Yacht-rock legends float into West Palm Beach, an “AGT”-winning ventriloquist performs at Kravis, and a COVID-era thriller opens in cinemas. Plus, a French Revolution comedy and more in your week ahead.
WEDNESDAY
What: Opening night of “Step By Step”
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Actors’ Playhouse, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables
Cost: $50
Contact: 305/444-9293, actorsplayhouse.org
Travel stories—from road movies to magazine features—are often as much about the journey as the destination. So, it seems, is “Step By Step,” a girls-trip comedy from Peter Quilter, the playwright behind the stark Judy Garland fantasia “Judy.” Expect a lighter, but still emotionally resonant, mood this time around, as “Step by Step” follows three women on a two-day hike up a mountain to honor their late friend, each participant carrying an inscribed stone to place at the peak. Selfies, laughs and unexpected challenges ensue. The play has enjoyed successful runs across Europe—Norway, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, Spain and the Netherlands, to be exact—before making its United States premiere this week at regional powerhouse Actors’ Playhouse. Kareema Khouri, Elizabeth Price and Anna Lise Jensen star in the production, which opens in previews Wednesday and runs through Aug. 10.
THURSDAY
What: Opening night of “Eddington”
When: 4, 7:25 and 10:50 p.m.
Where: Cinemark Bistro Boca Raton, 3200 Airport Road, Boca Raton
Cost: $13.75
Contact: 561/395-4695, cinemark.com
Best known as the director of the back-to-back cult hits “Hereditary” (2018) and “Misommar” (2019), Ari Aster is one of horror cinema’s most notable 21st century auteurs, crafting visually arresting, nightmarish scenarios that play off such fundamental themes as grief and disintegrating relationships. His latest work, the 149-minute opus “Eddington,” centers on another theme that’s all too familiar: the fractious divisions of post-COVID America. Billed as an action comedy rather than a horror film, “Eddington” is set in a fictional New Mexico city during the restive month of May 2020, when a sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) decides to run for mayor against the town’s incumbent candidate (Pedro Pascal). Their divergent views on liberty, safety and the nature of the pandemic—forged in a media cauldron of conspiracy theories and mounting deaths—spark unrest throughout Eddington, in a disquieting mirror of many a cleaved city in the surreal COVID era. Emma Stone and Austin Butler co-star; the movie also opens Thursday at IPIC Theaters in Boca Raton and Delray Beach.
FRIDAY
What: Toto, Christopher Cross and Men at Work
When: 6:45 p.m.
Where: iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre, 601-7 Sansburys Way, West Palm Beach
Cost: $40 and up
Contact: 561/795-8883, westpalmbeachamphitheatre.com
Just about everything that’s uncool will become cool again; all it takes is a little patience. Such has been the trajectory of so-called yacht rock, the once-condescending label applied to artists such as the three acts on this feel-good summer bill, whose soft-rock melodies continue to strike an easy-listening chord with millions of listeners worldwide. These days, even the hipster set—especially the hipster set—has fallen under the spell of headliners Toto, the durable Los Angeles act known for such anthemic arena favorites as “Africa,” “Rosanna” and “Hold the Line.” The latter is an apt title: The band has been holding the line for nearly 50 years, save for a couple of short hiatuses, with founding member Steve Lukather still carrying the biggest axe. The openers are no slouches: Christopher Cross (“Ride Like the Wind,” the ubiquitous No. 1 hit “Sailing”) and Men at Work (“Down Under,” the sax-y favorite “Who Can it be Now?”) share the headliners’ peak era, as the guitar rock of the ‘70s gave way to the synth-driven sheen of the ‘80s.
What: Opening night of “The Revolutionists”
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Main Street Playhouse, 6812 Main St., Miami Lakes
Cost: $25-$30
Contact: mainstreetplayers.com
The powerful real-life women at the heart of this subversive French Revolution comedy—playwright Olympe De Gouge, assassin Charlotte Corday, cake-eating queen Marie Antoinette and enslaved-person-turned-activist Marianne Angelle—never knew each other personally. But in playwright Lauren Gunderson’s revisionist history, they are compatriots and collaborators in a resistance against the patriarchal extremism of their day. Contemporary language and winking, fourth-wall shattering asides color Gunderson’s script, leavening the seriousness of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror while simultaneously drawing parallels to present conflicts. “The Revolutionists” may play loose with the facts and the dialogue but is a deadly serious defense of artistry as a weapon against injustice. Main Street Players’ professional production, directed by Danny Nieves, runs through Aug. 3.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY
What: Darci Lynne and Friends
When: 4 and 7 p.m. Saturday, 6 p.m. Sunday
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
Cost: $37.50-$52.50
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
Golden-voiced entertainer Darci Lynne was all of 12 years old when she appeared on “America’s Got Talent” in 2017, winning the Golden Buzzer for her audition performance, in which she nailed a pitch-perfect version of “Summertime”—through the “voice” of a rabbit puppet named Petunia. Lynne would go on to win the 12th season of “AGT,” shattering the record for most votes in any finale in the show’s history, and becoming the youngest contestant to be crowned the victor. Now 20, she’s continued to grow creatively alongside her avatars, generating a renewed interest in ventriloquism among millennials and Gen Z. Though her comic timing is impeccable, Lynne’s niche in the puppetry world remains her soaring voice, whether crooning the Beatles or country, soul or opera, through such characters as Katie the yodeling cowgirl and Edna, a naughty nursing-home denizen.
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