Pumpkins by the thousands line Mizner Park, Slow Burn Theatre cooks up a witches’ brew, and the Cornell’s new glass art exhibition is hot. Plus, a reimagined “Fantasticks” and more in your week ahead.
TUESDAY
What: Opening day of “In the Golden Dreamland of Winter: Henry Flagler’s FEC Hotel Company”
Where: Flagler Museum, 1 Whitehall Way, Palm Beach
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Cost: $28 adults, $14 children
Contact: 561/655-2833, flaglermuseum.us
“Like a myth from the Arabian Nights, rising at the touch of a modern Aladdin, has been the growth and development of beautiful Palm Beach. The story of its conception and development would furnish a theme for the pen of a Jules Verne.” Henry Flagler certainly knew how to sell his assets. This passage, from an expansive brochure published in 1921 by his own Florida East Coast Hotel Company, speaks to the way he built and shaped the Florida coast, one palatial hotel at a time. His presence and influence as a hotelier stretched from Jacksonville to the Florida Keys, as this illuminating exhibition from the Flagler Museum illustrates. “In the Golden Dreamland of Winter” explores the industrialist’s many successful ventures transforming the wide-open Florida coastline into a haven for the booming tourist economy, including the pioneering Hotel Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine and The Breakers in Palm Beach. It runs through Dec. 29.
SATURDAY
What: “The Fantasticks”
Where: Island City Stage, 2304 N. Dixie Highway, Wilton Manors
When: 8 p.m.
Cost: $50
Contact: 954/928-9800, islandcitystage.org
To suggest that “The Fantasticks”has a lengthy shelf life in the American theater is an understatement; it’s existed longer than the shelves themselves and the wood to make them. The musical premiered, off-Broadway, in 1960, a minimalist romance whose thrifty $900 set design included a cardboard moon. It closed, to the continued surprise of its humbled creators, 42 years later, after a record-breaking 17,162 performances. Its songs have become canonized classics (especially “Try to Remember”), and its story is both timeless and idiosyncratic: Scheming fathers, living in neighboring country houses, conspire to match up their children. Except this version switches things up, thanks to a revision from original book writer Tom Jones: The children in question are now a gay couple on opposite sides of the fence, and the conspiring parents are their mothers. The reimagined “Fantasticks” runs through Nov. 17.
What: Opening night of “Hot Glass”
Where: Cornell Museum, 51 N. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach
When: 6 to 8 p.m.
Cost: Free (donations accepted)
Contact: 561/654-2220, delrayoldschoolsquare.com/cornell
Octopi resting in their deep-sea dwellings, a tablescape of autumnal ornaments, a turtle whose outer shell is a swirl of motley color. These are just a few of the creations in “Hot Glass,” a glass-art showcase comprising three galleries and the atrium of the Cornell Art Museum. Presented in collaboration with the Benzaiten Center, the exhibition features glass artists from both coasts along with their national and internal counterparts, and includes South Florida artists featured in Netflix’s glass-blowing competition series “Blown Away.” (Note to self: Add that one to my list!) Saturday’s opening-night festivities include on-site glass blowing demonstrations, live music and refreshments. If you can’t make it Saturday, you’ve got plenty of time to enjoy the exhibit, which runs through March 2.
What: Opening night of “The Witches of Eastwick”
Where: Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 S.W. Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale
When: 1 and 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $72 and up
Contact: 954/462-0222, browardcenter.org
A paranormal classic straight from the “be careful what you wish for” files, this musical arrives just in time for Halloween, and with a storied provenance. It’s based on a 1984 novel by the great John Updike, and concerns a coven of divorced and unsatisfied witches in a fictional New England town, who, in their attempt to conjure “all manner of man in one man,” end up materializing a charismatic demon who seduces them, teaches them supernatural powers, and wrecks havoc on their picturesque town. In the show’s 2000 premiere in London, Ian McShane played the handsome devil, which sounds about right. Suffused as it may seem with death and sorcery, this is a musical with Broadway aspirations, so expect a show that is heavy on humor and whimsy, courtesy of Slow Burn Theatre Company in its 2024-2025 season opener. The production runs through Nov. 3.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY
What: Boca Raton Pumpkin Patch Festival
Where: Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday
Cost: $27.50
Contact: bocapumpkinpatch.com
Nothing says fall like the influx of pumpkins in markets, on lawns and decorating window displays. To that end, the seasonal squash plant also will be center stage in the City of Boca Raton’s largest attraction this weekend, as the Mizner Park Amphitheater transforms into a pumpkin patch. In addition to the opportunity to decorate pumpkins into edible works of art, kids can enjoy a cornstalk maze, carnival rides and the Scarecrow Dress-Up Village. You can also enjoy autumnal backdrops for great family photos, and choose from thousands of pumpkins to take home. Sweet and savory pumpkin entrees can be purchased at a specialty food court, and guests 21 and up can imbibe at the Pumpkin Beer Bar.
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