All People’s Day celebrates Delray’s diversity, a standup legend performs in West Palm Beach, and They Might Be Giants play their most iconic album live. Plus, Clan of Xymox, a Sondheim tribute and more in your week ahead.
What: Symphony of the Americas: Stephen Sondheim: A Tribute!
When: 7:45 p.m.
Where: Broward Center, 201 S.W. Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale
Cost: $10-$75
Contact: 954/462-0222, browardcenter.org
Barring some sort of metaphysical collaboration, the possibility of new music from Stephen Sondheim, the giant of musical theatre who died in November 2021, is nil. But his incredible, singular corpus, fostered over 60 years of foundation-altering creativity, still yields new interpretations, mysteries and joys, as this Symphony of the Americas production reveals. The Symphony, under the baton of Principal Conductor Pablo Mielgo, will perform more than a dozen Sondheim compositions from such mellifluous musicals as “Sweeney Todd,” “Into the Woods,” “Company” and “Follies.” Tony-nominated singer/actor Liz Callaway—who made her Broadway debut in Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along”—will have the honor of performing the vocal duties.
What: They Might Be Giants
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Culture Room, 3045 N. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale
Cost: $32
Contact: 954/564-1074, cultureroom.net
Twenty-three full-length albums into their career, They Might Be Giants remain one of alternative rock’s rainy-day staples, a group whose central duo, singer-songwriters John Flansburgh and John Linnell, have been making music together since 1982. Unapologetically geeky and forthrightly literate, the two Johns are essentially a “Jeopardy!” board in the form of music, performing catchy and arcane tunes about obscure Belgian painters, marginal presidents, Hollywood costume designers and astral bodies. This tour, a long-anticipated COVID postponement, will honor the 30th anniversary of They Might Be Giants’ landmark 1990 album Flood. The group will perform all 19 of its tracks, including hit single “Birdhouse in your Soul” (the best song ever written about a night light), the jaunty “Particle Man” and the rousing history lesson “Istanbul (Not Constantinople).”
What: Clan of Xymox
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Respectable Street, 518 Clematis St., West Palm Beach
Cost: $30
Contact: 561/832-9999, sub-culture.org
In their native Europe, the Dutch darkwave act Clan of Xymox has headlined festivals; here in the United States, catering to a smaller, if equally passionate, audience base, the group plays small clubs like Respectable Street, if it even tours at all. Indeed, this spring’s appearance marks the band’s first South Florida appearance in 31 years. Formed in the heady alternative-rock vanguard of the early 1980s and featuring a clattering, angsty synths-meet-guitars sound rooted in gothic and industrial rhythms, Clan of Xymox makes music for brooding and dancing alike. Arrive early for an excellent opening bill featuring the Bellwether Syndicate and Astari Nite.
What: Jerry Seinfeld
When: 7 p.m. Friday, 7 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach
Cost: $80-$210
Contact: 561/832-7469, kravis.org
In a move that would make fellow lowbrow foodie Jim Gaffigan proud, Jerry Seinfeld is evidently making an entire feature film about a Pop-Tart. The eminent comic’s forthcoming project, titled “Unfrosted,” and starring Seinfeld and “Borat” alumnus Maria Bakalova, is adapted from his own two-minute bit about the Pop-Tart from an old comedy routine. It sounds dubious, but if anyone can stretch a premise for all its potential yuks, it’s Seinfeld. This appearance at the Kravis will feature a slate of all-new 2023 material from one of the titans of observational humor, so you may be among the first to witness his next film idea incubating onstage.
What: All People’s Day Diversity Festival
Where: Pompey Park, 1101 N.W. Second St., Delray Beach
When: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Cost: Free
Contact: 561/495-9818, allpeoplesday.org
This celebration of Delray Beach’s diverse populations returns for its 14th-annual gathering, once again offering free food, entertainment and other activities in the spirit of inclusive celebration and community building. A tradition dating back to 1973, All People’s Day is set within the air-conditioned indoor confines of the Pompey Park gymnasium, and features up to 15 musical and dance performances, among them the Delray Divas with AA Step Dancing, S.F Taiko Dojo playing Japanese drums, Chinese Performing Arts, singer Cecelia St. King, Carol Garrett’s Jewish Soul, the Jaya Divi Arts Indo-Caribbean dancers and the Spotlighters singing and dancing. Culturally varied restaurants will serve free food, and children’s activities will commence before the event, at 9:30 a.m. Up to 50 local craft vendors and nonprofit booths round out this annual experience.
What: Opening day of “At the Dawn of a New Age: Early 20th Century Modernism”
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Norton Museum of Art, 1450 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach
Cost: $15-$18 museum admission
Contact: 561/832-5196, norton.org
The first 30 years of the 1900s were a watershed period in American art, as traditional notions of realism in painting and sculpture gave way to an increasing embrace of experimentation and abstraction of color, form and subject matter that would forecast contemporary art movements for decades. Drawing from the Whitney Museum of American Art’s extensive collection from this era, “At the Dawn of a New Age” captures the artists responsible for these changes, whose work is as strikingly original today as it was 90 years ago. Several pieces by Georgia O’Keeffe and other million-dollar artists are included, but the most important aspect of the exhibition is its inclusion of more-obscure figures—especially women and artists of color—whose works were largely ignored in the patriarchal art market of early 20th century. The show runs through July 16.
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