This weekend’s gallery stroll in Vero Beach is the ultimate answer to shopping locally: not only are the goods sold in locally-owned galleries, they are made by local artists. Even better, those artists feel like friends to many of us, after having us over for these free monthly parties for what, six years now? Seems to me it’s time to reciprocate: resolve to buy a little something – an ornament, at least – and maybe drop off a bottle of wine or box of crackers to restock their pantries.
And be sure to check in on the latest business to introduce art into its public spaces: the studios of Vero Buzz TV, an internet TV station that took over some of the programming of Channel 10. Owner Jeff Voegele and Alex Zulueta are hanging the art of Cuban artist Carlos Perez Vidal this month. Buzz TV is on the northern end of 14th Avenue, across the street from the historic train station. If you have to miss the stroll, there will be an open house for Perez Vidal Saturday, Dec. 12.
The stroll starts at 5 p.m. along 14th Avenue.
Riverside Theatre’s Comedy Zone turns Wonderland this weekend with a holiday theme to the party out front. Live in the Loop are the Wily Nash Band Friday night and Blue Cypress Bluegrass Saturday night.
Here’s a gift I may make to myself: a ticket to Loudon Wainwright III’s concert. The Grammy award-winning folk singer and songwriter is playing in West Palm next Thursday night and Melbourne next Sunday; he’ll be performing in smaller, more intimate theaters.
If you’re not familiar, Louden played the singing surgeon on the TV show “M.A.S.H.” I know him as the dad of Rufus Wainwright, born when Loudon was briefly married to the late Kate McGarrigle, and they are two of my favorite singers. “Kitty Come Home,” the song Kate recorded with her sister Anna, was about her return to Montreal after the nasty breakup with Wainwright.
He may not have been the easiest guy to live with, but the ups and downs of domestic life were fodder for some great songs. And writing was in his blood: Louden III is the son of the brilliant Life magazine editor and columnist Louden Wainwright Jr.
When Loudon III was playing Greenwich Village clubs in the late 1960s and ’70s, the New York Times compared him favorably to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. By 1972, his quirky tune “Dead Skunk (In the Middle of the Road)” made him a celebrity. It’s worth reading the 2008 Vanity Fair article on the whole clan, “Songs in the Key of Lacerating,” before you go.
Tickets for the Dec. 10 concert at Kravis’s Rinker Playhouse and the Dec. 13 concert at the King Center’s Studio Theatre start both start at $39. Both shows start at 7:30 p.m., with a warmup act at Kravis: indie singer/songwriter Melissa Ferrick. Act fast; seats are selling out.
Three wonderful events at Vero’s Majestic 11 Theatre in the week ahead (and four, if you’re reading this Thursday): Sunday, in a live simulcast at 12:55 p.m., and repeated Wednesday, Dec. 9 at 6 p.m., the Bolshoi Ballet’s staging of “The Lady of the Camellias” is screened. Choreographed by John Neumeier, an American who in the 1960s was a soloist with the Stuttgart ballet before becoming artistic director of the Hamburg Ballet in 1973.
He has created more than 100 ballets and is known for his full-length story ballets, of which “The Lady of the Camellias” is one. Created in 1978 for the Stuttgart, the ballet is based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas (the son) and is set to the music of Chopin. It’s the same story as the opera “La Traviata” and the Garbo movie, “Camille,” about a courtesan who falls for a rich young aristocrat. Tickets are $20.
Tuesday, Simon Godwin directs Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” at the National Theatre in London and simulcast at the Majestic at 2 p.m., repeated at 7 p.m. Director Sally Cookson has combined the two-night show she staged with the same company for Bristol Old Vic last year. Madeleine Worrell stars in what The Telegraph’s Jane Schilling called “original, engaging, and unexpectedly funny … a production full of intelligent detail.”
And if you’re reading this in time, Thursday, Dec. 3, there’s an encore presentation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, “Coriolanus,” as staged at the Donmar Warehouse. It stars Tom Hiddleston, best known of late for his role in TV’s “The Avengers,” and the film “War Horse”; and Mark Gatiss of the BBC’s “Sherlock” (and two seasons of “Game of Thrones”). It’s directed by the Donmar’s artistic director, Josie Rourke. Rebroadcasts are at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Majestic.