Suzanne Snider has been running the hidden treasure that is Ford Fine Art gallery long enough to know its best years are still ahead. Delray Beach is not where one would expect to find the most significant collection of Central American modern masters and established artists in the country. But that’s exactly what the gallery houses, according to Snider, who used to be the … [Read more...]
A full actor’s life of work and love: A talk with Estelle Parsons
Estelle Parsons, 87, a former head of the Actors Studio, will be playing wily Mathilde Girard in Israel Horovitz’s My Old Lady at Palm Beach Dramaworks from Friday (Dec. 5) to Jan. 4. An Oscar winner for Bonnie and Clyde, a five-time Tony nominee including last season’s The Velocity of Autumn and a longtime regular on the television sitcom Roseanne, she spoke recently with Hap … [Read more...]
Natacha Koblova: Multilingual Society founder helps them speak in tongues
A year in business has not given Natacha Koblova all the answers she would like to have, although she did learn another language. The Russian-born 39-year-old polyglot (more on this later) has been in this business of teaching languages for many years. Now she faces the ups and downs of owning an infant language school/business that mixes traditional and unconventional … [Read more...]
Sheldon Harnick: At 90, legendary lyricist still looks forward
If Broadway lyricist Sheldon Harnick only wrote Fiddler on the Roof, he would have earned a major place in the annals of musical theater. In fact, he is credited with almost two dozen shows, often collaborating with composer Jerry Bock, on such titles as Fiorello!, She Loves Me, The Apple Tree and The Rothschilds. This is a milestone year for Harnick. Late last month, he … [Read more...]
Whit Stillman: Chronicler of the urban haute bourgeoisie
There are people like you and me in Whit Stillman’s movies, but they’re outnumbered by a different class of folks: Worlds of big money and elitism and cocktails and intellectual pedantry, where terms like “titled aristocracy” drift in and out of conversations. These days, we call these people the One Percenters, and their offspring the sufferers of “affluenza;” in the ’90s, … [Read more...]
Festival Boca preview: Anna Deveare Smith, on a search for grace
Anna Deveare Smith won’t be mounting a full production of her new one-woman show On Grace at the Festival of the Arts Boca. But she will be offering the one thing that might be better — a chance for the audience to become co-creators of the play. “I’m going to be doing excerpts from On Grace,” Smith said recently by phone. “This is a presentation, not a production. It’s still … [Read more...]
Essay: Remembering six area musicians
As a musician, I've come to the conclusion that playing music in a live setting works best when it parallels, well, life. There will be some of the inherent up moments, like harmony among the vocals and the instruments, and conversations both with and without words, plus some of the downs like mistakes that you have to recover and learn from. But being a veteran musician … [Read more...]
Michael Fagien: Dr. Jazz sells music, magazines and a lifestyle
There are few stories in the local arts as unusual as that of Michael Fagien, M.D. The Boca Raton radiologist lives in two worlds, one of medicine, and one of the jazz music he’s loved since his youth in Hollywood, where he moved with his family in 1969 from New Jersey. As a medical student at the University of Florida in 1983, he founded Jazziz magazine, for which he … [Read more...]
Special report: All those talented players, but where are the venues?
South Florida has been known for the masterful music programs at several renowned universities, and the countless students-turned-professionals those programs produce, for decades. But there’s one essential requirement that is lagging far behind the demand by those newly working musicians — venues in which they can perform. So every musical graduate of Florida Atlantic … [Read more...]
Sarah Trigg: Exploring the rituals of artistic creation
By Colleen Dougher ● A giant stuffed polar bear wearing a tutu and blue cone-shaped hat serves as the studio mascot for California sculptor, filmmaker and performance artist Marnie Weber. ● When making marionettes, Miami puppeteer Pablo Cano uses many donated items, including cigarette pack foils collected by Myra “Yo Momma” Wexler, and contributions from an elderly … [Read more...]