A few days before I arrived in New York, it snowed here, as most residents are eager to point out, as they enjoyed today's bright, sunny, 65-degree spring day. I naturally celebrated the great weather by burrowing indoors to take in two shows. In the afternoon, it was Act One, James Lapine's epic adaptation of writer-director Moss Hart's 1959 autobiography of escape from the … [Read more...]
Smith’s night of ‘Grace’ wins over festival audience
By Dale King When actor Anna Deavere Smith is in character, she can actually be many different characters. She brought some of her best stage personages to a performance at the Cultural Arts Center in Boca Raton on Tuesday night as part of the Festival of the Arts Boca lecture and theater series. A playwright, professor and known face on the movie and TV screen, Smith employs … [Read more...]
A wonderful night of Vivaldi from Europa Galante at Four Arts
The craze for the “early music” of the 17th and 18th centuries began with Arnold Dolmetsch in 1925. He was a recorder maker who started the Haslemere Early Music Festival in England, laying the foundation for the widespread interest that caught the public imagination. In America, recorder player Bernard Krainis linked up with musicologist Noah Greenberg to form New York Pro … [Read more...]
Music roundup: Morris delightful at Four Arts; Han and trio shine at Flagler
Tenor Jay Hunter Morris would have you believe he’s one of the good old boys: A good-looking, sweet-talkin’ Southern Baptist boy from Paris, Texas, where Mom was choir director at church. At 40 years old, down on his luck after 20 years of singing roles like Alfredo (Traviata), Calaf (Turandot) and Cavaradossi (Tosca) in American regional opera houses, Mom suggested a choir … [Read more...]
Tenor Valenti to showcase star power for PB Opera
James Valenti has just gotten off a plane to West Palm Beach, so he’s dressed casually in shirt, shorts and flip-flops as he tucks into some salad and crudités before talking about his career on the operatic stage. No one passing by at CityPlace on a beautiful December afternoon realizes that the tall, friendly, dark-haired man at the table will soon be breaking the heart of a … [Read more...]
Community theater: ‘Game’s Afoot’ at LW Playhouse a gift for the season
By Dale King It’s no secret that playwright Ken Ludwig has a fancy for farce. It shows up big time in such slapstick comedies as Lend Me a Tenor and Moon over Buffalo. Two years ago, he wrote The Game’s Afoot, a comedy-mystery set in 1936 that mixes elements of Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the run-and-door-slam humor of the film, Clue. It’s also a … [Read more...]
Letter from Paris: In the footsteps of Hemingway
By Chloe Elder Ah, Paris! (Cue the Edith Piaf.) The City of Lights! The City of Love! The City of Americans? Mais, oui! Many of those chic Parisians strolling around this famous city are, in fact, just Americans who happen to live in Paris. I, too, am just another clichéd example of the American in Paris: an expatriate from Florida who has come looking for life, liberty, … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 8: ‘The Memory Show’
Most theatergoers recoiled when they heard that someone had written a musical about a woman with bipolar disorder, but Next to Normal won the Pulitzer Prize and ran almost two years on Broadway, spawning regional productions all over the country. Now the idea of such a show seems, well, almost normal. Still, are audiences ready for a musical about a woman facing the brick wall … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 7: ‘Assembled Parties,’ ‘Pippin’
My time in New York is coming to a close, but fortunately I saw two first-rate shows today that have Tony Award written all over them. The likely winner for Best Play is The Assembled Parties by Richard Greenberg (previously best-known for Take Me Out), who stubbed his toe earlier this season with the short-lived new adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Assembled Parties, by … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 6: ‘The Nance’
If Wednesday was a dessert day where all I had to do was watch two splashy musicals, Thursday I had to do actual work. I ran around the city doing four different interviews about shows coming to the Kravis Center next season. First it was downtown to talk to Hal Luftig, producer of the Evita revival that is on the Kravis on Broadway schedule next year, then back up to the … [Read more...]