Film: Fresh from the Miami International Film Festival comes City Island, an amiable look at a dysfunctional Bronx family, each of whom is harboring a secret. Cuban-born, South Florida-raised Andy Garcia gets a rare opportunity to flex his comic muscles as the prison guard dad who yearns to become an actor. When he is taking evening classes, his wife (the terrific Julianna Margulies, a closet smoker) is pretty sure he is having an affair. OK, so some of the subplots are pretty lame, but Garcia’s is more than justified when he lands an audition for a new Martin Scorsese movie, for which he does a hilarious Brando impersonation. Opening at area theaters today. – H. Erstein
Stage: Fans of cabaret know that we have an intimate gem of a spot in the Colony Hotel’s Royal Room and, of course, it is not terribly hard to get the best of New York’s theater and cabaret performers down to Palm Beach while it remains chilly up north. Still, the room could use more visibility around the country. That could happen after next week’s return booking of the sublime, funny, big-voiced Tony Award winner Faith Prince, who will be taping her latest set of Broadway, pop standards and new composer discoveries for a new CD, “recorded live at The Royal Room.” And expect the room’s Pied Piper manager, Rob Russell of the matinee idol looks, to join Prince onstage for a duet or two. Tuesday through Saturday, April 13-17. Call (561) 659-8100 for reservations. – H. Erstein
Music: It’s a big few days ahead for choral music, starting with the final event for the big community choir, the Masterworks Chorus of the Palm Beaches, which performs the German Requiem (Op. 45) of Johannes Brahms in what will be the final appearance by its founder, Jack W. Jones. Jones, 69, founded the Masterworks in 1979 and will be stepping down as its director after the Brahms. He’ll be continuing in his job as director of music at the Royal Poinciana Chapel in Palm Beach, but the chorus will be taken over by Carl P. Ashley, choir director at Boca Raton’s St. Andrew’s School. Soloists for the performance at the DeSantis Family Chapel on the campus of Palm Beach Atlantic University will be soprano Wendy Jones (no relation) and baritone Russell Franks, and there also will be a full orchestra. The concert begins at 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $20, and can be had at the door, by calling 845-9696, or by visiting www.masterworkschorusofthepalmbeaches.com.
On Monday and Tuesday, the Palm Beach Symphony wraps its season with two choral works,one of which, the Te Deum of Anton Bruckner, has likely not been done here for some time, if ever, at least in its orchestral garb. The other work, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, is a compact but powerful late mass written for his employers, the Esterhazy family, in 1798, when Napoleon was bearing down on Austria. Bruckner’s Te Deum, completed in 1884, is a five-movement setting of an ancient hymn of praise, and has the resplendent brass writing, simple but powerful themes and feeling of awestruck grandeur typical of his mature style.
Soloists for both pieces include the German soprano Ute Ziemer, the American mezzo Birgit Fioravante, the Uruguayan tenor Martin Nusspaumer, and South Korean-born bass Won Cho, who teaches at the University of South Florida. Symphony assistant conductor Ramón Tebar conducts Monday’s concert, and Tuesday’s will be directed by FAU Symphony Chorus director Patricia Fleitas. The first concert is set for 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Flagler Museum on Palm Beach, and the second takes place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at FAU’s University Theatre. Tickets for Monday night’s concert are $50, while Tuesday’s cost $15. For more information, call 655-2657 or 297-3820, or visit www.palmbeachsymphony.org.
Also finishing up her work for the season is Iris van Eck, cellist and founder of the Chameleon Musicians series at Fort Lauderdale’s Leiser Opera Center. Van Eck will be joined by the Amernet String Quartet for a program featuring the final string quartet of Dvořák (No. 14 in A-flat, Op. 105), the little-known String Quintet (in F minor) of Alexander Borodin, and a quartet transcription of six preludes from the Op. 34 set for piano by Dmitri Shostakovich. The preludes were arranged by Yuri Vitenson, father of Amernet first violinist Misha Vitenson. The concert starts at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Leiser Center. Tickets: $30. Call 954-761-4345 or visit www.chameleonmusicians.org. – G. Stepanich
Art: Several major art shows are closing this Sunday, including the M.C. Escher and Mary Cassatt shows at the Boca Raton Museum of Art (call 392-2500); the Habsburg Treasures exhibit at the Norton Museum of Art (call 832-5196); and the Edward Steichen retrospective at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale (call 954-525-5500). Here’s your last chance to take in one of these shows before the hot season truly settles in. –Staff reports