Cancellations and rescheduling from the COVID-19 pandemic continue to alter South Florida’s art season.
Two major American symphonic ensembles that had planned appearances at the Kravis Center have canceled their concerts.
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, which was to have played the Kravis on Jan. 15 and 17, called off their concerts last week, citing COVID. Cellist Joshua Roman had been scheduled to give performances of the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the orchestra, led by its director Jader Bignamini.
And Monday, the Cleveland Orchestra announced it would be canceling its Miami residency, which included four regular concerts and two educational concerts at the Knight Concert Hall from Jan. 20-29, as well as a performance Jan. 24 at Artis-Naples in Naples.
The orchestra also had planned a performance of the Fourth Symphony of Tchaikovsky and Linz Symphony of Mozart at the Kravis Center on Jan. 23. It, too, has been canceled.
Also canceled this week is an appearance by the SPA Trio at the Norton Museum of Art on Thursday as part of the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach’s current season. The trio is composed of soprano Susanna Phillips, violist Paul Neubauer and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott.
In addition, Phillips will not appear Jan. 16 with the Escher String Quartet at the Society of the Four Arts.
Elsewhere, Seraphic Fire, the Miami-based concert choir, has canceled its Jan. 20-23 performances of Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, planned for Naples, Coral Gables, Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach. Choir officials cited the rise in COVID cases, and said plans are still in place for the February concerts examining the Age of Enlightenment, including a Feb. 27 concert in Boca Raton featuring cantatas by J.S. Bach.
In the theater, add Coral Gables’ GableStage to the list of companies whose schedules have been disrupted by COVID.
Its second show of the season, Claudia Rankine’s The White Card, slated to open next week, will now have its first performance on February 25, a push back of more than a month. It is now scheduled to run until March 27, and will not be streamed.
The world premiere of Janece Shaffer and Kristian Bush’s Me Before You, originally scheduled to run from February 25-March 27, has been postponed to the following season. The GableStage box office will be reaching out to patrons with reserved seats for The White Card or Me Before You.
These changes have caused a domino effect on the rest of the company’s schedule. Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, the dramatic adaptation of the recently deceased writer’s award-winning, bestselling memoir, will play from June 3-June 26. The special event, Rubenology: The Making of an American Legend, a co-production with Abre Camino Collective, will play as planned, from July 14-July 31. The production of Tanya Saracho’s Fade has been moved to play August 19-September 18 and will conclude the 2021-22 season.
Palm Beach Dramaworks has revised the schedule for its second show of its season, John Cariani’s Almost, Maine because of COVID complications affecting its rehearsal schedule. It will now have its first performance on Jan. 15, instead of the 13th. And it will not have an official opening night.