A history exhibition kicks off Boca’s centennial, a modern Dutch master’s work opens in Fort Lauderdale, and Dwight Yoakam combines country traditionalism and subversion in Pompano. Plus, one of the year’s best films and more in your week ahead.
WEDNESDAY
What: Opening day of “Boca Raton 1925-2025: Addison Mizner’s Legacy”
Where: The Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum, 71 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Cost: $8-$12
Contact: 561/395-6766, bocahistory.org
There is arguably no one person—and certainly no architect—more associated with Boca Raton’s look and mystique than Addison Mizner. A towering figure in his both his physical stature and reputation, Mizner’s eccentricities have followed him across centuries of lore, from his propensity to obscure his life in fictions and half-truths to his menagerie of exotic pets (Johnnie Brown, his “human monkey,” is buried on Palm Beach). “Boca Raton 1925-2025” places the spotlight where it belongs, on Mizner’s pioneering creativity, and his ability to revive and adapt Mediterranean and Spanish Colonial styles to a former swampland then-bereft of a visual identity. Visitors to the Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum can admire artifacts produced and imported by Mizner Industries—Corinthian column capitals, fireplace mantels, floor and roof tiles, and more—as well as videos, photographs, drawings and maps charting his century of influence. The exhibition runs through May 30, 2025, the month of Boca’s centennial.
THURSDAY
What: Opening day of “A Real Pain”
Where: Cinemark Bistro Boca Raton, 3200 Airport Road, Boca Raton
When: 3, 5:30, 8 and 10:30 p.m.
Cost: $13.75
Contact: cinemark.com
In writer, director and star Jesse Eisenberg’s sublime sophomore feature, he plays David, a stable, fretful New York family man who reunites with his charismatic but troubled cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin) on a tour of Poland’s Jewish history—including the concentration camps—to honor their recently departed Holocaust-survivor grandmother. When tensions between the protagonists are forced to the surface, each must confront buried emotions. Hardly the bleak excursion this plot description might suggest, “A Real Pain” is a travelogue of disarming humor and quiet revelations about the contradictions that make people who they are. Brilliantly scripted and acted, this is a movie for thoughtful grown-ups—an increasing rarity in our multiplexes, and one of the year’s unqualified must-see films.
FRIDAY
What: Dwight Yoakam
Where: Pompano Beach Amphitheatre, 1806 N.E. Sixth St., Pompano Beach
When: 6:30 p.m.
Cost: $59-$125
Contact: 561/223-7231, pompanobeacharts.org
Stubbornly resistant to trends, singer-songwriter Dwight Yoakam has been doing things his way since he rocketed to the top of the country charts with his 1986 debut Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. A longtime critic of the silo that country inhabits, Yoakam has spent decades distilling the genre to its honkytonk essence, jettisoning the outsized production values and pop sensibility of Nashville country for the stripped down roots-rock influence of Bakersfield, Calif. artists like Merle Haggard. In Yoakam’s wry wordsmithery and neotraditional sound, one can draw a line from Hank Williams Sr. straight to today’s oddball subversives like Sturgill Simpson. Whatever you call his music, it’s damn sweet on the ears.
What: Diego Figueiredo Trio
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Arts Garage, 94 N.E. Second Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: $40-$45
Contact: 561/450-6357, artsgarage.org
As a child in his native Franca, Brazil, Diego Figueiredo took to stringed instruments like a hummingbird to nectar—striking poses with a small guitar at age 4, learning the mandolin at 6 and settling on the electric guitar at 12. These days, the 44-year-old musician is a virtuoso on acoustic and electric axes alike, graduating from his formative Brazilian pubs to theaters and jazz festivals. Like Antônio Carlos Jobim before him, Figueiredo’s dexterous range and musical interests span from samba and bossa nova to the classical repertoire and jazz standards such as his recent reinvention of “Misty.” As recognizable for his impressive shock of hair as his impressive technique, Figueiredo earned a Grammy nomination in 2019, has released 28 albums in 22 years, and has earned effusive praise from jazz-pop giant George Benson, who called him “one of the greatest guitarists I’ve seen in my whole life.”
SUNDAY
What: Opening day of “Vicious Circles: Jacqueline de Jong”
Where:NSU Art Museum, 1 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale
When: Noon to 5 p.m.
Cost: $8-$16
Contact: 954/525-5500, nsuartmuseum.org
Spectators can usually take their pick from a half-dozen entry points in each painting by the modern Dutch master Jacqueline de Jong, whose maximalist canvases are flush with color, vivid imagery, and potent subtext. A leader in the Netherlands’ avant-garde during the 20th and 21st centuries—where she became a powerful female voice in a male-dominated field—de Jong’s acrylic works capture teeming worlds of imagination and rock ‘n’ roll that also confront global issues, most recently the war in Ukraine, which de Jong explored in the years leading up to her death this past June at age 85. “Vicious Circles” is her first solo exhibition in the U.S., and it runs through May 4, 2025.
For more of Boca magazine’s arts and entertainment coverage, click here.
