Theater: J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is one of the best known, most enduring stories ever written. So much so that there are numerous adaptations — like Peter and the Starcatcher, Finding Neverland and the soon-to-be-released movie Pan — that draw on our collective awareness of the boy who never grew up. Tonight, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre presents Peter Pan Jr., a live stage version of the Disney animated take on the tale, starring third-to-fifth graders enrolled in the company’s youth conservatory. And if the show leaves you wanting to see more, Boca Raton’s Wick Theatre obliges next month with the Jule Styne/Betty Comden/Adolph Green musical, with flying by ZFX. For now, call the Maltz for this weekend’s show, 561-743-2666.
Film: British director Ken Loach has spent his life making political films of the history of his nation, but infused with such humanity that the message does not stick out. That is certainly the case with Jimmy’s Hall, Loach’s 24th feature, a dramatization of real-life community organizer James Gralton (Barry Ward) in the Ireland of the 1930s. After being deported once, he returns home and opens a recreation hall for the arts and for dances, all seen as a threat by the Catholic Church leaders. Of course what the church should really worry about is how the hall becomes a center for political activism. Jimmy’s Hall opens this week at the Living Room Theatres on the FAU campus in Boca Raton.
Music: The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival closes its summer season this weekend with a typically eclectic mix that ends in unusual fashion with a nonet for strings and winds by the mid-19th century French composer Louise Farrenc. She was a very fine composer, and in recent years she’s begun to get more attention (especially here in South Florida, where her music has been featured on several programs of the Chameleon series in Fort Lauderdale). And her story is not one of prejudice or neglect: Her husband, a flutist, founding a publishing house that promoted her works, and she was a legendary teacher at the Paris Conservatoire for 30 years. She was a well-known composer in her day, but like many other good composers of her time her music languished until our day, when changing social mores and new technology make it much easier to reintroduce ourselves to composers of the past. So head on up to the Eissey Campus Theatre tonight or the Crest Theatre tomorrow afternoon and find out what all the fuss was about when her nonet was premiered in 1850.