The Helmsmen perform during the second anniversary bash last month. (Photo by Jaime Kujala) As anniversaries go, the one-year milestone reached by the Brewhouse Gallery in Lake Park in May of 2015 proved to be just an appetizer for the two-year bash held last month. And that’s despite the fact that the art gallery, live music emporium, and craft beer, wine and coffeehouse had … [Read more...]
Last-minute changes unsettle last PB Symphony concert
The Palm Beach Symphony’s last concert this season April 10 suffered from a much-changed program, keeping the group’s largest public ever of 1,200 souls guessing. New insert programs lay in piles undistributed by the volunteer ushers at the Kravis Center. Lola Astanova, the highly regarded Russian-American pianist, was scheduled to play three solo pieces after her Mozart … [Read more...]
Dichter’s Beethoven sparkles at last Symphonia concert
It says something important about the connections our area arts leaders have in that for the last concerts of the season for the Symphonia Boca Raton, the orchestra was able to feature one of the leading pianists of the older generation and an encore appearance by one of the country’s most intriguing conductors. The final Symphonia Boca Raton concert of its Connoisseur Series … [Read more...]
At Dramaworks: Laughs, and love at last, in ‘Outside Mullingar’
Alex Wipf and Nick Hetherington in Outside Mullingar. (Photo by Samantha Mighdoll) For its fourth play of its 16th season, Palm Beach Dramaworks serves up a change of pace. For starters, John Patrick Shanley’s Outside Mullingar is a comedy, in fact a romantic comedy. And rather than “theater to think about,” the West Palm Beach company’s motto, it is more theater to touch … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Intense ‘Sweeney Todd,’ and ‘An Iliad’ tour de force
Stephen Sondheim is drawn to unconventional source material for his musicals, so it is hardly surprising that Slow Burn Theatre Company ― which gravitates towards the offbeat and challenging ― has an affinity for his shows. Now ending its fourth season, it tackles the great composer-lyricist’s masterwork, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a grisly but undeniably … [Read more...]
Sundays: Save the last touchdown for me
By Myles Ludwig I’ll watch the game even though the Superdome could very well be the graveyard of the Super Bowl. The last touchdown, the last time, America’s Big Game, as CNN calls it, crushes every demographic ― gender, class, age, household income ― beneath its cleats. But I’m well aware that the Super Bowl Backlash has begun. Maybe that’s because America’s Big Game is … [Read more...]
Late review: South Florida Symphony at the Crest
Editor’s note: Here is a late orchestral review from last month. Technical difficulties prevented it from being posted until now: South Florida Symphony (March 11, Crest Theatre, Delray Beach) The South Florida Symphony has had something of a rocky history over the past couple years, with short funding and repeated complaints about overdue payments to its freelance personnel. … [Read more...]
Kim’s Schubert stellar at last Stringendo concert
The cellist Jonah Kim has spent several years concertizing and living in South Florida, including studies at Lynn University, all the while building a wider career from two other home bases in New York and Prague. Tuesday night’s closing concert of the Stringendo School for Strings faculty series at Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Persson Hall showed why it is that he’s been … [Read more...]
At the theater: Bracing ‘Freud,’ endearing ‘Goldie’
With Freud’s Last Session, playwright Mark St. Germain follows a simple formula for success -- put two compelling characters with differing viewpoints onstage, then stay out of their way and let them speak. In this case, the characters are two towering thinkers of the 20th century. There is Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis and a staunch atheist, and C.S. Lewis, a … [Read more...]
What-if meeting of minds inspired ‘Freud’ playwright
A meeting between Sigmund Freud -- the father of psychoanalysis and a staunch atheist -- and C.S. Lewis, a convert to Christianity and author of the series of religious allegories, The Chronicles of Narnia. There is no evidence that such a match-up ever took place, but it is the basis of Mark St. Germain’s what-if drama, Freud’s Last Session, opening Friday at West Palm … [Read more...]