Pick your pumpkin, enjoy a walk among Boca Raton’s tombstones, and experience a silent-film masterpiece with a live score. Plus, rock eccentrics Cake and more in your week ahead.
WEDNESDAY
What: Historic Cemetery Walking Tour
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Boca Raton Cemetery, 451 S.W. Fourth Ave., Boca Raton
Cost: $20 BRHS members, $25 nonmembers
Contact: 561/395-6766, bocahistory.org
With Halloween fast approaching, this is the time of year when visiting a cemetery at nightfall isn’t just perfectly normal—it’s encouraged, thanks to this edifying program from the Boca Raton Historical Society. Two docent-led groups, limited to 15 people each, have the opportunity to walk amongst the tombstones of some of the city’s pioneers and discover their contributions to Boca Raton. Given that the cemetery was established in 1916—nine years before Boca’s incorporation—the stories of those interred are plentiful. Those experiencing their big sleep on these grounds include Alfred F. Beiter, a former U.S. representative from New York; Harley Gates, Boca’s first municipal judge; and George Long, the city’s first de facto mayor and postmaster. Ghost sightings, alas, are not guaranteed.
FRIDAY
What: Sounds of the Silent Screen: Metropolis
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Willow Theatre, 300 S. Military Trail, Boca Raton
Cost: $15 adults, $10 children 12 and younger
Contact: 561/347-3948, myboca.us/calendar.aspx?EID=15698
Heralded for its extraordinary sets and special effects, Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent masterpiece Metropolis was one of filmdom’s first science fiction features, and also one of the medium’s early examples of social commentary: Its plot, concerning plebian workers uniting against moneyed elites in an economically bifurcated society, has only grown more relevant with age, alongside Lang’s prophetic embrace of artificial intelligence in the form of its humanoid robot, the “maschinenmensch.” Experience Metropolis anew at the special event, in which pianist and composer Peter Tavalin, who has been specializing in live silent film accompaniment since 1979, will perform a score using a modern synthesizer to heighten the action.
FRIDAY TO SUNDAY
What: Churchill & Roosevelt: The Christmas That Saved the World
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: Delray Beach Playhouse, 950 N.W. Ninth Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: $69
Contact: 561/272-1281 ext. 5, delraybeachplayhouse.com
Actor and playwright David Payne is well-accustomed to embodying larger-than-life personalities of British culture. A budding engineer by trade, he drifted into the arts in the 1990s when he responded, on a lark, to an open audition for a play about the novelist and scholar C.S. Lewis. With no acting experience and expecting little more than a walk-on role at best, Payne got the part of Lewis, which would shape the arc of his career. He has played Lewis in more than 1,000 productions, mostly solo shows, and one thing led to another: In 2020, he debuted Churchill, another one-man play about the events in the prime minister’s life that led to his heroic decisions in World War II. In his latest production, Payne explores this pivotal period anew. Complete with cane, stogie, pinstriped suit, and bow tie, Payne reprises his wartime British P.M., with Marc Whitmore portraying President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a historic meeting at the White House weeks after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. In his script, Payne finds both humor and pathos in his rendering of the complicated discussions that led, on Christmas Eve, to the U.S.’s decision to join the war effort.
SATURDAY
What: Pumpkin Palooza
When: 2 to 5 p.m.
Where: Boca Center, 5150 Town Center Circle, Boca Raton
Cost: Free
Contact: bocacenter.com
Nothing says a fall like a teeming bounty of orange winter squashes arrayed in various shapes and sizes, and there’s no better place to select your very own than Pumpkin Palooza, an annual community gathering at Boca Center. Attendees can select from a variety of pumpkins, from tiny, palm-sized versions to those perfect for a jack-o-lantern to others so enormous they take a team to lift them. Beyond the titular attraction, the Palooza also features a pumpkin decorating station, cookie decorating, and glitter tattoos for the little ones. A flower truck will be on site with fresh blooms for sale, and the onsite Boca Raton Marriott will be serving free ice cream for attendees. Families can preserve the memory of the day at a stylish photo op station. Attendance is free, with proceeds from pumpkin sales benefiting the outreach programs of Cason United Methodist Church.
MONDAY, OCT. 26
What: Cake
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Pompano Beach Amphitheater, 1801 N.E. Sixth St., Pompano Beach
Cost: $64.26-$122.99
Contact: 561/223-7231, pompanobeacharts.org
Like such contemporaries as Beck and Tom Waits, Sacramento band Cake has transcended so many pigeonholes that it has become something of a genre unto itself. Lumped in with the alternative rock explosion of the early 1990s, Cake never really jibed with the bombast, angst, and self-seriousness of their peers, preferring an ironic, deadpan detachment in frontman John McCrea’s lyrics and lounge-singer delivery—even mocking industry excesses in the hilarious early favorite “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle.” Across six studio albums, Cake’s instrumental palette is similarly nonconformist, looking all the way to proto-country pioneers like Bob Willis and Hank Williams (“Stick Shifts and Safety Belts”) as well as to the advent of rap (“The Distance”). Furthermore, the group’s “Cake-ified” covers, from Willie Nelson’s “Sad Songs and Waltzes” to Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” and its instant-classic take on Gloria Gaynor’s disco anthem “I Will Survive,” have become crowd favorites.
For more of Boca magazine’s arts and entertainment coverage, click here.
