By Dale King Broward Stage Door Theater has plucked a gem from the Neil Simon vault – the playwright’s paean to vaudeville, The Sunshine Boys – and presents it like a shiny, late-summer gift to welcoming audiences at the Margate performance venue. Director Michael Leeds, who has helmed an arm’s length list of shows at the theater on Sample Road, taps a couple of veteran … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 26-27
Music: Piano duos are not so common that they can be overlooked when they pop up, and since we’re in the last weeks before the season starts getting underway again, it’s a good time to catch one. On Sunday at the Boca Steinway Gallery, two fine Miami-based pianists, Tian Ying and Anastasiya Naplekova, team up for a concert of standout works for this combination, including … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 19-20
Film: Add to the list of offbeat competition documentaries like the spelling bee in Spellbound and the foxtrot battle of 2005’s Mad Hot Ballroom, an involving tale of inner-city Baltimore and the precision step dance contest, called simply Step. But far more is at stake at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women, a recent charter school that strives not only to graduate … [Read more...]
‘Kosher Cheerleader’ a tender look at one woman’s life and faith
By Dale King The Kosher Cheerleader, a humorous, often heart-warming production about a woman seeking true fulfillment in life, told by the person who lived it, is playing through late August at the PGA Arts Center in Palm Beach Gardens. Billed as a one-woman show, the performance stars Sandy (Wolshin) Gelfound, a former National Football League cheerleader who once … [Read more...]
Aesop’s Tables: Animals, morals, artwork and togetherness on Clematis Street
By Lucy Lazarony Aesop’s Tables, hand-painted picnic tables on Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach, are set to be auctioned off Aug. 31 in support of more than two dozen local charities. The live auction starts at 7:30 p.m. and is part of Clematis by Night from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The 6-foot tables, which support 25 different local charities and depict … [Read more...]
‘Dead Man Walking’ ends Miami festival in overwrought fashion
By Dennis D. Rooney The composer Jake Heggie was born John Stephen Heggie on March 31, 1961, in West Palm Beach, but didn’t stay there long as his family relocated soon after his birth to Columbus, Ohio. Since the late 1990s he has been identified with the musical scene in San Francisco, where he currently resides. He composed Dead Man Walking through a fellowship from … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival 4: A satisfying roundup to the 26th season
By Dennis D. Rooney How many composers were born in a church tower? I only know of one, Bohuslav Martinů, who arrived on December 1890 in the tower apartment of the St. Jakub Church in Polička, a town in Bohemia, close to the Moravian border. His family was allowed to live there because his father Ferdinand, a shoemaker, also worked as the church sexton and town fire … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: July 29-30
Film: I have little patience for horror films, so I almost skipped seeing A Ghost Story, which would have been a big mistake. Yes, it sounds like a spooky tale of spectral jolts, but instead it turns out to be a psychological study of the afterlife, reassuring in its affirmation of the beyond. Director David Lowery gathers an A-list cast headed by Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, … [Read more...]
At The Box: The dreamscapes of Rosemary Otto
By Myles Ludwig To enter Rosemary Otto’s world is to enter a universe of metaphor and fantasy where deer/dear people sprout antlers, fly through surrealist landscapes and find themselves as naked as Adam and Eve entwined in the bare branches of trees. Pieces of it are currently on display at the new Box Gallery on Belvedere Road in West Palm Beach through Aug. … [Read more...]
Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival 3: Welcome rarities, smartly played
By Dennis D. Rooney For the third program of its 26th season, which I saw Sunday at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach, the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival presented three works that each featured a founding member of the group. Karen Fuller Dixon performed Mozart’s Flute Quartet No. 1 (in D, K. 285) with violinist Dina Kostic, violist Rene Reder and cellist Susan … [Read more...]