March/April 2023

Hank Williams & His Honky Tonk Trio

WHEN: April 19-22, various show times

WHERE: Delray Beach Playhouse, 950 N.W. Ninth St., Delray Beach

COST: $45

CONTACT: 561/272-1281, delraybeachplayhouse.com

It’s easy to forget that Hank Williams died at 29, because his music conveyed a veritable lifetime of emotional summits and sorrows. His fragile warble, flickering near its breaking point on “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” could have been that of an octogenarian bluesman’s front-porch swan song. Instead, it came from a young man whom some called the “Hillbilly Shakespeare,” and who all but invented country music for a generation of listeners. This year would mark the legend’s 100th birthday, and to honor this milestone, the Delray Beach Playhouse is welcoming a signature interpreter of Williams’ songbook, Jason Petty, and his three-piece band. Petty won an Obie award for portraying Williams in the Off-Broadway bio-musical “Lost Highway” and has appeared more than a dozen times at the Grand Ole Opry; expect to hear the aforementioned classics alongside “Hey Good Lookin’” and many more.

LP and the Vinyl

WHEN: March 24, 8 p.m.

WHERE: Arts Garage, 94 N.E. Second Ave., Delray Beach

COST: $45-$50

CONTACT: 561/450-6357, artsgarage.org

This quartet’s name is a play on words for record collectors, but it also describes the twin aspects of its formula: The “LP” stands for vocalist Leonard Patton, whose soulful tenor echoes Stevie Wonder’s. The “Vinyl,” therefore, is the jazz trio that backs him up, namely pianist Danny Green, bassist Justin Grinnell and drummer Julien Cantelm. They’ve enjoyed distinguished careers separately but have found a certain kismet together, one that marries their arranging talents with their improvisatory skills. The group’s debut album, 2020’s Heard and Seen, finds them reinterpreting favorites from their eclectic slate of influences: Glam rock (David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”), altrock (Oasis’ “Wonderwall”), contemporary jazz (the Modern Jazz Quartet’s “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise”), show tunes (Sondheim’s “Night Waltz”) and more, with each expansive composition allowing all of the players to shine. Their Arts Garage program is subtitled “Blues to Beatles to Bowie.”

“August: Osage County”

WHEN: March 31-April 16

WHERE: Palm Beach Dramaworks, 201 Clematis St., West Palm Beach

COST: $84

CONTACT: 561/514-4042, palmbeachdramaworks.org

Most playwrights and directors in recent years have tended toward brevity: The intermissionless 90-minute play has never been more in vogue. In this context, Tracy Letts’ “August: Osage County” is almost the last of its species: a dinosaur of a play, clocking in at north of three hours, with a cast of 13 and with two intermissions to let spectators catch their breath. And they’re going to need that time to decompress, because Letts’ hulking tragicomedy takes a lot out of its cast and audience alike. He chronicles an extended family that is, hopefully, not too much like your own. It’s led by Violet Watson, a cancer-stricken, pill-addicted and probably sociopathic matriarch, during the days following the disappearance of her alcoholic husband Beverly. Three generations of dysfunctional siblings, daughters and grandchildren coalesce in this combustible work that won five Tony Awards on Broadway and led to an Oscar-nominated film adaptation a few years later.

Miami City Ballet: “Fresh and Fierce”

WHEN: April 21-23

WHERE: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach

COST: $35-$120

CONTACT: 561/832-7469, kravis.org

Thirty-four years after winning an Academy Award for his choreographic work in the 1961 film of “West Side Story,” Jerome Robbins distilled its genius into the “West Side Story Suite,” a theatrical series of dances, completed just three years before his death in 1998. Shed of songs and narrative trappings, the Suite retains the emotional summits and valleys of the original show, as the Jets and Sharks rumble and soar from high school gyms to the pitiless streets. This work is the headlining performance of the appropriately titled “Fresh and Fierce,” the third program of Miami City Ballet’s 20222023 season. This dynamic evening of dance also includes George Balanchine’s enchanting “Symphony in C,” set to the music of Georges Bizet and featuring more than 50 dancers; and a newly commissioned world premiere by choreographer Durante Verzola, who trained at the MCB School. Untitled as of this writing, the work includes costumes by international fashion designer Esteban Cortázar.

2022 Benjamin Mkapa African Wildlife Photography Awards

WHEN: April 26-June 4

WHERE: Society of the Four Arts, 102 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach COST: $10

CONTACT: 561/655-7226, fourarts.org

A white-bellied pangolin nestling in the hands of its keeper in a Nigerian shelter. A herd of ostriches gathering in front of a pink-hued landscape of Namibian mountains. A staggering overhead image of flamingoes converging around Kenya’s Lake Solai. These are just a few of the winning selections in the second-annual Benjamin Mkapa African Wildlife Photography Awards, a competition, conceived in Nairobi, for photographers who advocate for wildlife conservation. Image-makers from around the world traveled throughout the continent to capture wildlife in its natural habitat and amid its relationship with humans and the infrastructure that often infringes on its lives. Categories such as “Coexistence & Conflict” and “African Wildlife at Risk” speak to this competition’s urgent and noble intentions. As for the name, H.E. Benjamin Mkapa, who died in 2020, was one of Africa’s most devout champions of conservation.

BY JOHN THOMASON