The Maltz Jupiter Theatre again dominated the nominations for South Florida’s Carbonell Awards, recognizing excellence in resident professional theater, with 18 nods going to the company in northern Palm Beach County.
Ten of those went to the Depression-era music hall show, Me and My Girl and another four went to the musical The Will Rogers Follies. The Maltz’s other four nominees came from the play Frost/Nixon.
Two Miami-Dade companies — Zoetic Stage and GableStage — each pulled in 13 nominations. Zoetic had the most nominations in the play categories with eight for Michael McKeever’s After, about school bullying, and another five for its production of Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, about obsessive love. GableStage’s nominations were spread over five shows — The Royale (5 nominations), Hand to God (4), It’s Only a Play (2), A Minister’s Wife (1) and Stalking the Boogeyman (1).
Comparing the counties’ nomination totals, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade were tied at 39 nominations each, and Broward County trailed with 22. The 41st annual Carbonell Awards ceremony will be held Monday, April 3, at Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale.
Eight violinists advance to second round of Oliveira Competition
Eight violinists advance today and tomorrow to the second round of semi-finals at the inaugural Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition in Boca Raton.
Winning the first round were Brian Kwan Yeung Choi, 22, of China; Sirena Huang, 22, of the United States; Ari Isaacman-Beck, 31, of the U.S.; Alina Ming Kobialka, 19, of the U.S.; Quanshua Li, 25, of China; Elly Suh, 27, of the U.S.-South Korea; Chiharu Taki, 30, of Japan; and Hanna Tarley, 25, of the U.S.
Isaacman-Beck won the competition’s Composer Award for his performance of Thomas McKinley’s Dialogues, which was commissioned for the contest and was a required piece during the first round of semi-finals, which were held at the competition’s site, the Wold Performing Arts Center on the campus of Lynn University in Boca Raton.
Competition in today’s semi-final will be Huang, Kobialka, Suh and Taki; Li, Isaacman-Beck, Tarley and Choi will compete tomorrow. All semi-finals are held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and are free and open to the public. Repertoire includes movements from the violin concertos of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, as well as the Concerto No. 5 of Mozart.
Winners of the second round will advance to the finals on Saturday and Sunday, when the four finalists will perform either the Sibelius or Tchaikovsky concertos with the Lynn Philharmonia under Guillermo Figueroa. The grand prize winner, who will get $30,000 and management support, will be announced Sunday afternoon after the last competitor has played. Second prize is $15,000, third is $10,000, and honorable mention is $1,000. Tickets for the finals are $35-$50 and are available through the Lynn box office at 237-9000 or by visiting www.elmaroliveiraivc.org.
New theater, PGA Arts Center, opens in old PGA Cinemas space
PALM BEACH GARDENS – With the PGA Arts Center opening its doors last week, Palm Beach Gardens has added live theater to its growing cultural landscape.
Veteran producers Philip Roger Roy and Dana Matthow are converting two of the PGA Cinemas’ six auditoria to accommodate live productions. The two theaters will seat 260 and 280 patrons, respectively, and they are planning to adapt a third space within the next year.
Roy and Matthow are lifelong friends and have been producing partners for well over 20 years. Together, they run the popular Penn’s Landing Playhouse in Philadelphia while also producing shows in various cities across the United States and Canada.
The duo are no strangers to owning theatres and producing shows. Roy ran Grendel’s Lair in Philadelphia for 15 years, and Matthow owned the Soho Playhouse in New York City’s Greenwich Village for 10 years. They are excited to exhibit their niche of off-Broadway comedies and musicals in the receptive market of South Florida.
“We hope to bring year-round professional theater to the Palm Beach market with (mostly) shows never seen here before,” Roy said.
The PGA Arts Center’s first production, local playwright Alan Jacobson’s WaistWatchers The Musical!, opened for previews last Wednesday, and runs through March 26. The show will feature all-new music to go along with its funny lyrics. Additionally, Brad Zimmerman’s My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy, will begin a limited run in the second theater Feb. 2, running through March 19.
The PGA Arts Center is located at 4076 PGA Blvd., Palm Beach Gardens. For more information, visit www.pgaartscenter.com.