Art: Today marks the last day of the Florida Atlantic University’s exhibit on the history of surfing in Florida (here’s a YouTube promo).
The University Galleries won a grant of almost $17,000 in late 2009 to research and mount the exhibit, which has been on display since March 17, and will head to Pensacola Museum of Art this summer. The show, Surfing Florida: A Photographic History, includes more than 50 photographs, a collection of historic surfboards, and contributions from hundreds of Florida surfers statewide.
The exhibit’s final day, which opens at 2 p.m. and closes at 8 p.m. at the Schmidt Center Gallery, will include slide shows with photographers John Tate and Nicholas Lugo, a history of surf music with James Cunningham, and free raffles all day, plus a cash bar (here’s another YouTube promo).
This is a unique, totally Florida exhibit, one that can best be appreciated by residents of the Sunshine State, and it will be an eye-opener for folks who don’t realize how long a history surfing has hereabouts. For more information, call 297-2966 or visit www.fau.edu/galleries.
Theater: The always welcome Laura Turnbull stars in Actors’ Playhouse’s regional premiere of Becky’s New Car by the eclectic Steven Dietz (More Fun Than Bowling, Lonely Planet, Yankee Tavern). She plays a housewife, mother and employee of a car dealership, living a pretty good life, but lately finds herself wondering what more exists for her beyond the usual boundaries of her world. Then, when a grief-stricken millionaire comes into the dealership and mistakes her for a widow, she does nothing to correct him and begins living a double life. Like most of Dietz’s plays, Becky’s New Car is picking up numerous productions around the country, far from New York. Continuing at 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables, through June 3. Call (305) 444-9293 for tickets.
Film: Commercial movies continue to be aimed squarely at teenagers, especially in the summer months, which is what makes The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel such a surprising anomaly. The title hotel, you see, has a clientele of seniors, specifically a handful of elderly Brits who have uprooted themselves and moved to Jaipur, India, where they find their new residence to be a dilapidated pipe dream of its proprietor (Dev Patel of Slumdog Millionaire). Elevating this charming, if decidedly predictable tale about living life to the fullest is such cinematic royalty as Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Bill Nighy — to name just the most prominent cast members. The other star, of course, is India itself, with its sensory overload of sights, colors, crowds and culture. Opening this weekend at area theaters.
Music: The country trio known as Lady Antebellum has had an enormous amount of success in its relatively brief career since its founding in Nashville in 2006. Last month, they won the Best Vocal Group award at the Academy of Country Music, and tonight they’re appearing at the Cruzan Amphitheatre as a stop on their Own the Night World Tour. Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish also appears, as does Thompson Square. The show starts at 7, and tickets range from $29.25 to $54. Visit livenation.com or www.ticketmaster.com for details.
Pianist Robert Prester returns to the Steinway Gallery in Boca Raton on Sunday for a concert of pieces including a movement from his own piano sonata. Works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Prokofiev also are on the program for the concert, which starts at 5 p.m. Tickets are $20; he’ll play a similar program, though this time with the whole sonata, at the First Unitarian Church of the Palm Beaches in North Palm Beach on May 18. That concert starts at 8 p.m., and tickets also are $20. Call the Steinway Gallery at 982-8887 for more information.