By Dale King BOCA RATON – Three springtimes ago, Marilynn Wick rescued the closed and bankrupt Caldwell Theatre from the auction block and turned it into a combination costume museum, restaurant and performance center. Wick’s main business, Costume World, acquired the property in March 2013 with an option to buy, a decision based on a belief — and a vow — to breathe new life … [Read more...]
Tyrrell’s Theatre Lab gets moving at FAU
When F. Scott Fitzgerald declared that “there are no second acts in American lives,” he surely was not referring to Lou Tyrrell. The founder of Florida Stage (formerly known as The Pope Theatre, formerly known as Theatre Club of the Palm Beaches) has recently begun his third act, opening yet another theater organization. After an ill-advised move to the Kravis Center in … [Read more...]
PBCMF No. 4: Exquisite Debussy is a festival high point
After the ailing Claude Debussy finished his Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp in 1915, he wrote to a friend that the music reminded him of an “antique” Debussy, writing as he had done 20 years before in the Nocturnes. Not antique, perhaps, so much as distilled to its purest essence, as a performance of this work showed last weekend in the final concerts of the Palm Beach … [Read more...]
Theatre at Arts Garage’s new boss plans move to edgier material
Get ready for some changes at the theater in Delray Beach’s Arts Garage. For starters, the storefront performance venue underneath a municipal parking garage is opening a black box second space, where two of the company’s four plays will be presented. But more importantly, there has been a changing of the guard, with Keith Garsson taking over as producing director of the … [Read more...]
Theatre roundup: ‘Daniel’s Husband,’ ‘Summer Shorts 2015’
Daniel and Mitchell are a successful architect and a novelist who have lived comfortably and happily in a committed relationship for the past seven years. They are the very picture of an ideal gay couple, so what could possibly go wrong for them? From the opening scene of Daniel’s Husband, the latest world premiere by South Florida’s most prolific and acclaimed playwright, … [Read more...]
2014-15 arts preview: The season in dance
By Tara Mitton Catao The coming dance season promises a strong line up for lovers of both contemporary dance and classical ballet, from large companies such as Miami City Ballet to scrappy modern dance troupes such as Reach Dance Collective. Here’s a closer look at what will be on view for lovers of dance this coming season: Duncan Theatre: The always satisfying seasons at … [Read more...]
Theatre roundup 2: Challenging new ‘Hummingbird’ at Arts Garage; Wick rebounds with sparkling ‘42nd Street’
Playwright Carter Lewis uses a light touch to address heavy issues. In such past works as Women Who Steal, Ordinary Nation and The Cha-Cha of a Camel Spider — all produced by Florida Stage — he has gathered current social ills and shaped his observations about them into entertaining, and often challenging, theater. Certainly that is the case with his latest play, The … [Read more...]
In Davie, a welcome tribute to ‘The Rite’
By Donald Waxman One hundred years ago this past May, in the elegant Theatre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Pierre Monteux lifted his baton to begin the premiere of a new ballet score by the young Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. Three years earlier, tout Paris had been captivated by the exoticisms and color of Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird, and then a year later by his … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 9-11
Theater: Director Clive Cholerton has a way with staged readings of musicals, and especially with shows by the great composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, as he demonstrated several times at the Caldwell Theatre and now at Palm Beach Dramaworks with 1970’s Company. This look at the nature of marriage and relationships is said to be the first “concept musical,” full of … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: May 11-12
Theater: Ten years ago, West Palm Beach’s Actor’s Workshop & Repertory Company had a critical hit with a teen drama by Mark St. Germain (Freud’s Last Session). Called Out of Gas on Lover’s Leap, it concerned two newly graduated high schoolers — one the daughter of a fading rock star, the other the son of an ambitious, conservative U.S. senator. They go together to a promontory … [Read more...]