Estelle Parsons, 87, a former head of the Actors Studio, will be playing wily Mathilde Girard in Israel Horovitz’s My Old Lady at Palm Beach Dramaworks from Friday (Dec. 5) to Jan. 4. An Oscar winner for Bonnie and Clyde, a five-time Tony nominee including last season’s The Velocity of Autumn and a longtime regular on the television sitcom Roseanne, she spoke recently with Hap … [Read more...]
Classic ‘Our Town’ beautifully realized at Dramaworks
By Dale King True to its promise to provide “theater to think about,” Palm Beach Dramaworks opened its 2014-2015 season this past weekend with Thornton Wilder’s unadorned but hauntingly personal play, Our Town. The play, written in 1938, is a delight to the ears and eyes, even though Wilder decreed there be no sets or props. A fine 20-member cast of veteran players and … [Read more...]
Naharin work brings fresh energy to Ailey troupe
By Tara Mitton Catao The dancers of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre were on full throttle as they worked the crowd at the Kravis Center on Monday night with a seasoned and savvy flair. The program, of course, included the infectious Revelations, which is Alvin Ailey’s most well-known work. Even after 50 years of regularly closing the show, this signature work managed … [Read more...]
Contemporary American works add much interest to PBCMF’s second fall concert
By Donald Waxman The planets must have been in alignment last Thursday evening when the Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival players, with their accustomed professionalism and virtuosity, presented an uncommonly interesting program at Lynn University’s Wold Center for the Performing Arts auditorium, arguably one of South Florida’s most beautiful and comfortable new performing … [Read more...]
Postcard from New York No. 8: ‘Venus’ marks advance for Ives
Just before catching a plane back to South Florida, I was able to squeeze in one final play -- a matinee of David Ives’ kinky, amusing Venus in Fur, starring Broadway’s latest “it” girl, Nina Arianda. Last season, she made her Broadway debut in Born Yesterday, filling the legendary shoes of Judy Holliday quite credibly. Now, she returns to a new work, a darkly comic … [Read more...]
New Adès work thrills, but Emerson deserved better from audience
They stand to play, all except for cellist David Finckel. In that, they were just like the youngsters from Palm Springs Middle School who serenaded concertgoers with Christmas carols in the lobby of the Kravis Center on Wednesday night. But there the comparisons end. The four inside the hall were the Emerson String Quartet, who have been together for 35 years. They still … [Read more...]
Artist Neuenschwander’s work draws power from the viewer
There’s one element to Rivane Neuenschwander’s artwork, now at the Miami Art Museum until Oct. 16, that probably won’t travel back with it to her native Brazil, yet it is an integral part of the exhibit: You. Yes, you bring more to Neuenschwander’s mid-career survey, A Day Like Any Other, than you could possibly imagine. In fact, without you, more than half of this exhibit … [Read more...]
Storrs’ work embraces the chill of the modern
To ask an audience to explore unseen works by a popular or a controversial artist is piece of cake. Asking them to come see rare works by a less shocking artist, unknown by most, takes guts. But that’s precisely what the Norton Museum is doing with John Storrs: Machine-Age Modernist, a show consisting mainly of metal and stone sculptures by the Chicago native who happened to … [Read more...]
The View From Home 5: New releases on DVD
Surviving Desire, Possible Films: Vol. 2 (Microcinema) Release date: April 27 Standard list price: $22.49 each It’s not hyperbole to suggest that my cinephilia in general and my specific interest in writing about films are the result of one director’s work: Hal Hartley. Known for his insightful, quirky movies about hyper-literate drifters and outcasts who converge on Long … [Read more...]
Composer Zwilich’s Septet to get local premiere Sunday
In the life of every creative artist, there must one day come The Leap. It's that moment of mental alchemy when all the bits and pieces the artist is trying to fit together suddenly come together, often while the creator is sleeping, paying bills or doing something else entirely other than concentrate on the work. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich demonstrates by singing, in a sweet, … [Read more...]