There are two plays that feature Emily Dickinson and by early April Margery Lowe will have played the reclusive poet in both. Three years ago, the area actor appeared at Palm Beach Dramaworks in the world premiere of Edgar and Emily, Joseph McDonough’s fanciful and improbable meeting of Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe. Lowe returns to the character April 2- 6 in the better … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2021
Sharp Delray Playhouse cast sizzles in ‘Stage Struck’
By Dale King The Delray Beach Playhouse has historically done a very good job producing mystery thrillers. Wait Until Dark comes to mind immediately. So does Agatha Christie’s A Murder Is Announced, which opened the 2018-2019 season. And folks with a longer theatrical memory may recall Blackout, an original work that premiered at the DBP in 1988 and encored just a few … [Read more...]
Oscars, woke: Nominations feature record diversity
It wasn’t that long ago that the Oscar nominations were a blanket of white — #OscarsSoWhite in 2015 and 2016 — an embarrassment to the Motion Picture Academy and a poor reflection on the increasingly diverse array of quality films produced by Hollywood. Well, what a difference a few years make. When the 2021 Oscar nominations were announced Monday morning — much later than … [Read more...]
Festival of the Arts BOCA opens 15th edition, virtually
By Dale King Festival of the Arts BOCA launched its 15th edition this past weekend with a musical start following by a series of lectures. It’s basically the same format used since the first show took place in Mizner Park a decade-and-a-half ago. This year, things are very different. First, the COVID-19 pandemic has become a global impediment to outdoor events around … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Book Festival to be virtual, features Saunders, Loftis, Harmel
The Palm Beach Book Festival, now in its seventh year, returns for the second year as a virtual event later this month. New York Times bestselling authors Larry Loftis, Kristin Harmel and George Saunders are in the lineup for the festival, which is set for March 19 and 20. Added last week was another guest, Keisha N. Blain, co-editor with Ibram X. Kendi of Four Hundred … [Read more...]
Blackberry Smoke brings welcome Georgia style to Jupiter
Occasionally, a band or artist defies genre-based categorization by appearing on a multitude of different Billboard charts. And many — like Atlanta-based group Blackberry Smoke, which entertained a COVID-be-damned capacity audience at the Abacoa Ampitheatre in Jupiter on Feb. 25 — emerged from Georgia. Late vocalist/keyboardist Ray Charles’ blend of gospel, blues, soul, R&B … [Read more...]
Norton’s new CEO: The museum as hub for creativity and dialogue
Early into a recent interview, it becomes clear why Ghislain d'Humières landed the job of director and CEO of the Norton Museum of Art. A native of France with a last name that exudes harmony and elegance, d'Humières is grounded, energetic and has the well-rounded business acumen to take one of Palm Beach County’s most precious cultural jewels to the next level. This … [Read more...]
‘Bagnold Summer’: Love, maybe, in the afternoon of a life
The premise of the observant British comedy Days of the Bagnold Summer is simple enough. We follow two people, each stuck in a rut, as they muddle through a long summer of disconnection and, if fortune and providence prevail, self-actualization. One of them is Susan Bagnold, played by the extraordinary Monica Dolan. Susan is a librarian who satisfies everyone’s mental … [Read more...]
Kravis books 2021-22 Broadway season, certain it will be back
Dark for nearly a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center has announced firm dates for its seven-show 2021-22 Broadway series, beginning this November. The schedule includes two previously announced shows that had to be postponed when the performing arts center shut last March, Come From Away (now booked for Nov. 16-21) and Summer: The … [Read more...]
To be Black, and a dancer: Two stories from the artistic front
Clarence Brooks still remembers the day that he first saw the posters that had a photo of him dancing. “Someone (or several people) … had plastered the N-word all over the posters,” he said. Brooks, who was only in his second year of studying dance, had felt so honored to have been selected to perform a solo at an important fundraiser to be held at the Civic Center in … [Read more...]