Karen Marcil and Christina Auer show off items from Our Boat House in Boca Raton’s Mizner Park. The retail company was started in 2005 in Vero Beach. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Christine Davis
    
You can thank Frances, Jeanne and Wilma for Boca Raton’s new boutique that features all things nautical for the home. It all started in 2005, the year that named storms made it all the way to Zeta.
    They were the perfect storms that created a website,  ourboathouse.com, that by 2011 grew into a Vero Beach store, Our Boat House Inc., and, six months ago, expanded yet again to Our Boat House III at 425 Plaza Real in Mizner Park, Boca Raton.
    Just like a powerhouse whirlwind, the Auer family’s Our Boat House venture continues to gain momentum and move along the coastline.
    “I’ve been a decorator all my life,” explained co-owner Lori Auer-Smith, who started Our Boat House with her sister, Karen Marcil.
    “Karen’s home in Vero Beach was damaged during hurricanes Frances and Jeanne. “We renovated the house and completely redid it, incorporating nautical touches, including porthole doors and ship cargo lights that we had found in our travels. The house received such a great reaction that we decided to start a website to sell similar items.”
    Since it is a family affair, Lori serves as decorator and buyer; Karen buys and also runs the Vero store; their brother Albert, with his wife, Christina, Boca Raton residents, oversee the Mizner Park store; and their mother, Ellie Auer, accompanies her daughters on buying trips.
    Inspiration for the store came from growing up in the Hamptons, and Ellie, who is a long-time collector.
    They grew up with nautical items, Lori said. “After the 1939 hurricane that hit Long Island, our mother found a post from an old hotel sign, which she placed next to our fireplace.”
    It’s just got to be the wind and the water. “These kinds of things are in our blood,” she said.
    Popular items on the site and at the stores include authentic, brass, ship-cargo lights, teak-porthole doors, unusual old trunks, sea floats, bed linens embroidered with a rope motif, and custom driftwood furniture and wall hangings.
    Our Boat House’s washed and bleached-wood furniture as well as slip-covered sofas and chairs are perfect for beachy styling. 
    “They are so fresh-looking,  and we use touches of blues and greens in our designs. We also have outdoor furniture and hand-painted furniture. Our fabrics are all natural washable cottons and linen,” Auer-Smith said.  “We have more than 2,000 products on our website, and we sell over the country.”
    In addition, Our Boat House offers complete design services, including floor plans, as well as selecting furniture, fabric, color palette and paint colors.

The former Boca Raton Bridge Hotel, now known as Waterstone Resort & Marina, will have its grand opening May 7. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Christine Davis

On May 7, Waterstone Resort & Marina, 999 E. Camino Real, Boca Raton, will celebrate its grand opening. A marriage of water and stone, the resort and marina feature fabulous water views, a social and fun pool promenade, handsome architecture and interior décor that seamlessly integrates with its water environment, guest suites with balconies and water views and two dining venues (Boca Landing and Waterstone Bar & Grill).
    Saluting the arts, it features works curated exclusively for the resort by Bette Ridgeway and Nina Sampaleanu, including a piece that draws influences from the coastal surroundings. The resort also will feature partnerships with regional cultural venues providing event access and a variety of packages.
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    At a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 8, Plaza Theatre patrons will be treated to food, drink and entertainment at Club Plaza’s new piano bar. They’ll enjoy a cabaret show Broadway’s Second Bananas, starring Beth Dimon, followed by a performance by David Curtis. Future activities will include jazz performances, chamber musicals and other eclectic events. For information about the Plaza Theatre, its current or upcoming season, contact the Plaza Theatre box office at 262 S. Ocean Blvd., Manalapan, call 588-1820, or visit www.plazatheatre.net
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    An independently organized TEDx event will make its debut with a program about ideas worth spreading, scheduled for 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 9 in the University Theatre on the Florida Atlantic University campus. The conference offers short talks, demonstrations and performances by experts on a wide range of subjects.
    Among those presenting will be Brad Short, who started his journey with parkour at the age of 14. Parkour is an athletic discipline in which participants negotiate any environment as efficiently as possible using their physical abilities. It commonly involves running, jumping, vaulting, rolling and other similar physical movements.
    Short became fascinated after seeing a film about parkour, and started his own YouTube channel in 2011 dedicated to showcasing his parkour abilities and daring stunts. He has built a name for himself within the parkour community and quickly reached a point of training with the most recognized and talented parkour athletes in the world.
    Short attended Florida Atlantic University and pursued a degree in exercise science. In February 2011, he became a certified parkour and free-running instructor through the World Freerunning and Parkour Federation. Short is now the manager and head instructor at Intensity Parkour, a parkour gym in Margate.
    General admission tickets are $100, and include all meals and beverages and a seat in the main auditorium. Tickets for students have limited availability and include all meals and beverages for $30, and seating in the simulcast lounge. All tickets may be purchased at www.tedxbocaraton.com, where biographies and information on all expert speakers may be seen.
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    At its 12th annual Doggie Ball on March 24, Tri County Humane Society leadership announced a new organization name and unveiled a new logo and plans for campus expansion. The new name is Tri County Animal Rescue, and visual re-branding was launched to reflect its mission of a 100 percent no-kill regional 501(c)3 animal rescue nonprofit that operates 100 percent on donations.
    “We have spent a great deal of time strategizing on a re-freshened branding that effectively communicates ‘what we do’ and ‘what drives us,’” said the organization’s chairwoman, Harriet Lewis-Mooney.
    The new logo design is symbolic in both color and elements, she added. “It is a dramatic departure from the rescue organization’s previous branding mark that featured an umbrella and a variety of animals, including ducks, bunnies, hamsters and birds that are not rescued by Tri County for adoption.”
The new logo features the colors of red, yellow and orange. The choice of red reflects the action and passion of the organization’s board, staff, volunteers, donors and advocates. Yellow emulates the Florida sun, as well as the happiness that awaits abandoned, abused or neglected dogs and cats, puppies and kittens rescued each year. Orange stimulates optimism and awakens the community to join and advocate for the organization and those it saves.
    On the logo, a dog and cat are featured in a protective haven of a palm tree with the brand promise of  “100 percent no kill” arched above their heads. 
    Co-founder and executive director Suzi Goldsmith reported that a new state-of-the-art animal rescue center on Boca Rio Road was designed to increase quality intake services. The center will house an examination room, a treatment room, and isolation facilities for rescues with contagious illnesses and conditions.
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    The Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce will host 36 teams of golfers at its 44th annual Golf Classic on June 6  at Via Mizner Golf & Country Club, 6200 Boca del Mar Drive, Boca Raton.
    Participating golfers will enjoy breakfast, a putting contest, and a day of golfing followed by a luncheon/awards reception. The event will kick off at 7 a.m. with a breakfast and finishes around 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $200 per player and $800 per foursome. Approximately 170 guests are expected to attend. Sponsorship opportunities are available. For information, call 395-4433, ext. 233.
    Gearing up for its Festival Days in August, the Boca Chamber recently unveiled its 2014 Festival Days logo, which was created by Ashley Ramirez, a ninth-grade student from the marketing and communications class of West Boca High School. Selected from more than 20 entrants, Ramirez’s logo depicts the sun representing a heart that is shining and warming the Boca community. 
Hosted by the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce, 30 Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!) students, ages 11 through 18, will compete in the Sixth Annual Southeast Region Saunders Scholars Competition, 3:30 p.m. May 16  at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Business, DeSantis Pavilion.
This is one of three national events; the top two student businesses from each regional competition will be flown to Washington, DC to compete in the Finals round at America’s Small Business Summit. These young entrepreneurs will be competing to win college scholarships ranging from $25,000 to $50,000 and the opportunity to be on ABC Television’s hit show Shark Tank.
The Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce has been administrating the YEA! Program in partnership with FAU for three  years with great success. The Boca Chamber Young Entrepreneurs Academy has graduated more than 50 CEOs in the seventh through 12th grades, and a national YEA! winner graduated from the Boca Chamber program.
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    The Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce’s 28th annual Chamber Golf Tournament, a scramble with four-player teams and 18 holes to be held a Gleneagles Country Club, is just around the corner on May 16.
    Promising to be lots of fun, there’s a cocktail hour and contests (longest and straightest drives, closest to the pin, hole-in-one). Price is $650 per foursome or $165 per player.
    Gleneagles Country Club, recently named “Best New Golf Course” by Golf Digest, is at 7667 Victory Lane, Delray Beach. Registration and lunch is scheduled for 11 a.m. with a shotgun start at 1 p.m. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres  will be offered at 5 p.m., followed by an awards presentation.
    Golfers who don’t want to play a full game or can’t get a whole team together, can join for the buffet lunch, attend an afternoon lesson from a Gleneagles Country Club professional followed by a stretch-and-strength lesson, then attend the cocktail reception and awards ceremony.
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    “If you’re on the road and on your way to Florida, you now can plan your whole visit to Delray Beach before you even get here,” says Stephanie Immelman, executive director of the Delray Beach Marketing Cooperative. That’s because the marketing cooperative worked with Rand McNally’s Best Town Travels program to help build a new mobile app for vacationers and business travelers learn about Delray Beach and what it has to offer. Through the free app, visitors will have easy access to an overview of the area, as well as listings of things to do, places to stay and restaurants to visit. The free app is available on iTunes.

The Style Bar Hair Bar and Day Spa in Palm Beach recently provided three cancer patients with a spa day. Pictured: Sandy Wade, Gail Forrester, Perrie Gurfein (spa owner) and Judy Kephart. Photo provided

    On March 26, in honor of Women’s History Month, three women battling three types of cancer came together for their scheduled appointments just like they’ve done in the past; only this time they received an unrelated and pleasant treatment.
    “After booking so many dates for doctors’ appointments, it was nice to pencil in ‘spa day appointment at the Style Bar’ in my calendar,” said Gail Forrester, a breast cancer survivor and single mother of two.
The Style Bar Hair Bar & Day Spa in Palm Beach provided Forrester, Judith Kephart and Sandy Wade, all patients from the South Florida Radiation Oncology Program, with massages, manicures, pedicures and facials.
    “It’s nice to give back to the community, especially when so many survivors are overwhelmed with medical bills,” said Style Bar owner Perrie Gurfein. “The last thing they can afford is to treat themselves to a day at the spa, but it’s honestly the very thing they need and deserve, and we were happy to provide them with this. I speak firsthand, as a cancer survivor myself.”
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Recently, Annie Davis, owner of Palm Beach Travel at Plaza del Mar in Manalapan, was named the American Express Travel Insider for the British Virgin Islands. “It is a wonderful honor,” Davis said. “Palm Beach Travel is an American Express affiliate, specializing in Platinum and Centurion Travel as well as cruises, tours and family reunions. The British Virgin Islands are one of the most beautiful places to explore, and my customers always appreciate insights into ways to enjoy the Islands, even if they have been there before.” For information, call Palm Beach Travel at 585-5885.
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    E. Peter McLean’s investment of time and money at 70 Curlew Road in Manalapan certainly helped sell the home, said listing agents Nicholas Malinosky and Randy Ely, realtors with Corcoran.
    Mclean bought the property in October 2008 for $1.25 million, and this February, the 7,824-square-foot Bermuda-style home sold for $2.7 million to Henry and Junko Siemon. “While that looks like double the price and it was purchased as an investment property, Peter completely redid it and lived in it for a couple of years. He basically rebuilt it and he created one of the most incredible homes with beautiful finishes,” Malinosky said.
    Two homes owned by Dennis and Shelia Hammond that sold within days of each other would not be considered flipping, either. Perhaps double downsizing would be more appropriate to say?
    Between April 1 and April 3, the Hammonds sold a home at 346 Brazilian Ave., Palm Beach, for a recorded $5.425 million to a revocable trust in the name of Elizabeth D. Remmert, with Remmert serving as trustee. Beverly Broberg of Brown Harris Stevens represented Remmert. Broker Linda Gary of Linda A. Gary Real Estate represented the Hammonds. The Hammonds paid $5 million for the Palm Beach property last July, property records show.
    Again represented by Linda Gary, the Hammonds also sold their Manalapan estate at 1920 S. Ocean Blvd. for a recorded $11.84 million. The buyer was a Miami-based limited liability company named South Ocean Living LLC, represented by agents Jack Elkins and Bunny Hiatt of Fite Shavell Associates. The Hammonds had paid $10 million for the house in July 2011.
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    Some more real estate news: Lang Realty recently made a $4,500 donation to Habitat for Humanity as part of its annual Open House Extravaganza, where prospective home buyers toured more than 300 listings priced from $200,000 to more than $1 million throughout the Palm Beach and Treasure Coast.
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    No surprise, the Boca Raton-based National Council on Compensation Insurance supports its employees living healthy lives, too. In March, its employees celebrated National Nutrition Month by participating in interactive workshops, seminars and contests on a variety of food-related subjects, as well as access to an onsite farmer’s market, with healthy food good to go home for supper.
                            
Akron Biotech recently was awarded a Phase 1 Small Business Innovative Research Award from the National Institutes of Health to develop enzyme-based formulations for the isolation of stem cells from various tissues. A collaboration with Dr. Gregg Fields, vice president of scientific affairs at Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies, the project will involve the use of new engineered-enzyme formulations to improve viability and quality of isolated stem cells with no toxicities. Akron Biotech will manufacture and commercialize kits for tissue dissociation and develop further therapeutic applications for a wide variety of diseases.
“This is a critical step toward improving healthcare and advancing cell therapies,” said Claudia Zylberberg, founder and CEO of Akron Biotech.
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    This past April, luxury home décor designer, Michael Aram, founder of Michael Aram, Inc. and the creative director of MacKenzie-Childs, Rebecca Proctor, appeared at Bloomingdale’s and Neiman Marcus in Boca Raton to introduce the brands’ newest collections.
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    Felicia Holden recently was named senior vice president of human resources and operations of the independent brokerage and risk management agency Century Risk Advisors, which has offices in Boca Raton and Miami. Holden began her career in New York as operations manager of a major investment banking firm, before moving in 1990 to South Florida.
    She found her niche within human resources at an annuities company in Boca Raton, where she held the position of human resources generalist. She then joined Century Financial Services, where she was assistant vice president, director of human resources and administration.
Holden has achieved an insurance designation as an accredited customer service representative and has her Florida customer service representative insurance license.  She also received the Society for Human Resource Management’s designation of professional in human resources.

Christine Davis is a freelance writer. Send business news to her cdavis9797@comcast.net.

By Rich Pollack
    
The YouTube videos and website postings flooded the Internet for days after the South Florida Safe Roads Task Force completed its weeklong initiative last month to increase safety among bicyclists, motorists and pedestrians on State Road A1A.
    The phones were ringing, too — off the wall, in some places.
    Many of the postings and calls were from bicyclists concerned that the police “saturation” effort involving several law enforcement agencies and coordinated by the task force were a bit heavy-handed and inconsistent. Other calls, postings and emails came from residents and even some bicyclists pleased by the effort.
    For the task force, getting people talking and thinking about the need to share the road safely was what the effort was all about.
    “We went into this wanting to increase awareness and educate the public, whether they were in a car, on a bicycle or walking,” said task force spokeswoman Tara Kirschner, executive director of the Dori Slosberg Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to traffic safety. “Through all the feedback and the statistics, which show this wasn’t a citation-writing mission, we made significant inroads toward achieving that goal.”
    Statistics compiled by the task force show that participating law enforcement officers, from northern Broward County through the town of Manalapan, issued 175 citations during the effort, which took place during the first week of April. In addition, there were 100 written warnings and 148 verbal warnings.
    A closer look at the numbers, however, shows that motorists received the most citations, 107, and that pedestrians received 35 tickets, two more citations than bicyclists.
    When it came to warnings, cyclists received 83 written warnings and 138 verbal warnings, while motorists received 15 written warnings and four verbal warnings. Pedestrians received two written warnings and six verbal warnings.
    The statistics do not include citations or warnings written by Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies, who assisted in the effort.
    “We’re setting out to avoid serious accidents,” Kirschner said. “The more people who know what rules pertain to them, the faster we can achieve that goal.”
    Following the police saturation initiative, members of the task force met with representatives of local bicycle clubs in small groups to discuss the initiative and future efforts to raise awareness of safety issues.
    “We want this initiative to work, too, but it just needs to be redefined and consistent in the way the rules are enforced,” said Chris Hoch, executive director of the ZMotion Foundation, which includes 1,300 riders. “Some cyclists, including me, think this is great for those who are breaking the law, but everyone needs to be on the same page.”
    Kirschner said the task force plans additional small meetings with cyclist groups to discuss future safety and education-focused initiatives, which could include similar saturations but also safety events and public service announcements.
    “We really want this to be something that is amenable and beneficial to everyone,” she said. 

The Plate: Crab cake sandwich
The Place: Old Key Lime House, 300 E. Ocean Ave., Lantana; 582-1889 or oldkeylimehouse.com
The Price: $14.99
The Skinny: It was a dilemma anyone would envy: we were hungry, but not starving.
Did we want to gorge ourselves on a big entrée or keep things light?
Fortunately, our excellent server Traci steered us to the crab cake, and we opted for the sandwich.
The cake was packed with large bits of lump crab and was held together with minimal binders. The restaurant does not use a lot of seasoning in the crab cake, but it doesn’t need to when the Key lime aioli served on the side delivers the right mix of tang and zing. The only thing that would have made it better? A perfectly toasted roll.
— Scott Simmons

Richie Podvesker, deli master of the store, directs a customer to the beer collection while handling the sandwich orders of a dozen customers at a time. He has been making subs and other meals for more than 21 years.

By Paula Detwiller

    The roadside deli you know and love has changed hands.
    But don’t worry. The pair of hands you care most about — the ones that make your favorite submarine sandwich — aren’t going anywhere. And according to the new owner, not much else will change, either.
    You’ll still be able to pick up a No. 19 (turkey, avocado, swiss, honey mustard, lettuce and tomato on a kaiser roll), a six-pack of Red Stripe, some shoestrings, motor oil and a cake mix. You’ll still hear Frank Sinatra tunes while picking out your purchases. And all those autographed celebrity photos will remain on the wood-paneled walls.
    The Seaside Deli and Market, located on A1A a half-mile south of Woolbright Road, is the barrier island’s upscale, old school convenience store. It’s also the only “food-to-go” place along A1A from Manalapan down to Delray Beach.
So when the owner (who asked that we not name him in this story), quietly sold the business early last month, some may have wondered about its fate.
    “I don’t know what the neighborhood would do without this place,” says Gulf Stream resident and deli regular Gene Jankowski, who was dropping in to order his usual tuna salad and cole slaw. “Richie’s the best.”
    That would be Richie Podvesker, 41, son of the owner and the face of the deli counter for the past 21 years. He too shies away from talking about himself, except to blurt out a very telling individual statistic.
    “I can knock out a sandwich every 42 seconds,” he says.
    And that’s a good thing, because long lines can form at the deli counter around lunchtime, particularly on sunny days.
    “I drove up here from Pompano today just to see Richie,” says former Ocean Ridge resident Michael Homer, getting in line. “He’s been my buddy for the longest time, and he makes a great sandwich.”
    Homer orders a No. 11, chicken salad with bacon.
    In addition to “Richie’s Special Sandwiches,” all 38 of them, the Seaside sells more than 200 different beers; old-fashioned soda in glass bottles (Squirt, birch beer, cream soda); and homemade take-out dinners: baked ziti, barbecue pork, Italian meatballs, soups and quiche.
    There’s an entire aisle of candy, and if you run out of toilet paper, cat food, hairspray, or champagne, they’ve got that too.
    Richie’s brother Hughie worked here for a time, from 1993 to 2001, which explains the double billing on the sign. He ended up going back to the family’s native New Jersey.
“It wasn’t his thing,” Richie’s dad says.

Kevin Belliard, son of new owner Rafael Belliard, is already working on the books.

A new family takes over
    The Seaside’s new owners are 28-year-old Kevin Belliard, who manages the store, and his parents, Rafael and Leonora. Originally from the Dominican Republic, Rafael Belliard played major league baseball in the 1980s and ’90s, first for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and later for the Atlanta Braves. He’s now an assistant adviser to the general manager of the Kansas City Royals.
    Kevin graduated from American Heritage School in Delray Beach and went on to play four years of college baseball (one year at Southern University in Baton Rouge, the rest at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach). After graduation, he coached baseball at Alabama A&M University before joining the business world, managing an AT&T retail store, and then a Boca Raton Taco Bell for the past two years.
    He and his fiancée, Gladys Rodriguez, live in Boca Raton and have a 2-year-old son named Kevin Alexander Jr.
    “We’d been looking around for a business to buy,” says Kevin. “From day one, when we saw this store, we fell in love with it. I like how everything feels like you’re maybe in a 1960s or ’70s movie and it hasn’t changed much. It goes with the surf shop next door.”
    What does he like best?
    “The customers. Everyone who comes in feels like family. The regulars all know my name already. It reminds me of the bodegas in the Dominican Republic. Everyone knows the employees, and you go there because it’s convenient and close to home,” he says.
    Kevin says he’s not making any personnel changes.
    “It’ll be Richie’s Seaside Deli and Market as long as he wants to stay here. I kid you not, he makes the best subs I ever tried.”
    Kevin talks about the uniqueness of the market, with so many items all in one place, and a history of attracting celebrities. Richie’s dad confirms some of the big names: Jimmy Buffett. Mariah Carey. David Caruso. And athletes like one-handed pitcher Jim Abbott, hockey legend Mario Lemieux, NBA star Jim Jackson.
    “The deli’s been here a long time and been very successful,” Kevin says. “We’re keeping everything the same.”
    He pauses. “I am looking to move to the island, though. I would gladly give up a grass backyard in Boca to be near the sand of the beach.”

Richie’s dad with Hughie and Richie at the counter of the Seaside Deli in 1993. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Prepackaged meals fill one of the many coolers.

The gator head at the cash register has been lending pennies to customers for decades.

The walls of the store are covered with autographed photos and a collection of Polaroids featuring smiling customers.

Robert Morse with Randi Emerman and Rick McCoy at the Palm Beach International Film Festival. Photo provided

By Thom Smith

    If you want bright lights, head for the big city. Big bucks and exotic cars and a penthouse suite? Try Cannes. Mucho-chic and mucho celeb? Make Sundance your destination.
    But if you stay around as the credits roll to learn who shot and edited … if you care about what actors do on the screen, not off …  if you love cinema on a small screen …  in other words, if you’re a real movie fan, then the Palm Beach International Film Festival is for you.  
    Sure, you get names. The previous 19 festivals have attracted the likes of Esther Williams, Selma Hayek, Jeremy Renner and Jennifer Lawrence. This year, Jason Priestley touted his first directing job; Robert Morse, still going at 82, offered proof that the really talented can blithely slip from stage to movies to TV without blinking.
    Occasionally a sleeper wakes up: My Big Fat Greek Wedding, first screened in Palm Beach, made $350 million.
    You get parties — just not as lavish — after major screenings at Bogart’s in Boca’s Cinemark Palace 20 and a VIP bash at Eau Palm Beach for a very un-Hollywood $75.
    No battery of searchlights, no chauffeured Bentley or Rolls limo to deliver Priestley and Morse to the theaters and no blinding spotlights inside. Down in front, mikes in hand, in the same low light as their audience, they spoke from the heart about their work.
    “We can’t bring in big a filmmaker and pay for all his expenses,” festival President Randi Emerman said, noting that it survives on a budget around $100,000. “A lot of people from the industry are here, and what they see in the program here is far superior to many other festivals that have lots more money to spend. We put a lot of detail into nailing down the best program we can.
    “To do it right, we would need a budget of $700,000, which is still a lot less than many festivals that don’t have near the quality. We’re able to do it on a budget of less than $100,000 because a lot of talented people are willing to help and our volunteers have stepped up big time.”
    Emerman was thrilled that Cinemark finally joined Muvico and Cobb as presenters. She also singled out the contribution of Burt Rapoport, who hosted three post-screening events at his Bogart’s in-theater  restaurant in Boca.
    Tie-ins with Sundance and Toronto give Palm Beach more credibility. The filmmakers take good vibes about the area to their home countries, and down the road that brings people, and money, back.   
    And although Emerman wonders every year if the festival will return, she already is planning. After all, it will be the 20th. “I just wish we could get more people who live here to come out,” she said. “I still haven’t figured that out.”
    For every Selma Hayek or Robert Redford, the movie business attracts the likes of Randye Ringler and Grace McPhillips, dedicated to their craft or a cause and eager to grab any opportunity to tout their work.
    For much of her life, Ringler has worked in professional baseball, including 15 years with the New York Mets. Now she’s latched on to the Asian version of Field of Dreams. She teamed up with filmmaker Mirra Bank to push The Only Real Game. Based in Manipuri, a region in northwest India, it tells the story of residents that have played baseball since 1944 when American GIs were managing air deliveries to Asia. Today the region is wracked with unemployment, drug and gun violence and HIV/AIDS, yet the residents still play baseball. And Ringler will be delighted to bend your ear about it.
    McPhillips was a teenage beauty queen in Alabama, studied at Elon College in North Carolina, toured with Broadway theater companies and made the occasional movie before marrying and settling down in Chicago. She’s on the Midwest board of Screen Actors Guild and founded Chicago Acting in Film Meetup, a professional organization for actors in the Chicago area.
    McPhillips came to Delray to plug The Other One as writer, producer and star. Several other films are in the works, plus a trip to Cannes this month, then back to Chicago where she and husband Corbett Lunsford also run Green Dream Group. Its goal: to make Chicago a better place for everyone to live by improving buildings through independent, scientific building diagnostics.
    Yet she still must pinch her pennies. After a media meet-and-greet at Delray’s new downtown Hyatt, she had a screening of The Other One at Boca’s Cinemark. How far is it? How much is a cab? — she asked in quick succession. Fortunately for her, a festival fan offered her a ride. Imagine that happening in Cannes?
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    More news from the Rapoport kitchen: Burt has broken ground on Apiero Kitchen & Bar, at The Marketplace in Delray. Right next door to Burt & Max’s, his joint venture with Dennis Max, it’ll offer Mediterranean cuisine.
    And concerns about parking by Rapoport and other merchants and patrons may be assuaged somewhat by the County Commission. Members voted April 24 to allow the center to use four additional acres in the adjacent agricultural reserve for 439 parking spaces, a 40 percent increase. In exchange, the center’s developers agreed to preserve nine acres for agriculture and open space. Perhaps they could erect an educational center, a model farm, where kids and adults, as well, could learn where milk, eggs, filet mignon, and the like, come from.
    Meanwhile, let’s hope Burt and his four executive chefs can find a parking space in Manhattan when they visit the James Beard House on May 22. At the invitation of the Beard Foundation, Jon Greening of Deck 84, Jay Prisco of Burt & Max’s, Ben Burger of Henry’s and corporate pastry chef David Innes will prepare a “Fresh From Florida” menu including tuna sashimi tacos, black grouper paella and roasted Jackman Florida Waygu beef tenderloin.
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    Interesting relocation: The Social Security Administration, formerly housed in a Delray Beach strip mall near Atlantic Avenue and Military Trail, has moved to somewhat more glamorous quarters in Boca — the high-rise building that houses GEO Group, the international for-profit prison company. The building, incidentally, is owned by Canpro Investments Ltd., a Canadian company.
    GEO is catching it from another direction. A coalition of 25 advocacy groups delivered a petition with more than 10,000 signatures to the Seattle-area headquarters of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, asking the mega-charity to end its relationship with GEO. A spokesman for Gates, which invested $2.2 million in GEO in 2012, responded: “… Some of the lack of clarity in the criticism, is this understandably complex structure that we have where the foundation invests in life-saving technologies, in U.S. schools, in making sure people living with AIDS in Africa are less likely to die. … The trust invests in a lot of things to make sure we have the most money we can have to do that job.”
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    Dealing with crackback blocks in the NFL is nothing compared to the Florida real estate market. Back in 2004, former University of Miami and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis bought a beachfront home in sleepy Highland Beach for $5.22 million. In 2012 he led his Ravens to the Super Bowl title and retired with honors — twice NFL Defensive Player of the Year and Super Bowl MVP — but all that hardware couldn’t boost the value of his home. After more than two years on the market, the four-story Mediterranean design  recently sold for $4.775 million, close to half a million below list.
    Buyers are reported to be Dragos Alexe and Susanne Kramer, but no additional information was provided. Internet records list a Dragos Alexe as the founder and CEO of DAX Technologies, a telecommunications software company based in Matawan, N.J., that was sold in February for $37 million.

FAU President John Kelly visits FAU’s Karen Slattery Educational Research Center for Early Childhood Development and speaks to students about gardening as part of Earth Day. Photo provided
                                     
    John Kelly, fresh in as president at FAU, isn’t the only new face on campus. Michael Curry, who played for seven NBA teams in 11 years is the Owls’ new basketball coach.  Curry, who played his collegiate ball at Georgia Southern, will make a reported $325,000 in the first year of a six-year contract. That’s $75,000 more than departed coach Mike Jarvis.  He comes to Boca Raton from Philadelphia after three years as associate head coach for the NBA 76ers. He also served four years as president of the NBA Players Association and in the 2008-09 season, his only season as head coach of the Detroit Pistons, led them to the playoffs.
    Curry wasted no time signing a major prospect, returning to Detroit to sign 6-5 swingman Maceo Baston II. Top-quality player, Curry said, but equally important, a top student.
                                     ***
    Looking for an LED balloon? No misspelling, mind you, we’re talking LEDs, as in light-emitting diodes, that show up in everything from kid’s shoes to automobile headlights, and from 6 to 10 p.m. May 15 in Delray’s Pineapple Grove district, will illuminate 300 balloons for the year’s first “Evening on the Avenue.”
    “One of our goals is to showcase light as art,” Delray Beach Marketing Cooperative special events manager Jarrod White said. A three-dimension light wall will provide the backdrop for music by Drew Tucker & Brass Monkey. More entertainment will come from roots rocker Brendan O’Hara, the Lynn University String Quartet, sidewalk art and face painting, the first in a series of citywide scavenger hunts and a “Chill Lounge” in the new Hyatt.

***
                                 
    Around the corner, Arts Garage is celebrating the gift of $100,000 to its Creative City Collaborative from Impact 100 Palm Beach, a philanthropic women’s organization serving southern Palm Beach County. The grant will expand two programs, Stage It and Drumline, which help kids, many of them at-risk, to develop artistic skills while learning positive forms of expression. Drumline works with youths after school and during the summer, when they’re often unsupervised, to provide music instruction and opportunities to  perform. With its in-school and after-school programs, the Theatre Education Project helps students  experience the creative and expressive possibilities of music and theatre by attending professional performances and completing an intensive curriculum.
    Additional $100,000 grants were awarded to Florence Fuller Child Development Centers and Achievement Centers for Children and Families.
                                     ***
    Auf Wiedersehen, Bad Ragaz. Up in Boynton’s Las Ventanas complex at the corner of Federal and Woolbright, the bierhalle has given way to Lucertola Ristorante & Birreria. Call it a locational conflict. Bad Ragaz is a popular spa, not in Germany or Austria, but in Switzerland, albeit the German-speaking region of Switzerland. The self-serve beer taps at the tables weren’t popular enough to keep customers coming back. La familia Silvestri, which has enjoyed a good run with Tramonti in Delray, decided to switch to Italian in Boynton.
    To give it a special kick, they moved Tramonti’s executive chef to Lucertola, where he turns out the likes of chicken saltimboca, penne carbonara, polenta and gorgonzola fries with truffle mayo and — sounds intriguing — Mediterranean lamb burger on pretzel roll with arugula, cucumber, feta and tapenade served with sweet fries.
                                     ***
    TV has its “voice” and its “idols,” but chances of finding a contestant over 30 are slim and none. Nevertheless, America’s got lots of talent over 30 — even over 65, and you can find it not on recording tracks, but on the railroad tracks.
    On Sunday, May 18 at Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale, a dozen singers 65 and older — eight from Palm Beach County — will compete in Tri-Rail’s “Senior Idol” finals. They were tops among more than 100 singers who competed in April. The winner won’t have to pass from car to car singing opera or Sinatra favorites, but he or she may be in the next seat, as the grand prize is $500 and a free one-year Tri-Rail pass.
    Local talent includes Diane Cestari, Deanne Friedberg and Penny Mandel from Boca Raton; Ron Silver, Beverly Sisisky, Nanci Suzanne and Joanie Walters from Boynton and Lou Villano from Palm Beach Gardens.
                                     ***
    He hasn’t been home in more than 40 years, but Reza Pahlavi has not given up hope that one day he will return to Iran. Unless or until the political realities change, he will continue as “shah-in-exile” to make his case for a secular, democratic nation wherever he is given a forum. On May 20 at City Fish Market in Boca Raton, he’ll make his case at a luncheon meeting of the recently formed Gold Coast Tiger Bay Club. Guest tickets are $35 in advance, $45 at the door. (852-0000).
                                     ***
    Gone, and probably soon forgotten: Boca’s 101 Cantina closed unexpectedly in early April. No reason was published for the demise of the popular collegiate hangout on the backside of Boca’s Royal Palm Place, and all mention of it disappeared from the website of the parent company, which also operates 101s in Gainesville and Tallahassee. The closing no doubt drew cheers, not tears, from city police who had made 98 arrests there since it opened last June. Underage drinking was a big problem.
    The space is controlled by Boca resident Mitchell Kaminsky, who has announced that it will soon become the Filling Station Gastropub, no connection to Miami’s popular Filling Station and Garage Bar. No doubt the cops hope customers don’t overfill their tanks.
                                     ***
    Up in Manalapan’s Plaza Del Mar, the Plaza Theatre will host a ribbon cutting May 8 for its new Club Plaza, a new dining and entertainment cabaret and piano bar offering the likes of jazz and chamber music, while hosting seminars, weddings and other social events.  
                                     ***
    Benvenuto in Boynton Beach will host A Taste of Boynton, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. June 12, Participating restaurants include the Backyard, Carolina Ale House, Secret Garden Cafe at the Green Market, LongHorn Steakhouse, Culinary Solutions Catering, Banana Boat, Prime Catch, Village Tavern and GFS Marketplace. Entertainment by John Dustin Flamenco Fusion. For tickets, $35, call Greater Boynton Beach Chamber of Commerce, 732-9501.

Thom Smith is a freelance writer. Reach him at thomsmith@ymail.com

Cast members take the stage in the Arts Garage production of The Trouble With Doug. Photo provided

By Greg Stepanich

     Seraphic Fire, the Miami-based concert choir with two Grammy nominations to its credit, performs this month at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton, wrapping up its third season of regular Palm Beach County performances with a program of African-American spirituals.
    And if you haven’t heard this group of singers in Boca yet, you’d better make the concert May 8, because they won’t be back.
    Seraphic Fire will not be returning to St. Gregory’s in October, nor will it be appearing anywhere in Palm Beach County for the entire 2014-15 season.
     “It was a financial decision more than anything else,” said Joey Quigley, the group’s managing director, and brother of choir founder Patrick Dupré Quigley. The chief reason: Seraphic Fire was unable to get any substantial monetary backing in Palm Beach County.
    “We had hoped this could become a new audience for us, and the subscribers we had were very loyal,” Joey Quigley said. “But we weren’t able to get the growth we’d anticipated from the area, or get the donor and government support we get from all our other venues. So Boca became something of a non-starter.”
    The choir has tried two other times to establish a Palm Beach County presence, beginning early on with a couple seasons at First Presbyterian Church in Delray Beach, and then a midweek afternoon series at the Harriet Himmel Theater at CityPlace in West Palm Beach, before coming to St. Gregory’s.
    “Intellectually, it should work, with the size of the household incomes there,” he said of Palm Beach County. “It should be fertile ground, but it’s not. It’s so strange. It seems to be very closed off.”
    With the exception of the New World Symphony, which is an educational academy, and the long-defunct Florida Philharmonic, Seraphic Fire is the only homegrown South Florida classical institution to be nominated for a Grammy award. It was nominated twice in 2012, and you would think that might be enough to win it steady support.
    But there is something about the local arts scene that makes it difficult for outsiders. That’s a shame, because it would be difficult to find a higher-caliber homegrown group to boast of here.
    The upcoming season’s attractions include collaborations with The Sebastians, a Baroque concert orchestra, and Piffaro, a Renaissance ensemble, and feature Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, American composer Kile Smith’s Vespers, and the Arnold Schoenberg-Rainer Riehn reduction of Mahler’s exquisite Das Lied von der Erde.
    Other programs include an all-American evening, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus, and the annual candlelight Christmas and Handel’s Messiah concerts. Seraphic Fire will be performing these shows in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, with the closest venue to Palm Beach County being All Saints Episcopal in Fort Lauderdale.
    “When we told our Boca subscribers about this, many of them said, ‘Well, I guess I’ll drive 15 minutes more and go to Fort Lauderdale,’ ” Quigley said.  
    So if you want to see and hear what Palm Beach County just lost, make a date to catch the spirituals program, which is called Steal Away and which is set for 7:30 p.m. May 8, at St. Gregory’s, just behind Mizner Park.  Call 305-285-9060 or visit www.seraphicfire.org, get a ticket, and say farewell.
                                     

***
    We don’t tend to think of Franz Kafka as a merry sort, given the kind of oppressive, often gloomy fiction he wrote in secret during the 41 years of his tuberculosis-abbreviated life.
    But the great Czech writer was a huge fan of the dramatic arts, even to the point of supporting an Eastern European Yiddish theater troupe that performed in Prague during the days when the Zionist movement was in its first flush. So if he were with us today, he might be very happy about one of his stories serving as the inspiration for a musical now playing through May 11 at Delray Beach’s Arts Garage.
    The Trouble With Doug, which is getting its first full production here at The Theatre at Arts Garage, draws its basic plot device from Kafka’s story The Metamorphosis, in which Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect. In the musical version by composer Will Aronson and lyricist Daniel Maté, a young computer programmer named Doug Gregory with a loving, almost too-close family, is on the verge of a move from New York to San Francisco when he finds himself turning into a giant slug on the eve of his 27th birthday.
    “We took Kafka’s premise of a man becoming something else and we ran with it in our own direction,” Maté said.
    Aronson and Maté, who co-wrote the book of the show, said while the original story features a horrified and hostile family that wants the problem with Gregor to disappear, the family in this musical is much more “relatable,” Maté said.
    The first versions they wrote of the show, which has been in development for eight years, had a much more alienated family, similar to the story, and the result was a bit too Brecht-Weill for Aronson and Maté.
    “When you add music to that, it sounds kind of arch, like it’s a commentary on something,” said Maté, 38, a native of Vancouver who studied psychology at McGill University before entering the graduate musical theater writing program at New York University, where he met Aronson.
    “So we decided to neutralize that edge, and create a family that is loveable and is doing their best … and then this transformation happens, and the question of the play is: How is this going to affect the man to whom it’s happening, and how is it going to affect the people around him?”
    The five-person cast, directed by Margaret Ledford, includes Clay Cartland as Doug, Barry Tarallo and Patti Gardner as his parents, Shane Tanner as his older brother, Vince, and Alix Paige as his fiancée, Vanessa. Pianist Paul Reekie leads a three-piece band that includes cellist and percussionist Elena Alamilla and reeds player Glenn Rovinelli.
    The score by Aronson, a 32-year-old native of Connecticut and a graduate of Harvard, is the product of a young composer whose accomplishments include award-winning musicals in South Korea (My Crazy Girl) and shows for the Barrington (Mass.) Stage Company, and whose pedigree includes a year of Fulbright graduate work in Berlin, where he studied the operatic repertoire.
    “Certainly it draws on traditional musical theater to some extent, but I would say it does have a more classical-jazz bent to it,” Aronson said. “All the shows I’ve written so far sound somewhat different — there’s obviously a connective relationship; it’s all by me and my sensibility — but I think with different worlds and different shows, you want them to sound different, you want them to create their own world.”
    Both Aronson and Maté are grateful for the support of Lou Tyrrell, the theater’s artistic director, who tried to get The Trouble With Doug for his Florida Stage just before that company went under. Maté, who also is a composer, was at Arts Garage this season with an evening of his songs called The Longing and the Short of It, which was nominated for five Carbonell awards.
    Aaronson said his collaboration with Maté works best when the two men feel drawn to the story they’re telling, which is the case with Doug, and with the show they’re working on, an adaptation of the Hansel and Gretel folktale.
    “I think both of us tend to do better work when we’re taking risks, which means you have to go outside your comfort zone, which means by definition you can’t be afraid all the time,” he said. “If you’re going to try something that might be crazy and it might be good, sometimes it just might be crazy.”
    Shows are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. May 2, 7, 8, and 9; at 8 p.m. May 3; 2 p.m. May 4; and 2:30 p.m. May 10 and 11. Info: 450-6357 or www.artsgarage.org; tickets start at $30.

                                     ***
    This is the year the United States’ long war residence in Afghanistan is coming to an end, but not much of the culture of that region has seeped into the general consciousness.
    Opening this month at the Boca Museum of Art is an exhibit of Afghan war rugs, more than 40 relatively recent creations in which traditional Central Asian design motifs have been altered by new weavers to reflect the region’s decades of armed conflict.
    One of the rugs, for instance, resembles the kind of rug familiar from this part of the world in its borders and layout, but most of the center is a portrait of Amanullah Khan, who was king of Afghanistan just after World War I and won the country’s independence from the British. The figure of Khan, resplendent in a green army uniform, is framed by three handguns, two tanks and two helicopters.  Another features a twinned series of repeating tanks in the center, separated by rifles; still another uses tanks on the border and features a map of Afghanistan covered with symbols of war, including cannons, grenades and fighter jets.
    It’s somewhat disturbing to see these images depicted on an art form long associated with luxury and painstaking craftsmanship, but surely the works of these anonymous women weavers honestly depict the reality of a nation forever caught in the middle of antagonistic interests.

    The exhibit, which runs through July 27, is paired with an exhibit of pieces by the American artist Elaine Reichek, who creates needlework that raises feminist and multicultural questions.
    Works on display include a sampler from 1992 featuring a Native American couple next to the tree of the Garden of Eden, with a quote from Christopher Columbus above: “Their manners are decorous and praiseworthy.”
    Reichek will be on hand at the museum at 4:30 p.m., May 3 for a question-and-answer session about her work, followed at 5 p.m. by a lecture from Annemarie Sawkins, curator of the Afghan exhibit.
Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday and noon-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $14 for adults, $12 for seniors, and $6 for students with ID. Call 392-2500 or visit www.bocamuseum.org.

The Wasie Foundation is inviting women age 18 and older to team up with Operation Mobilization in the quest to end human trafficking by raising funds through a challenging series of summits. Cost is $800, which includes lodging, food, transportation and snacks. Call 954-765-1320 or visit www.thefreedomclimb.net/events/freedom-climb-2014 or www.wasie.org. ABOVE: Tina Yeager, Debbie Dingle, Jen Klaassens and Jill Taylor at last year’s Freedom Climb. Photo provided

The Milagro Center had its annual cultural arts-inspired fund-raising showcase highlighted by vocal, dance, mime, step, and spoken-word performances by students and teachers. A silent auction of themed packages and sales of artwork created by student artists raised funds for the nonprofit, which provides academic support to more than 200 of the community’s poorest children. ABOVE: Kurt Knaus, of PNC Bank, with Milagro Center’s Barbara Stark and Alison Hill. Photo provided by Emiliano Brooks Productions

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County’s Be Great Dinner to benefit the Naoma Donnelley Haggin Boys & Girls Club of Delray Beach raised more than $192,000 following a day of events and that honored Michael and Susan Mullin, recipients of the Forrest and Frances Lattner Award, and Kyra Dobard, Boys & Girls Club of Delray Beach’s Youth of the Year. More than 250 supporters attended the affair. ABOVE: Marc deBaptiste, Michael and Susan Mullin, Beau Dellafield and Tom Lynch. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

Lou Voress was honored at the annual Bel Lido Homeowners’ Association Meeting. Voress earned the honor for her dedication and duties spanning nearly four decades as secretary and member of the board of directors. She was presented with flowers and a tribute by association President Ron Brown and received a standing ovation. ABOVE: (seated) Arlan and Lou Voress, (standing) Highland Beach Police Chief Craig Hartmann, Delray Beach Emergency Fire and Rescue Chief Danielle Connor, Brown and association board member Gerry Marshall. Photo provided

Dozens of costumed superheroes joined other volunteers and attendees in raising a banner for the 2014 Boating & Beach Bash for People with Disabilities. Dubbed ‘Miracle on the Intracoastal,’  the bash is the largest free event in the country for those with physical and / or intellectual challenges. This year’s event drew 6,000. The most popular activity is the opportunity to enjoy a well-supervised ride aboard one of 20 yachts, lended to the bash for the day by their owners — most of them members of Boca Raton’s Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club. Photo provided by Aaron Lurie of VMA Studio

The always-popular couture competition during halftime, sponsored by Veuve Clicquot and The Gardens Mall, benefited The Center for Family Services of Palm Beach County, a nonprofit that offers affordable counseling services. ABOVE: Becky Sanders, Krista       Kowalczyk and Kelly McWilliams. Photo provided by Janis Bucher

Pope John Paul II High School’s Natalia Heguaburo (from left), Kaitlyn Maesel, Will Jeanlys (as the Easter bunny), Alena Constanian and Travis Hughes prepared snacks and baskets for 80 children served by Florence Fuller Child Development Centers in recognition of the holiday. Photo provided

Children & Parents Day took the apple to new heights with the fruit’s incorporation in more than 10 different recipes, a cooking class, arts and crafts and souvenir photos in the apple orchard. The annual event has evolved into a popular culinary gathering for families and serves as a prelude to National Nutrition Month. LEFT: Artist-in-residence Inge Behrens and Babs Lentz of Art-Sea Living Gallery. Photo provided

The National Society of Arts and Letters’ Florida East Coast Chapter welcomed more than 200 guests to its 32nd black-tie event honoring winners of the competition and scholarship recipients. Guests enjoyed an evening of dinner and dancing and a silent auction highlighted by a performance by this year’s woodwinds and musical-theater champions. ABOVE: Judith Asselta, with Alexander and Roswitha Guzinski.

RIGHT: Kevin Ross and Co-Chairwoman Alyce Erickson, with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Photos provided by Downtown Photo Fort Lauderdale

The Atlantis Golf Club Women’s Golf Association raised $25,355 this year to benefit P.I.N.K. (Prevention, Immediate diagnosis, New technology, Knowledge), an organization that donates funds to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. To date, the club has donated $206,014 to support the cause. The tournament and luncheon featured LGPA pros Michelle McGann and Marlene Streit. LEFT: Committee members (back, l-r) Michele Fashjian, Judy Jokiel and MJ Stewart. (front, l-r) Linda Reichenstein and Sue Wagner. Photo provided

Dress for Success Palm Beaches’ luncheon benefit raised more than $20,000 for programs that help local women get ready for re-entry into the workplace. Nearly 250 supporters gathered for the event that featured a fashion show, special guest Star Jones, a longtime supporter of Dress for Success, and Joi Gordon, CEO of Dress for Success Worldwide.
LEFT: Jessica Rosato, with Diane Wilde, CEO and founder of Dress for Success Palm Beaches.
Photo provided

Ray Coleman, executive director of the FAU / Pine Jog Environmental Education Center, welcomed more than 160 friends and supporters to a festive affair with the theme ‘Revealing Today’s Environmental Leaders.’ Awards went out to Environmental Educator of the Year, Program of the Year, Agency/Nonprofit of the Year and Visionary, as well as Lifetime Achievement. Nearly $60,000 was raised. ABOVE: Anne Henderson, assistant director of education at the center, with husband Walker Henderson. Photo provided by Veronica Frehm, Frehm Photography

More than 300 women made a big ‘impact’ when they gathered for Impact 100 Palm Beach County’s Grand Awards Celebration to award $320,000 to five nonprofits in South County. Three recipients were each awarded a $100,000 High Impact Grant. They were: Achievement Centers for Children and Families, The Creative City Collaborative, and The Florence Fuller Child Development Centers.  Three other finalists each received $10,000.
ABOVE:  Grant winners Lou Tyrrell, Alyona Ushe and Drew Tucker, of ArtsGarage.

LEFT: Attendees Loretta McQueen and Peggy Ruzika. Photos provided by
Sherry Ferrante Photography