Theater: “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anyone to realize you,” says Emily Webb in one of the more famous speeches from Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play Our Town. While current taste might find it too sentimental, Wilder’s play has never gone out of fashion, and it remains a classic of the American stage. Its story of nothing simpler than days in the life of a fictional New Hampshire small town in 1901 is still easy to relate to, and its device of the Stage Manager moving the action along still works well. Palm Beach Dramaworks opens its new season tonight with Our Town, featuring a veteran cast of well-known South Florida actors, and as George and Emily, two rising young talents, Joe Ferrarelli (making his professional debut) and Emiley Kiser. The show runs through Nov. 9 at the Don and Ann Brown Theater on Clematis Street; tickets for opening night are $77; subsequent performances are $62. Call 514-4042, ext. 2, or visit www.palmbeachdramaworks.org.
Art: Much has been made in recent months of All Aboard Florida, the proposed South Florida passenger rail service, which opponents feel certain is a sideshow to the real intent: Increasing freight from a widening of the Panama Canal. The canal has always been controversial, and starting Tuesday, the Flagler Museum opens its first exhibit of the season, Kiss of the Oceans: The Meeting of the Atlantic and the Pacific, on the 100th anniversary year of the canal’s opening. The exhibit includes documents, photographs and films related to the construction of the canal, which for better or worse changed for the good the world’s patterns of trade. The exhibit runs through Jan. 4 at Whitehall on Palm Beach. Admission to the museum is $18. Call 655-2833 or visit www.flaglermuseum.us.
Music: The Palm Beach Chamber Music Festival opens the second concert of its fall season tonight at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Lake Worth, repeats it Saturday night at the Lighthouse ArtCenter in Tequesta, and encores it Oct. 23 at the Amarnick-Goldstein concert hall on the campus of Lynn University in Boca Raton. On the program tonight are two rarities, woodwind quartets by two 20th-century composers, Arthur Berger and France’s Claude Arrieu, plus two lesser-known pieces from the Germanic canon: Beethoven’s Eyeglasses Duet for viola and cello, and Schubert’s only complete String Trio (in B-flat, D. 581). All concerts begin at 7:30 p.m., and tickets are $25. Call 800-330-6874 between 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. or visit www.pbcmf.org for tickets (also available at the door).