Former first lady Laura Bush will be in Boca Raton on Saturday for a talk on Florida Atlantic University’s 2023 Alan B. and Charna Larkin Symposium on the American Presidency. Bush will be joined for the talk by one of her daughters, Barbara Pierce Bush. The lecture, which will be moderated by Timothy Naftali, CNN presidential historian and associate professor at New … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2022-23: The season in Palm Beach art
` By Christina Wood Moving forward from the darkest days of the pandemic, the arts in general --- as well as many of the artists and arts organizations specific to Palm Beach County --- seem to be more conscious of the steps they take. This season, you can count on the arts to provide perspective along with inspiration – from the Boca Raton Museum of Art’s … [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...]
FAU student cast does well by Ibsen’s ‘Hedda Gabler’
By Dale King Students in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Florida Atlantic University have picked up where their predecessors left off nearly two seasons ago when a COVID pandemic forced FAU to curtail public performances and required young actors to hone their talents behind the scenes. Last weekend, a new troupe of budding thespians – 10 of them pursuing master’s … [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...]
FAU teacher enjoys second career as country songbird
By Janis Fontaine Rhea Francani isn’t a tough-talking Texan or a boot-scooting Okie but she loves country music like one. Born in Buffalo, N.Y., the youngest of three sisters in a close-knit Italian family that put on “full-blown concerts” in the living room of their modest home, Francani, 28, now of Boca Raton, just released the first single from her soon-to-be released … [Read more...]
FAU cast dispatches ‘Urinetown’ smartly
By Dale King Student actors at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton have clearly taken the satirical comedy Urinetown to heart. Their performance is a laugh-laden riot. Coincidentally, the show doesn’t sink to the level of toilet humor – well, not often — as it could so easily do. Director Lee Soroko seems to gleefully turn ownership of the stage over to the young … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2019-20: O’Keeffe, Rembrandt shows highlights of PB County’s season
By Sandra Schulman Women in the arts is the season’s theme in Palm Beach County. The stylish life of Georgia O’Keeffe gets the museum treatment at the Norton, and women’s undergarments are the focus of the Flagler Museum’s new Season of Style exhibit. Meanwhile, tattoo art bares all in Tequesta and FAU shows off political embroidery. The Norton Museum of Art A … [Read more...]
Standout performances lift FAU’s ‘Next to Normal’
By Dale King Leave it to students in the master of fine arts program at Florida Atlantic University to wrap up their first season — one that featured some shockingly emotional, nerve-twisting, heart-wrenching productions — with a shockingly emotional, mentally twisted finale. The show, Next to Normal, is a frank portrayal of a family in psychological crisis. The tale of … [Read more...]
Student theater: Compelling ‘Mill Fire’ at FAU
By Dale King Mill Fire is a horrific, haunting and deeply emotional play, a story of Birmingham, Ala., a steel town on the skids circa 1977; a massive, deadly fire and explosion in an apparently malfunctioning steel mill furnace that kills five workers; and the chaos the disaster inflicts on a community whose populace is already at the edge of upheaval. The script, by … [Read more...]