel. The most effective illusions are the simplest: an ordinary subject, a distraction or two, and an incredibly skilled performer.

That also happens to be Death and Harry Houdini's recipe for its performance at the Arsht last night. The ordinary subject: Death. The distractions: turn-of-the-20th-century entertainment, including tap dancing, a barbershop quartet, and a black-and-white silent film. And the incredibly skilled performer? Take your pick of the cast.

There were plenty of tricks played on the audience last night: a man sawed in half, disappearing and reappearing cards, and even Houdini's classic water torture escape. But the most impressive was this: The well-executed magic tricks and engaging performances on stage managed to turn a predictable, lackluster plot into an engaging stage show that at times had the whole audience holding its breath.
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Photos by Maria Murriel

A proud Pride mom

Sunday's Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade was a super-happy event rife with drag queens, rainbow flags, and the occasional dog or baby. The costumes were louder than the music and the dance moves were right out of a Brazilian Carnaval.

But although all our gays and lesbians are equally lovable, some were more colorful than others, so we've put together a list of the 10 gayest people, pets, and assorted other things we saw at the parade.

Check the photos below the jump to see if your friend and his spandex jumpsuit made the cut.
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Not scary: These guys.

​I'm just going to come right out and say it: I am a wimp. A pansy. One of those girls who has to ask men to open jars and help get her luggage down from the overhead compartment. I've never been naturally gifted when it comes to sports, and I've always preferred curling up with a book to running around a soccer field or whatever.

I also grew up on Lifetime movies and episodes of Law & Order: SVU, so I find big 'roided-up dudes to be extra scary. I'm a feminist, so they also make me angry. And that's not exactly a recipe for professional wrestling fandom. I once seriously considered dumping a guy I was dating because I found out he was a big wrestling fan.

Instead, I married him. And that's how I found myself at WrestleMania XXVIII last night.
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Justin Namon

Irene Adjan and Margery Lowe in Moscow

​A Cuban society woman turned inept American housekeeper drags a recalcitrant mop bucket across the patio between her awkwardly spread legs. A wide-eyed dilettante, her bird-like frame wrapped in tropical hues, reads a nuclear fallout shelter's user manual -- including bits about what to do with your radioactive hair -- in a comically cheery voice. And an embittered woman with expressive eyes spits cathartic accusations at her abusers, sending chills down our spines.

There were some charged moments in the world premiere of Michael McKeever's Moscow at the Adrienne Arsht Center's Carnival Studio Theater last night. It's just that when you connect them with the rest of the play, the result becomes only barely tolerable.

Set in a Coral Gables home, Moscow, Zoetic stage's last stand of its first season, is about the Montefiores, a prominent South Florida family, and the upheaval of their "normalcy" that comes with the changes of 1960s America.

Lorelei (played by three-time Carbonell winner Irene Adjan) is the unlikable active alcoholic and oft-pregnant matriarch of the family; Lucy (Zoetic company member Margery Lowe) is her flighty wannabe artist sister; Clayton (Tom Wahl) is her logical, change-phobic husband; and Olivia (Lela Elam) is her exasperated live-in maid.
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Photos by Maria Murriel

​Ever retrieved a vegetable dumpling from a leathery glory hole in the shape of a vulva? No? The guests of last night's PAIRINGS fundraiser at LegalArt did.

They also bid on paintings of buttocks and Tiffany's jewelry, all while sipping Peronis and munching on succulent spare ribs or arepas with goat cheese.

The event was an effort by LegalArt, the non-profit that sources legal aid for artists, to raise money for its own mission as well as another non-organization dedicated to improving food quality for low-income children. The goal: to create the interaction of art and food -- and of course, raise some cash. But it also raised our spirits with its quirky takes on cultured cuisine.

See all the delicious madness for yourself after the jump.
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Vanessa Benavente as Adela

"We Can Always Dream"

​Last night's launch of the Centro Cultural Español's (CCE) Microteatro por Dinero felt a bit like speed dating for theater lovers. It even included some of the pitfalls of public courtship CCE could easily have avoided.

It obliterated the concept of the fourth wall and placed viewers on stage along with the actors -- at times, literally engaged the audience in the action in an unexpected and cozy fashion.

But watcher beware: Those averse to riding packed elevators or uncomfortable making direct eye contact with strangers might find this level of intimacy with the theater experience overwhelming. Or panic attack-inducing.

The microtheater concept offers audiences an intimate way to experience short plays in genres ranging from musicals to comedy, drama and thrillers in a rapid fire format where one can theoretically see up to nine different performances in one evening. It's a grand idea that enjoyed rave reviews in Spain where it originated. But here at its stateside debut, there are still a few kinks that need to be ironed out.

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​​Rakontur kicked off its 10th anniversary retrospective at O Cinema last night with Raw Deal: A Question of Consent, the renegade Miami film-making duo's first and, some say, most controversial documentary.

Though the boys of Rakontur are most famous for Cocaine Cowboys, the lesser-known Raw Deal played to a mostly full house -- on a Monday night.

The film, packed with original footage of the alleged rape of an exotic dancer by Delta Chi frat brothers at the University of Florida, had not been screened publicly since 2002.
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