Art: Just installed at the Florida Atlantic University Galleries is the third iteration of SouthXeast: Contemporary Southeastern Art, a triennial show of works by artists from Southeastern states. This year’s exhibit, chosen from among more than 200 artists by curators and gallery owners from throughout the Southeast, features the work of more than 13 artists from seven states.
Four artists are from Georgia, three from Florida, and two from Tennessee, and one each come from Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Mississippi. It’s an interesting sample of work, and some of it reflects often-explored Southern themes. But what’s most notable about the images supplied to the press are their variety, from wooden installations to oil panels, audio CDs to stoneware.
The exhibit is being show in two of the galleries on the FAU campus in Boca Raton; it runs through March 5 at the Ritter Art Gallery, and through April 9 at the Schmidt Gallery, where it opens Saturday. Admission is free; the galleries are open from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Call 297-2661 or visit www.fau.edu/galleries for more information.
Film: For those of you who recall fondly 1979’s Norma Rae, the union organizing movie that brought Sally Field her first Oscar, it is bound to spring to mind when viewing the lighter-toned, but equally earnest Made in Dagenham. Playing at the Mos’Art Theatre this week, it chronicles the effort of a similar group of labor underdogs, woman machinists at the Ford Motor factory in England in the 1960s. Sally Hawkins (an Oscar nominee last year for Happy-Go-Lucky) stars as the new shop steward who leads a protest when it is learned that the women are doing the same work, but for a lot less play. Director Nigel Cole (Calendar Girls) steers the movie with relative restraint, towards a conclusion that is genuinely uplifting. – H. Erstein
Theater: For the fifth straight year, Florida Stage is trawling publicly for plays to produce, by giving seven untested scripts a hearing in its 1st Stage New Works Festival. Of those seven plays seeking slots in the West Palm Beach company’s mainstage line-up in future seasons, most come from playwrights whose work has been seen previously at Florida Stage. For example, still to come this weekend are readings by Carter W. Lewis (Storytelling Ability of a Boy), Andrew Rosendorf (Cane) and Israel Horvitz (Sins of the Mother). The new Horovitz play, Beverley, to be read Saturday evening at 8 p.m., features two-time Tony Award winner Frances Sternhagen in its cast. Call (561) 585-3433 for information or to purchase tickets. – H. Erstein
Music: Leonard Bernstein wrote two operas (three if you count Candide), and they’re both about the same suburban family. Trouble in Tahiti, which premiered at Brandeis in 1952, is the story of the unhappy marriage of Sam and Dinah, and its sequel, A Quiet Place (1983) takes up the story 30 years later, with family complications. Saturday night, Palm Beach Opera presents its second Opera in One Hour presentations with Trouble in Tahiti, a marvelous little opera with a wonderful set piece for Dinah, a mezzo role, and catchy tunes amid all the then-fashionable angularity of the rest of the score. Brandy Lynn Hawkins sings Dinah to guest baritone Michael Mayes’s Sam, while the three-member chorus includes Greta Ball, R. Kenneth Stavert and Evanivaldo Correa. Admission is free to the show, which bows at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Harriet Himmel Theater in CityPlace. Call 833-7888 or visit www.pbopera.org for more information.
The violinist Gareth Johnson has fashioned a high profile for himself locally, and he’s been busy raising it in other places nationwide, performing with the Seattle, Detroit, St. Louis and other orchestras. Now 25, the Wellington man is working on his career after finishing master’s studies last year at Lynn University. On Sunday, he’ll appear with Lynn pianist Tao Lin in a program of violin showpieces in the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church music series. On the bill are the Zigeunerweisen and Zapateado of Sarasate, Ravel’s Tzigane, Chausson’s Poeme, and Massenet’s Meditation (from his opera Thais). The concert begins at 3 p.m. at the church on Swinton Avenue off downtown Delray Beach. Tickets are $15-$18; call 278-6003 for more information or visit www.stpaulsdelray.org.
The tenor saxophonist Harry Allen is one of the most highly regarded jazz musicians today, a veteran composer and performer who has about 30 recordings to his credit and plenty of praise from his peers (including guitarist John Pizzarelli, who arrives in town next week for a series of gigs with the Palm Beach Pops). On Monday, Allen and his quartet play the Four Seasons Resort on Palm Beach as part of the Jazz Arts Music Society’s new Living Room Series.
Allen’s work has often been compared to that of Stan Getz and Lester Young, and there’s something about his fat, velvety sound when he plays a ballad that recalls the best lyrical players of the past. Allen takes the stage at 8 p.m. Monday at the resort (2800 S. Ocean Blvd.). Tickets are $35, $25 for JAMS members. Call 877-722-2820 to order tickets.