Optimism tempered by uncertainty is the mood of area theater companies, which project several possible scenarios for re-opening their playhouses and getting back to producing shows, based on what the government will allow. While champing at the bit to be up and running, to have subscribers and single-ticket buyers return, their plans to restart vary over time, with options that … [Read more...]
Kravis Center’s only CEO to retire after 30 years at top
By Dale King Judith Mitchell was hired as fundraising director for the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in 1989 when the 10.5-acre venture was simply an under-construction dream of local philanthropists intent on creating a major performance venue in downtown West Palm Beach. A bit more than 30 years later, inside the elegant showplace that now stands on … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2019-20: ‘Hamilton’ might be hottest ticket, but area theaters have plenty of worthy shows planned
There are plenty of interesting productions looming in the area this season, but the hottest ticket is unquestionably Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, at the Kravis Center in late January and then the Arsht Center the following month. Do what you have to to get tickets. You didn’t need that right arm anyway. A year ago, the Stage Door Theatre was readying a move to a larger, … [Read more...]
Broadway baby: ‘School of Rock’ cast member, 10, tells of life on the road
Like many a New Yorker, 10-year-old Alyssa Emily Marvin considers South Florida to be her second home. After all, her great-grandmother was a longtime volunteer at the Kravis Center until recently and her cousin is a rabbi at Temple Beth El in Boca Raton. And on Wednesday, Alyssa makes her Kravis debut as Marcy, one of the kid rocker back-up singers in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s … [Read more...]
At Kravis, ‘Waitress’ is a sweet helping of comfort food
As any geometry student knows, pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. But as the musical comedy Waitress demonstrates, pie can be shortest distance to happiness. Diner waitress Jenna Hunterson (Christine Dwyer) happens to also be an extraordinary baker of pies, which bring her customers much satisfaction — exactly the feeling that is absent … [Read more...]
PB Opera scores with stylish, fast-moving ‘Giovanni’
Mozart called his opera Don Giovanni an opera buffa, and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte called it a “dramma giocoso” (playful drama), but the work’s ending, with its protagonist being swallowed by the earth after the statue of a man he killed comes to dinner and implores him to repent, has seemed to many stage directors of the past two centuries to define the opera as a piece … [Read more...]
Israel Philharmonic, Levi splendid in Bruckner at Kravis
By Dennis D. Rooney Zubin Mehta, longtime music director of the Israel Philharmonic, was originally scheduled to conduct at the Kravis on Feb. 5, but withdrew due to illness. His place was taken by Yoel Levi, the IPO’s first Israeli music director. A frequent guest conductor in the U. S., Levi, 68, was from 1978 to 1984 at the Cleveland Orchestra, initially as assistant … [Read more...]
Energetic cast makes it happen for Estefan bio ‘On Your Feet!’
Add the names of Gloria and Emilio Estefan to those of Frankie Valli, Carole King, Donna Summer and Cher, singers and songwriters whose lives have been enshrined lately in biographical jukebox musicals. For the Estefans, the show is called On Your Feet!, which ran on Broadway for a more than respectable 746 performances – nearly two years – from 2015 to 2017. Soon after … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 4-6, 2019
Film: At 85, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is having a very good year at the movies. First came RBG, the documentary of her personal and professional life, which could tire out a person half her age. And now, opening this weekend at area theaters, is a feature film – On the Basis of Sex – which focuses on the Brooklyn-born glass ceiling buster as she challenges the … [Read more...]
For PB Opera, it was a grand night of youthful singing
Time was when the Palm Beach Opera held a singing contest in April, inviting young opera performers from around the world to be heard in front of an elite panel of judges and a full orchestra. The contest is gone (though it may someday return), and with it the chance to hear a wide variety of new voices and not incidentally a broad sampling of repertoire that one will surely … [Read more...]