A “dark folk” pioneer tours West Palm Beach, legal experts get constitutional at FAU, and Delray Beach Playhouse honors an eternal TV sidekick. Plus, Weezer and more in your week ahead.
TUESDAY
What: “The Constitution Today”
When: 2 p.m.
Where: Lifelong Learning Auditorium at FAU, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton
Cost: $20
Contact: 561/297-6124, fauevents.com
This Tuesday marks Constitution Day, honoring the Founding Fathers’ Sept. 17, 1787 signing of the supreme law of the United States. To celebrate and reflect on America’s experiment in democracy, FAU will continue its tradition of welcoming expert guests to speak on the document’s complexity and its influence on today’s myriad debates on social and legal issues—sure to be a vital discussion in an election year in which both parties express their fealty to the constitution in different ways. This year’s Constitution Day guests are Katie Phang, legal contributor for NBC news and host of her eponymous show on MSNBC; and Emily Bazelon, staff writer for the New York Times Magazine and senior research fellow at Yale Law School.
What: Amigo the Devil
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Respectable Street, 518 Clematis St., West Palm Beach
Cost: $27.50
Contact: 561/832-9999, sub-culture.org/locations/respectable-street
Over just a few short years and three full-length albums, Danny Kiranos, who records under the name Amigo the Devil, has attracted the sort of cult following that’s endemic to a certain breed of confessional singer-songwriter: Think Orville Peck, Frank Turner, City and Colour and Tom Waits, artists that could easily be slotted into his “Recommended If You Like” bin. His music toggles between plaintive folk and rousing, circus-y barn-burners, while his lyrics exude a tarnished poetry, a voyeuristic vulnerability and a fascination with the death and the afterlife—but are not without a sense of humor, as in tunes like “Murder in the Bingo Hall,” from his breakthrough 2021 sophomore album Born Against. He tours Respectable Street in support of his latest long-player Yours Until the War is Over, with opening acts TK & the Holy Know-Nothings and Suzanna Santo.
THURSDAY
What: Opening night of “Sidekicked”
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Delray Beach Playhouse, 950 N.W. Ninth St., Delray Beach
Cost: $59-$69
Contact: 561/272-1281, delraybeachplayhouse.com
Playing an iconic recurring character is one of the double-edged swords of entertainment, both blessing and curse: Your career is pretty much set for life, but the role can be so overwhelming that it can all but define you, at the expense of other opportunities. That was certainly the case for Vivian Vance, an emerging Broadway talent and minor film actress who, in 1951, landed the part that would change everything: Ethel Mertz, landlady and BFF to the title character on “I Love Lucy.” Vance would be eternally associated with “Lucy” and its spinoffs up until her death in 1979. For her deft comic timing, in 1953 she won the very first Outstanding Supporting Actress Emmy for the role. But we are all more than our most plum part. In the solo play “Sidekicked,” writer and longtime fan Kim Powers imagines Vance in her dressing room on the night of the final taping of “I Love Lucy,” in which she shares stories from her career and hopes to discover, as she puts it, “who I really am before I’m stuck being Ethel forever.” This production from Boca Stage and Delray Beach Playhouse will star acclaimed local actress Irene Adjan, and it runs through Sept. 29.
FRIDAY
What: Ali Siddiq: I Got a Story to Tell
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
Cost: $30-$125
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
Ali Siddiq isn’t kidding about the subtitle of his latest touring standup special. His life abounds in stories: from his youth, where he was raised by a single mother in the projects; as a teenager, when he was arrested for cocaine trafficking four days after his 19th birthday; as an inmate, for six long but eventful years in a state prison in Hondo, Texas. It was in this latter capacity that Siddiq would begin to develop his gift for standup comedy. While working at the prison laundromat, he would perform his material for a captive audience. Though influenced by Rodney Dangergield, Siddiq’s comedy would take a divergent turn, one based on long-form storytelling and tart observations from his personal life. Two months after his release from prison, he made his comedy-club debut and hasn’t looked back: He’s since released 13 solo standup specials, developed a public-speaking venture, and hosted an R&B radio show in his native Houston. He’s even paid it forward as a featured entertainer at prisons, and has volunteered some of his time to educate juveniles in the penal system.
SATURDAY
What: Weezer
Where: Hard Rock Live, 1 Seminole Way, Hollywood
When: 7 p.m.
Cost: $65 and up
Contact: 800/937-0010, seminolehardrockhollywood.com
It’s been fashionable, since the early 2000s, to rag on Weezer, Rivers Cuomo’s prolific Los Angeles four-piece, and for good reason: Their albums in this century have mostly been indistinguishable sessions of middle-of-the-road rock. Few would say the same of the band’s meteoric self-titled 1994 debut, known colloquially as The Blue Album, a masterful collection of 10 tuneful dispatches from Cuomo’s bedroom, garage and beachfront that galvanized nerds everywhere—and ultimately made jocks want to be nerds. On this 30th-anniversary tour, Weezer will be performing the album in its entirety, including the soaring catharsis “My Name is Jonas” and the sock-hop throwback “Buddy Holly.” And they’re bringing along two of their contemporaries and bona fide headliners in their own right, with the Flaming Lips and Dinosaur Jr. ensuring that this is the alt-rock nostalgia fête of the season.
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