An ongoing exhibition at the Society of the Four Arts tells the story of how the golden era of Charleston, S.C., came and left, while its fruits went everywhere. An Eye for Opulence: Charleston through the Lens of the Rivers Collection consists of more than 200 mahogany furniture pieces, silver objects and fine art representing the city’s enviable prosperity during the … [Read more...]
Archives for December 2015
How ‘The Grinch’ came to the theater
Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, was very stingy, almost Grinch-like, with the performance rights to his popular children’s books. But after the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre Company had a big success with a musical version of his 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, written by its resident playwright Tim Mason, in 1994 the Geisel estate allowed the stage company to adapt his How … [Read more...]
Take Heed Theater Co. finds new home, seeks funding
Lake Worth’s Take Heed Theater Company, a nomadic and sporadic professional performance troupe, has found a permanent home. Now all the company needs is to raise enough money to turn the former storefront church on Belvedere Road in West Palm Beach into a habitable playhouse. “For about twelve years, it was some sort of a church,” says artistic director Dave Hyland, an … [Read more...]
Amid the fields of Wellington, a serious recording studio springs up
Anyone who’s looked for a recording studio with world-class equipment in Palm Beach County knows that they’re hard to find. Until now. Liberated Studios (liberatedstudio.com) opened in Wellington late this summer to fill that world-class equipment void. Finding it, however, can still be a bit of a challenge. That’s partially by design. The 1,500-square-foot facility is … [Read more...]
O, say are you soused: ‘Drinking in America’
American history books rarely mention alcoholism as a significant historical issue. From the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock to the presidency of Richard Nixon, liquor influenced and continues to influence American society and politics. Susan Cheever has excellent credentials, having written extensively about her own battle with alcoholism and that of her father, the writer John … [Read more...]
Olson leads strong cast in Broward Stage Door’s ‘Gypsy’
By Dale King The musical Gypsy is a compendium of ultimates and ultimatums. It focuses on a quintessential stage mother who tries like crazy to squeeze stardom into her two daughters, yet she pitches a fit when the young ladies find fame and seem to leave her in the dust. The 1959 musical, based loosely on the memoirs of famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, and pulled together for … [Read more...]
Andrew Kato: In the driver’s seat at the Maltz
Back in the 1980s, a young, eager theater intern named Andrew Kato worked as a waiter at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre in Jupiter. Today, he runs the multi-million dollar regional theater on that site, having in November been named producing artistic director and chief executive of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. With that promotion comes a 10-year contract to oversee the … [Read more...]
Cellist Peled gives exceptional tribute to Casals at PB Symphony
I have loved the sound of the cello since I heard a broadcast of Pablo Casals playing from the festival he founded in Puerto Rico. Subsequently I heard Sir John Barbirolli practicing the cello through an open window: we were neighbors in Manchester, England. At London’s Royal Festival Hall I was close enough to see every gesture of Jacqueline Du Pré, the day she rocketed to … [Read more...]
Looking back at Fair Week: A deluge in the streets, and in the booths
By Sandra Schulman Expect the unexpected when it comes to Miami’s wild and woolly annual Art Week. This year featured torrential floods, an unprecedented act of violence in the main Basel tent, astronomical sales, and women artists (and dealers) in the spotlight. Mega-collectors have been shifting the dialogue for years now in Miami —as the enormous wealth and power they … [Read more...]
At the Arsht: Lauper’s score gives ‘Kinky Boots’ its stride
‘ Harvey Fierstein does a worthy job bolstering the story line of the 2005 movie Kinky Boots about a transvestite who saves a failing British shoe factory, but the reason to see this Tony Award-winning musical is the debut of pop composer Cyndi Lauper as a Broadway songwriter. The Broadway graveyard is riddled with the failed attempts by so many pop stars to pen a legitimate … [Read more...]