Reggae royalty grooves into Old School Square, The Wick takes a journey to Camelot, and an Everglades journalist revisits his findings. Plus, Palm Beach Opera’s Rigoletto and more in your week ahead.
THURSDAY
What: Michael Grunwald
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Old School Square Historic Gym, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: $28 general admission, $20 Delray Beach Historical Society members
Contact: 561/274-9578, delraybeachhistory.org
Politico journalist Michael Grunwald published his first book, The Swamp: Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise, in 2007, and in the nearly 20 years since its debut, Grunwald’s reportage has lost none of its urgency. Hailed as one of the key texts to understanding Florida’s eco-politics, The Swamp chronicles the history of the Everglades; humanity’s various, unsuccessful attempts to tame and claim it; the division of its sprawl into suburbs and sugar plantations; and attempts by locals and activists to preserve this vital Florida treasure. Grunwald will discuss the book and provide updates to its conclusions in this special Heritage Lecture from the Delray Beach Historical Society. The ticket price includes a cocktail reception and book signing, and the evening will include short mission statements from the event’s presenting partners: the Institute for Regional Conservation, Sandoway Discovery Center, Surfrider Foundation, Surfing Florida Museum, Delray Beach Children’s Garden, and the Swinton Community Growing Project.
What: Opening night of Camelot
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Wick Theatre, 7901 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton
Cost: $89-$119
Contact: 561/995-2333, thewick.org
Between the technical pageantry, the indelible characters and, foremost, the irresistible songs, Camelot continues to be one of the most enduring achievements of composer Frederick Loewe and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. Riffing on the legend of King Arthur and all of its attendant pleasures—the time-traveling musician Merlin, the chivalric Knights of the Round Table, and the love triangle among Arthur, his spouse Guinevere, and the dashing knight Lancelot—Camelot is flush with a timeless romanticism. The show’s 1960 Broadway premiere netted four Tony Awards, and actors such as Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet, and Richard Harris have donned the crowns, frocks and armor over the years. The Wick’s production is sure to be among its most lavish and enchanting shows of the season. It runs through April 12.
FRIDAY
What: Opening night of Something Rotten!
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Delray Beach Playhouse, 950 N.W. Ninth St., Delray Beach
Cost: $55
Contact: 561/272-1281, delraybeachplayhouse.com
This cheeky meta-musical by composer-lyricists Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick is among the most inspired stage comedies of the past 10 years. Predicated on the premise that competing against William Shakespeare in the wordsmithing game in Elizabethan England is a fool’s errand, Something Rotten! introduces two such fools: Nick and Nigel Bottom, who run a struggling Renaissance theatre troupe. After bitterly realizing their upcoming project, Richard II, is also being developed by Shakespeare, the brothers endeavor to create a new form of dramaturgical entertainment. Urged by Nostradamus’ nephew Thomas to create something called “a musical,” the brothers get to work inventing the form, while their antagonist Shakespeare, presented as a rock star in dazzling sequined costumes, conceives of Hamlet. But owing to Thomas Nostradamus’ botched prophecy, the Bottoms believe Shakespeare is working on a show called Omelet about a Danish pastry, not a Danish prince. So they attempt to beat their rival to the punch with a musical about breakfast. Playing with historical and cultural stereotypes, this Tony-winning show’s laughs are frequent and sizable, and include myriad riffs on classic musicals. It runs through April 12.
FRIDAY TO SUNDAY
What: Palm Beach Reggae Music & Arts Festival
When: 6:30 to 9 p.m. Friday, 4 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Old School Square, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: From $35 per day
Contact: eventbrite.com/e/palm-beach-reggae-music-arts-festival
This inaugural three-day festival for fans of reggae music not only features live performances from the some of the genre’s leading lights but also offers a pair of film screenings that attest to the music’s geographic reach, from its Jamaican roots to its more-recent surge in Canada. The festival opens on Friday with a screening, at Old School Square’s Vintage Gym, of Inna De Yard, The Soul of Jamaica, a 2019 documentary that shadows the creative process of Jamaican reggae legends banding together to perform a roots-centered acoustic album. Saturday welcomes live performances, at the OSS Amphitheatre, from Inner Circle—reggae royalty since 1968, whose genre-defining hits including “Sweat” and “Bad Boys”—preceded by The Resolvers, Xperimento, and Yvad & Legal Roots. The fest returns to the Vintage Gym on Sunday with a screening of Play it Loud! How Toronto Got Soul, a 2025 documentary about how Caribbean music gained a foothold in Canada’s largest metropolis.
What: Palm Beach Opera: Rigoletto
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
Cost: $28.75-$218.50
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
For a tale named after a hunch-backed court jester, Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto is no laughing matter. The 1851 tragedy is considered the first masterful opera of Verdi’s middle-to-late career, and it has all the dark machinations of a Scorsese movie: a contract killer; a womanizing duke; the cursed title character, planning a revenge plot that goes terribly awry; and an innocent daughter caught in the proverbial crossfire. Verdi’s source material, a Victor Hugo play about a licentious monarch, was so controversial that the composer was still writing and re-writing, in an attempt to appease the Austrian Board of Censors, until a month before the show’s premiere. Recognizing familiar archetypes amid its royal trappings, modern opera companies have changed the setting to New York City’s mafia culture, the Rat Pack era of ‘60s Las Vegas, the beastly anarchy of Planet of the Apes, and Mussolini’s Italy.
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