Film: James Cromwell, a perpetual supporting player, gets the lead role in an impressive independent film called Still Mine, about a Canadian farmer battling to keep his farm afloat just as his wife of 61 years (Geneviève Bujold) begins drifting into dementia. A capable carpenter, he decides to downsize to a new home he will build himself, but that is how he runs into the brick wall of his town’s building inspection bureaucracy. Stubbornly, he tries to fight the system, while facing the heartbreak of his wife’s mental breakdown at the same time. This all could have been terribly mawkish, but writer-director Michael McGowen renders the story with a gentle touch. Opening this weekend at the Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton and several other venues locally.
Theater: Searching for something to produce this summer that would be consistent with its high-minded mission and also make some money, Palm Beach Dramaworks has scored a direct hit with its Musical Theatre Masters series and specifically its staged reading of Man of La Mancha. So much so that it has extended the show’s run by a week, through this Sunday. Much of the credit has to go to Clive Cholerton, former artistic director of the late Caldwell Theatre Company, who put together a dream cast of area favorites and such ringers from New York as William Michals (Miguel de Cervantes/Don Quixote) and Alix Paige (Aldonza). The source material hails from the 17th century and the musical from 1965, but this celebration of idealism, no matter how deluded, retains its freshness in these cynical, dysfunctional days. Call (561) 514-4042 and offer your first born for the few remaining seats.
Music: The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival wraps its 22nd season starting tonight with music by Mozart, Stravinsky, Villa-Lobos and Dohnanyi. As usual, the festival players have brought their audiences a compelling mix of the unusual and the canonical, though this year has been perhaps a little more adventurous than previous iterations. Look for a strong performance of the Piano Quintet (in C minor, Op. 1) of Dohnanyi, a powerful, impressive debut for a fine pianist and composer whose career took him at the end of his life to Tallahassee, where he taught for 10 years at Florida State, and where he was buried after his death in 1960. Look, too, for news of the repertoire scheduled for the festival’s first-ever winter concert series, which begins Sept. 19 and 20 at Lynn University and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Lake Worth. Tonight’s concert is set for 7 at Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Persson Hall; it’s repeated at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Eissey Campus Theatre in Palm Beach Gardens, and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Crest Theatre in Delray Beach. Tickets are $25. Call 800-330-6874 or visit www.pbcmf.org.
Art: Opening tomorrow at the Boca Raton Museum of Art is a traveling exhibition featuring worth by artists with developmental disabilities. Create, which runs through Sept. 22, presents more than 100 pieces by 20 artists who have worked at three nonprofits for disabled artists. The exhibit was organized by the University of California-Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and New York’s Independent Curators International. The nonprofits — Creativity Explored, Creative Growth Art Center and the National Institute for Art and Disabilities Art Center —believe that creativity doesn’t know disabilities, and this show will offer compelling proof of that. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Standard admission is $8. Call 392-2500 or visit www.bocamuseum.org.