Theater: The numbers 11-11-11 have been drummed into us for most of the past year by Palm Beach Dramaworks, and now it is here — the day the company unveils its substantially renovated new digs at Clematis and Narcissus in downtown West Palm Beach. The auditorium of the former Cuillo Centre for the Arts has been leveled and rebuilt, removing the stadium seating that so many theatergoers found precarious, and keeping the sense of intimacy that Dramaworks is known for by scaling the audience capacity down from 375 to 218. Tonight is devoted to showing off the space with an invitation-only gala, but Saturday is opening night for the first production in the Don & Ann Brown Theater — Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, his first commercial hit on Broadway about an all-American family starting life over after World War II, with secrets exposed that lead to tragic consequences. Playing through Dec. 11; tickets available by calling (561) 514-4042.
Film: At 81, Clint Eastwood still takes on epic directorial challenges, usually at least once a year, releasing them in time for Oscar consideration. If his latest effort, J. Edgar, lacks much emotional uplift, that is because it is examines the complexities and contradictions in the life of J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and never decides where he is an innovative crime fighter or a paranoid, vindictive bully. Pulling the meter towards the heroic is the casting of inherently likeable Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover, from callow upstart bureaucrat at 24 to Hoover’s death in his late 70s. And yes, as everyone seems to wonder, he does don a dress and beads at one point. Armie Hammer (The Social Network) plays Hoover’s longtime companion Clyde Tolson, but screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (Milk) is surprisingly coy and noncommittal on Hoover’s sexual orientation. Opening today at area theaters.
Music: Gordon Sumner turned 60 in October, and the singer-songwriter better known as Sting has been taking stock of his second, solo career with a new boxed set of 25 years of recordings that began with The Dream of the Blue Turtles. He’s a songwriter of exceptional, eclectic range, and today’s pop canon would be a good bit poorer without his work. He’s appearing at the Fillmore in Miami Beach on Sunday night with a stellar backup band. Tickets for the 8 p.m. show range from $60 to $147, and are available through Ticketmaster.
The Gloria Dei Cantores Choir of Orleans, Mass., based at the Church of the Transfiguration in the Cape Cod town, is a 40-voice ensemble that’s been featured on more than 30 recordings and has toured all over the world, especially in Eastern Europe and Russia. This coming Tuesday night, the choir joins the Munich Symphony for a performance of the Mozart Requiem (in D minor, K. 626), a piece forever haunted by its creator’s early death and the unfinished state he left it in. The choir will be performing the standard Sussmayr completion of the work; soloists are sopranos Valentina Fleer and Julie Cherrier; tenor Eric Barry and bass Benjamin Bloomfield. The concert also includes Schoenberg’s early Verklärte Nacht (op. 4); the conductor is Philippe Entremont. Tickets for the 8 p.m. show at the Kravis Center begin at $25. Call 832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org.