Riverside Theatre’s Second Stage series gives us “Freud’s Last Session,” opening Tuesday. The premise of Mark St. Germain’s play, which opened on Broadway in 2010, is a visit by the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis to the dying psychoanalyst Freud’s office. There, a great debate ensues about sex and the existence of God.
The play has its genesis in a Harvard seminar that spawned a book and a PBS special. Playwright St. Germain set the story on Sept. 3, 1939, and has the BBC tuned in on the vintage radio, blasting the news that Britain was at the brink of war. Always a good time to find religion.
Don’t be alarmed, O ye abundant Vero church-goers nor ye secular humanists: The New York Times called it “equal opportunity theatre” – no conversions attempted. Instead, it’s a charged debate that races along just ahead of the Germans, and Freud’s own cancer.
Interestingly, our theatrical neighbor to the south, Palm Beach Dramaworks, can claim a hand in the play’s development. It held several readings of the play as part of its Drama (in the) Works program. The theater went on to stage the show in late 2010, its southeast U.S. premiere.
“Freud’s Last Session” runs at Riverside through April 3.
Next Wednesday night, Vero Beach will get a chance to meet world renowned Met soprano Deborah Voigt when she does a book signing of her memoir, “Call Me Debbie,” in the lobby of the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. That follows an on-stage interview with Vero Beach Opera’s Tania Ortega-Cowan and, with luck, a song or two. Voigt is here through next weekend for her first-ever vocal competition starting Thursday afternoon and running through Saturday, capped off with a concert by the finalists Saturday night.
Tickets to the interview start at $30, $40 and $50; the same price as the concert Saturday. The real bargains are the $20 two-day passes to the competition, where in the quiet of a nearly empty auditorium you can listen to 30 highly talented young singers and watch Voigt deliberate on the judges’ panel. Preliminaries are next Thursday and Friday afternoon, as well as Friday evening.
In West Palm this weekend, Palm Beach Opera presents its third opera of the season, Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos,” about a comedy troupe that performs at a party at the same time as an opera company. Met star (and “Boardwalk Empire” cast member) Anthony Laciura performs the role of the Majordomo. The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s Andreas Delfs conducts. Performances are at the Kravis Center Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
In the King Center’s more intimate Studio Stage Friday night, two great bands from two generations are playing this weekend. Average White Band, a Scottish band that was big in the 1970s and ’80s with hits like “Piece of the Pieces” and “Work to Do,” plays Friday at 8:30 p.m.
And Sunday night in the Studio, Rusted Roots, a rock fusion group from Pennsylvania, plays their mix of African and other world music rhythms with an airy rock and R&B vocal line. That show starts at 7:30 p.m.
The rock musician-turned-film composer Danny Elfman wrote a concerto-like composition that will be the featured work of Sunday’s Space Coast Orchestra performance in the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. “Serenada Schizophrana” features a solo voice and chorus. Also on the program: conductor Aaron Collins’ world premiere of his own composition. And Bruch’s “Violin Concerto” will be performed by Satellite High School senior Tomás López.
A young Russian pianist is giving a free concert at the Emerson Center March 24, courtesy of the Florida Division of Humanities. Moscow’s Sergey Belyavskiy played in Carnegie Hall in 2011 – when he was only 18. The son of musicians, he studied at top music schools in Moscow, winning his first international competition at the age of 11. His program includes Debussy, Gershwin and Liszt and others. The Thursday evening concert starts at 7 p.m.
At the King Center in Melbourne Friday and at Stuart’s Lyric Theatre on Monday, the Grammy-award winning Chicano band Los Lobos performs with Ballet Folklorico Mexicano. Los Lobos started out in 1973, but it wasn’t until 1987 that their cover of “La Bamba” really made them famous. Their debut album, “How Will the Wolf Survive?” ranks No. 30 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s.
Saturday at the Lyric, Grammy-award winning jazz pianist Robert Navarro and his 20-piece orchestra recreate the Palladium Ballroom, famous for its Latin dancing in the post-war era until it closed in the 1960s. A native of New York City and a student of piano under Jackie Byrd after earning a masters at NYU, Navarro is also an accomplished arranger – he won a Grammy for his work on a song recorded by Bobby Cruz. The concert starts at 7 p.m.
