The musical team of composer Harvey Schmidt and lyricist Tom Jones hit the jackpot their first time out with an intimate, endearing love story, off-Broadway’s The Fantasticks. But they wanted Broadway success, so they next adapted N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker on a larger scale, with a full, though essentially superfluous, chorus of townfolk, dramatic Agnes de Mille … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’, ‘Tryst,’ and ‘Vanya and Sonia…’
“Erratic” is the word that comes to mind to describe the inaugural season of Boca Raton’s Wick Theatre. But when it is good, the eight-month old company can compete with any troupe in South Florida, as it proves with its current production of the Fats Waller revue, Ain’t Misbehavin’. The 1978 Tony Award winner set the gold standard for composer tribute songfests and by … [Read more...]
Creative courage, innovation keep Pilobolus audiences coming back
By Tara Mitton Catao So what would interest a collective of seven super-creative, highly-athletic dancers? Think out of the box. Search your imagination. Dancing with quadricopters? Been there, done that. Seeing how many dancers can fit into a mini-Cooper? Ah, good one, but it’s so three years ago. (The answer is 26, and by the way, Pilobolus holds the Guinness World Record for … [Read more...]
Sundays: I think, therefore I augment
By Myles Ludwig What does one do when reality isn’t enough? To paraphrase Socrates, is the unaugmented life worth living? These are troubling times in the kingdom, sayeth both Shakespeare and the Progressive Insurance lady, a fast-moving time of delusions and illusions for even the smarmiest among us, not to mention trivia fans and popular culture pundits. The snowy pixels … [Read more...]
At 70, jazz icon Dr. Lonnie Smith gets a fresh start
Read it here first: 70-year-old Hammond organ icon Dr. Lonnie Smith has just released his first-ever CD in 2012, the burning live trio set The Healer. Sure, the turban-topped keyboardist started recording under his own name with the 1967 gem Finger-Lickin’ Good while he simultaneously cut tracks with guitarist George Benson (for his banner releases It’s Uptown and The George … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Two Pulitzers, a great play and a dud
Palm Beach Dramaworks prides itself on serving up “theater to think about.” True, there are plenty of heady plays on its schedule this season, but it begins instead with Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly, a charming two-character romance from 1979, more like “theater to sigh over with a constant smile on your face.” It is a mating dance for an unlikely couple ― Matt Friedman, a … [Read more...]
The Boynton Beach Arts District: From machinery street to center of culture
By Chloe Elder Auto shops and heavy machinery might not be the first thing you think of as a backdrop for artwork. But the artists of the Boynton Beach Arts District have turned Industrial Avenue into just that. The arts district lies inconspicuously off Boynton Beach Boulevard at 422 Industrial Ave. The district houses a series of warehouses that function as galleries, … [Read more...]
The View From Home 35: New releases and notable screenings, Feb. 7-29
There are many, many people who would disagree with me (I’m marrying one of them), but I can think of no better way to spend 195 minutes than watching a documentary on Woody Allen. I’m what you might call a Woody Allen fanboy – an apologist, even. I will go on record appreciating his bombs as well as his critical successes (well, most of them, anyway – Cassandra’s Dream and … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: From Afghanistan war to Victorian sex
Whether or not the pen is truly mightier than the sword, playwright Carter W. Lewis is out to prove in his enigmatically titled The Cha-Cha of a Camel Spider that slam poetry can trump a mercenary private army. If that sounds like an unlikely match-up, then you are grasping the surreal quality of this darkly comic tale, which seems headed towards a rant against the Blackwaters … [Read more...]
Playwright sees spirit of art in ‘Ghost-Writer’
If you knew that a book called The Iron Whim describes itself as “a fragmented history of typewriting,” you may not bother to pick it up. But you will be glad that Michael Hollinger did, for it led him to create Ghost-Writer, his latest work to be produced by West Palm Beach’s Florida Stage. For as dry as the book sounds, it is full of juicy literary anecdotes. “A couple of … [Read more...]