Art: Allons, enfants, to the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach on Saturday for a celebration of all things French (for Bastille Day, which is today). Beginning at noon Saturday and running until 5 p.m., the free festival offers French-language instruction from Natacha Koblova of the Multilingual Language and Cultural Society, classic French film (The Red Balloon), music by Les Nuages, a local gypsy-jazz band featuring singer Gail Darling, and of course, French art, which the Norton has a good deal of. Docents will lead visitors on tours of those works throughout the day, and there will be a curatorial discussion of the current exhibit, French Connections: Photography, which features works by Eugène Atget, among others. It sounds like a wonderful afternoon’s immersion in Gallic culture — and no, they haven’t forgotten the food. Crêpes and baguette sandwiches will be on sale all day. Vive la France!
Theater: Wandering off the familiar path, Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare by the Sea selection this summer is his early, but infrequently performed Love’s Labour’s Lost, about a king’s decree that his male cronies abstain from all contact with women for three years. As rom-com impediments go, such defiance of the laws of nature is unlikely to last long. Nor does the play, whittled down by director Trent Stephens to two hours, and relocated to the romantic isle of Capri. Stephen Hedger and Kelly Lee Hussey are standouts in the cast, witty verbal sparrers not unlike Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. Also attracting attention is Zack Myers as a Spanish language-mangling broad comic, a role the actor bases on Antonio Banderas. Through Sunday at the Seabreeze Amphitheatre in Carlin Park, Jupiter. Free, with a suggested $5 donation.
Film: If you are going to get lost in Paris, it might as well be with Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel, a couple of physical comedians who have collaborated on a giddy romp called Lost in Paris. She a gawky, bespectacled redhead who may remind you of Carol Burnett and he is her lanky, rubber-limbed foil. Here she plays a character named Fiona, newly arrived in Paris for the first time to reunite with her adventuresome Aunt Martha (the late, great Emmanuelle Riva). But Martha has gone missing, so Fiona combs the city for her, often landing in the Seine. Fortunately, she attracts the attention of Dom, a homeless homme willing to join the search. Much of Lost in Paris is in French, but most of the humor is non-verbal, in the universal language of comedy. Opening this weekend at the Living Room Theater in Boca Raton.
Music: The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival hews to its standard of unusual repertoire with the second concert in its summer season, starting tonight in West Palm Beach and continuing Saturday night in North Palm Beach and Sunday afternoon in Delray Beach. The big work on the program is a dectet for string quintet and wind quintet by the French master Jean Françaix, a brilliant piece that has all of the composer’s delightful wit and his mastery of tone color. Another Frenchman, the early 19th-century bassoonist Francois-René Gebauer, contributes a trio for bassoon, violin and cello, and Britain’s Gordon Jacob is represented by a trio for oboe, clarinet and bassoon. And then there is another delightful rarity: Schubert songs as arranged for violin and viola by C.G. Wolff. It’s a delicious and intriguing way to spend a hot summer afternoon or evening. Call 547-1070, visit pbcmf.org, or pay $25 at the door.