Comedy: Jay Leno left his 22-year stint at the Tonight show on Thursday night with a teary farewell in which he referenced the loss of his parents and brother, and said his work colleagues were the only family he’d ever known. It was moving and unexpected, but he’s legendary in show business for his blue-collar approach to work, and only two days after saying goodbye, he’s on the road again with a gig Saturday night at the Kravis Center. Here’s your chance to see the comedian and talk-show host in his first appearance after the end of his tenure on late-night TV and be a part of pop culture history. Leno takes the stage at 8 p.m. Saturday; tickets are $25 and up. Call 832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org.
Theater: This weekend marks your final opportunities to see Slow Burn Theatre Co.’s stunning production of Parade, the dark-toned musical collaboration of composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown and playwright Alfred Uhry, imaginatively relating the real-life story of Leo Frank, a Jewish accountant from Brooklyn who relocates to Atlanta. There he is falsely accused and convicted of molesting and killing a young employee of the pencil factory he manages. The show is precisely the unconventional material that gets Slow Burn’s director-choreographer Patrick Fitzwater’s creative juices flowing, as he demonstrates with his large, largely non-Equity cast headed by Tom Anello and Ann Marie Olson. At the West Boca Performing Arts Theater. Call (866) 811-4111 for tickets.
This is also the final weekend to catch the memorable performance by Kathy St. George as Judy Garland in The End of the Rainbow at Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables. As the title implies, this is a play with music that focuses on the legendary, tormented Garland at the end of her life, as she attempts to make yet another comeback, this is at London’s Talk of the Town. But she is convinced that she needs the courage of alcohol and pills, exactly the cocktail that would kill her the following year. The pint-sized St. George has a powerful singing voice and is a heart-breaking actress, well paired against Colin McPhillamy as her gay accompanist who — despite her many marriages — may be her only true love. ThroughSunday. Call (305) 444-9293 for tickets.
Film: Today we’ll learn whether George Clooney has a head start on next year’s Oscars race or he has stubbed his toes with The Monuments Men, the much anticipated World War II drama whose release was suddenly delayed from late December to now — usually not a good sign. He directs and stars in a tale of a military platoon assigned to rescue art masterpieces stolen by Nazi forces and to return them to their owners. The promising cast includes Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray and John Goodman.
The ultimate Holocaust documentary is the eight-hour epic Shoah, made by Claude Lanzmann in 1985. But that only scratches the surface of the film records he has of that dark chapter of the 20th century. He now releases The Last of the Unjust, which is a mere four hours, a chronicle of the Czech ghetto called Theresienstadt, where Jews were herded and contained during World War II. The center of the film are interviews with an elderly Benjamin Murmelstein, the only surviving member of the “Elder of the Jews,” a group placed in charge of the ghetto. Lanzmann’s style is consciously slow and the editing could be tighter, but the images and information this film contains you will not soon forget. Opening this weekend at the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton.
Dance: The first-ever Florida Youth Dance Gala comes to the Duncan Theatre on Saturday night at the instigation of Mauricio Cañete, the founder and director of MC Dance Productions. Cañete, a onetime member of Ballet Florida and the Houston Ballet, will gather 40 dancers in dance schools from Miami to Port St. Lucie and Fort Myers to Tampa for a dance showcase that will give the students a chance to work in a professional environment. Also scheduled to perform are Carlos Miguel Guerra and Miami City Ballet standout Jennifer Kronenberg. The gala is set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Duncan Theatre on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth. Tickets are $30 and can be had at floridayouthdancegala.com.
Music: It’s a huge weekend for music, with the British piano sensation Benjamin Grosvenor at the Four Arts (4 p.m. Sunday; 655-7226), the Symphonia Boca Raton with Grant Cooper at the Roberts Theater in west Boca (3 p.m. Sunday; 866-687-4201), the Delray String Quartet at the Colony Hotel in Delray (4 p.m. Sunday; 231-4138), and the Jeff Berlin Trio at the Miniaci Performing Arts Center in Davie (8 p.m. Saturday; 954-462-0222), among others. And then there’s JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic at the Kravis Center on Sunday and Monday, with her Buffalo Philharmonic in tow and soloists Philippe Bianconi in the Rachmaninov Third (Sunday) and clarinetist Ricardo Morales in the Mozart concerto (Monday afternoon; 832-7469). We’d take any of them, and it’s a great mix of local and international arts overcrowding local schedules. This is what season here in South Florida is all about.