It was a good night at the ballet — a very good night. Playing to a packed house for one performance only, the Joffrey Ballet showed an easy command of the physically demanding and highly technical program it boldly presented March 12 at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts. The calling card of the evening was the line-up of dance makers — a virtual Who’s Who in the new … [Read more...]
ACO blissfully good in Ravel, Respighi, Haydn
David Loebel, the second of four conductors vying for the post of music director, led the Atlantic Classical Orchestra in a familiar but adventurous program at the Eissey Theatre on Feb. 10. It was the first evening concert in the series and seats were filled. Was it because it was a light orchestral program of five music gems or that concertgoers prefer the nightlife that … [Read more...]
Oscar nominations left good films, performers on cutting-room floor
You can tell it was a good year at the movies when so many nomination-worthy pictures and performers got snubbed by the Academy. Alejandro Iñárritu’s The Revenant walked off with the most nominations (12), followed by Mad Max: Fury Road, the type of major studio commercial hit that the expansion of the Best Picture category aimed at including. It pulled in 10 nominations, but … [Read more...]
Maltz’s ‘Mousetrap’ looks good, but play’s a little thin
When I first saw Dame Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, in London in 1972, it was already a phenomenon that had run 20 years in the West End. And it had already warped into a campy tourist attraction played strictly for laughs. At the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, director Peter Amster (The 39 Steps) tries taking the material seriously, digging for the dark tale hidden beneath its … [Read more...]
Tony nominations show it’s been a good season for Broadway
Want to know how you can tell it was a good season on Broadway? In most years, the nominators have to struggle to find shows, performers and designers to fill all the categories. This season, there was enough quantity — and even quality — to afford a surfeit of snubs. Significantly absent from the nominations list announced this morning were Finding Neverland, the … [Read more...]
Postcard From Broadway No. 2: ‘Finding Neverland’
Arrived in New York on Saturday, to gorgeous, crisp, sunny weather. But Sunday turned downright cold and rain is expected today. Sunday evening I saw Finding Neverland, the new musical based on the 2004 movie that starred Johnny Depp as J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, and Kate Winslet as the widow whose four kids inspired the timeless fable of the boy who never grew up. … [Read more...]
Good year for movies means good contest for Oscars
What would the Academy Awards be without nomination snubs? Just ask Robert Redford, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey and Emma Thompson, some of the prominent stars expected to be in this year’s Oscars race who were missing in action when the dust cloud from Thursday morning’s announcements settled. By most accounts, it was a good year at the movies, with a diverse crowd of popular and … [Read more...]
‘Good People’ skillfully examines the what-ifs
The vagaries of fate often determine whether or not we escape our circumstances to rise above our economic surroundings. But perhaps our own actions can affect that fate. That is the issue at the heart of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Tony Award-nominated play from 2011, Good People, which weaves that thought-provoking notion around an entertaining tale of haves and have-nots and … [Read more...]
Good Dvorak, Beethoven end Boca Symphonia season
The Boca Raton Symphonia closed its 2012-13 season Sunday with a too-little-heard major concerto and a genial reading of a major symphony, securing a solid planetary foothold amid the constellation of local chamber orchestras that appeared in the wake of the Florida Philharmonic’s Big Bang. Let by guest conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos, who directed the group last month at … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 5: ‘Matilda,’ ‘Kinky Boots’
Wednesday was a real dessert day at the theater ― two musicals, Matilda and Kinky Boots, widely expected to be competing against each other for the top Tony Award. Matilda arrives from London weighed down with Olivier Awards and is the front runner to win over here, but I think it could be a closer race than anticipated. Matilda is based on a Roald Dahl kid’s book about a … [Read more...]