Music: It’s been a remarkably un-rainy SunFest down on the waterfront in West Palm Beach, and as the five-day music extravaganza winds down this weekend, the word has been good about the quality of the musicmaking. Still to come tonight are breakout bands such as Hozier and Dreamers, with the Pixies, Fall Out Boy, and for the old boomers in the crowd, Boston. Check out the lineup at SunFest.com, or head to West Palm Beach and aim for the water.
Film: You realize that the vast majority of moviegoers are lined up to see Avengers: Age of Ultron this weekend. Which is exactly why smart lovers of film will be seeking out an alternative, like Adult Beginners, a deft independent dramatic comedy about grown siblings (Nick Kroll, Rose Byrne) who reunite after years of drifting apart. Jake is a hard-luck entrepreneur who loses his investors’ money, and his own, on his latest bad idea, so he has to move out of New York to the suburbs, in with his married sister Justine, her husband Danny (Bobby Cannavale) and their 3-year-old kid. You see, Jake needs lodgings and refuge and they need a babysitter, a job for which he is completely ill-equipped. Yes, they all learn from the experience and grow closer, but director Ross Katz delivers the somewhat predictable tale with an assured, light touch. At the Living Room Theater in Boca Raton.
Theater: I have never been the son of a French king, but I have long had the feeling that I could do extraordinary things if I could figure out what I could be extraordinary at. So no wonder I identified with Pippin, ever since I saw the Stephen Schwartz-Roger O. Hirson musical in 1972, brilliantly elevated by Bob Fosse’s direction and choreography, as well as Tony Walton’s exceedingly clever scenic design. So I definitely had my doubts about Diane Paulus’s plan to revive the show and transform it by setting it inside a circus tent, with the Leading Player and his enigmatic gang turned into a ringmaster and circus act performers. But I was completely won over by the new production when I saw it on Broadway in 2012 and again this week at the Kravis Center. Sasha Allen has less menace than Ben Vereen, but she is otherwise quite entertaining and you have to see Adrienne Barbeau as Pippin’s mother, singing “No Time at All,” hanging upside down on a trapeze high above the Kravis stage. At Dreyfoos Hall through Sunday.
Dance: The dance community here in Palm Beach County is surprisingly robust, considering that its biggest company, Ballet Florida, has come and gone. This weekend, Boca Ballet Theatre shows us what that’s all about as it stages Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty with two ballet standouts: Bridgett Zehr and Nehemiah Kish. Also look for Boca Ballet students Clarissa Castaneda, a soon-to-be Juilliard student, and Sasha Lazarus as the Lilac Fairy and the Bluebird, respectively. See the show tonight at 7:30 and tomorrow at 2 p.m. at the University Theatre on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. Call 995-0709 or visit www.bocaballet.org.