A teaset by John McCoy.Art: For the past 36 years, John McCoy has been teaching visual arts and art history to students at Florida Atlantic University. Many of his students now have successful art careers, and some of them have come together to celebrate McCoy's ceramics work in a retrospective exhibition.The list of exhibitors for John McCoy and Friends reads like a Who’s Who … [Read more...]
ArtsPaper Interview: Lou Tyrrell sees great new future for Florida Stage
Lou Tyrrell. (Illustration by Pat Crowley)On Nov. 30, Florida Stage and the Kravis Center announced a partnership agreement in which the Manalapan theater company that specializes in developing new plays would move its operation to the Rinker Playhouse, a flexible “black box” performance space within the West Palm Beach complex, beginning in July 2010.In mid-December, Palm … [Read more...]
Theater review: ‘Storytelling’ incisive look at contemporary youth
Bethany Anne Lind, Laura Carbonell and Marshall Pailetin The Storytelling Ability of a Boy, at Florida Stage.By Hap ErsteinCarter W. Lewis’ imaginatively written tale of two smart, smart-mouthed teens, Peck and Dora, might well have been titled This Is Our Youth, if Kenneth Lonergan had not beaten him to it several years earlier. For in this three-character microcosm, we … [Read more...]
Theater commentary: Florida Stage move raises artistic questions
The auditorium at Florida Stage in Manalapan.By Hap Erstein I remember arriving in West Palm Beach in early 1994 to become the theater writer for The Palm Beach Post and being given a personal tour of the Kravis Center. I was told all the pertinent facts about Dreyfoos Hall, how it had the same stage dimensions as the Metropolitan Opera House (for some indiscernible reason) … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: Florida Stage moving to Kravis, MCB gets live orchestra back
An artist's rendering of the revamped Rinker Playhouse for Florida Stage. Florida Stage moving to Kravis CenterFlorida Stage is making a long-anticipated move to West Palm Beach.Beginning in July 2010, Florida’s largest professional theater company dedicated exclusively to new and emerging plays will take up residence in the Marshall E. Rinker Sr. Playhouse at the Kravis … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 6-9
Alexander Platt. Music: The Boca Symphonia opens its fifth season this weekend in what will be its last series under conductor Alexander Platt, who is leaving to concentrate on an increased workload in Chicago. Platt’s defining aesthetic has been his innovative programming, and this season is no exception. The Symphonia will play one standard work, the Violin Concerto in G … [Read more...]
ArtsPaper Interview: Playwright Seth Rozin explores faith, humor
Seth Rozin. (Illustration by Pat Crowley)By Hap ErsteinPlaywright Seth Rozin is the founder and producing artistic director of Philadelphia’s InterAct Theatre Company. But when it came to premiering his latest script, Two Jews Walk Into a War . . ., he thought that Florida Stage was a better fit.So continuing in Manalapan through Nov. 29 is the seriocomic tale of a Middle … [Read more...]
Theater review: ‘Two Jews’ a standout at Florida Stage
Gordon McConnell and Avi Hoffman in Two Jews Walk Into a War...By Hap ErsteinWait, stop me if you’ve heard this one: There are these two old Jewish guys in Kabul, Afghanistan, see, and not only are they the last two surviving members of their much-persecuted religion, but they hate each other’s guts almost as much as they despise the Taliban.Their days are surely numbered, so … [Read more...]
Theater feature: Play revisits a death in Laramie
By Hap Erstein“Change, but no progress."That is how the tireless advocate for federal and state anti-hate crime legislation Judy Shepard describes the past 10 years since her gay son Matthew was brutally murdered in Laramie, Wyoming.That killing and its aftermath were captured by Moises Kaufman and his Tectonic Theater Project in the much-produced 2001 docudrama The Laramie … [Read more...]
ArtsPreview 2009-10: The season in theater
Billy Crystal. (Illustration by Pat Crowley)By Hap ErsteinDespite the still rocky economy, the region’s professional theaters appear to remain bullish on programming, with few signs of caution or budget-pinching in the season ahead.All eyes remain on Caldwell Theatre Company, which is coming off of a critically acclaimed summer under new artistic director Clive Cholerton, who … [Read more...]