When I am sitting in the audience, I have a certain expectation: I want to be rewarded. By the end of the performance, I want to take away a vision, a purpose or even just a feeling that makes me believe that the whole experience was worth my while. In a full-length work, this expectation is even more pronounced as there isn’t the option (as there is in a repertory program) … [Read more...]
Fierce punch of ‘Cabaret’ still lands
It’s tawdry and sleazy, and you wouldn’t want it any other way. That describes director Sam Mendes’ take on the hard-hitting, yet melodic, leer at the rise of Nazism in pre-war Berlin, Cabaret, now playing at the Kravis Center through Sunday. Harold Prince staged the original 1966 Broadway production of the John Kander-Fred Ebb-Joe Masteroff show based on the … [Read more...]
At 91, Tony Bennett shows he can still make magic
An adoring capacity crowd greeted the artist formerly known as Anthony Dominick Benedetto on Monday as the ageless, 91-year-old vocalist confidently strode onstage at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts’ Dreyfoos Hall in West Palm Beach. And why not? As Tony Bennett, the singer has earned 20 Grammy Awards, the most recent for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for Tony … [Read more...]
Violinist Huang impressive in Kravis recital
By Dennis D. Rooney 23-year old Sirena Huang won the grand prize at last year’s inaugural Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition held at Lynn University in Boca Raton. On Jan. 22, she gave a local recital, part of the Kravis Center’s Young Artists Series. That complex’s Rinker Playhouse was an ideal venue. With Robert Koenig at the piano, Huang played a … [Read more...]
Fosse’s magic returns to Kravis in popular ‘Chicago’
More than a mere show, the revival of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Chicago has grown into a phenomenon. Having run 8,795 performances since opening in 1996, it is not only the longest-running revival in Broadway history, but the longest-running American show of any kind there. The musical has also proven popular locally, in several engagements at the Kravis Center, where it … [Read more...]
‘Finding Neverland’: Fine cast brings some magic to weak material
Few stories are as familiar and beloved as J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. So much so that it has spawned a host of tangential and ancilllary versions, from prequels (the movie Pan, the play Peter and the Starcatcher), to a film told from the villain’s viewpoint (Hook), to a Disneyfied animated feature and a couple of stage musicals. No, make … [Read more...]
Mørk, Orpheus CO masterful in Shostakovich concerto
By Dennis D. Rooney The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra played the same program here Tuesday at the Kravis Center as it had in New York’s Carnegie Hall the previous Saturday evening; Handel’s Water Music Suite opened it and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite concluded it. In between came the local premiere of Out Came the Sun by Shuying Li, an Orpheus commission that was its … [Read more...]
At the Kravis: ‘Book of Mormon’ still blasphemous, hilarious
So many shows that initially are shocking soon lose that ability to startle and outrage us. Fortunately, six-and-a-half years after it first conquered Broadway, The Book of Mormon still feels as blasphemous and funny as it ever did. Now on its second visit to the Kravis Center through Sunday, the scabrous send-up of the loopy contemporary religion is well represented … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 10-12
Music: One of the great tragic heroines of Italian bel canto opera returns Saturday night as Florida Grand Opera opens its new season with Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. The American soprano Anna Christy stars as the Scots noblewoman driven mad on her wedding night because of her forced marriage to a man she does not love. In addition to this tour de force scene, Donizetti’s … [Read more...]
Sher’s take on ‘King and I,’ at Kravis, renews a classic
With admired productions of South Pacific and Fiddler on the Roof behind him and My Fair Lady on his plate for this Broadway season, director Bartlett Sher is getting an acclaimed reputation for his affectionate, reverential musical revivals. That rep can only be enhanced by his take on Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s The King and I, now playing at the Kravis Center … [Read more...]