A Juneteenth Think Tank honors “Black Kings,” Delray hosts a classic-car extravaganza, and the Boca Museum opens four new exhibitions. Plus, Tori Amos, a “Beetlejuice” musical and more in your week ahead.
TUESDAY
What: Opening night of “Beetlejuice”
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 S.W. Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale
Cost: $33.79-$122.57
Contact: 954/462-0222, browardcenter.org
If we haven’t yet reached peak Gen-X nostalgia, this musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s cult comedy moves us one step closer up the mountain. But unlike other reboots of cherished 1980s entertainment, this ghoulish horror-comedy seems perfectly attuned to its new format: Its title character, a scheming and maniacal bio-exorcist jonesing for a good time, is tailored for the footlights. As in the film, Beetlejuice is summoned by a newly deceased couple that only in death discover a zest for life; perhaps, with the help of their crazy-haired, stripe-suited fiend, they can have some fun haunting the absent father and morose little girl now inhabiting their former home. Joining, of course, the Jamaican classic “Day-O” is a slate of fresh songs from Australian musical comedian Eddie Perfect, and a script that updates the 1988 original with a flurry of contemporary pop-culture references. Its Broadway tour arrives just months after its January closure in New York, a run that earned eight Tony nominations. It runs here through June 25.
WEDNESDAY
What: Opening day of “Benn Mitchell Photographs”
When: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Where: Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
Cost: $12-$16 museum admission
Contact: 561/392-2500, bocamuseum.org
Gifted with an eye for composition and detail from the time he could hold a camera, Benn Mitchell sold his first photograph to Life magazine, in 1926, at the ripe age of 16. A year later, Warner Brothers granted him permission to shoot around Hollywood sets and sound stages, where his iconic “Humphrey Bogart” image captures the legend between takes, looking archetypally Bogartian while taking a drag off a cigarette. But Mitchell is perhaps most notable for his candid street images of quintessential New York City—its architecture, its bustle, its kinetic denizens. Mitchell’s oeuvre offers something like the visual equivalent of Damon Runyan’s prose: punchy black-and-white visions of art, commerce and nightlife, snapped in the right place at the right time. It runs through Oct. 22, alongside three other new exhibitions: “Sri Prabha: Resonator—Reanimator,” “Sari Dienes: Incidental Nature,” and “Matthew Schreiber: Orders of Light.”
FRIDAY
What: Opening night of “Wes Anderson Week”
When: Show times vary
Where: Cinema Paradiso, 2008 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
Cost: $10 per movie
Contact: 954/342-9137, fliff.com
As anticipation continues to build for Wes Anderson’s latest film “Asteroid City”—a star-studded UFO-themed movie, so it seems, set at a Junior Stargazer convention in a fictional American desert town circa 1955—Cinema Paradiso is priming our Anderson pump with theatrical re-releases of most of the great director’s eccentric oeuvre. (“Moonrise Kingdom,” one of his best, is conspicuously missing.) Start your Anderson binge on Friday with the Indian road movie “Darjeeling Limited” (3 p.m.); his breakthrough romantic comedy set in the world of youth academia, “Rushmore” (5 p.m.); and “Isle of Dogs,” his whimsical animated adventure (7 p.m.). Additional screenings of these titles, plus “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “French Dispatch,” “Life Aquatic,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” continue though June 22; “Asteroid City” opens June 23.
SATURDAY
What: Concours d’Elegance
When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Old School Square Great Lawn, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: Free
Contact: 561/927-8605, delrayconcours.com
Boca Raton has long enjoyed its own Concours d’Elegance, a winter showcase of, and competition for, lovingly preserved vintage automobiles. If Boca’s version is haute, Delray’s Concours is hot, and decidedly more laid-back. Launched last year by Max Zengage—a automobile buff, Delray native and FAU graduate who became the youngest member of the city’s Public Art Advisory Board in 2021—the second-annual event is described as a “classic car garden party with a Delray flair.” More than 100 cars and motorcycles dating earlier than 1975 will be on display, vying for the gold in more than 15 judged classes, including American Prewar (and Postwar), Italian Best in Show, Porsche Best in Show and the possibly dubious “What Were They Thinking?” award. Four handpicked judges arrive with expertise from organizations such as Ford Motors, the Rolls-Royce Owners Association and Ferrari. There will be live music and vendors throughout the day, and the event will benefit five local nonprofits.
What: Tori Amos
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
Cost: $39-$149
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
Any tour by this reigning lioness of adult-alternative music is a big deal, but we music-hungry South Floridians have extra-special reasons to be pumped for this one. After all, Amos hasn’t performed in the Sunshine State nine years, and this appearance, in support of her 2021 release Ocean to Ocean, will be the first show in a nationwide jaunt through the United States that lives up to its title’s name. A child piano prodigy at the age of 5, Amos was the youngest person to ever be admitted to the esteemed Peabody Institute conservatory in Maryland, only to be forced out at age 11 due to “musical insubordination”—effectively establishing her punk cred even as a prepubescent. Amos emerged as one of the leading women in rock with her instant-classic 1992 debut LP Little Earthquakes. Fifteen diverse and musically sophisticated releases have followed, wedding the rigor of classical training with socially conscious lyrics; the songs on Ocean to Ocean, for instance, were inspired by life during the COVID lockdowns and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
SUNDAY
Juneteenth Think Tank
When: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Pompey Park, 1101 N.W. Second St., Delray Beach
Cost: Free
Contact: 561/243-7356
Following the racial-justice protests of 2020 and the recognition of Juneteenth as a federal holiday a year later, this celebration acknowledging the date, in 1865, when the last of America’s slaves were freed, has grown in national relevance. Last year’s inaugural Juneteenth Think Tank, spearheaded by Kenya Madison of Healthier Delray, recognized the increasing importance of the holiday, and this year’s second-annual gathering will continue to provide both learning opportunities and cultural celebrations. In partnership with up to 30 community organizations, including the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, the Think Tank will fall on Father’s Day, aka Juneteenth Eve, and will be centered on a theme of Black Kings. In addition to live entertainment, food and vendors, “we’re looking at organizing with male leaders in our community, as we talk about fathers and father figures, and what does leadership look like in 2023 and for the foreseeable future,” Madison says. “We’ll have different pillars or anchor areas for our community engagement and conversations. … There will be deep intention embedded for the day.”
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