Jazz isn’t exactly the genre best-known for producing superstars, but a chosen few will appear in South Florida this season. The most notable is likely legendary crooner Tony Bennett, who plays both the Knight Concert Hall in Miami and the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach (the latter on Valentine’s Day). The gifted pianist and silky singer Diana Krall, who had been scheduled, … [Read more...]
2014-15 arts preview: The season in books
After all these years, the literary events season in South Florida has long reached its maturity. No more jokes about “cultural wastelands,” and publishers still send writers here on the few publicity tours they pay for each year. Why? Because so many people here read books, talk about books, and attend literary festivities. It would be understandable if organizers of, say, … [Read more...]
2014-15 arts preview: The fall season in film
Somewhere hidden in the list below is this year’s Oscar-winning best picture and most of the performance nominees. Having survived the all-about-the-box-office summer, the film industry rolls out its prestige products, which includes an armful of biopics ranging from theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking to seascape painter J.M.W. Turner to the Old Testament’s Red Sea parter, … [Read more...]
Preview to the Tonys, No. 3: ‘Bullets Over Broadway,’ ‘Aladdin’
For the runup to the Tony Awards on Sunday, ArtsPaper’s Hap Erstein takes a series of looks at the shows up for Broadway’s highest honors: Bullets Over Broadway — Susan Stroman (The Producers, Contact) must surely be the reigning director-choreographer of Broadway, but her stock has fallen substantially this season. It began with the musical Big Fish, which, by most … [Read more...]
Preview to the Tonys No. 2: ‘Act One,’ ‘Mothers and Sons,’ ‘Casa Valentina’
For the runup to the Tony Awards on Sunday, ArtsPaper’s Hap Erstein takes a series of looks at the shows up for Broadway’s highest honors: Act One — Just as marijuana is thought of as a gateway drug to harder stuff, Moss Hart’s autobiography Act One is surely responsible for getting many a young would-be theater artist hooked on the stage. The memoir of an impoverished kid … [Read more...]
Preview to the Tonys, No. 1: ‘Gentleman’s Guide,’ ‘Beautiful,’ ‘If/Then’
For the runup to the Tony Awards on Sunday, ArtsPaper’s Hap Erstein takes a series of looks at the shows up for Broadway’s highest honors: Here are three of this season's Broadway musicals, vying for a box office boost from the Tony Awards broadcast Sunday: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder — Romance is the motor of most musical comedies, but a team of writers, designers … [Read more...]
2013-14 arts preview: The season in Palm Beach County art
The new art season in Palm Beach County will deliver some surprises as well as “safety objects.” There are some firsts (see Norton’s pick for its RAW series) and there is the repetitious (the influence of Warhol, the legacy of Flagler), but I have to believe even these announcements are good news, for a museum never brings back shows that act as audience repellents. Let us … [Read more...]
2013-14 arts preview: The season in opera
The two 200th-birthday boys of 2013, Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, have been staples of the world’s opera houses since middle of the 19th century, and nothing’s changed today. Each of the three area opera companies will feature work by Verdi in the 2013-14 season, and one of them will offer Wagner: Sarasota Opera is mounting The Flying Dutchman. Florida Grand Opera, under … [Read more...]
2013-14 arts preview: The season in classical music
The 2013-14 classical season offers its usual overstuffed bounty for South Floridians, and this time there is a continuation of the new energy and innovation we saw last season, with a good deal of stress on new composition, orchestras widening their reach, and some of the leading performers of the newest generation making their area debuts. Here is a look, by genre, at the … [Read more...]
2013-14 arts preview: The season in jazz
As the sweltering South Florida summer temperatures drop, and listeners decide they can survive leaving their houses wearing more than just shorts and T-shirts, so the often equally-sweltering area jazz season begins. The big news last year was the unfortunate suspension of the annual concert series by the West Palm Beach-based Jazz Arts Music Society (JAMS), a trend that … [Read more...]