Of the many movies that have been adapted into stage musicals, John Waters’ subversive cult comedy, Hairspray, seemed unlikely to make the transfer successfully. But eight Tony Awards and a 6½-year, 2,642-performance run on Broadway later, such doubts have been put firmly to rest. And if subsequent regional productions fare as well as the high-energy, hard-driving pop rock … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2018
Telegraph Quartet brilliantly opens Duncan classical series
By Dennis D. Rooney Founded in 2013, the Telegraph Quartet hails from the West Coast, specifically San Francisco, where they been appointed artists-in-residence at The San Francisco Conservatory of Music. They have often appeared nationally and internationally, and performed last year in the Flagler Museum music series. Their prizes include the Fischoff Competition. In 2016, … [Read more...]
Artist Siegel builds bridge to her art out of photos and paint
By Lucy Lazarony A mixed media artist based in Delray Beach, Vicki Siegel doesn’t choose painting or photography for a piece of art. Instead, she combines them. Siegel, an art educator who teaches at the Creative Arts School at Old School Square in Delray Beach and the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach, will be discussing her artwork Jan. 25 at the Cornell Art Museum, … [Read more...]
Amernet Quartet provides engaging opening to Chameleon season
By Robert Croan Martin Luther King was the focus of the first concert by Chameleon Musicians in the group’s inaugural season at the Broward Center – a totally engaging performance Jan. 14, by the Amernet String Quartet and Chameleon’s founder-director, cellist Iris van Eck. The series’ new venue is the Center’s Abdo River Room – a sleek, modern space, if not quite as … [Read more...]
At Mizner Park, Sunshine Music Fest cooks, Big Easy-style
With a lineup that included two bona fide New Orleans acts, plus several others steeped in Crescent City musical history, the sixth annual Sunshine Music Festival stop at Mizner Park Ampitheater in Boca Raton on Jan. 14 was expected to be more funky than its previous installments of blues, rock, and roots music performers. Yet what couldn’t have been expected was how easy … [Read more...]
Strong leads put sizzle in ‘Flashdance’ at Broward Stage Door
By Dale King Flashdance: The Musical, is alive, well and playing to packed houses at the Broward Stage Door Theatre in Margate, 25 years after welder by day, “flashdancer” by night, Alexandra “Alex” Owens blew the specs off a panel of snooty judges to win admission to a terpsichorean academy by way of a sexed-up jazz dance performed in a tight, black body suit and leg … [Read more...]
Fosse’s magic returns to Kravis in popular ‘Chicago’
More than a mere show, the revival of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Chicago has grown into a phenomenon. Having run 8,795 performances since opening in 1996, it is not only the longest-running revival in Broadway history, but the longest-running American show of any kind there. The musical has also proven popular locally, in several engagements at the Kravis Center, where it … [Read more...]
‘Mom and Dad’: Hell is mother (and father) people
In a season that has brought us Lady Bird and I, Tonya, stories about fraught, dyspeptic and sometimes-abusive relationships between parents and their offspring are at the fore of the cinematic consciousness. Mom and Dad, an anarcho-punk satire as black as a demon’s heart, is the most extreme depiction of this rift. It has something to say about the curdled ambitions and … [Read more...]
Three first-class principals drive Wick’s ‘Singin’ in the Rain’
Many shows have been adapted from popular movies, but few, if any, have been so slavishly copied as Singin’ in the Rain. Notice, for instance, that instead of a credit for the musical book, the program lists “Screenplay by Betty Comden and Adolph Green,” an indication of how little the film’s script has been changed. And while that screenplay worked like gangbusters in … [Read more...]
Sister pianists dazzle in Four Arts concert
The piano has as one of its many benefits the ability to be orchestral, if not in color, at least in contrapuntal density and mass. Small wonder that in the days before recordings made actual orchestral performances available to people far from the concert hall, enthusiasts heard the symphonic works of their day by playing them at home in four-hand arrangements at one piano. … [Read more...]