There are times when sitting inside a dark theater seems completely antithetical to enjoying Vero Beach. Not so this steamy summer weekend, when the Vero Beach Wine and Film Festival offers great films in cool venues all over town – and, with luck, a nicely chilled Sancerre.
The jam-packed schedule is available on the festival website and I strongly suggest taking a while to study and absorb it, not just the parties but the impressive selection of films, panelists and vintners flying in.
It all kicks off Thursday with wine dinners at Costa d’Este and Citrus Grillhouse, and a less formal open house-style evening from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the new Raw Space at Edgewood gallery on Old Dixie downtown.
Then, Friday and Saturday starting at noon, films are screened at both the Vero Beach Museum of Art and Riverside Theatre on the island, and at the Heritage Center on the mainland.
Friday, in a major coup for the first-year festival, Sundance award winner “Between Land and Sea” will be shown at 4:30 p.m. at the museum. That will be followed by shorts both comedic and dramatic. And starting at 7 p.m. at Riverside, the Cinema Uncorked event includes wine tastings and the Florida premiere of “The Week” with director Jon Mann hosting an audience Q&A afterwards.
Saturday, while “Land and Sea” moves to the Heritage Center, at Riverside, former Time magazine reporter and wine author George Taber, a part-time Vero resident, will host a quasi-re-creation of the 1976 Paris Tasting at which he was the only journalist present. That’s when a California wine beat out the top French wines of the day. That will be followed by the film “Bottle Shock.”
Saturday night, the festival’s Grand Tasting takes place at Costa d’Este.
Sunday, the action stays downtown with films screening at the Heritage Center, a champagne brunch at Osceola Bistro and a wrap party at Blue Star. And Sunday afternoon, there’s a closing-day party at Blue Star downtown.
And to whoever won festival founder Jerusha Stewart’s Be My Movie Date contest, we wish you stamina.
The Vero Beach Theatre Guild is showing its stamina with a season-extending show, “Deathtrap,” opening this weekend. Billed as a comedy thriller, the plot turns on a playwright whose student sends him a script to review. When the playwright remarks that he’d like to murder the guy and steal the play, his wife gets a little worried. Written in 1978 by Ira Levin, author of “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Stepford Wives,” and directed here by Art Pingree, “Deathtrap” runs through June 19.
A troupe of fine actors-in-training at Vero Beach High School are staging a brilliant play this weekend: David Ives’ “All in the Timing,” a series of mostly comedic vignettes about life, love and Trotsky.
With a very smart, very funny script to work with, the cast – VBHS drama teacher Dee Rose’s competition drama students – shows remarkable talent and maturity. Many of them groomed at Riverside Children’s Theatre, they are directed by a former student of both Riverside and the high school, Megan Taylor Callahan, now in her junior year at the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. (More on Megan elsewhere in this section.)
At $8 a ticket, this may be Vero’s entertainment bargain of the year. I saw a rehearsal, and believe me, this student troupe easily stands up to or surpasses any adult community theater I’ve seen in our area.
Ives’ absurdist sense of humor stays grounded with themes that are easy to relate to – wrong answers on first dates, self-improvement swindles, and feeling unmoored from the world around you.
Shows are Friday and Saturday at 7:30 and Sunday at 2 pm at the Black Box theater at the Freshman Learning Center.
At Fort Pierce’s Sunrise Theatre, two comedians take the stage in the Black Box theater Saturday night. Steve Lazlow has performed on “The Tonight Show” and Comedy Central; Al Lubel is an attorney who started comedy right after passing the bar exam. He’s been on Letterman and Leno many times.
Sunrise’s Comedy Zone offers a full bar and free popcorn. Tickets are $15. The show starts at 8:30 p.m.