By Robert Croan FORT LAUDERDALE - The South Florida Symphony Orchestra, having completed its regular season, is brightening up this year’s already long, hot summer, with a series of three chamber music concerts, each held in Fort Lauderdale’s Center for Spiritual Living and at Temple Israel of Greater Miami. The second of these, seen June 24 in Fort Lauderdale, featured … [Read more...]
FAU’s student cast ably takes on Simon’s ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’
By Dale King Summer has arrived, and while most college students have gone home for a school break or to earn tuition money for the coming year, Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Theater and Dance has kicked off its annual Summer Repertory two-show festival. The first entry is a play that concludes this week. The second is a musical scheduled to open in … [Read more...]
Camp classic ‘Irma Vep’ lights up Island City Stage
By Dale King The Mystery of Irma Vep is a high-octane, mystery/thriller/satire that’s getting plenty of guffaws from summer audiences at Island City Stage in Wilton Manors. The show is peculiar in its uniqueness. Playwright Charles Ludlam, a pillar of the LGBTQ+ community for his contributions to literature and stage shows during his AIDS-shortened career as an actor and … [Read more...]
FGO’s ‘Agrippina’ has fascinating staging, recitative-heavy editing
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...]
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...]
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...]
Poetry in motion: Steady action, score make for captivating ‘Fellow Travelers’ at FGO
By Rosie Rogers Florida Grand Opera’s production of Gregory Spears’s 2016 opera Fellow Travelers told a Lavender Scare love story with a sweetly melancholic score. With direction from Peter Rothstein, the smooth set changes produced a constant motion well-matched to the minimalism of the orchestra. Starring Hadleigh Adams and Andres Acosta as the two romantic leads, … [Read more...]
FAU’s ‘Richard III’ a formidable reading of the Bard
By Dale King It’s encouraging to see that drama students at Florida Atlantic University haven’t lost their interest in performing plays written several centuries ago, despite interruptions wrought in FAU’s theatrical schedule by COVID-19. The energetic performers in FAU’s Department of Theatre and Dance wrapped up the 2021-22 season with a formidable performance of … [Read more...]
Cellist Herbert, ACO close season with satisfying Tchaikovsky, Wolf
By Dennis D. Rooney Music of Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) opened the Alantic Classical Orchestra's final concert of this season, which I heard at its second performance April 21 at the Eissey Campus Theatre at Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens. Like Schumann, Donizetti, and Smetana, Wolf was infected with syphilis and eventually made mad by it. Despite his short … [Read more...]