A modern-day Houdini dazzles at Kravis Center, 90s hitmakers play an intimate Boca Raton club, and GableStage opens a Miami-set comedy. Plus, “The Kite Runner” onstage and more in your week ahead.
THURSDAY
What: Rob Lake
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
When: 8 p.m.
Cost: $39-$49
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
From tying himself to a post flanked by fire, to levitating, to suspending himself upside down in a straitjacket, to somehow sawing himself in half, magician Rob Lake’s grand illusions often flirt with “danger,” in the storied tradition of Harry Houdini. Enraptured by magic at the age of 10—when he first encountered Branson, Missouri, magician Kirby VanBurch—Lake has perfected his art everywhere from casinos to cruise ships to a Times Square projection to national television, where he ascended to the quarterfinals of Season 13 of “America’s Got Talent.” The youngest-ever winner of the esteemed Merlin Award, Lake will bring his immersive show to the Kravis, complete with music, elaborate sets and dramatic lighting.
FRIDAY TO SUNDAY
What: “The Kite Runner”
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
When: 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday
Cost: $35 and up
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
Adapted from Khaled Hosseini’s best-seller of the same name—a sprawling saga of the changes in Afghan life across the decades through the prism of a young boy from Kabul—this adaptation from Matthew Spangler debuted in Broadway in 2022, and endeavors to capture the book’s weighty themes and cultural importance, hewing its story reverentially to Hosseini’s powerful writing. Critics of the Broadway production praised it as an “uplifting heartbreaker” and a “straightforward, to-the-point play, but one that’s … gripping as it unfurls.” This touring production should offer much the same impact. Arrive early on the Saturday night show for a performance from local musicians the Hot Sauce Moon Quintet from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. at the Kravis Family Plaza.
SUNDAY
What: “Laughs in Spanish”
Where: GableStage, 1200 Anastasia Blvd., Coral Gables
When: 2 p.m.
Cost: $60
Contact: 305/445-1119, gablestage.org
This play by Alexis Scheer is, if not made in Miami, certainly made for Miami, centering as it does on a mother-daughter relationship in the Wynwood Art District during Art Basel. Art gallery owner Mariana is perplexed to discover that her business has been broken into on the eve of Basel. But the active crime scene is only the beginning of the show’s dramas, which involve her mother Estella, a television star who never met a spotlight she didn’t steal; her gallery intern, Carolina; and Juan, a police officer and boyfriend to Carolina. The brisk, intermissionless 80-minute show is a classic whodunit, but it’s also a comedy with a lot on its mind, including Latinx representation in the media and the necessary intersection of art and commerce. Saturday’s opening night is sold out, but a few tickets remain for Sunday and the rest of the run; GableStage’s production will play through June 9.
What: Fastball
Where: Funky Biscuit, 303 S.E. Mizner Blvd., Boca Raton
When: 7 p.m.
Cost: $40-$45
Contact: 561/395-2929, funkybiscuit.com
Rising to notoriety amid a thousand other aspiring bands in the U.S. music capital of Austin, Texas, the guys in Fastball were still working other jobs upon the release of their second album All The Pain Money Can Buy. Their side gigs didn’t last long, as the album, released in 1998, included the band’s chart-topping single and still their best-known song, “The Way,” an infectiously tuneful power-pop banger despite lyrics with a pretty depressing provenance. (The song is inspired by a 1997 news story about an elderly couple that disappeared from home, only to be found dead two weeks later.). The track would make VH1’s list of the top 100 songs of the 1990s and pretty much define Fastball, but the talented trio has recorded seven albums since, including Sonic Ranch, which releases next month, to a dedicated fan base that will pack the intimate environs of the Funky Biscuit this weekend for a set that spans the group’s 30-year career.
What: The Rev. Horton Heat
Where: Respectable Street, 518 Clematis St., West Palm Beach
When: 7 p.m.
Cost: $30
Contact: 561/832-9999, sub-culture.org/locations/respectable-street/
James C. “Horton” Heath is not, as far as we know, an ordained reverend in any organized sense of the word. But he does elicit in his followers a kind of religious fervor, playing a high-speed rockabilly splinter genre called psychobilly with all of the crazed energy of a manic street preacher. Dubbed the Rev. Horton Heat by a prominent club owner in Dallas circa 1985, Heath has run with the name, and achieved a remarkable level of underground success despite seldom enjoying any Billboard chart hits. (“One Time For Me,” from 1994, crested at No. 40 on the Alternative charts.) Heat and his trio, now consisting of Jonathan Jeter and longtime slap bassist Jimbo Wallace, have released 13 LPs on prominent indie labels like Sub Pop and Victory, but it’s the unhinged live setting where the group really lives.
For more of Boca magazine’s arts and entertainment coverage, click here.
