Festival of the Arts opens a time-traveling program, literature meets ballet at the Kravis, and Art & Jazz honors Black History Month. Plus, They Might Be Giants and more in your week ahead.
WEDNESDAY
What: Art & Jazz on the Avenue
When: 5:30 to 9 p.m.
Where: The SET, 300 W. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: Free
Contact: 561/243-1077, downtowndelraybeach.com
As always, this beloved Downtown Delray tradition will feature live music and art-making, local vendors, and dancing and dining in the street, this time with a Black History Month spotlight. Visitors can enjoy a special activation from Blackmer’s Market, featuring Black-owned small and microbusinesses within The SET district, along with a 6 p.m. drum circle and interactive performance, with instruction, from the musical/educational group CAPE Universal. That’s on top of a stacked entertainment lineup spread across three stages. In addition to CAPE Universal’s reggae/soul set at 7 p.m. at Libby Wesley Plaza, jazz performer Mervyn Johnston will play from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. streetside, and Stage Two at Libby Wesley Plaza will feature local blues-rock staple JP Soars and his trio (6 p.m.), Southern Dance Theatre (7 p.m.) and the blues-funk act Cedrick Talton Experience (7:15 p.m.).
FRIDAY
What: Opening night of Festival of the Arts Boca
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
Cost: $30-$120
Contact: 561/757-4762, festivalboca.org
Eras will intermingle at this year’s Festival of the Arts Boca, a time-traveling playground of delight and edification. Setting a theme for the festival, “Back to the Future” will screen with live orchestral accompaniment on March 7, while the closing performance on March 9 will look back on 100 years of Boca Raton’s inauguration as a city with music from the Festival Boca Jazz Orchestra. Returning champion Doris Kearns Goodwin will speak on March 3 on the ways presidential history informs the present and future, while other highlights include Friday’s opening night performance by the Dallas Brass Quintet, playing classical and Dixieland music; an operatic revue from the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition; and a dance production featuring music from Grammy-winning flautist Nestor Torres. Visit the website for a day-by-day breakdown.
FRIDAY TO SUNDAY
What: Ballet Palm Beach: “The Great Gatsby”
When: 7 p.m. Friday, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 5 p.m. Sunday
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
Cost: $49
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
“The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s immortal novel of privilege and obsession in Jazz Age America, enjoyed a life outside the page from its very inception: A year after its 1925 publication, it was adapted for the first of many film versions, and it’s also inspired an opera, radio plays and even video games. The dance world has been especially bewitched by “Gatsby,” with numerous ballet adaptations since 2009. It’s easy to see why: The pomp and circumstance of its extravagant settings and Roaring Twenties costumes, as well as the emotional heft and weighty themes of Fitzgerald’s expansive canvas—from the slipperiness of the American Dream to the conflicts between old and new money, to its exploration of gender, race, sexuality and faith in its pivotal American decade—lend themselves to the expressive language of dance. The newest show in Ballet Palm Beach’s season at the Kravis, the company’s “Great Gatsby” offers a vision of both the dazzling surfaces of its title character’s cosseted world as well as the harsher reality underneath the façade.
SATURDAY
What: They Might Be Giants
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Parker, 707 N.E. Eighth St., Fort Lauderdale
Cost: $39-$213
Contact: 954/462-0222, browardcenter.org
It’s hard to believe They Might Be Giants’ co-founders, John Flansburgh and John Linnell, are now approaching their mid-60s, because the sound they’ve cultivated over more than 40 years is eternally youthful—it’s flush with novelty, whimsy and invention. College-sock staples at the dawn of the 1990s, on the strength of such tuneful frolics as “Ana Ng,” “Birdhouse in Your Soul” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”, TMBG’s oeuvre has remained both consistent and forward-thinking over the following four decades, whether it’s writing children’s albums that parents can enjoy; recording songs directly onto answering machines, through their multi-decade “Dial-a-Song” initiative; and embracing analog technologies in a digital age: Their latest release Book indeed includes a 144-page hardcover book, and was even released on an exclusive 8-track tape format. This appearance features two career-spanning sets and a vibrant eight-piece band with horn section.
SUNDAY
What: Opening day of “Art”
When: 2 p.m.
Where: Levis JCC Sandler Center, 21050 95th Avenue S., Boca Raton
Cost: $35-$40
Contact: 561/558-2520, levisjcc.org
Like many great works of metaphor, Yasmina Reza’s enduring play “Art” is and isn’t about a piece of art. Set in Paris, and written in French—this English translation is penned by Christopher Hampton—It charts the fallout between three longtime friends after one of them, Serge, buys an expensive abstract painting that appears as a seemingly blank white canvas. Debates rage over what constitutes art, and soon these compatriots strike at each other’s nerves, as their personal and romantic lives become fair game. “Art” helped put Reza on the map as an international playwright with a keen eye for slow-boiling domestic conflict, winning the Tony Award for Best Play upon its 1998 Broadway premiere, and ultimately being produced in 30 languages. This production, concluding the Levis JCC’s 2024-2025 theatre season, runs through March 15.
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