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Rains down in "Africa."

When last night's Lion King audience returned to their seats after the show's intermission, they probably expected some more tribal music, some more freaky human-animal costuming, and a nice tidy Disney ending to their night at the theater.

What they got was a downpour all over the imagined Pride Lands.

The ceiling of the Arsht Center sprung a substantial leak during last night's storms, interrupting the sold-out performance and necessitating an evacuation of the premises.

So if you woke up this morning with Toto's "Africa" stuck in your head, this is the likeliest explanation.
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Photo by Joan Marcus

The Lion King roars into the Arsht Center starting today.

Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba!

In case you've been living under a rock, the Broadway version of Disney's The Lion King starts its run at the Adrienne Arsht Center today. And while you might be tempted to scoff at its plebeian origins, it stands as one of the longest-running Broadway productions and holds the record as the highest-grossing show of all time.

Of course, Disney has successfully adapted plenty of its other classic films, including Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and Mary Poppins for the Broadway stage, and has even had success with original productions like Aida. But there is still plenty of other source material we think Disney should look into.
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Syndee Winters, the multi-talented singer, dancer and actress, has had a passion for the arts since she was an adolescent dreamer growing up in Miami. The youngest of three children, the Palmetto High grad moved here from New York at age 13 to live with her father and grandmother. Now she returns to Miami as Nala in the Broadway tour of the Tony award-winning smash hit The Lion King, which opens tomorrow night and runs through June 10 at the Arsht Center.

We spoke to Syndee about growing up in Miami, The Lion King, her solo career, and her unbridled excitement for being featured in Miami New Times. She likes us, she really likes us!
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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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Michael Brosilow

It was the pinnacle of suspense in an all-around suspenseful show. Dennis Watkins, as Harry Houdini, hung upside down from his feet, descending slowly into a tall glass box filled with water. The audience had been warned repeatedly that silence was paramount to the actor's successful escape.

But Death and Harry Houdini was, of course, just a show. A show about magic, no less, filled with physical illusions and sleight-of-hand tricks in addition to the usual theatrical fake-out of characters pretending to be somebody they're not. So when an audience member's cell phone rang out repeatedly at the most crucial moment -- just as Watkins' head was about to touch the water -- we assumed it was a staged distraction.

Call us jaded. No, really, you can. Because according to the show staffer who confiscated the phone that night, the whole thing was unplanned -- and dangerous.
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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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The Coconut Grove Playhouse, recipient of $0.

Last night, at its annual Reach for the Stars Gala Auction, Actors' Playhouse raised over $150,000 to fund its operating costs for the upcoming 2012-13 season.

Meanwhile, in the neighborhood next door, the Coconut Grove Playhouse sits empty, mired in debt that nobody wants to shoulder.

The Coconut Grove community's Give It Back efforts have been admirable in drawing attention to the regrettable decline of the historic building. But as mediation falters between the many parties with stakes in the property, it's clear that peaceful protests aren't enough.

If Coconut Grove wants its playhouse back, it might have to help pay for it.
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Florida Grand Opera performed selections from upcoming shows, including Romeo et Juliette.

For most members of Generation X, or Y, or XY, or whatever they're calling 20-somethings these days, the entirety of our opera experience was the 10-minute segment in Pretty Woman in which Richard Gere flies a jewel-bedecked Julia Roberts off in a private jet. But after seeing the Florida Grand Opera's performance at Wynwood's Second Saturday Art Walk, we're thinking previous generations may have been onto something when it comes to their love for this epic art form.

The FGO is now looking to introduce the culturally inquisitive younger set to the joys of its monumentally powerful medium. And what better way to bring opera to the masses than during art walk, when people are boozed up and receptive? Well, there may have been better ways -- an at-times inattentive audience and sparse, lackluster setting put a bit of a damper on some performances. But as free, unique cultural experiences go, the brief foray into the world of FGO's Young Artist program, and the upcoming Romeo et Juliette run at the Arsht Center, was one of Saturday's standout gallery events.
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You may think that there's an appreciable difference in going to see a play at Actors Playhouse or GableStage and going to catch a ballgame at Marlins Park. But you'd be wrong. Mostly. A Miami Marlins game is every bit as much theatre as something written by Tracy Letts or Stephen Sondheim. Except that at the ballpark you can eat a hotdog and wash it down with an ice-cold beer, which pretty much invalidates all other arguments.

Still, I set myself to find out anyway. I attended the Marlins second-ever home game at their new digs to find its artistic and theatrical merits, and catch their inaugural Friday Night Live postgame show.
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We love Wynwood's Second Saturday Art Walk for all the important reasons: free booze, killer visual installations, bizarre conversations with socially awkward artists. And now there's yet another reason to get psyched for our favorite artistic endeavor: this weekend's stroll is offering an earful of aria to help pump up the monthly cultural melee.

In an inaugural run, the Florida Grand Opera (FGO) is bringing its vocal stylings to our city's aesthetic trek in the form of a special shindig at the Dorsch Gallery. Art walk attendees who RSVP will get an earful of snippets from the epic classic Romeo et Juliette (opening on April 21st at the Arsht Center), performed by members of the FGO's Young Artist Studio.

Did we mention that the party is free? Gratis? No dinero required?
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