Theater: Director Clive Cholerton has a way with staged readings of musicals, and especially with shows by the great composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, as he demonstrated several times at the Caldwell Theatre and now at Palm Beach Dramaworks with 1970’s Company. This look at the nature of marriage and relationships is said to be the first “concept musical,” full of presentational numbers that run parallel to the virtually plotless narrative, which makes it more easily adapted to the concert format. And as Cholerton’s staging again shows, that does not mean a static row of performers, scripts and music stands, but an active take that approaches full production. The show concerns a 35-year-old bachelor (Broadway veteran Quinn VanAntwerp) and his many married friends (including concert veterans Wayne LeGette, Nick Duckart and Laura Hodos.) Paul J. Reekie provides the accompaniment on grand piano and the score sounds as fresh as when it was written. Continuing through Sunday, Aug. 18. Call (561) 514-4042 for tickets.
Film: Woody Allen is the most consistent director working today — but only in quantity, not quality. He consistently churns out a film a year, whether we has an idea worth putting on celluloid or not. Many of the films he knocked out in the past two decades have not been up to par, but he is back in good form with a drama, Blue Jasmine, opening in area theaters today. It revolves around a once-wealthy woman whose Bernie Madoff-like husband (Alex Baldwin) gets caught and thrown in jail, leaving her penniless with few prospects. So she flies to California and moves in with her blue-collar sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins), who lost what little money she had investing with Baldwin. Jasmine (the brilliant Cate Blanchett) has much in common with Blanche DuBois of A Streetcar Named Desire, a role that Blanchett played to much acclaim onstage, and her work here all but assures her an Oscar nomination. Allen has an offbeat, but on-target way with casting, as demonstrated by effective supporting turns by, of all people, Andrew Dice Clay and Louis CK. Allen fans, it is safe to go back in the theater.
Music: Over the summer, the Boca Raton Symphonia changed its name to simply The Symphonia, with the idea that if it plays different places it can take on the name of where it is; i.e., The Symphonia Fort Lauderdale. But for now, the Symphonia is at home in Boca, and on Sunday, it plays the last of the city’s free summer concerts at the Mizner Park Amphitheater. The program, titled From Bach to Bernstein, will be led by Kyle Prescott, Florida Atlantic University’s director of bands, and includes the Italian Symphony (No. 4 in A, Op. 90) of Mendelssohn, some of the Hungarian Dances of Brahms, and the overture to Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro. The second half will feature some lighter pops selections, Prescott said. The concert begins at 6 p.m. at the Mizner Park Amphitheatre. For more information, call 544-8600.
Dance: Maria Konrad and Jerry Opdenaker have been offering collaborative dance programs featuring the work of Opdendaker’s O Dance Company and Konrad’s Reach Dance Company for some time now, and this weekend at the Eissey Campus Theatre the two choreographers team again for White Hot Summer, a one-time program scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Works by Konrad and Opdenaker will be featured along with pieces by Donna Murray, Danielle Armstrong and Jeremy Coachman, and dancers in the Reach/O Dance summer intensive will take part as well. It also includes the premiere of Murray’s full-length Ballet’s Child, an exploration of the pressure young female dancers feel as they encounter the profession; the dance is accompanied by the poetry of Lani Scozzari. The program begins at 3 p.m. Sunday; advance tickets are $20, and rise to $25 at the door. For more information, visit www.reachdancecompany.com.