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...]
Marilynn Wick: South Florida’s costume mogul revives a theater
Marilynn Wick, president and chief executive officer of Costume World, the major national retailer and renter of theatrical costumes, has given herself a new challenge. Having bought the dormant Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton to house her 1.2 million costumes — many of them Broadway originals — and to place her Broadway Collection Museum in larger quarters, she also gained a … [Read more...]
Cary Polkovitz: The painter turns writer
By Colleen Dougher West Palm Beach painter Cary Polkovitz has never been big on telling the stories behind his paintings. He’d rather let people conjure their own tales and share them with him. It's not that he’s opposed to storytelling. As an avid reader with an affinity for outlandish, fantastical tales, he wove many a tale himself in his bartending days, and told some … [Read more...]
Jackie Tufford: When the objects become the art
By Colleen Dougher As a college student, artist Jackie Tufford wasn’t sure about trying to make a living as an artist. So while majoring in anthropology and psychology, she continued studying art and eventually realized that the elements that drew her to her majors were the same things she loved about art. “It just boiled down to [being] very interested in understanding … [Read more...]
Chris Palacio: Building a culture of coffee and conversation
One recent morning I almost committed a crime. I was desperate for a hot cup of coffee and the flashing OPEN sign almost escaped me. The mysterious-looking logo near it didn’t help. I came very close to missing it. What is that? I said to my companion, a fellow scooter-rider, also desperate for coffee. Only one way to find out. That’s how we discovered Coastars, a new … [Read more...]
Martin Casuso: Enticed by textiles
By Colleen Dougher Martin Casuso, a Miami Beach artist who spent around 15 years working in the antique business, says his appreciation of objects and their untold tales began as a child when he and his brother would go to the seawall in their Coconut Grove neighborhood and build forts from treasures they found there. Their finds included rusty copper, sun-bleached … [Read more...]