Theater: Yes, I know you have seen The King and I before, but director-choreographer Marcia Milgrom Dodge has performed her alchemy again, refreshing the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein classic musical with stunning new visuals, including the second act ballet as a Thai shadow puppet extravaganza, and a terrific cast of largely Asian performers. As stunning as the design work is in this Maltz Jupiter Theatre production, the show succeeds because of Michele Ragusa as the stern British schoolmarm in over her head in Bangkok, circa 1860. She returns the show’s focus to Anna Leonowens, though Wayne Hu is quite commanding as well as the child-man king. Continuing at the Maltz through April 6. Call (561) 575-2223 for tickets and do it soon.
Film: The films of Wes Anderson (The Royal Tannenbaums, The Life Aquatic, Moonrise Kingdom) are definitely an acquired taste, usually too lightweight and precious for my taste. But while he will surely never be a mainstream filmmaker, he seems to have made a breakthrough to a wider audience with his latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel. This history of a wily concierge at a huge pink Hungarian hotel is certainly whimsical, but its shaggy dog story plot also has heart and doesn’t trip all over itself as past Anderson works have. It features his signature visual care and flair as well as an amazing cast that includes Ralph Fiennes (doing a great David Niven imitation as concierge Monsieur Gustave), Oscar winners F. Murray Abraham and Adrian Brody, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton and more. Opening wide-ish this weekend locally.
Music: One of the best-known classical musicians in the Chicago area is the violinist Rachel Barton Pine, who won a raft of prestigious prizes as a teenager, and not long afterward, in 1995, was injured in a horrific accident when she was run over by a Metra train in a Chicago suburb. The accident cost her a leg and required two years of recovery, but her career since then has been stellar, not just with appearances with the top orchestras of the world, but also in recital and a Baroque violinist with Trio Settecento, and even as a doom metal violinist with the thrash band Earthen Grave. That’s unique and remarkable, and Patrick Clifford at Palm Beach Atlantic University has scored a coup by booking her tonight for a concert on his Distinguished Artists Series at the Christian college in West Palm Beach. Tonight, she’ll play the Franck sonata, the Sonata No. 2 of Prokofiev, the Duo of Schubert, and four lullabies from her album of songs for her daughter, including music by Brahms, Ysaye, Rebecca Clarke and the shamefully neglected William Grant Still. The pianist is Matthew Hagle; the concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Persson Hall. Call 888-468-6722 or visit pba.edu for more information.
Art: All of us with a passing interest in art history will be familiar with the medieval tradition of the illustrated manuscript, in which monks toiled for years on elaborately designed books of Scripture. It was a tradition that died out with the printing press in the late 15th century, but in 1996, the St. John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minn., began creating a new handwritten, illustrated Bible. The work was carried out by 23 artists working in a Welsh scriptorium, overseen by calligrapher Donald Jackson. The completed work was a stunner, and many of its pages are on display beginning tomorrow at the Society of the Four Arts in an exhibit that runs for only a month, through April 23. Showing in tandem with it are 19 photos by Tony O’Brien taken during his residency at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, a Benedictine abbey in New Mexico. Admission is only $5, which is a pittance to pay for so much, well, illumination. For more information, visit fourarts.org, or call 655-7226.