By Dale King Tommy rocks. The stellar performers at Lake Worth Playhouse pull out all the stops to stage an energetic version of the rock musical Tommy, based on The Who’s 1969 double album. The tale of the “deaf, dumb and blind kid” who became a pinball wizard explodes on stage with nearly two dozen players backed by the screaming guitar of Ben Brown and three other … [Read more...]
2014-15 arts preview: The season in opera
For opera companies, being the first house for a brand-new work is a standout way to elevate your cultural profile at home and abroad. And surely the biggest news in the coming season for the local opera scene will be the world premiere at Palm Beach Opera of a new American work, Enemies: A Love Story, with music by Ben Moore to a libretto by Nahma Sandrow, based on the Isaac … [Read more...]
Festival Boca preview: Perlman collaborator looks to chamber music for ‘Eternal Echoes’
It’s a 1950s Saturday in Tel Aviv, in the fledgling state of Israel, and the radio’s playing cantorial music, as it always does on Saturdays. It’s music that sticks with one person in particular, a young, prodigiously talented young violinist who will soon make his mark in the world as a teenage phenomenon. But through all the decades and accolades that followed, Itzhak … [Read more...]
‘The Unwinding’: Tearing down the house that FDR built
In his ambitious new book, George Packer describes the rise of “organized money” in business and politics and the collapse, or unwinding, of “the Roosevelt Republic that had reined for almost half a century.” Packer’s nimble prose moves the story along, although the book suffers from disorganization and an odd mixture of short profiles of several celebrities and longer … [Read more...]
New independent cinema house at FAU broadens area’s film offerings
With the exception of the occasional adventuresome booking at West Palm Beach’s long-since defunct Carefree Theatre, this county used to be a wasteland when it came to international, independent or alternative films. But six years ago, a digitally projected national network, Emerging Cinema, moved into Lake Worth. Now, beginning this weekend, comes Living Room Theaters, a more … [Read more...]