Music: Dave Matthews is one of those fortunate pop stars with a fan base that is essentially an extended family. Tonight he returns with his band to the Cruzan Amphitheatre for two nights of concerts in which the Dave Matthews Nation will surely be in force. At the end of this year he returns to his native South Africa for a series of concerts that are selling out, and which … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2013
A compelling American quintet in chamber fest’s Week 2
It is one of the great mysteries of American musical life: Why, in a country that has produced so many fine classical composers, does the average person know nothing of their music? There are any number of reasons that are usually trotted out to explain this phenomenon, from the overwhelming dominance of American popular music worldwide to the lack of arts education in the … [Read more...]
Community theater: Standout cast makes ‘In the Heights’ sizzle
By Dale King In the Heights is a festive, tune-filled musical celebrating the toils and triumphs of the hard-working, money-strapped denizens of a largely Dominican neighborhood in north Manhattan. The show is pleasing midsummer-night audiences at the Lake Worth Playhouse. The play features a young, energetic and talented cast that brings a strong Latin touch to the … [Read more...]
Sundays: Trial by media ordeal
By Myles Ludwig I had really hoped today would be a NoZimZone. I had hoped to be free of this issue — this murder or manslaughter, this fear and self-defense, this profiling as prejudice — but no such luck. As soon as I woke up and turned on my TV, the first thing I saw was the news of George Zimmerman’s acquittal and his tragic involvement with Trayvon Martin. As the late … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Don Quixote vanquishes Coriolanus in summer offerings
Palm Beach Dramaworks has often been challenged by what to program in the summer. It wants to keep its doors open with a production or two, but is wary of spending too much for minimal return from a reduced audience pool. Its answer this summer is a couple of musicals in concert form, semi-staged readings of fairly well known shows from Broadway’s golden age that would be … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 12-14
Theater: The idea of a concert reading of a musical sounds like it would be a very static event, but Palm Beach Dramaworks shows us that doe not have to be the case. Thanks to director Clive Cholerton, late of the late Caldwell Theatre Company, the concert of 1965’s tribute to idealism, Man of La Mancha, is extremely moving, both physically and emotionally. The show, with a … [Read more...]
At the cabaret: A Georgia firecracker lights up the Colony
By Dale King During summer in the Palm Beaches, hot entertainment in cool locations is de rigueur. The Colony Hotel has again picked up that vibe and is offering a season-long set of cabaret shows in the hotel’s celebrated Royal Room -- a short hop from the famous “Avenue” in downtown Palm Beach. Performing Fridays and Saturdays through July 20 is Carole J. Bufford, a … [Read more...]
Sexuality, subjugation drive powerful ‘Augustine’
Sometimes, under the auspices of a director with a vision, a film’s opening shot can subtly reveal a lot, providing a prologue that foretells the grand theme. Such is the case with Augustine, debut French filmmaker Alice Winocour’s study of the real-life 19th century neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and his vulnerable teenage patient Augustine. The opening image is of a crab, … [Read more...]
Rustic Brahms and engaging American Romanticism in chamber fest’s Week 1
Johannes Brahms had a healthy respect for the music of the past, and probably would have made a formidable professional musicologist had he chosen to go that route. Even in his earlier works there is an engagement with older forms that would bear fruit throughout his compositional career, until his very last work, a series of 11 austerely beautiful organ chorale preludes based … [Read more...]
Our Ultimate Sondheim Quiz returns
All too rarely do area theaters tackle the musicals of Broadway’s pre-eminent composer-lyricist, Stephen Sondheim. But this summer Florida Atlantic University is producing the revue Side by Side by Sondheim as well as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in its 2013 Festival Rep (now through July 21.) In addition, Palm Beach Dramaworks has selected Sondheim’s … [Read more...]