Dubbed “America’s new romantic singing sensation,” Brooklyn-born, Nashville-based tenor Anthony Nunziata is kicking off the upcoming holiday weekend with ‘My Italian Broadway Christmas’ Friday, Dec. 23 at 7 p.m. at The Studio in Mizner Park, 201 W. Plaza Real in Boca Raton.
The powerhouse performer and Carnegie Hall headliner whose vocal style has been compared to Michael Bublé, Andrea Bocelli and Michael Bolton will serenade the audience with his soaring tenor voice, singing timeless songs from his Italian, Broadway and holiday repertoires, including soul-stirring renditions of “O Holy Night,” “O Sole Mio,” “Somewhere,” “Funniculi, Funnicula,” “The Christmas Song” and other classics.
Perhaps the strangest, goofiest and funkiest spelling bee ever presented on Planet Earth is about to complete its three-weekend run at the Willow Theater in Boca Raton’s Sugar Sand Park.
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee isa silly sendup of those nerve-wracking, angst-producing, word competitions that caused us no end of anxiety in our youth. The production, presented by the MNM Theatre Company, provides an evening of laughs, funny songs and smartly written parody, interspersed with on-stage antics that occasionally get out of hand.
Quite a few Christmas holiday films have risen to the level of “classic.” Perhaps the most famous is “Miracle on 34th Street.” Others include “White Christmas,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” “Elf” and, of course, “The Santa Clause.”
But “It’s a Wonderful Life” is still the gold standard of celluloid holiday flicks. Crafted by director Frank Capra in 1946, the film doesn’t just memorialize Christmas, it also underscores the importance of every individual on this earth and how tragic this planet would be if just one of them were to have never existed.
Cinderella, the timeless tale of a raggedy young woman who uses her beauty, brains and magical intervention from a fairy godmother to help snag a handsome prince, is being retold in sophisticated, elegant and high-tech style through Christmas Eve at the Wick Theatre in Boca Raton.
“This is the most complicated and technical show” performed at the Wick since it opened nine years ago, said Marilynn Wick, executive managing producer. She has pulled together a skilled production team and lots of singers, actors and dancers to make the performance move and shine.
As a teenager, Washington state native Heidi Schreck set her sights on learning all she could about the U.S. Constitution. In fact, around age 15, the inquisitive youngster launched a journey to earn her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the U.S.
Now 51, the woman from Wenatchee who went to the University of Oregon using debate-raised cash and grew up to become a teacher, actress and playwright turned her enthusiastic political learning experience into a humorous, thought-provoking play called What the Constitution Means to Me that has played on and off Broadway. It was nominated for Best Play, and she for Best Actress, in the 73rd Tony Awards, and the show earned a finalist spot for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
One normally doesn’t find nuptials, an apparent murder plot and elegant ballroom dancing all in the same stage production.
However, the Willow Theater at Boca Raton’s Sugar Sand Park has located just such a performance. The show, Marry. Murder. What? opened Friday for a brief, two-weekend South Florida premiere, arriving a month or so after being staged in a workshop at the Flea Theater in Tribeca, New York, under its original name, Marry. Murder. F$&@k!?
Boca Stage kicks off its 2022-23 season with a haunting new play, an evocative drama postulating that death is, in fact, a two-way door, and that everyone who ever lived and died continues to exist in this in-between spiritual dimension.
Jersey Boys, the jukebox musical that opens the 2022-23 season at the elegantly renovated Maltz Theatre in Jupiter, dramatizes the formation, success and eventual break-up of the 1960s rock ‘n’ roll group, The Four Seasons, an ensemble that time, money woes and misfortune have not expunged.
Check YouTube. You can find a video of lead singer Frankie Valli performing earlier this year at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut.
But Jersey Boys is a lot more than a simple story. It’s a paean to some kids who concocted a musical style while singing on street corners in New Jersey, then bucked it up by adding a youngster with a four-octave vocal range to create “the sound” that would go on to change a generation.
Michael Ursua, the multi-talented pianist, actor, theater director and performance craftsperson, among other titles, moved from his native Santa Ana, California, to South Florida when he was about 10 years old. Or, as he put it in a recent interview, “I went from Disneyland to Disney World.”
The Disney connection is particularly appropriate for the artisan of many talents. After learning to play piano at age 11, and sharpening his acting chops by doing community theater, he later signed on for three consecutive gigs on the Disney Magic cruise ship – as a main stage entertainer and a writer. Before disembarking the final year, “I put together a reboot of several character experiences.”
Acclaimed Miami-based dance pioneer, Karen Peterson, and her mixed-ability KPD Dancers are back in South Florida this week to highlight their Fourth Annual Forward Motion Dance Festival and Conference of Physically Integrated Dance (FM4).
The shows will feature the KPD ensemble and another troupe, Full Radius Dance. Both groups focus on the work of disabled and non-disabled performers, joining together on stage to craft unusual and entertaining pieces.
