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...]
Mehta still formidable with Israel Phil, but energy fades for ‘Heldenleben’
By Dennis D. Rooney Zubin Mehta has long been associated with The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and was named its music director for life in 1981. The announcement of his forthcoming retirement made his tour appearance with the orchestra Saturday night at the Kravis Center something more than that; in fact, a valediction. Mehta will turn 83 next year, and his appearance … [Read more...]
Arts Preview 2017-18: The season in dance
Devotees of dance this season can sample Miami City Ballet’s continued artistic honing by Artistic Director Lourdes Lopez, the ongoing successful dance programming at the Duncan Theatre or the breakthrough PEAK presentations at the Kravis Center, as well as decide to experience the continuity and strength in the local dance scene. Amid this strong lineup, this season it … [Read more...]
MNM readies Sondheim’s ‘Company’ for Rinker
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...]