Surely there has to be something worse than a weekend visit from the in-laws. Well, there is, but it’s not death or taxes. It ’s a permanent visit from the in-laws. And in his play Squabbles, Marshall Karp has dreamt up the worst-case scenario. It’s quite enough that Alice’s grump…

Ballet is a calculated mix of form, grace, car commercials, and guys wearing Uncle Sam hats. OK, maybe not all ballet. But that is what you can expect at Broward Community College’s 2006 Spring Dance Concert. In her choreographed piece State of a Union, BCC dance faculty member Elana Lanczi…

The psycho ward. The loony bin. The wacky shack. Whatever you call it, it’s not where most people want to rent a room, let alone be committed to by their loved ones. And for Veta, the well-intentioned woman in Mary Chase’s Harvey, showing concern for brother Elwood has unintended consequences…

Take about 50 visual artists, four authors, a vocal ensemble, a theater troupe. Now add another dozen performance artists, as well as a raffle and silent art auction. Put ´em all together inside ArtServe (1350 E. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale), and boom! You’ve got ArtExplosion2006, ArtsUnited’s annual assemblage of creative…

Even though they’re the minority, dealing with the drunken animals at Mardi Gras and St. Paddy’ s Day parades is about as fun as stepping in dog shit. That’s not to say your shoes will meet such a fate at the Worth Avenue Association’s 12th Annual Pet Parade. More likely,…

Natalie MacMaster prefers her fiddle Celtic-style… or is it bluegrass? It’s hard to tell, really. And besides, the way this clever Canadian makes music, trying to pigeonhole her sound becomes a moot point. With roots firmly planted in Celtic tradition, MacMaster’s love of bluegrass has resulted in collaborations with the…

Note: The following is part of a recent cell phone conversation overheard at the Coral Springs Mall. “Omigod! Did you see Walk the Line? Like, Joaquin Phoenix was so hot as Johnny Cash! Oh, but who I really liked was Tyler Hilton. He was the cutie who played Elvis. Uh-huh……

So you like Andrea Gebhardt’s colorfully off-kilter Self Portrait, eh? Wild stuff, to be sure. Or how about Christopher Catalano’s eerily charming Satan Inside? Brilliant! Indeed, art school has taught them well. What? You thought they were teachers? This is, after all, the “Seventh Annual International Student Art Show.” And…

All right, so maybe Dennis Miller pads his jokes with obscure references that only half the audience will get. And, sure, Miller’s political rants don’t fall too far from the Rush Limbaugh tree (get the Arabs… and the Clintons too!). But for all the hot air he blows, Miller is…

You may think it overly presumptuous of comic Lisa Lampanelli to call herself the “Queen of Mean.” Of course, Ann Coulter never claimed that title, so the honor is all Lampanelli’s. After all, it was Lampanelli who took part in the cinematic filth fest known as The Aristocrats. And even…

It’s a long way from the corn fields of Nebraska to the cane fields of Palm Beach County. But for the tour-happy band fronted by Darren Keen, the show’s just over the rainbow. Wait, scratch that – the Show Is the Rainbow. Yep, it has been several months since the…

Unlike the graphically misleading King Tut exhibit (what, no sarcophagus?), there’s no allusion to anything other than artwork being displayed in the exhibit “Dali on Tour.” If there’s any assumption to make, it’s that the tour features plenty of works from the Dali Museum in Saint Petersburg – an assumption…

The past five centuries have been a roller coaster ride for Caribbean countries – slavery, British imperialism, U.S. imperialism, wars of independence and emancipation, and all that fun stuff. But unless the History Channel airs a History’s Mysteries episode on a long lost slave colony, your best bet for an…

Drug smugglers go to Mexico to pick up dope. Cost-cutting business owners go there to pick up cheap labor. But for Ivan Thompson, the self-proclaimed “Cowboy Cupid,” it’s all about the love, baby — not his, yours. In her documentary, Cowboy del Amor, filmmaker Michèle Ohayon follows Thompson on his…

The toughest task facing a local concert promoter is getting kids off their couches and into the club (well, that and getting bands to show up on time). And though it’s easy to blame audience apathy for poor attendance, why bother? Maybe the answer is to offer them more –…

There’s an ongoing debate among fans of the Taste of Chaos Tour, and it has nothing to do with “boxers or briefs?” – it’s more like, “Emo or metal?” That’s to be expected, given the motley mix of bands that taste the chaos each year. On one hand are the…

George Clinton may have dibs on p-funk, but Lil’ Brian Terry is all about the z-funk. That’s z as in zydeco. Hailing from the Creole-rich town of Barrett Station, Texas, Lil’ Brian and the Zydeco Travelers is equally laden with washboards and accordions as groove-heavy hip-hop beats. The band has…

When Jon Daly’s riveting indie film The Aryan Couple debuted in November 2004, most movies theaters weren’t on the shortlist for the initial screenings. So now that the film’s finally here – showing at various theaters in Broward and Palm Beach counties – let’s hope its stay is longer than…

For all the clever comments and raunchy anecdotes a standup comic may have prepared, nothing tests his true skills like a disruptive audience member. So while Sean Kent has no shortage of sharply written material on his CD Sex, Drugs, and Politics, it’s his verbal beat-down of a loud, attention-seeking…

Listening to early recordings of No Use For a Name, you’d think it was a totally different band from the one that’s currently (reluctantly?) going by that moniker. Lineup changes aside, NUFN has come a long way since its more metal-inspired days in the late ´80s. While many of the…

When the Tricky Beans formed in 1996, the Finnish outfit was as far from heavy metal as the Spin Doctors. That’s no simple analogy – the Beans covered Spin Doctors songs. But the band also covered Megadeth and by 1999 had embraced a heavier sound, as well as a new…