Two years ago, Palm Beach Dramaworks’ producing artistic director Bill Hayes was doing his usual detailed research in preparation for staging William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Picnic. And he came upon the intriguing fact that Inge saw a tryout performance of The Glass Menagerie by a young, brash writer with the unlikely name of Tennessee Williams. Seeing that play … [Read more...]
Archives for November 2017
‘Thelma’: Love, guilt and telekinesis
It doesn’t take Thelma (Eili Harboe), the title character in Joachim Trier’s supernatural import, long to experience the world-opening temptations of college life. A shy, small-town girl from a cloistered religious upbringing, she arrives in Oslo for university as an egg that has yet to hatch, a character as virginal as the snow in the biting Norwegian winter. At an … [Read more...]
Stellar cast in ‘She Loves Me’ gives Wick a gem for holidays
Don’t feel obligated to buy anything for The Wick Theatre but, boy, has it got a holiday present for you. It’s She Loves Me, the melody-rich musical romance set in a Budapest perfume store, based on the same source material as the 1939 film The Shop Around the Corner and the contemporary remake, 1998’s You’ve Got Mail. The show’s final scene takes place on Christmas … [Read more...]
Lake Worth’s own John Ralston returns to music, new album after detour
“Small-town boy makes good” is a familiar tale, but not one often told when the town is Lake Worth. And not often about a small-town boy who’s as resilient as singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist John Ralston (www.John-Ralston.com). Born at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Palm Beach in 1977, Ralston (who’ll turn 40 years old on Dec. 29) has lived most of his life in … [Read more...]
Radio’s Sagal returns to playwriting career with ‘Most Wanted’ at FAU
Longtime followers of Florida Stage may recall Peter Sagal, whose plays Denial and What to Say were produced in the 1990s by the now-defunct theater company that specialized in new American works. These days, however, Sagal is more widely known as the host of the popular National Public Radio current events quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. For the past 20 years, Sagal … [Read more...]
Lovely, lustrous ‘Jewels’ opens MCB’s season
Seeing the Miami City Ballet’s opening program of the season Nov. 18, which featured George Balanchine’s Jewels, was very much like opening a box and finding an array of precious gems inside, beautifully crafted in elegant and intricate settings. Each section of Balanchine’s acclaimed triptych was distinctly different but all were polished, multi-faceted and brought to … [Read more...]
Four Arts to offer overview of paintings by Winston Churchill
In 1947, Winston Churchill, then age 73, wrote about his dead father appearing to him and the imaginary conversation that unfolded between the two. When his father asks him what he is doing, Churchill answers him he is trying to copy an old portrait of his. Later on, the father inquiries how the son makes a living. “Not, surely, by these,” he says, pointing at several … [Read more...]
‘Rose’: Look at Kennedy matriarch opens season for new theater company
Palm Beacher Laurence Leamer, a frequent biographer of the Kennedy clan, has transformed himself into a playwright with Rose, a one-woman work about the powerful and tragic family’s matriarch. It kicks off a four-play season at Boca Raton’s Mizner Park Cultural Center because its producer, Bill Spatz, went to the bathroom at the right time. As he tells it, he was … [Read more...]
Thorough research enlarges compelling tale of man wrongfully convicted
Willie J. Grimes was a mild-mannered, middle-aged black man who was convicted of first-degree rape and sentenced to life in prison. But Grimes had nothing to do with the crime. The jury relied on flimsy evidence, such as the victim having picked him out of a hazy picture lineup. After Grimes spent 24 years in prison, he was released in 2012 when DNA evidence showed he was … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 24-26
Dance: Americans have been getting into the holiday spirit with Tchaikovsky ever since the 1950s, when George Balanchine resurrected an overlooked part of a double-bill (with the one-act opera Iolanta) from 1892 about a girl’s magical Christmas in which a nutcracker battles to the death with the Mouse King and rodent horde and ends up in the arms of a prince. The story, by … [Read more...]