Opening this Tuesday on Riverside Theatre’s Stark Stage is “Million Dollar Quartet,” a Tony Award-winning musical about that memorable, serendipitous night, Dec. 4, 1956, when four musical giants – Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins – found themselves jamming in an impromptu studio session at Sam Phillip’s Sun Studios in Memphis.
Although the four music legends didn’t know it at the time, the session was being taped – preserving for all time the four in their prime and some of the best music of the era.
Show times: 2 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 8 p.m. through Jan. 21. Tickets, $35 to $90.
It’s a big weekend for ballet, with Ballet Vero Beach’s all-new, all-original “The Nutcracker on the Indian River” premiering Friday night at 8 p.m. and playing again Saturday at 2 p.m.
It features a professional cast of 23 as well as 50 local kids. That’s at the Vero Beach High School Performing Arts Center.
And at West Palm’s Kravis Center, Miami City Ballet is showing off its newly designed costumes and scenery in the Balanchine version of “The Nutcracker.”
For Vero’s landmark production, go to balletverobeach.org or call the box office at 772-564-5537. For more on Miami City Ballet’s “Nutcracker,” go to kravis.org.
McKee Botanical Garden’s annual Nights of Lights, this Thursday, Friday and Saturday, should absolutely be on your holiday to-do list.
McKee is always a blood pressure-reducing oasis of calm and natural beauty and, during the Christmas season, creatively-placed lighting and holiday elements transform it into a place of wonder and magic for all ages.
This event typically draws a crowd, but don’t let that deter you. Visitors, I’ve observed, seem instinctively to respect the natural surroundings, lowering voices, moving carefully.
McKee Botanical Garden invites you to “celebrate the incoming year in peace and harmony, surrounded by sights and sounds of nature.”
Nights of Lights hours are 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. with standard admission: adults, $12; seniors, $11; children 3-12, $8; children under 3, free.
The popular Sebastian Inlet State Park Night Sounds concert series continues this Saturday, with the band Alize, its final concert of 2017. After getting audiences moving to a reggae beat for years, Alize has cranked it up a notch, re-inventing itself with some new band members.
You’ll hear island, Soca (aka the Soul Of Calypso), Top 40, funk, soft rock and a dash of county. The concert takes place at Coconut Point pavilions, on the south side of Sebastian Inlet Bridge.
Just bring your favorite folding chair, enjoy the reggae beat and watch evening darken into night, between the Indian River lagoon and the Atlantic.
You can even grab a bite and a beverage: BG’s Surfside Grill and Adventures has pop, water, snacks, burgers and dogs. Music starts at 7 p.m. Concert admission is free with park entry fee.
Two very familiar entities in Vero Beach – the Heritage Center (on 14th Avenue) and the Landsharks Band – will come together for a major, music-filled New Year’s Eve celebration.
The Landsharks are the primo Jimmy Buffett tribute band, and they’ll have their laid-back island vibe going on all night. A cash bar will be set up on the patio, and you can rock your socks off all the way to next year.
There will even be, no surprise, a Parrothead costume contest entitled “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” which, come to think of it, might be a good toast for the new year.
Tickets are $50 to $80, and include some foodstuffs and the traditional stroke-of-12 champagne toast.
Next Friday, Jan. 5, is the first monthly Main Street Vero Beach Gallery Stroll of 2018, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. All along and around 14th Avenue, between 19th Street and 23rd Street, galleries and some businesses open their doors in welcome, with a casual, lively reception vibe.
You can stroll at your leisure, enjoying the wide range of new art work, and the artsy ambiance. Among the galleries: Flametree Clay Art Gallery, Island Images, MSVB Studios, Highwaymen Gallery, Artists Guild Gallery; Florida Highwaymen – Ray McClendon, Gallery 14, Tiger Lily, Diossy Gallery, The Other Half Gallery and RawSpace Gallery.
A convenient addition to the monthly strolls is the Treasure Coast Trolley, a vintage-style vehicle that picks up passengers at the city parking lot at 12th Court and 20th Street, and runs a continuous loop along 14th Avenue to 18th Street and Old Dixie with several stops along the way.
It’s handicap accessible, with room for two wheelchairs.
The Kravis in West Palm will present the brilliant, music-filled “Salute to Vienna” New Year’s Eve concert, with the Strauss Symphony of America, conducted by Matthias Fletzberger of Vienna.
A West Palm Beach tradition for 22 years, the Dreyfoos Hall will again be filled with “the spirited romance of operetta, the glamour of ballroom dance, and the delicate beauty of ballet.”
A feast for the eyes and the ears, this brilliant and colorful cultural celebration will certainly have you swaying to the music. With gorgeous costumes and charming vignettes, Viennese singers Iva Schell, soprano, and Michael Heim, tenor; Europaballett St. Pölten of Austria; and a full orchestra will perform beloved Strauss waltzes and operetta favorites.
It is, promises the show promo, “a toast to life itself.” So, let’s party like it’s 1899! Show time is 8 p.m. Tickets from $29.
