Film: At 85, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is having a very good year at the movies. First came RBG, the documentary of her personal and professional life, which could tire out a person half her age. And now, opening this weekend at area theaters, is a feature film – On the Basis of Sex – which focuses on the Brooklyn-born glass ceiling buster as she challenges the federal tax code which discriminates because of gender. Ginsburg is played by a feisty Felicity Jones (Rogue One) and her wonky tax expert hubby is Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name). See the two films in succession and you’ll begin to understand why Ginsburg has become such a role model for a young generation.
Theater: “Simply put, new work is vital to the future of theatre.” So says Palm Beach Dramaworks producing artistic director William Hayes, who is seeking scripts worthy of his mainstage season. This weekend, he launches the company’s first New Year/New Plays Festival, five readings of new works by such acclaimed writers as Michael McKeever and Carter Lewis, plus a panel discussion on regional theater’s efforts in developing scripts. Individual tickets are $15, or you can see all five readings for $50, beginning this afternoon at 3 p.m. Call 561-514-4042 for seats.
And for some reason, FAU Theatre Lab is holding its New Play Festival, the fourth annual event, this weekend as well. (Don’t these theaters ever talk with each other to avoid such conflicts?) FAU is unveiling six new scripts from such playwrights as Dan Clancy and Des Gallant. It’s $20 a reading or you can buy a festival pass for $90, beginning this evening. The number for tickets is 561-297-6124.
Music: And speaking of jammed weekends, there are no fewer than three orchestral concerts Sunday that would be worth your time. One of them is the great American conductor-less ensemble, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, which comes to Palm Beach’s Society of the Four Arts at 3 p.m. Sunday with a concert featuring the fine Spanish pianist Javier Perianes, who plays the final piano concerto (No. 27 in B-flat, K. 595) of Mozart on a program that also includes the same composer’s Symphony No. 33 (in B-flat, K. 319), the Bagatelles of Antonin Dvořák, in an arrangement by Dennis Russell Davies, and a piece by American James Matheson, Still Life, composed especially for Orpheus. Tickets are $30; call 655-7226 or visit www.fourarts.org.
At the same time at St. Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, the Symphonia offers its second concert of the season, this one emphasizing a Philadelphia connection (expect Eagles fans in the audience), with the Philadelphia Orchestra’s assistant conductor Kensho Watanabe and its concertmaster, David Kim, joining the Boca orchestra for the Violin Concerto in E major of Bach as well as Massenet’s deathless Méditation from his opera Thaïs. Also scheduled are the Third Symphony of Schubert and the Souvenir de Florence of Tchaikovsky. Tickets for the 3 p.m. concert start at $50. Visit www.thesymphonia.org or call 866-687-4201.
And if that weren’t enough, the expert Romanian conductor Cristian Macelaru takes the Kravis Center stage in West Palm Beach at 2 p.m. Sunday with the National Symphony Orchestra of Romania in music of, naturally, Enescu: his Romanian Rhapsody No. 1. Macelaru is joined by the rising star cellist Andrei Ionita for the Dvorak concerto; the concert is rounded out by Ravel’s Bolero and the suite from Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier. Tickets start at $25. Call 832-7469 or visit www,kravis.org.