The cast of Shuffle Along performs “Broadway Blues.” (Photo by Julieta Cervantes) The only suspense at this year’s Tony Awards was over whether Hamilton would set a new record for winning the most statuettes. (It fell short of The Producers’ 12-Tony total by one.) Still, it has sucked most of the air out of the Broadway season, so here is a look at some of the also-rans: … [Read more...]
Bennewitz Quartet dazzlingly disciplined at Flagler
Editor’s note: The publication of this review, which was scheduled for the week of Feb. 21, was delayed by technical problems. In 1998, four young men attending Prague’s Academy of the Arts decided to form a professional string quartet. Emphasizing their Czech origins, the four high school-age boys took the name Bennewitz to honor Antonin Bennewitz, founder of the Czech … [Read more...]
Exquisite Beethoven at Flagler from New Orford SQ
To open the 17th season of the Flagler Museum Music Series on Jan. 13 came the New Orford String Quartet of Canada. Made up of two principals of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, violinist Jonathan Crow and cellist Brian Manker, and two lead chairs from the Montreal Symphony, violinist Andrew Wan and violist Eric Nowlin — soon to take the first chair of the Detroit Symphony … [Read more...]
Humor, showmanship make for delight with Manasse, Nakamatsu
When two brilliant first-prize winners get together to form a duo, what you get is brilliant music making. Jon Manasse, principal clarinet of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, won top prize in Munich’s International competition for clarinet, and pianist Jon Nakamatsu won the coveted gold medal in the 1997 Van Cliburn International … [Read more...]
An intimate, engaging show from Indigo Girls at Culture Room
By Kylie Phillips The deliberations earlier that day in Washington about gay marriage may have been contentious, but last Tuesday night (March 26) at the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale, the Indigo Girls and their audience had reached a visceral consensus. Fans packed into a sold-out house on the unseasonably cold night. Long crocheted vests, flannel, and double denim … [Read more...]
Delightful ‘Wonderland’ brings zaniness of ‘Alice’ to dance
Ballet Palm Beach: Let me be among the first to tell you that this is the new name of the 12-year-old Florida Classical Ballet Theatre. Artistic Director Colleen Smith announced this from the stage of the Eissey Campus Theatre at Palm Beach State College before the premiere of the company’s new ballet, Wonderland, on Saturday. It is a clever adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s … [Read more...]
Outcasts and their dreams: ‘Raisin in the Sun’; ‘Side Show’
Two years ago, Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park won the Pulitzer Prize for its reconsideration of the landmark drama, A Raisin in the Sun, and his heretical suggestion that perhaps race relations have not progressed as far as we think they have. Now comes Palm Beach Dramaworks to exhume the earlier breakthrough play by Lorraine Hansberry, with its more authentic bitterness and … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Aug. 10-12
Film: If there is a better actor working today than Meryl Streep, I cannot imagine who it would be. Sure, she can transform herself with accents and makeup, but take a look at how terrific she is without much of either in Hope Springs, the tale of a long-married housewife who wants to rekindle the romance in her relationship with a cynical tightwad accountant (Tommy Lee Jones). … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 16-18
Art: The Norton Museum of Art is currently showing a major exhibit of works by one of the most highly regarded British artists of our day, Jenny Saville. She’s best known for her work featuring female nudes, but many of her works are drawn from her studies of plastic surgery, generating pictures whose painterly strokes remind the viewer of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. The … [Read more...]
Broadway Postcard No. 5: ‘Mormon’ is best musical of the season
Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been freaking out television’s Standards and Practices folks (a/k/a censors) for almost 15 years with their purposely profane animated series South Park, so it should come as no surprise that their first Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon, will never get any awards for good taste. They should, however, clear off their mantelpieces for the … [Read more...]