Tuesday
Gloria Estefan at Gusman Concert Hall at University of Miami, 1314 Miller Drive, Coral Gables; 8 p.m.; $60 to $80; 305/284-4940 orwww.festivalmiami.com
If there were such a thing as Miami royalty, Gloria Estefan would likely have been crowned queen a long time ago. The Star Island resident is one of South Florida’s (by way of Cuba’s) most successful entertainment exports, having won seven Grammy awards and sold a staggering 100 million records worldwide. But she always remembers her roots, returning tonight to the university where she achieved her B.A. (in psychology, class of 1979) to kick off the Frost School of Music’s 30th Annual Festival Miami. The program will consist largely of standards, such as “Embraceable You” and “What a Wonderful World,” which Estefan recorded for her latest album, appropriately titled “Standards.” Her multimedia performance also will include a video portion.
Thursday
Opening night of Two One-Act Plays by Woody Allen at Lake Worth Playhouse’s Stonzek Theatre, 709 Lake Ave., Lake Worth; 8 p.m.; $15; 561/586-6410 or www.lakeworthplayhouse.org
As a director, Woody Allen’s 21st century filmography has largely abandoned his native New York for more exotic locations – for glamorous, postcard-perfect cinematography in places like London, Paris, Rome and, most recently, San Francisco. But he stayed tried and true to his Big Apple roots in a pair of one-act plays he premiered in 2003, whose locales are defined in the plays’ titles: “Riverside Drive” and “Central Park West.” In the prior, a schizophrenic ex-copywriter stalks the successful screenwriter whom he believes stole his ideas and his life; in the latter, Allen probes the infidelities and sexual voracity of a psychiatrist’s husband. Fittingly enough, these black box theater performances will take place not in the Lake Worth Playhouse’s mainstage, but on its cinema stage. The production runs through Oct. 8 only.
Friday
“Heart of the Grove” Art Walk and Sale at the Pineapple Grove district in downtown Delray Beach; 5 to 9 p.m.; $20; 561/330-3434 orwww.downtowndelraybeach.com
If you haven’t checked out downtown Delray’s thriving Pineapple Beach arts district yet, now’s the time, with eight galleries keeping their doors open tonight for this fundraiser for the Alliance of Eating Disorders. A special “passport” is required for the art walk, which runs from 5 to 7; following that event, passport holders can visit the Historic Bungalow on the grounds of the Delray Beach Historic Society for a reception, which includes dishes from Casa Di Pepe, 3rd and 3rd, MaMa’s Pizza and other local restaurants. Passports can be purchased at Artistic Artichoke Café, at 140 N.E. Second Ave.
Opening night of “Polter-Heist” at Coral Springs Center for the Arts, 2855 Coral Springs Drive; 7 p.m.; $59; 954/344-5999 or coralspringscenterforthearts.com
Last season, the Coral Springs Center for the Arts experimented with a longstanding but, these days, rarely used art form – dinner theater – and found the format so successful that it has launched a five-show dinner theater program for 2013-2014. Titled Sherlock’s Dinner Theatre, it opens with “Polter-Heist,” a paranormal comedy that looks so ludicrously over-the-top it makes “Ghostbusters” seem like a drama. As the title suggests, the theft of a ghost takes center stage in a story that features bickering innkeepers, a possessed professor, a group called the Boogeyman Outreach Organization, and a pair of crusading FBI agents named Smolder and Skullery. Sounds like zany fun best accompanied by alcohol (there’s a two-drink minimum for these productions) and nosh from Doris’ Italian Market. Oh, and these shows are interactive, so be prepared for an up-close-and-personal haunting. It runs through Nov. 3, which a special Halloween night performance.
Saturday
Stitch Rock at Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach; noon to 6 p.m.; $5; www.rockthestitch.com
Stitch Rock has arguably become as much a Delray Beach institution as the Garlic Festival and Delray Affair, and it’s managed to do so in seven short years. The annual indie craft fair and bazaar – launched before there were indie craft fairs and bazaars every other weekend – this popular gathering will feature more than 80 vendors offering handmade goods, DIY fashion accessories, funky decorative items, plush toys, natural bath and body works, vintage clothes, pinup photography and lots of vintage kitsch, from vendors such as Crafty Dork, Our Lady of Perpetual Pickles and Spazzy Wonder. It’s a great shopping enclave for unique, unexpected gifts they don’t produce in Chinese sweatshops. Arrive early: There will be free “swag bags” for the first 100 guests.
“America’s Got Talent Live” at Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach; 8 p.m.; starting at $20; 561/832-7469 or www.kravis.org
“America’s Got Talent” tends to be one of the more picked-on reality series by the cultural elite in this country, but the numbers don’t lie: It remains the No. 1 rated reality series on summer television, something that must irk fans of “So You Think You Can Dance.” It’s certainly the most bizarre and eclectic of our competition series, which lends it an unpredictability that, in live form, resembles an old-fashioned variety talent show. Performers for this tour of the eighth annual series include rapper Tone the Chiefroccas, the acrobatic KriStef Brothers, comedian Taylor Williamson, self-taught Marine Corps musician Jimmy Rose, young magician Collins Kay and, of course, the Season Eight winner, dancer and illusionist Kenichi Ebina.
Sarah Brightman at BB&T Center, 1 Panther Parkway, Sunrise; 8 p.m.; $46.25 to $272.25; 954/835-8000 or www.thebbtcenter.com
Supposedly, this soprano star is worth about $49 million – not a bad salary for a singer. Of course, Brightman is no ordinary singer. The former Mrs. Andrew Lloyd Webber arguably invented classical crossover music, collecting more than 180 gold and platinum records in 38 countries. In addition to performing in 10 languages, she is a stage and film actress, songwriter and dancer, and, having conquered the world, she has recently set her sights on the cosmos. She’s been approved to travel to the International Space Station on a three-person soyuz spacecraft in 2015.
Sunday
An Evening with C.S. Lewis at Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach; 2 and 6 p.m.; $40; 561/832-7469 or www.kravis.org
When C.S. Lewis died, the news received shamefully short shrift in the U.S. media; that’s what happens you happen to pass the same day President Kennedy met an assassin’s bullet. Prior to Nov. 22, 1963, when renal failure took his life, Lewis had become a national hero in the United Kingdom, a polymath whose talents included novelist, poet, academic, literary critic, essayist and lay theologian. He has generated much debate as a Christian apologist, and accrued countless readers young and old for his “Chronicles of Narnia” book franchise. This critically acclaimed play dramatizes a day in Lewis’ final year, during a gathering of American writers at his home near Oxford where he reveals the people and events that changed his life and formed his views. The production stars actor David Payne, an uncanny Lewis doppelganger.
