By Greg Stepanich
It was controversial when it first hit the stage back in 1967, but today it stands as a landmark of the American theater, and the first truly successful rock musical.
I speak, of course, of Hair, which even now is playing in London’s West End in an extremely successful encore production that won the Tony for best revival in 2009. Thanks in large part to Galt MacDermot’s durable score (Aquarius, Good Morning Starshine, Easy to Be Hard, Let the Sunshine In) as well as its politically engaged book and irresistible energy, it’s proven to have just as powerful an impact as it did more than four decades ago.
All this is by way of saying there’s a new theater company in Palm Beach County, and this month it’s presenting 11 performances of the tribal love-rock musical, featuring young college-age performers. Entr’Acte Theatrix, founded last month by Vicki Halmos of the Palm Beach Principal Players, is designed to give rising thespians some professional experience to boost their CVs.
Hair runs for six performances at the Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton from June 10-13, and for five performances from June 17-20 at Palm Beach Gardens Community High School. The Caldwell shows are set for 8 p.m. June 10-12, and 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday, June 13. The Palm Beach Gardens High shows are planned for 8 p.m. June 17 and 18, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. June 19, and 2 p.m. Sunday, June 20.
Tickets for the Caldwell show range from $10 for students to $30 for adults; call 241-7432 for more information. Prices for the Gardens show are $25, or $20 for a group of 15, with one free ticket for every 15 sold. Call 877-710-7779 for more information.
Speaking of theater, there’s plenty of it here in June. Florida Stage’s last production at its Manalapan home, a world premiere of Christopher Demos-Brown’s tale of South Florida political ambition, When the Sun Shone Brighter, runs through June 20. And Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women continues through June 13 at Palm Beach Dramaworks.
Meanwhile, the Summer Play Festival at Palm Beach State in Lake Worth opens June 15 with a weekend of performances of Frank McGuinness’ Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. And at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, a musical revue, Celebrating 60 Years of Broadway’s Best Musicals, runs from June 19-22, followed by a monthlong run of Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which opens June 25.
And if that’s not enough, there’s always Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, which arrives for eight performances at the Kravis Center from June 22-27. Tickets start at $20; call 832-7469 for information.
Music: Country music’s most successful modern duo, Brooks and Dunn, are calling it quits this August after almost 20 years of hit songs, but you can see them on their Last Rodeo farewell tour Saturday, June 12, at the Cruzan Amphitheatre. Tickets: $25-$65, available through Live Nation.
Two days earlier, legendary Southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd visit the Cruzan on their God and Guns tour, joined by .38 Special and by Bret Michaels, lead singer of Poison and current star of Celebrity Apprentice. At last report, though, Michaels was still recovering from a stroke and heart problems he suffered in May, so you might want to call ahead to see whether he’ll be able to be there. Tickets: $19-$53.50.
If your taste runs more to something 1970s English, Mizner Park in Boca Raton hosts a concert Friday, June 4, by Jethro Tull, joined by songwriter Ian Hunter. This concert had been scheduled originally for the Bayfront Amphitheatre in Miami. Tickets: $35-$62.50, available through Live Nation.
Four days later, veteran English prog-rockers Yes and guitar idol Peter Frampton (who fell in love with vocoders before Cher or T-Pain) come to the Kravis on Tuesday, June 8, for a mammoth three-hour show that will be a retrospective of their catalogs. Tickets: $35-$115. Call 832-7469.
Classical music fans can head to the valuable St. Paul’s Episcopal Church series in Delray Beach on the afternoon of Sunday, June 6, for two piano quintets featuring FAU pianist Fedora Horowitz. She’ll play two of the greatest Romantic quintets, by Schumann (in E-flat, Op. 44), and Dvořák (in A, Op. 81). Tickets: $12-$15. Call 276-4541.
Art: The Boca Raton Museum of Art finishes up a retrospective June 13 of the work of the American abstract painter Stanley Boxer (1926-2000), whose non-representational works pulse with beautiful color.
On June 22, the museum presents the 59th annual juried exhibition, the oldest such show in the state. This year, about 1,400 works were submitted, and judge Linda Norden has chosen 91 of them, by 80 different artists. The show runs through Aug. 8 and is always a highlight of the cultural summer. Tickets are $8 for adults; call 392-2500.
Up at the Norton Museum, two new exhibits open June 5: Beyond the Figure, a show of abstract sculpture from the Norton’s collections, and Dinotopia: The Fantastical Art of James Gurney, featuring illustrations and models Gurney painted for his Dinotopia series of fantasy novels, which have been continued by other authors and made into a TV series and video games.
Both exhibits run through Sept. 5. Tickets are $12 for adults; call 832-5196.
Greg Stepanich is founder/editor of the Palm Beach ArtsPaper, available online at www.palmbeachartspaper.com. He can be reached at: gstepanich@pbartspaper.com.
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