Music: Things might be a little soggy out there thanks to Tropical Storm Bonnie, but as of this writing, the Vans Warped Tour, 2010 edition, is set to hit the Cruzan Amphitheatre on Saturday for a day of bands and extreme sports. The skateboard company Vans, which launched this festival in 1995, welcomes 72 bands to this year’s tour, one of them being West Palm’s own Hey Monday. Lead singer Cassadee Pope, who’s just 20, has one of those big, powerful, keening female pop voices that seem so prevalent nowadays, and the band has built a steady fan base since forming out of Wellington High two years ago. The music starts at 12 p.m. Tickets are $31.93 and are available through Live Nation.
Or if your taste runs more to musical parody, you can catch Weird Al Yankovic on Saturday night at the Mizner Park Amphitheatre in Boca Raton. Yankovic has a had a successful career in a niche that’s very hard to sustain past initial novelty, and much of the credit for his longevity has to go to Yankovic’s basic musicianship and respect for the sources of his work. The concert starts at 8 p.m. Tickets range from $26.50-$46.50, and are available through Ticketmaster.
Art: Haitian artist Philippe Dodard will be appearing Wednesday night as part of a new summer lecture series down at the Frost Art Museum on the campus of Florida International University in Miami. Dodard, born in 1954, studied in his native country and in France, and produces colorful, intense work – paintings, drawings and sculpture — that he sees as spiritual reflections on the Caribbean and the African diaspora. Dodard will speak about his work during the lecture, which begins at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 305-348-2890 or visit thefrost.fiu.edu.
Film: Car chase and secret agent fans can wallow in the silliness of Salt — the movie, not the condiment — but if you want something smart about real people, try The Kids Are All Right, a family comedy that is genuinely funny without being jokey. It concerns a lesbian couple (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) and their two well-adjusted teenage offspring, who have grown curious about the guy who donated the sperm that helped them come into the world. They probably should have left well enough alone, but meeting their biological dad, a footloose L.A. restaurateur (Mark Ruffalo) tests the family in unexpected ways.
Director/co-writer Lisa Choledenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon) gets some terrific performances from her cast, particularly Bening as the mom who is wound up too tight. In area theaters today. – H. Erstein
Theater: The official opening was postponed a week because of technical difficulties — A playing card malfunction — so Palm Beach Dramaworks unveils its summer production, D.L. Coburn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy, The Gin Game, this weekend. This tale of two seniors who meet, spar and come to an understanding over a gin rummy grudge match at a seedy old age home never really deserved the Pulitzer, but it does have two terrific, juicy acting roles. There is every reason to believe area veterans Peter Haig and Barbara Bradshaw will devour them handily, under J. Barry Lewis’s direction. As long as the technical difficulties do not get in the way. Continuing through Aug. 15. Call (561) 514-4042 for tickets. – H. Erstein