The Vero Beach Theatre Guild has secured the rights to “Deathtrap,” after production problems caused the group to cancel “The Nerd,” scheduled to open this week. Now “Deathtrap,” a mystery thriller, won’t be opening until June 9. But there are two community theater productions in Brevard County to check out, and a fine professional production in West Palm Beach.
“Big Fish,” the musical based on Tim Burton’s movie, plays through May 22 at the Henegar Center on New Haven in Melbourne; and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights” is at the Cocoa Village Playhouse through May 15.
To the south of us, Palm Beach Dramaworks is putting a nationally known critic to the test when it raises the curtain Friday on “Satchmo at the Waldorf.” The play is not only written but directed by Terry Teachout, theater critic of The Wall Street Journal who has reviewed several Palm Beach Dramaworks productions, as well as Riverside Theatre’s “Les Misérables.”
Teachout’s “Satchmo at the Waldorf” premiered in Orlando in 2011 and has played off-Broadway and around the country. The one-man play is set in Louis Armstrong’s dressing room at the grand Waldorf Astoria hotel. There, the legendary horn player and grandson of a slave is not only performing but staying, four months before he died.
Satchmo is played by Barry Shabaka Henry, who starred in a recent production in Chicago.
In this one-man play, Henry does all the talking, but he does no playing or singing. He does assume other roles, though, including that of Miles Davis and his manager.
Teachout, a professional jazz bass player before he become a theater critic, has written biographies of Armstrong and, more recently, Duke Ellington. He has also written books on George Balanchine and H.L. Mencken, and has written the libretti to three operas.
The play runs through June 12.
Sunday there’s another Live in HD screening at the Majestic, but of an orchestra this time. Andris Nelsons, the famed young Latvian conductor who is currently the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducts the Berlin Philharmonic. Nelsons gives his international simulcast audience a taste of the new production of “Percival,” the Wagner opera he’ll be conducting in June at the Bayreuth Festival. For this screening, he offers two selections: the Prelude and the Karfreitagszauber. The simulcast starts at 12:55 p.m.
If you’re craving live performance, the 100-voice community choir of Brevard County sings Verdi’s “Requiem” in its annual spring concert Saturday night in Melbourne. The 60-year-old volunteer group, founded in 1969, regularly tours Europe in the summer and often accompanies the Brevard Symphony Orchestra. It is led by Dr. Robert Lamb, professor of music at Eastern Florida State College.
The concert is at 7:30 p.m. at the King Center.
Sunday night, the tone shifts dramatically for the King Center audience when Bill Maher drops in for a night of comedy and a liberal dose of his trademark political commentary.
The snark should have dissipated by Thursday night, when the Monkees – that eternally-PG, made-for-TV rock band – stop in Melbourne. They’re on tour celebrating their 50th anniversary of music-making with a new album – their first in 20 years.
The group was created for a 1960s TV series, cast from more than 400 applicants responding to ads for “four insane boys” to sing “folk and roll.” Don Kirshner helped develop the Monkees’ early music, since they at first couldn’t even figure out who should play what on the show. Among their 12 Top 40 hits, the group had three go to No. 1 – “Last Train to Clarksville,” “I’m a Believer” and “Daydream Believer.”
It’s staggering to think that at one point in 1967, they were outselling the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined.
The lone Englishman in the group, Davy Jones, died of a heart attack in 2012; he had played the Artful Dodger in “Oliver!” on Broadway, and his performance aired on “The Ed Sullivan Show” the same night as the Beatles. As for the others – Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork – they last toured together in 2014. This time around, although all three perform on the album, the tour only includes Dolenz and Tork.
Monday night, RuPaul’s Drag Race Extravaganza Tour takes over Orlando’s PlazaLive theater. The show includes past winners, finalists and audience favorites from the Logo TV channel reality show of drag queens on which RuPaul serves as judge. On tour, the show is hosted by another judge, Michelle Visage. Since my basic Dish plan doesn’t include the Logo channel, I mostly know the Atlanta-born, 55-year-old RuPaul Charles for his MAC lipstick recommendations as well as his long-time work for AIDS awareness. But clearly, he knows fabulous when he sees it, which is what “Drag Race” is all about. Doors open at 8 p.m., and the show starts at 9 p.m.