Art: Was there any artist so indelibly associated with the late 1960s as Peter Max? The Art Students League-trained painter’s bright colors and quirky figures did as much to define the look of the age as hippiedom did. Max has continued working since those high-profile days, and has recently been painting portraits of singer Taylor Swift, which will be on sale Saturday when the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 7-8
Theater: With the comic strip musical Annie, director Mark Martino does not pull off the sort of new look reconceiving that he did with The Music Man at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre a couple of seasons ago, but he renders the show with plenty of heart and pizzazz. He doubles as the musical’s choreographer and stops the show twice with a raucous, bump-and-grind Easy Street and a … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 29-Dec. 1
Dance: Cue the Mouse King. It’s time once again for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s indelible ballet, The Nutcracker, which premiered in 1892. Oddly enough, the composer didn’t care for it, thinking he had written himself out. No one would agree with that sentiment today, and his sparkling score has become particularly beloved for young ballet companies with lots of children. Lovers … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 23-24
Music: The Master Chorale of South Florida began life as the chorus for the Florida Philharmonic, providing massed vocal heft when it was time for the Beethoven Ninth Symphony or Belshazzar’s Feast. The orchestra dissolved 10 years ago, but the chorus has continued, and in that decade it’s had three different directors. Now it’s on its fourth, young Brett Karlin of Boca Raton, … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 16-17
Film: By a quirk of release patterns, you can now see two recent films starring Naomi Watts on area theater screens. The two roles she plays in Diana and Sunlight Jr. are a real display of her acting range, portraying two vastly different women separated by an ocean and by the gulf of their financial circumstances. Diana is, of course, about Princess Diana, and her love affair … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 8-10
Film: You’ve already seen Gravity, right? Well, a new, less flashy, more earthbound, but tension-filled movie with virtually the same plot arrives in theaters this weekend. It is All Is Lost, the saga of a man (Robert Redford) out in the ocean on his yacht when it is hit by a shipping container of sneakers. It punctures his boat’s hull and forces him to use his wits and his … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 1-3
Theater: For more than 25 years, Lou Tyrrell has been producing new work by emerging young playwrights, but I cannot remember him being as excited over a relatively unknown talent like he is about composer-lyricist Daniel Maté. He is so excited that he has devoted two of the slots in The Theatre at Arts Garage’s season to shows by Maté — a song cycle on contemporary … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 26-27
Film: British director Steve McQueen is known for making films of brutality and excess, but now he has chosen a subject that matches his style. It is 12 Years a Slave, the fact-based saga of Solomon Northup, an African-American free man who lives with his family in upstate New York until he is lured to the nation’s capital, tricked into bondage and sold as a slave. The … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Oct. 19-20
Art: This weekend, the Wimberley Library at Florida Atlantic University’s Boca Raton campus welcomes Alaskan artist and bookbinder Susan Share for the opening of an exhibit featuring her work that will be on view until Jan. 19. Last night, Share gave a performance featuring her art, which incorporates movement, costumes and experimental books, all of it as a way of invigorating … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Sept. 20-22
Dance: One of the innovations of the Miami-based Knight Foundation has been its Random Acts of Culture, many of which can be seen on YouTube. Don’t be surprised next week if you see something similar here from Ballet Palm Beach, Colleen Smith’s Palm Beach Gardens-based dance troupe. This coming Thursday, the company will do 10-minute “flash ballets” at the Cultural Council of … [Read more...]