Weekend arts picks: Jan. 1-3, 2010

Art: If you haven’t bought your 2010 calendar yet, consider buying one that supports local artists. Twelve local artists bared all to artist/photographer Durga Garcia in her first annual Palm Beach Artists Uncovered calendar.

The artists, who range in age from their mid-30s to mid-80s, are all members of the Clay Glass Metal Stone Gallery in downtown Lake Worth. Proceeds from calendar sales will be donated to the nonprofit Flamingo Clay Studio, to provide affordable studio and gallery space to Palm Beach County artists working in 3D. Each artist is shown with his or her work, and include Joyce Brown, Amelia Costa and husband John McCoy, MaryEllen Dohrs, Norman Gitzen, Sheri Goldstein, Karyl Karpinos, Sara Lerner, Linda and Kelly Manganaro, Patricia Peters, Tracy Rosof-Petersen, Sally Siegel and Betty Wilson. A rear-view photo of photographer Durga Garcia appears on the back page in a depiction of an artist photographing an artist.

The calendars sell for $19.95 and are available at Clay Glass Metal Stone Gallery at 605 Lake Avenue in downtown Lake Worth; the Craft Gallery at 5911 S. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach; Studio 205 at 600 Lake Ave. in Lake Worth; and on Amazon.com. For more information on the calendars, call Joyce at (215) 205-9441. –– K. Deits

Film: Has Invictus gotten you interested in learning more about South Africa at the end of the apartheid era? Then head to either Lake Worth’s Emerging Cinemas or Lake Park’s Mos’Art Theatre this weekend and see Endgame, director Pete Travis’ (Vantage Point) look back at the late ’80s, when the white rule of P.W. Botha was losing its grasp and the African National Congress proclaimed itself ready to take up arms against the racial discrimination that had been national policy. William Hurt heads an impressive cast that includes Chiwetel Ejiofer, Mark Strong, and Johnny Lee Miller. Playing through next Thursday.
　

Theater: In 2008, Lincoln Center Theater staged the first Broadway revival of 1949’s South Pacific, the Rodgers and Hammerstein adaptation of James Michener’s World War II-era Tales of the South Pacific, and reminded audiences of what the musical theater could be. In the intervening half-century, most of the lush, melodic songs have become pop standards and, thanks to the vigorous direction by Bartlett Sher (Light in the Piazza), the problematic script gained new dramatic power. Although not as expansive as it is in New York at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, the national tour is garnering rave reviews as it travels the country. At the Kravis Center, Tuesday through Sunday. Call (561) 832-7469 or (800) 572-8471.

Since Clive Cholerton took over as artistic director at the Caldwell Theatre, he has emphasized drama over comedy, with such winners as The Whipping Man and The Voysey Inheritance. Now, however, he gives himself over to his silly side, with the East Coast premiere of Lauren Wilson’s send-up of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde saga, Chemical Imbalance. And again, like a Pied Piper, he has attracted some of South Florida’s best actors to cavort on the Boca Raton stage. Tom Wahl takes on the central roles of good and evil, aided by John Felix, Laura Turnbull, Amy Elane Anderson, Wynn Harmon, Angie Radosh and Erin Joy Schmidt. Couldn’t you use a few laughs about now? Previews begin Sunday, prior to opening Friday, Jan. 8. Call (561) 241-7432 or (877) 245-7432. — H. Erstein

Prosit Neujahr!

Music: If you have to have your New Year’s fix in old-fashioned Viennese style, you’ve got two chances, beginning tonight at the Kravis Center with the Strauss Symphony Orchestra of America and Saturday night in downtown Miami, when the Strauss orchestra plays the Arsht Center. Expect a Viennese-style concert in Willi Boskovsky style, with plenty of music by the Strauss family, particularly Johann II, a corps of Ukrainian dancers and two singers: Soprano Ute Ziemer and tenor Thorstein Arbjornsson; Klaus Arp conducts. While this tradition is perhaps best known to us through PBS broadcasts and entertainers such as Andre Rieu, the music is canonical light music: Dance music originally for mass entertainment, yes, but masterfully composed and in the case of Johann II, it is music of exceptional melodic power. 8 p.m. today, Kravis Center. Tickets: $25-$100. 8 p.m. Saturday, Knight Concert Hall, Miami. Tickets: $45-$95. Call 832-7469 (Kravis) or 305-949-6722.

Meanwhile, the second concert of the season for the Delray String Quartet gets under way Saturday night in Fort Lauderdale, and features a work by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Brazil’s most eminent classical composer. Delray cellist Claudio Jaffe will discuss the Villa-Lobos Fifth Quartet (titled El Popular, from 1931) in a lecture before the concert; Jaffe’s family knew Villa-Lobos and his musician father took part in the premieres of a couple of the composer’s works. Also on the program are the lone String Quartet of Maurice Ravel (in F), one of the greatest works of French chamber music, and the quartet version of Franz Schubert’s early Overture (in C minor, D. 8a), originally for string quintet. 8 p.m. Saturday, All Saints Episcopal Church, Fort Lauderdale; 4 p.m. Sunday, Colony Hotel, Delray Beach; 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 8, St. Thomas Episcopal, Coral Gables. Tickets in Fort Lauderdale and Coral Gables: $20. Tickets in Delray Beach: $35. Call 213-4138 or visit www.delraystringquartet.com.

One of the more familiar voices on public radio stations is that of Charles Wadsworth, a pianist whose avuncular style as the host of chamber music at the annual Spoleto Festival USA gatherings in Charleston, S.C., has made him something of a legend. Wadsworth appears Sunday in concert at the Kravis Center, joined by five musicians including the exceptional violinist Chee-Yun and soprano Courtenay Budd (flutist Angela Jones-Reus, cellist Edward Arron and pianist Jeewon Park round out the list). On the program are pieces by Brahms (part of the Third Violin Sonata), Carl Maria von Weber (the beautiful trio in G minor for piano, flute and cello, Op. 63), and songs by Wadsworth himself. 2 p.m. Tickets: $15-$65. Call 832-7469 or visit www. kravis.org.