If you’ve got kids or grandkids around, you might as well set up camp in the Riverside Theatre parking lot. There was the Festival of Trees before Thanksgiving, and “The Nutcracker: In Swingtime!” is coming up next weekend. And this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the impressive student actors of Riverside Children’s Theatre are staging an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen.”
Told here by a group of trolls, it’s the story of a little girl named Gerda who is frantic over the disappearance of her friend Kai. Turns out, Kai is under a spell, nailed by a shard of a cursed mirror (wait – aren’t they all cursed?) and is now trapped in the ice palace of the wicked Snow Queen. Gerda heads off to find her and gets a lot of help along the way.
These RCT plays are helped by sets and costumes generated from the grownup side of the theater, which makes for polished productions that are great fun to watch. Even if you’re not a doting grandparent, it’s hard to come away without a smile and a sense of pride at the great work RCT does guiding stage-struck kids in their passion.
“The Snow Queen” is conveniently staged around everyone’s naptime, including the grandparents, at 10 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $12 for adults; $6 for kids.
Getting up at the crack of dawn for bargains on Black Friday was good practice to be early enough to get a seat Saturday at the always-packed Christmas Cantata at Christ by the Sea Methodist Church. This year’s Noel Celebration features classical guitarist Miguel Bonachea along with a 50-member chorus, a 30-piece orchestra, liturgical dancers and narration.
Just hearing Bonachea would be celebration enough. A professor of guitar in Cuba and Colombia before moving to the U.S. in 2010, he settled first in Miami before moving to Vero in 2012. Since then he’s become a hot property at concerts, including one for Deborah Voigt in 2013.
I’m waiting for a chance to hear him play his passion: contemporary guitar. Bonachea founded the National Laboratory for Electro-Acoustic Music in Havana in the 1980s. That field still interests him deeply, though you’re not likely to get a taste of it at the Cantata.
Performances are at 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. There’s no admission charge, and the spillover crowd can still watch the Cantata on a big-screen TV in the church’s social hall. Christ by the Sea is on A1A at Greytwig.
At Community Church on the mainland Sunday, music director Ryan Kasten is combining the voices of the Vero Beach Choral Society with the church’s Chancel Choir, the Atlantic Children’s Chorale and Youth Chorus, the bells of the Atlantic Ringers and the horns of the Tapestry Brass Quintet. Also participating is the church’s newest group, Nautilus Chamber Choir, an auditioned, collegiate-level group. The Sunday concert starts at 7 p.m.
How often does Vero have within its reach an act worthy of Esquire magazine’s coveted “Esky” award for Most Loveable Oddball? For that honor alone, the Jewish reggae artist Matisyahu deserves a drive and the price of a ticket.
In fact, the singer/songwriter is worthy of much more than that moniker; after all, “loveable” hardly describes the political controversy he generates, and “oddball” diminishes his keen originality – if you Esky me.
No matter how you view him, you can physically see him at one of three venues all within an hour and a half of Vero: Melbourne’s King Center Dec. 20; Orlando’s Plaza Live Dec. 16 (my bet for most appreciative audience) or West Palm’s Kravis Center Dec. 30.
Matisyahu’s music has evolved in recent years, venturing away from dancehall reggae to a more pop sound in 2013’s “Spark Seeker” and to the dream-state soundtrack of his latest album, “Akeda.”
At the same time, he has distanced himself from Hasidic Judaism, shaving his trademark beard in 2011, posting photos without his yarmulke and then, three years ago, leaving his Hasidic neighborhood in Crown Heights for L.A., and bleaching his hair blond (he has since gone salt and pepper – solidly mainstream.)
Before taking the stage at – of all places – Le Bataclan in 2013 in Paris, he told an interviewer with a Jewish news service that he felt “locked in by the Hasidic life.” While for his Jewish fans, he still believes his music reconciles tradition with modernity, his new spirit feels “like springtime coming out of a hibernation.”
Yet he apparently remains staunchly supportive of Israel, which has incensed pro-Palestinian sectors: He was banned, then reinstated, at a reggae festival in Spain in August, and there were protests last week when he played in Ithaca, NY.
To a Vero listener his music crosses another cultural divide: age. Though I was enjoying his music for the first time (and carefully pronouncing his name like it was some kind of sushi) my two 20-something co-workers were well-acquainted. That’s good news: I love being the oldest one in the room.