By Rosie Rogers Florida Grand Opera closed out its season this month with an ambitious production of Handel’s Agrippina. First performed in 1709, the 313-year-old Agrippina is a tongue-in-cheek tale of political ambition and sexual competition. This production made an admirable musical effort inside of an interesting, if somewhat confusing, framing device. This Agrippina … [Read more...]
Archives for May 2022
Palm Beach Poetry Festival founder Miles Coon dies at 84
Miles Coon, a former business executive who founded the Palm Beach Poetry Festival after coming to the art form late in life, has died, festival officials said. Coon, who was 84, died May 21, the festival said. Susan Williamson, the festival’s director, remembers Coon as the first poet who welcomed her to Florida in 2006 and got her a seat at the workshop that year, … [Read more...]
‘Summer’ revives disco queen’s energy, but lazy book is anything but hot stuff
In the same way that Andy Warhol predicted we will each have 15 minutes of fame, it is starting to look like every pop singer-songwriter and vocal group will have a biographical jukebox musical. And while some fared poorly on Broadway – Summer: The Donna Summer Musical lasted a mere eight months in New York – there is such a demand for product at performing arts centers across … [Read more...]
Actress Lowe brings revelatory Dickinson to ‘Belle of Amherst’
For the past 46 years, the theatrical image that many of us have had of poet Emily Dickinson has come from William Luce’s one-woman play, The Belle of Amherst, and from Julie Harris’s Tony Award-winning, definitive performance in the role. But now, aided by new information about Dickinson uncovered in the intervening years, Palm Beach Dramaworks and actress Margery Lowe are … [Read more...]
Schlocky ‘Boca’ unworthy of GableStage’s standards
As GableStage audiences continue to assess what its new artistic director Bari Newport has in mind for the troupe, they are receiving mixed signals. Its recent production of the challenging, racially themed The White Card suggested it will be business as usual for the company that built its reputation on tough-minded, cutting-edge drama. But now it drastically switches gears … [Read more...]
After scoring virtual COVID hit, Dramaworks brings ‘Belle of Amherst’ back to stage
You could call the production of William Luce’s 1976 one-woman play, The Belle of Amherst, which will open Friday at West Palm Beach’s Palm Beach Dramaworks a revival for the company, because it streamed a filmed version last summer during the COVID-19 shutdown of live theater. But Margery Lowe, who plays poet Emily Dickinson both then and now, would disagree. “I feel … [Read more...]
Soloists enliven muted ‘Carmina Burana’ at Master Chorale
By Dennis D. Rooney It was a Saturday in the spring of 1957. I was at my high school, doing some sort of extracurricular project, which took place in the auditorium. The Glee Club director had put on a recording of music I didn’t recognize but whose sound and character were captivating. From time to time, someone would tap out one of the catchy rhythms that sprang up as … [Read more...]
Delray Playhouse’s ‘Same Time, Next Year’ ends season with sweet accomplishment
By Dale King Delray Beach Playhouse is wrapping up its 75th anniversary season with a gem of a show, a production so nicely packaged and executed that it may remain on the minds of audience members until autumn brings a new roster of main stage performances. The showhouse on the east shore of Lake Ida is currently presenting Bernard Slade’s romantic comedy, Same Time, … [Read more...]
In MCB’s season-ender, couples, soloist Peters stand out
Miami City Ballet hedged its bets for the last program of season by presenting the world premiere of an elaborately ambitious collaborative work together with the company premieres of two acclaimed contemporary pas de deux and a dated repertory warhorse --- George Balanchine’s The Prodigal Son. It was an evening of strong performances by all the company dancers, but the … [Read more...]
The View From Home: ‘Dementia’ a brilliant, experimental plunge into psychosis
It’s safe to say there’s never been a film, before or since, quite like John Parker’s 1953 psychodrama Dementia (now on Blu-ray from Cohen Film Collection, $19.99). An uncanny marriage of avant-garde cinema, horror and noir, it was somehow both ahead of its time and, boldly, behind it: Parker shot it as a silent film, without intertitles, in an era when such an approach was … [Read more...]