For its final production of the season, Riverside Theatre is teaming up with Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theatre again, this time giving us “Sister Act,” the musical version of the 1992 movie starring Whoopi Goldberg. She went on to co-produce the musical version when it opened in London’s West End in 2009 and again on Broadway in 2011.
The show, about a nightclub singer who witnesses a murder and goes into hiding in a convent, features music written by Alan Menken, best known for his Disney scores. The Vero-Philly production is directed and choreographed by Richard Stafford, a veteran of many Walnut Street shows; last year he directed “Memphis” at Riverside before taking that production north. Riverside’s Ken Clifton is music director. “Sister Act” plays here through May 1 then starts a two-month run in Philadelphia May 17.
Comedian Kathy Griffin performs Saturday night at the King Center in Melbourne. Griffin studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute before joining L.A.’s comedy troupe, the Groundlings. Her success with stand-up got her a supporting role on the NBC sitcom, “Suddenly Susan.” But it was her own reality show on Bravo, “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List,” that earned her two Emmy awards and made her a household name. All six of her comedy albums have been nominated for Grammys, and when she finally won in 2014, Griffin became only the third woman to do so (after Lily Tomlin and Whoopi Goldberg). Saturday’s concert starts at 8 p.m.
At the King Center on Tuesday night, another ground-breaking female performer takes the stage. Belinda Carlisle, a founder of the 1980s all-girl rock group the Go-Go’s, performs solo, though it will include some Go-Go’s hits and covers, and maybe a song or two off her 2008 album in French. Carlisle, 58, lives in France with her husband of 30 years, Morgan Mason. Her partying days are behind her – she meditates now – no drinking, no drugs. Meanwhile, the Go-Go’s Farewell Tour is slated for this summer.
At the Melbourne Civic Theatre on Strawbridge Avenue, the classic Molière farce “Tartuffe” runs through April 24. The theater, with under 100 seats, is the smallest of four community theaters in Brevard County. Despite its underdog status, the theater maintains an ambitious roster of plays.
If you haven’t read your CliffsNotes in a while, seeing a staging of “Tartuffe” may remind you it has some of classical theater’s best roles. In 1664 when it debuted, the play was immediately censored by King Louis XIV for making vice look too much like virtue, the reason Tartuffe was so successful as a God-fearing fake.
And if you haven’t refreshed your memory of classical music’s greatest hits lately, Space Coast Symphony Orchestra offers its Masterworks concert Saturday evening at 7 p.m. at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 for solo trumpet, flute, oboe and violin opens the program, followed by Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4, and Haydn’s Symphony No. 104, the last of his 12 so-called London Symphonies. Michael Hall, artistic director of Chester County, Pennsylvania’s Kennett Symphony, be will guest conducting.
Not since Beverly Sills made the feat famous has a soprano sung the roles of all three of Donizetti’s Tudor queens in a single season on a New York stage. Saturday at 1 p.m. (and rebroadcast Tuesday evening at 6) at Vero Beach’s Majestic 11 Theatre, the Met Live in HD delivers a simulcast of famed American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky as she matches Sills’ effort in “Roberto Devereux.” In the last of the famous bel canto trilogy, Queen Elizabeth I must sign the death warrant of the nobleman that is her beloved. Sir David McVicar directs, as he did with “Anna Bolena” and “Maria Stuarda.” The work is a Met premiere that opened March 24 to great reviews.
Matthew Polenzani plays the condemned; Elina Garanca is the beautiful noblewoman Sara of whom Elizabeth is so desperately jealous.
But it is Radvanovsky who is going for the gold.