Literary luminaries light up the Miami Book Fair, NSU Art Museum showcases Latin American surrealism, and a new documentary wades into the muck of the National Enquirer. Plus, Mitch Albom, Third Eye Blind and more in your week ahead.
THURSDAY
What: Darlene Superville: “Covering the White House”
Where: Wold Performing Arts Center at Lynn University, 3601 N. Military Trail, Boca Raton
When: Noon
Cost: $15
Contact: 561/237-7000, lynn.edu
How is the current White House not like the others? Darlene Superville is an ideal journalist to answer the question of covering a presidency that has been enmeshed in one crisis after another since its inception, because she’s reported on presidencies for the past 30 years for outlets including the Associated Press, Washington Post, ABC News and the Los Angeles Times. Her Twitter feed is a trove of breaking information and analysis; last week, her interview with Ivanka Trump made news on multiple fronts. Dr. Robert Watson, Lynn’s resident presidential historian, will lead this conversation.
What: An Evening With Mitch Albom
Where: Congregation B’Nai Israel, 2200 Yamato Road, Boca Raton
When: 7 p.m.
Cost: $36-$100
Contact: 561/241-8118, cbiboca.org
Few contemporary authors have wrestled with the inevitability of death and its hereafter to as wide an audience as Mitch Albom, the columnist, memoirist, novelist and philanthropist who is a fixture on the New York Times best-seller charts. His Tuesdays with Morrie, cataloging his weekly conversations with the late sociology professor and ALS sufferer Morrie Schwartz, became a surprise hit with readers, surpassing its initial 20,000-print run to become one of the best-selling nonfiction books ever published. His fictional follow-up set in the afterlife, Five People You Meet in Heaven, sold nearly as many units. Now, Albom is promoting perhaps his most personal tome to date, Finding Chika, a warm-hearted tearjerker about a Haitian child, born three days after that country’s 2020 earthquake, that Albom adopted. At this appearance, he’ll discuss the book, some of his personal experiences and his connections to Judaism.
FRIDAY
What: Opening night of “Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer”
Where: Lake Worth Playhouse’s Stonzek Theatre, 713 Lake Ave., Lake Worth Beach
When: 4 and 8 p.m.
Cost: $9
Contact: 561/296-9382, lakeworthplayhouse.org
One of Boca Raton’s more dubious “honors” is that it served as the corporate headquarters for the National Enquirer for about four decades before relocating back to New York in 2014. But regardless of its home base, the Enquirer has been an aggressive thorn in the side of celebrities, politicians and media personalities for much of its existence, as this documentary explores. Deploying journalistically unethical and borderline illegal techniques, the nation’s most recognizable tabloid famously proffers in hearsay and rumor, but it occasionally lands on information that holds the powerful accountable, from O.J. Simpson to John Edwards. Director Mark Landsman’s engrossing doc features rare archival footage and interviews with Enquirer insiders as well as critics; it runs through Nov. 21.
What: Opening night of “Andy and the Orphans”
Where: Sol Theatre, 3333 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton
When: 8 p.m.
Cost: $40-$45
Contact: 866/811-4111, primalforces.com
We’re familiar with road movies, but “Andy and the Orphans” is a road play—an odyssey about a dysfunctional New York Jewish family (is there any other kind?) set among strip malls, traffic jams and the Long Island Expressway. Boca’s Primal Forces will make this scenic dramedy by Lindsey Ferrentino come alive through the magic of theatre and a perceptive treatment of its characters: confrontational siblings Maggie and Jake, forced to share a lengthy car ride upon the death of their 85-year-old father. Buried family secrets will groan to the surface, and complicating matters further is their movie-obsessed younger brother, Andy, who happens to have Down syndrome but who may have a better grasp of his identity than his able-minded kin. The all-star cast includes Edward Barbanell, a Coral Springs resident who played Andy in the play’s New York premiere last season, reprising the part. “Andy and the Orphans” runs through Dec. 8.
SUNDAY
What: Opening night of “I Paint My Reality: Surrealism in Latin America”
Where: NSU Art Museum, 1 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale
When: Noon to 5 p.m.
Cost: $5-$12
Contact: 954/525-5500, nsuartmuseum.org
Surrealism in art first emerged in post-World War I France, but it flourished anew in Latin America in the 1930s and ‘40s, where countless artists—and European émigrés fleeing the Second World War—settled, and began to plumb their dreams and subconsciouses for bold works that flew in the face of traditional representative art. Named after Frida Kahlo, who asserted that she always “painted her reality,” the exhibition includes work from early Latin American masters to South Florida-based artists of today.
What: Opening day of Miami Book Fair
Where: Miami-Dade College Wolfson Campus, 300 N.E. Second Ave., Miami
When: Begins at 4 p.m.
Cost: Varies per speaker, some free
Contact: 305/237-3258, miamibookfair.com
South Florida’s grandest celebration of the written word offers its customary embarrassment of cultural riches, with genre writers, literary-fiction dynamos, and celebrities from the worlds of cinema, theatre, politics and the media. Highlights include the legendary novelists Richard Russo (Nobody’s Fool), Paul Theroux (The Mosquito Coast) and Edwidge Danticat (Breath, Eyes, Memory); “Vagina Monologues” provocateur Eve Ensler; cult filmmaker John Waters; Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry; and a number of journalists and television commentators sure to arouse lively debate, including George Will, George Packer, Malcolm Nance and James Fallows. The action gets underway at 4 p.m. Sunday with Samantha Power, President Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, and continues at 7 p.m. with MSNBC commentator Joy Reid.
What: Third Eye Blind
Where: Seminole Casino Coconut Creek, 5550 N.W. 40th St., Coconut Creek
When: 7 p.m.
Cost: $40-$500
Contact: 800/653-8000, seminolecoconutcreekcasino.com
Back in 1997-1998, the five singles off Third Eye Blind’s self-titled debut album were everywhere—pop stations, rock stations, restaurants, supermarkets, the repertories of cover bands nationwide, and probably your CD collection, with no song more ubiquitous than the infectious “Semi-Charmed Life.” Another successful album, Blue, followed in 1998. But in the Aughts, Third Eye Blind largely dropped off the pop-music map, losing original members and releasing a trio of solid, mature but largely unheard albums. This perception may be changing with the release of the band’s sixth album, Screamer, last month. With Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan acting as the LP’s so-called “consigliere,” 3EB welcomed more guest musicians than ever before—including Sleigh Bells’ Allison Krauss on the title track—resulting in the group’s most energized, youthful-sounding record in decades. Indie pop band Smallpools opens the show, which takes place outdoors, “en plein air.”
