Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Week Ahead: Jan. 19 to 25

TUESDAY

What: “Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage”

Where: Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 S.W. Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale

When: 8 p.m.

Cost: $30-$65

Contact: 954/462-0222, browardcenter.org

The display of Vulcan peace signs will join traditional audience applause at this one-of-a-kind combination of orchestral performance and Trekkie confab. A live symphony will perform iconic music from the “Star Trek” canon—from “The Original Series” to “Voyager” and the recent JJ Abrams reboots—while video clips spanning five decades of sci-fi innovation will beam from a 40-foot-wide screen. These include entire uncut scenes—like the famous Kirk Vs. Spock battle—as well as curated montages. With the 2015 passing of Leonard Nimoy still fresh in fans’ minds, there likely won’t be a dry eye in the house during the portion of the concert celebrating his long and prosperous life.

FRIDAY

What: Delray Stiletto Race

Where: Downtown Delray Beach, at Southeast Fourth Avenue and Atlantic Avenue

When: 6 p.m.

Cost: $25

Contact: 561/266-0003, ext. 16

Stilettos add height and glamour to the runway, but can you actually run in them? Fashionable women in Delray Beach have been answering with a resounding “yes!” for the past three years at this charity race sponsored by Vince Canning Shoes. Stiletto-wearing entrants are invited to, per the event’s website, “sprint, strut or sashay their way to the finish line” in six categories, from the women’s 75-Meter Dash to the 65-and-up “Silver Sneaker” race to “Runaway Bride,” in which runners are expected to arrive in full bridal regalia. A prize will also be given for “Most Creative Shoe.” For the brave carriers of a y chromosome, there is even a Men’s 75-Meter Dash: Guys can pick up free Stilettos at Vince Canning. It’s in a good fun for a great cause, with the $25 entry fee benefiting the Achievement Centers for Children and Families. Registration opens at 6 p.m., and the race begins at 8.

What: Opening night of “Synchronicity”

Where: Lake Worth Playhouse’s Stonzek Theater, 709 Lake Ave., Lake Worth

When: Show times pending

Cost: $6-$9

Contact: 561/296-9382, lakeworthplayhouse.org

“The future of the universe is in your hands,” asserts a character in this science-fiction indie film, but ah, isn’t it always? Director Jacob Gentry conjures noirish sci-fi touchstones of decades past—cult classics like “Blade Runner,” “Gattaca” and “Dark City”—in a spiraling narrative about a physicist dedicated to proving time travel through his wormhole experiments. Unfortunately for him, and the aforementioned universe, he receives his funding from an unscrupulous financier played by ‘80s action-movie icon Michael Ironside, and then compounds this mistake by romancing Ironside’s mistress, who knows more than she should about the mechanics of his quest. Plunging full tilt into the quantum-theory frontiers of time-travel dreamers, complete with infinite probabilities, and characters encountering alternate versions of themselves, “Synchronicity” is a retro-futuristic head trip buttressed by a vintage Moog score.

SATURDAY

What: Opening night of “DIRT”

Where: Ritter Art Gallery at FAU, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton

When: 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Cost: Free

Contact: 561/297-2661, fau.edu/galleries

A good artist often doesn’t know exactly when inspiration will strike, but he’s ready to catch the lightning in a bottle—and then display the bottle. For longtime South Florida artist and curator Onajide Shabaka, it was a 1999 trip to the iron ore-mine capital of Ely, Minnesota that spawned an artistic appreciation for a most ubiquitous—and, for most of us, un-artistic—material: dirt. Drawn to the area’s red oxide dirt, Shabaka discovered a connection to elements of the West African Yoruba religion, and voila! All these years later, he has curated an exhibition at FAU in which dirt is the medium or subject of choice for more than a dozen artists, who collectively examine its physical, spiritual and symbolic properties. Rod Faulds, FAU’s director of University Galleries, said in a release that, “Investigating how diverse cultures interpret this fundamental substance aligns with our mission here at the University Galleries, where we seek to understand differing points of view through art.” “DIRT” runs through March 5.

What: The Temptations and The Four Tops

Where: Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 S.W. Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale

When: 8 p.m.

Cost: $29.50-$79.50

Contact: 954/462-0222, browardcenter.org

See them while you still can. The Temptations have been performing music, in some lineup or another, for 55 years, and the Four Tops have been touring for 53. Collectively, along with a handful of other vocal groups, they helped define the Motown Records sound, bringing traditionally black music to audiences of all races around the world. Today, 74-year-old Otis Williams, the only living original Temptation, still performs with the group, and the octogenarian Abdul Fakir still plays with the Four Tops—both captains leading trios or quartets of pitch-perfect acolytes. Expect set lists chockfull of generation-defining tunes: “My Girl,” “Just My Imagination,” “I Can’t Help Myself,” “Baby, I Need Your Loving,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” and the list really does go on and on.

What: Opening night of “Norma”

Where: Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

When: 7 p.m.

Cost: $21–$225

Contact: 305/949-6722, fgo.org

Composer Vincenzo Bellini died at 33, but he still managed to make most of us look like slugabeds: He completed 10 operas before his early demise, and he was not averse to playing favorites among them, famously asserting that, “If I were shipwrecked at sea, I would leave all the rest of my operas and try to save ‘Norma.’” The title role, of a Druid priestess in ancient Gaul who falls tragically in love with a flighty official of the Roman occupation, requires some of the most challenging examples of bel canto—or “beautiful singing”—in the operatic canon. Maria Callas sang it more than 90 times. In Florida Grand Opera’s second production of its season, Russian soprano Mlada Khudoly will summit the vocal heights and express the emotional seesaws of this alternately vulnerable and dangerous woman, who holds a knife with aplomb and warns her unfaithful lover that, “My burning fury will engulf you like the wind and the waves.” Hell hath no fury, indeed. The opera, with its lavish historical sets and its literally fiery ending, will be produced by FGO for the first time in 26 years. It runs through Jan. 30.

What: Opening night of “It’s Only a Play”

Where: GableStage, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables

When: 8 p.m.

Cost: $57-$60 ($42 and up for future performances)

Contact: 305/445-1119, gablestage.org

With four Tony awards to his name and show credits dating to 1964, Terrence McNally knows a thing or two, or three, about theater. And he throws all of them into his manic comedy “It’s Only a Play,” which premiered in the 1980s and was rewritten in 2015 to channel the 21st century zeitgeist. It’s set in the townhome of a Broadway producer just after the opening-night performance of her new show. While a gaggle of theater luminaries party downstairs, the principle creatives—including an earnest playwright, a drug-addicted diva and a kleptomaniac director—nervously await the first reviews, which can seal the production’s fate. Along the way, they trade barbs and bon mots in a rapid-fire script chockablock with inside-theater references; artistic director Joseph Adler calls it the funniest script he’s read since “early Neil Simon.” The all-star cast includes Michael McKeever, Amy McKenna, Antonio Amadeo and Lourlene Snedeker, and the show runs through Feb. 21.

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

What: Delray Beach Festival of the Arts

Where: 1111 E. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Cost: Free

Contact: 561/746-6615, artfestival.com

Emerging and established artists alike will sell their masterpieces at this venerated, 27th-annual art fair. The juried festival offers handcrafted glass, photography, painting, mixed media, fiber, jewelry and more. The festival, which was ranked as one of the top fine art fests in the country by Sunshine Artist magazine, typically accommodates patrons of all price points. The longtime organizers, Howard Alan Events, will close down one mile of Atlantic Avenue to vehicular traffic. The festival begins at US1 East, passes over the Intracoastal, and extends to A1A along the Atlantic Ocean. Arrive before 10 for the best parking.

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John Thomason
John Thomason
As the A&E editor of bocamag.com, I offer reviews, previews, interviews, news reports and musings on all things arty and entertainment-y in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

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