By Dale King MNM Productions is a small but driven contemporary theater company that’s latched on to the black-box-style, 300-seat Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, and intends to stay a while. Its two producing partners, Michael Lifshitz and Marcie Gorman-Althof, have given wing to risk by announcing plans to present one of the best-loved and … [Read more...]
Touring ‘Sound of Music’ returns winningly to pre-movie style
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were known for the many innovations they brought to the musical theater, but also for a signature streak of sentimentality. Both are evident in 1959’s The Sound of Music, which would prove to be their final collaboration. Director Jack O’Brien has done what he can to scrape off the layers of sugar encrusted on the show in his buoyant … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: Cultural Council adds board members; ‘Sound of Music’ will feature lobby concerts
Cultural Council names six new board members LAKE WORTH — Six new members have joined the board of directors for the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County, with global finance expert Nathan Slack appointed as chair. William Parmelee will serve as vice chair and Jean Sharf will serve as secretary. Other board members include Phil DiComo, Gail Horvath, Michele Jacobs, Daryn … [Read more...]
Strong score, performances make ‘Kinky Boots’ a delight
Did you hear the one about the drag queen who saves a failing British shoe factory, and in so doing teaches the owner and his employees a lesson in acceptance? That’s what happen in Kinky Boots, first a 2005 British indie film and later a stage musical. The latter, with an uber-catchy score by theater composer rookie Cyndi Lauper and a message-laden script from Harvey … [Read more...]
For ‘Kinky Boots’ star, it’s about heels — and respect for Lola
Timothy Ware performs the role of thigh-high red boot-wearing drag queen Lola in the Tony Award-winning Kinky Boots, playing this week through April 23 at the Kravis Center’s Dreyfoos Hall. He was the standby for Lola in the original Broadway cast, where he performed the role 186 times. Just don’t ask him about his debut in the show. “The first time I did the role, I don’t … [Read more...]
‘Pirates’ brings PB Opera season to smart, funny close
The operettas of William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan might not be the kind of touchstone they once were in American culture, but that fact gives professional opera companies room to do the works as they should be done: With thorough fealty to scripts and their often underrated scores. This past weekend, Palm Beach Opera closed its season by fulfilling that mission, … [Read more...]
PB Opera wraps season with Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Pirates of Penzance’
Time was when the English comic operettas of William Schwenk Gilbert (words) and Arthur Sullivan (music) were a regular feature of amateur theatrical activity around this country. It had been that way since the late 1870s, when a national craze in the U.S. for one of their shows, H.M.S. Pinafore, monopolized the popular culture, with theater troupes presenting pirated … [Read more...]
New-look ‘Phantom’ a mixed bag, but singing is splendid
Having created the most successful entertainment in history, pulling in an estimated $5.6 billion, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and his producer Cameron Mackintosh can afford a new redesigned and refreshed take on Phantom of the Opera, taking advantage of the advances in technology since the quasi-operatic musical opened on Broadway 29 years ago. Whether you are an … [Read more...]
RSNO, brilliant Benedetti make for exceptional night of music
Founded in 1891 as the Scottish Orchestra in Edinburgh, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra added the word “National” in 1951 and in 1977, when Queen Elizabeth II became its patron, the word “Royal” took precedence as its prefix. Over the years great conductors have led the orchestra: Sir John Barbirolli, Walter Susskind and George Szell to name three. Its principal … [Read more...]
MCB closes season with lively, elegant Program 4
Miami City Ballet finished its season at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts with Program Four — an upbeat and lively show — that presented two Balanchine works and a Paul Taylor work from its repertory. But it was the first work, Divertimento No. 15, performed with elegant and confident finesse, that was the true jewel of the evening. The 1956 work that George … [Read more...]