By Dale King What’s New Pussycat? The Soundtrack of an Era is about to finish its second run in less than two years at the Broward Stage Door Theatre. Created by Broadway-trained director Michael Leeds and collaborator/choreographer Kevin Black in the manner of a jukebox musical, the show pulls together about 50 songs — full tunes and medley versions — and segments them into … [Read more...]
‘The Martian’: Breezy chronicle of the can-do spirit
Mars is hot right now. For mega-rich space cowboys like Elon Musk and Bas Lansdorp, the fourth rock from the sun is their next frontier, their Xanadu, their far-flung solution to climate change. But the founders of SpaceX and Mars One are not alone: Thousands have already applied for private space missions some 20 or 30 years down the line, even if it means never returning to … [Read more...]
PB Opera Young Artist ready for Donizetti main role
When she got the word, Bridgette Gan was ready to go. As a member of the Palm Beach Opera’s Young Artists Program, Gan was preparing to cover the central role of Marie in the company’s production of Gaetano Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, which opens Friday. But Erin Morley, the soprano scheduled to sing the role in two of its performances, had come down with a cold, and it … [Read more...]
Chamber Society eyes Breakers expansion; unpublished Bernstein piece at Four Arts tonight
If all the stars align correctly, look for the Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach, which now mounts its programs at Mar-a-Lago, to add The Breakers as a concert venue next season. The executive director of the society, Michael Finn, said wants to add three concerts at the landmark resort for the 2015-16 season if he can get approval from the society’s board to do it. … [Read more...]
Community theater: At LW Playhouse, a reunion with Felix and Oscar
By Dale King A half-century ago, playwright Neil Simon concocted slovenly Oscar Madison and paired him with neat-freak Felix Ungar to create The Odd Couple, a comic powerhouse that has endured across stage, film and television (where Felix’s last name was spelled Unger). Perhaps the oddest thing about The Odd Couple franchise is that the original Simon play, which premiered … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 4-5
Art: The Pérez Art Museum in Miami has scored a triumph by landing the first major U.S. retrospective of the work of Beatriz Milhazes, a Brazilian artist whose big, colorful abstract paintings brim with a riot of colors that nevertheless cohere with a pleasant, joyous effect. Jardim Botânico (her studio adjoins a botanical garden) covers the last 25 years of the Rio-based … [Read more...]
FAU’s Kultur Festival celebrates Jewish culture through the arts
Aaron Kula put the finishing touches on his final composition for the sixth annual Kultur Festival concert — called 2nd Avenue Jazz’n Jive — 30 minutes before a reporter arrived to talk to him. The concert, performed by the Klezmer Company Orchestra (KCO), is the centerpiece of the eight-day festival at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, which celebrates Jewish … [Read more...]
‘Catch Me’ too weak to deserve good cast, sharp staging
The concept musical was an invention of the 1970s, typified by Chicago, which couched a tale of murders in Cook County as a series of vaudeville turns. When it works, the results are dazzling. When it doesn’t, you have a dull misfire like Catch Me If You Can, currently on view at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. Based on the 2002 Steven Spielberg flick starring Leonardo … [Read more...]
The View From Home 39: New releases and notable screenings, June 11 to July 8
Today’s boring, mass-produced, digitized, one-size-fits-all uniformity of cinematic projection would leave no room for an iconoclast like William Castle. The late director of more than 50 B-movies – bearing titles like Zotz! and Let’s Kill Uncle – was a veritable industry of site-specific theater innovation. At least 11 of his movies from 1958 to 1975 were accompanied by … [Read more...]
Still getting around: Beach Boys fire up Hard Rock
HOLLYWOOD ― “It was a rough night,” Mike D’Amico sighed as he poked through the offstage drapes to deliver a couple of passes to waiting friends at Seminole Hard Rock. No chance to explain, only to say before returning to his dressing room that he hoped to make it home to Lake Worth “sometime in September.” But any reason is plausible, since D’Amico is adopted: He’s a member … [Read more...]