Thousands of pumpkins fill Mizner Park Amphitheater, the Wick hosts a “Fantastick” season opener, and “Rocky Horror” turns 50. Plus, “Whose Line?” alums live and more in your week ahead.
THURSDAY
What: Opening night of “The Fantasticks”
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Wick Theatre, 7901 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton
Cost: $119
Contact: 561/995-2333, thewick.org
To suggest that “The Fantasticks”has a lengthy shelf life in the American theatre is an understatement. The musical premiered off-Broadway in 1960 as a minimalist romance whose thrifty $900 set design included a cardboard moon. It closed, to the continued surprise of its humbled creators, 42 years later, after a record-breaking 17,162 performances. Its songs have become canonized classics (especially “Try to Remember”), and its story is both timeless and idiosyncratic: Scheming fathers, living in neighboring country houses, conspire to match up their children. Their plot involves hiring a charismatic villain to abduct the girl, leaving the boy to foil the kidnapping, save the damsel, and win her heart, but complications ensue. Experience this austere marvel anew as the Wick’s 2025-2026 season opener. It runs through Nov. 2.
FRIDAY
What: Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood: “Asking For Trouble”
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Coral Springs Center for the Arts, 2855 Coral Springs Drive, Coral Springs
Cost: $44.25-$76.35
Contact: 954/344-5990, thecentercs.com
Critics used to say about Miles Davis that the great trumpeter shared a telepathic link with his bandmates—that their connection was so fluid and anticipatory that these improvising artists must have been connected on an extrasensory level. The same might be said of Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood, improvisers of a more comedic sort, whose talents, whether on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” or their longtime performances as a twosome, exhibit a Vulcan capacity for mind-to-mind communication. For 22 years, these improv giants have been sharing stages together, performing elaborate sketches based on audience inputs, and usually dressed in all black—the better to disappear into a variety of unexpected situations night after night. The comedy they create together is so inspired that they’re often accused of stealth scriptwriting before the show, to which Mochrie denied in a recent interview, stating, “it’s so much easier to make up crap than to sit down and write it.”
SATURDAY
What: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” 50th Anniversary Spectacular
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
Cost: $45.43-$309.93
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is the ultimate sleeper hit in movie history. To wit, the transgressive musical comedy holds the record for the longest-running theatrical release in all of cinema; it’s still screening, in mostly midnight showings, 50 years after its premiere. But if you only make one “Rocky Horror” event in 2025, this should be it. The anniversary tour features live appearances from three of its actors—Barry Bostwick, who played Brad Majors (pictured); Nell Campbell, the original Columbia; and Patricia Quinn, aka Magenta—who will host this multimedia celebration. With the film running behind them, a shadow cast will perform the movie’s action and lip-sync its dialogue live onstage. The audience is invited to interact with the movie and, yes, even throw stuff at the screen (props and directions will be provided by the venue). And finally, fans are invited to compete in a costume contest and enjoy a memorabilia display in the lobby.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY
What: Ford Boca Pumpkin Patch Festival
When: Three timed sessions: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, 4 to 9 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
Cost: $32
Contact: bocapumpkinpatch.com
Nothing says fall like the influx of pumpkins in markets, on lawns and decorating window displays. To that end, the seasonal squash plant also will be center stage in the City of Boca Raton’s largest attraction this weekend, as the Mizner Park Amphitheater transforms into a pumpkin patch. In addition to the opportunity to decorate pumpkins into edible works of art, kids can enjoy a cornstalk maze, carnival rides and the Scarecrow Dress-Up Village. You can also enjoy autumnal backdrops for great family photos, and choose from more than 2,500 pumpkins to take home. Sweet and savory pumpkin entrees can be purchased at a specialty food court, and guests 21 and up can imbibe at the Pumpkin Beer Bar.
SUNDAY
What: Frank Vignola and Vinny Raniolo
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Arts Garage, 94 N.E. Second Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: $45-$50
Contact: 561/450-6357, artsgarage.org
One of the leading lights of contemporary jazz guitar, Frank Vignola has been helping to expand the definition of the style for more than 45 years. Growing up on Long Island surrounded by string music—he’s the son of an accomplished banjoist—Vignola has mastered the work of artists as varied as George Gershwin and gypsy-jazz pioneer Django Reinhardt. Imbued with a transportive, dulcet tone honed through decades of still-daily practice, his oeuvre includes 30 releases as a leader and countless others as a sideman, including for Leon Redbone and Donald Fagen; he’s also played with Madonna and Ringo Starr, and he has been a generous teacher of his art, penning 18 instructional books and recording a myriad of lesson videos on YouTube. For this gig, the lead-guitar giant will be accompanied by his rhythm-guitar protégé Raniolo, whose two albums together tackle everything from Mozart to bossa nova to Roberta Flack to standards from the American Songbook.
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