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Miami Herald
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Meet Miami City Ballet's new artistic director, the third in the company's history
When Lourdes Lopez, Miami City Ballet's artistic director, announced last February that the 2024-25 season would be her last with the company, one of the reasons she cited for stepping down was to help usher in a new chapter for the 40 year old company. 'A company needs new energy, a new way of looking at the dancers, a new way of looking at the community.' The venerable organization may have found just that with Gonzalo Garcia, 45, who has been named MCB's new artistic director effective Aug. 11. He will be only the third artistic director since the ballet was founded in 1985 with Edward Villella, who helped launch the company, being the first. Garcia's has spent most of his career as a principal dancer —first with the San Francisco Ballet and then New York City Ballet, where he was a principal dancer until announcing his retirement in 2022. He was appointed Repertory Director for the company and was on the faculty of the School of American Ballet at the Lincoln Center, co-founded by George Balanchine. He'll leave those two positions to lead MCB. At 15, the native of Zaragoza, Spain, was the youngest dancer to receive a gold medal at international dance competition the Prix de Lausanne (Switzerland) in 1995. At 17, he was offered a contract to join San Francisco Ballet but decided to study one more year, joining the company in 1998. He was promoted to principal dancer at 22, one of the youngest dancers in the company to reach the status. He arrived at New York City Ballet as a principal dancer in 2007. Garcia's known for his strong dance repertoire, which included works by Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, and for creating original roles in works by two of the contemporary choreographic masters, Justin Peck, resident choreographer and artistic advisor of New York City Ballet, and choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. For his farewell performance with NYCB in February of 2022 he danced works by Balanchine, Robbins and Peck. It is this pedigree that led to MCB's board of directors choosing Garcia as the right fit to take the reins. Villella, MCB's founding artistic director, worked with Balanchine as a principal dancer from 1957 to 1979 at NYCB. Legendary changemaking choreographer Jerome Robbins created his 1976 ballet 'Watermill' to be danced by Villella, among other dance partnerships with Villella. Shortly after Lopez's 16th birthday, while attending the School of American Ballet, Balanchine invited her to join the corps of NYCB, and she became principal in 1984, playing numerous roles in choreographies created by Balanchine and Robbins. 'The two artistic directors we've had both were with Balanchine and Robbins and they had that pedigree about them,' said Jeff Davis, MCB's chair of the board of trustees. 'Gonzolo was heavily trained in the Balanchine technique [and] in Jerome Robbins.' The company's repertoire includes more than 100 ballets, with significant works by Balanchine and Robbins. It has expanded its repertoire to include contemporary choreographers including Peck and Ratmansky. 'Gonzalo is in tune with the next wave of choreographic voices,' said Davis. 'He has great connections with Justin Peck, Patricia Delgado [a former Miami City Ballet principal, she won the 2025 Best Choreography Tony Award along with husband Peck for Broadway's 'Buena Vista Social Club'], and [British choreographer] Wayne McGregor.' Garcia mentions 'destiny' when it comes to his appointment. 'It was meant to happen. The more I went through the process, the more I felt energized and more comfortable with the idea that it was me. I kept thinking, 'that's me. I speak Spanish. I'm an immigrant. I can relate to so many people that represent the community. I also have this incredible trajectory with the Balanchine and the Robbins and these American companies that have been represented in Miami City Ballet's history. I feel like it's been like almost every step and every skill that I have acquired through my life has brought me to this place and I do believe that strongly.' While the 40th anniversary season is already programmed, Garcia will begin working on what's next for the company, including the following season but also using his skills as 'a great collaborator.' 'I love being in the studio with dancers, I'm a teacher and an educator. I understand the different needs and technical abilities, but I also understand emotional abilities because I have danced a lot of the repertoire. I think [the company} needs someone that is going to get in there and really inspire them, reenergize them.' Garcia also sees MCB becoming more a part of what he says is the culture that is Miami. 'The stories that are happening in Miami, maybe that can be represented on stage. And who can be the right dance maker that can bring those stories to life? That's something that I want to invest in. Miami is just simmering with potential from all areas and parts of the world and the country. I don't seek to change what's already been created, but how do we make that bigger and better and how do we add things that are representative of the community we are dancing for?' With his background working with the School of American Ballet, he's also hoping to tap into the potential at the Miami City Ballet School. 'I want to continue teaching. How do we prepare those dancers to be future dancers not only for Miami City Ballet but also internationally to carry on the legacy,' he said. 'Who knows? We might have new choreographers there, perhaps the next Alexei Ratmansky.' The search, according to Davis, was led by Phillip DeBoer of executive search firm DHR Global. 'We started first with surveying all of our stakeholders –our dancers, our board, community members, our funders – asking them what their vision was for the next artistic director. We also contacted artistic directors of other ballet companies, choreographers and presenters. So out of that whole process, we had about 70 prospective names.' It considered 40 applicants. Garcia was one of two final candidates. The new artistic director begins his role in the midst of a precarious state of the arts both in support from the state of Florida and in the federal government. 'The Miami City Ballet has a strategic plan to build an endowment, and it is a very ambitious five year plan. I am going to be very much a part of that and trying to find places that we haven't previously found support. The reality is that in order to move the company forward without certain economic support, it will be very hard to do. So we'll need to be more strategic and conservative, but still ambitious,' said Garcia. He'll move to Miami with husband Ezra Hurwitz, an Emmy Award winning film director (he won the award for his short film 'Inside and Outwards' that was narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker and dealt with mental health during COVID), he's also worked with Tiffany & Co., Dior, Apple and Netflix. Prior to his film career, he was a professional dancer and spent eight years with the Miami City Ballet. He's looking forward to Hurwitz helping the company to expand its digital presence. 'That's something incredibly important for us to be relevant.' Garcia says he met Hurwitz during his last year with MCB. 'I remember going to visit him in Miami and taking class with the company. I've become close with the friends he made there so I have been surrounded with these conversations and his historical knowledge around my living room in New York many times through many years. I have worked with Edward Villella and Lourdes Lopez in different capacities in my life so with all of that, I feel emotionally connected to the company in so many ways.' is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don't miss a story at
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Three Hens in a Boat review – Jerome K Jerome inspires funny voyage of family reflection
Jerome K Jerome was not kind about Reading in Three Men in a Boat. Sculling along the Thames, his narrator observes how the town 'does its best to spoil and sully and make hideous as much of the river as it can reach' yet concedes it is 'good-natured enough to keep its ugly face a good deal out of sight'. Reading Rep, which co-produces this new comedy with Newbury's Watermill, does not hold a grudge. Camille Ucan's play is bookended by a rapturous quote about sailing from the 1889 novel and even has a skiff named after the author – although, as one character observes, Jerome 'sounds like a bit of a twat'. Ucan plays Jay, who dons glittery willy boppers and embarks on a hen do along the river with her mother, Gloria (Verona Rose), and grandmother Claudette (Ellen O'Grady). The trip has been planned to toast all three women's upcoming weddings but questions hang in the air. When will Jay introduce them to her fiance? Why does Gloria moan about her betrothed? And what is Claudette hiding among their copious luggage? Against Jasmine Swan's chocolate-box pastoral backdrop, under Jonathan Chan's woozy lighting, the story wends its way through the first half with familiar intergenerational comedy. There are sly jibes, much nagging and some sulking, with Gloria sounding like a needy child and Jay assuming the role of patience-stretched parent. Ucan has jettisoned most of the novel but kept the sense of travellers sharing stories and included an unconventional supporting role for Montmorency the fox-terrier. Abigail Pickard Price's production has winning performances, especially from O'Grady as the stiletto-wearing grandma given to pulling rank, whose technical knowhow extends to 'Facebook, Kindle and cappuccino machine' but not email. Her memories of leaving the Caribbean for England typify the play's reflective essence. When the journey enters more farcical territory, the results are far choppier. Although interspersed with bursts of dancefloor music, the play never seems authentically raucous and calls out for a deliriously funny set piece that does not arrive. After the interval, Ucan delivers some knotty revelations in the plot and her dialogue is sharply attuned to parental control and intervening expectations – down to who their children marry and how they choose to do so. Jerome's novel ensured readers it was a work of 'simple truthfulness' and that's often the case in this endearing escapade that brings ripples of laughter. At Reading Rep theatre until 17 May. Then at Watermill theatre, Newbury, 22 May-7 June.
The Guardian
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Piaf review – Audrey Brisson rises above the melee as the French singer
Pam Gems's Piaf premiered in 1978 at the RSC's The Other Place, its stage for new and often experimental work. Starring Jane Lapotaire, who would go on to win a Tony for her performance when the production transferred to New York, it had been conceived as a play with music, with a spare staging and unsparing focus on the brutal aspects of Édith Piaf's existence. For the 1993 revival, with singer Elaine Paige in the title role, the songs were expanded and so was the running time. This new production for the Watermill is closer to the 90-minute, trimmed-down, sentimentalised version that Gems rewrote for London's Donmar Warehouse in 2008. Like its predecessors, it relies heavily on the charisma of its leading performer, who carries the burden of the storyline as a carousel of characters whirls around her. It relies no less heavily on the skills of the ensemble to deliver sharp characterisations without blurring multiple roles – 31 in the original; here, in the cleverly used tiny space of the converted mill, around 20-plus (an estimate; not all are listed in the programme). Director Kimberley Sykes and musical supervisor Sam Kenyon push their cast even further by having them play all the musical accompaniments, physically bringing their instruments into the action to deliver not only tunes but also impressive sound effects, including of the two car crashes that added to the damage already inflicted on Piaf's frail body by early poverty, amplified by drink and drugs. With so many demands made on them, a mostly young cast cannot always find the depth to convey every one of their multiple characters satisfyingly (Signe Larsson's Marlene, offering a person beyond the Dietrich imitation, merits special mention). Audrey Brisson in the title role starts with an advantage: she is French Canadian, the rolling 'r's come naturally. However, she is more than a soundalike Piaf (although this in itself is no small achievement). In 2019, I praised her outstanding performance as Amélie, in this same theatre, for its emotional nuance. To this quality she adds, especially in the second act, a depth and grit that earn her a well-deserved standing ovation. Piaf is at the Watermill theatre, Newbury, until 17 May
The Guardian
23-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Autobiography of a Cad review – a playful mockery of entitlement and greed
On paper it looks like a good match: satirists united across the decades. Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, and his longtime collaborator Nick Newman (they first worked together on Spitting Image scripts) have dramatised the acid-sharp The Autobiography of a Cad by Scottish writer AG Macdonell (their fifth play for the small but perfectly formed Watermill theatre). What could possibly go wrong? The novel, published in 1938, covers the life of Edward Fox-Ingleby across roughly the first 26 years of the last century: his landed background, entitled youth at Eton and Oxford, debauched years as a rake about town, profiteering during the first world war, entry into politics, marriage, adultery, double dealings – think Evelyn Waugh but without that author's sunny view of humanity. Macdonell's cad presents himself to the reader as a gentleman, covering despicable actions with self-serving, pseudo-altruistic justifications. He typifies the worst kind of landowner, capitalist, politician, developer and misogynist, a composite character revealing the spectrum of corruption across society in his time – and all times. Where the adaptation does indeed go wrong is in trying to cut and paste the picaresque, first-person narrative into a linear development that focuses the antihero into the character of a dodgy politician. The full scope of Fox-Ingleby's malevolence is lost; he is reduced to a conceited, blustering bounder. Hislop and Newman set themselves a tough task, made harder by budget constraints, limiting their cast to three – but what a trio. James Mack revels in the melodramatic exaggeratedness of the title role. Rhiannon Neads and Mitesh Soni kaleidoscope through 20-plus other roles – each a distinctive gem. A playful spirit characterises every element of director Paul Hart's well-crafted production. Scene by scene, the script delivers witty, even laugh-aloud moments, but they're like the stutters of an engine that fails to spark; the whole does not hold. The Autobiography of a Cad is at the Watermill theatre, Newbury, until 22 March
