Best Of South Florida® 2001 Winners
Arts & Entertainment
The bare-wood, dimly lit, rustic interior of the Poor House is a stark contrast to the majority of nightlife locales around downtown Fort Lauderdale's Himmarshee Village. Likewise, denizens of the Poor House are likely to be locals hoping to groove to live, original music (from the likes of Hashbrown, Plutonium Pie, Mr. Entertainment, or the Hep Cat Boo Daddies) rather than the canned dance fare booming from its neighbors. Here you'll rub up against a velvet Elvis, not velvet ropes. The suds selection is also top-drawer. During the steamy summer months, quaff a tall Tucher studded with a lemon slice. When it's cool outside grab an Amber Bock or a nutty Newcastle. The barkeeps are amateur comedians, which adds to the fun. The music's loud enough that you can hear every note, indoors or out. And you can get close enough to the performers to see the whites (or at least reds) of their eyes. If you're put off by the chi-chi crowds prowling the downtown streets on weekends, dip into the Poor House -- it feels normal in here. And is that so wrong?
Best Act to Leave in the Past 12 Months
Chris Chandler
He was just passing through, never staying in one place more than a year. We knew that, but it's still hard to admit that's he's really gone -- with no forwarding address. That's probably why we feel a little like a jilted lover. The good news is, Chris Chandler liked us. He really, really liked us. He wrote about the area in an e-mail to his South Florida friends, "I like to think of Hollywood as pre-scene'.... The rent is cheap, there are a dozen places to hear affordable live music where the beer is cheap, and there are no A&R reps shaking the bushes to find Eminem taking a leak." High praise indeed. And of course, audiences who heard Chandler perform know this "folken-word" poet was just warming up his praise when he typed that missive. We'll miss the guy who pointed out poetically that the coldest place on earth is a South Florida movie theater, that karaoke-style, cover-tune-like guitar-strumming is crap, and that many of our residents look like George W. Bush when he's asked a simple question (which goes a long way toward explaining the election). Let's hope we do something really stupid that attracts national attention soon so Chandler comes back for a visit.
Theatergoers found a lot of reasons to dislike Paul Tei this season. He played a cold-blooded child-murderer in New Theatre's Never the Sinner and a hot-blooded serial killer in GableStage's Popcorn. But he is so good at being bad that we can't really hold it against him. Tei is the kind of actor who looks at a role not only as an opportunity to perform but also as a chance to create a persona. Consequently he can portray several different degenerates without his performances overlapping. As Wayne, the gun-toting redneck in Popcorn, Tei kept us riveted to our seats -- appalled and laughing. But as Richard Loeb, a wealthy young Chicago man who, along with his lover, kills a young boy on a Nietzsche-inspired whim, he was outstandingly appalling. Tei never let audiences simply dislike his character. With his willingness to take risks and push the boundaries of character definition, he could make Ted Bundy funny. He dared to play the insolent, arrogant murderer Loeb as childlike and capricious -- clubbing a kid in the head one moment and going out for hot dogs the next. Tei's topnotch acting transformed these two good plays into excellent ones.
An actress's success in a dramatic role can fall into one of two categories: the ability to make the unbelievable believable, and the ability to make the believable unbelievably incredible. Bridget Connors managed to do both in her role as a young Jewish woman dying of a terminal illness. That's the believable part. Rachel's plight could easily have been a case study in Harold S. Kushner's book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. She expressed all the predictable emotions and asked all the right metaphysical questions. The not-so-believable part is the conversion experience she had, which was facilitated by her sister, a devout member of the Christian Science faith. Believable or unbelievable, Connors brought something magical to the role from the moment she stepped on-stage. Her ability to be simultaneously earthy and ethereal left theatergoers feeling as if they were seeing a tragedy for the first time.
There are traditional galleries, and then there's Lumonics, "a specialized sensory environment," as its founders put it, which is easily South Florida's most unusual venue for multimedia art. Housed in a nondescript strip of businesses just north of the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, Lumonics brings together light sculptures, water sculptures (in other words, fountains), performance art, digital video, laser art, dance, and music, all in one blow-your-mind complex. Dorothy Tanner and her husband, Mel (who died in 1993), started Lumonics as a showcase for large-scale acrylic sculptures that combine bright colors with internal lighting. Those pieces, along with water sculptures, are still displayed in a few small rooms and in the large main theater, which is where things really get interesting. From an upstairs control booth, a pair of artists (originally Dorothy and Mel, now Dorothy and Marc Billard) create one-of-a-kind performances set to music that include digital video projections and lasers dancing across a 35-foot wall that serves as their palette. Tanner and her collaborators originally created their soundtracks using jazz, classical, and New-Age music, but have lately leaned more toward original material by Tanner and Billard. And their regular hour-and-a-half shows have evolved more or less into "happenings," with the main performance followed by late-night parties in the adjacent Nite-Light gallery, where visitors can dance to cutting-edge DJ music or just hang out among the light sculptures.
Who can turn the world on with a smile? Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? Better still, who can sponsor a punk-rock food fight, inviting fans to attend a show and pelt band members with fruits and vegetables? It's the Mary Tyler Whores, of course, Broward's messy purveyors of stripped down, below-the-belt punk. For authenticity the band includes Joey Image, original drummer for protohardcore pioneers the Misfits. For fun the band sports an irreverent, clever handle. And for the hell of it, the musicians will let you throw your rotten citrus at them for no extra charge. Fort Lauderdale's Culture Room is a prime spot to pick up these Whores.
What sort of music do you like to hear when you just wanna party? In South Florida some folks gravitate toward whumpity-whump thumpatronics. That's fine, but when you want a rippin' guitar solo and high-octane rockabilly, there's no better choice than the Hep Cat Boo Daddies. Comprising rip-snortin' guitar slinger/singer Joel DaSilva, bassist Sean "Evil" Gerovitz, and drummer Randy Blitz, the Boo Dads perform instrumental surf, slow-simmered blues, and even the occasional Smithereens cover in their action-packed live shows. There's nothing fancy about what the trio does. In fact every town oughta have lean, no-frills fare like the HCBDs, who you can always be found thrilling weekend crowds at the Poor House.
Enter the tent of white sailcloth and gauze. Supreme Beings of Leisure play on the stereo, which is apropos, as leisure reigns supreme here. Proceed to the marble-top bar and order a drink, which will be ready in approximately the amount of time it takes to cast your lazy gaze across the Intracoastal. It's all trendy white upholstery in here, like a J.Lo video, but somehow you're too chilled out to care. Perhaps you could be bothered to amble into the dark-wood lounge, where the music's louder, the light is darker, and candles flicker in the fireplace. You are feeling... supremely languorous. Nevis. Rhymes with bliss.
When considering such a lofty title as this, there are a great many factors to consider. The easiest thing to do is first rule out any place that is overpriced, which excludes the beach bars, the Las Olas Riverfront, Himmarshee Village, and, well, just about every other place in Fort Lauderdale. Next lose any place where you can't get a nice European beer. Now all the dives are gone as well. You'd think there would be nothing left, but luckily a few communities surrounding Fort Lauderdale still have bars where the owners believe in serving quality drinks in a price range that allows even those bargoers on a strict budget to get tanked. Wilton Manors is one of those communities, and Shakespeare's Pub is about the best thing going. On a righteous night at Shakespeare's, you can drink a high-quality yet reasonably priced beer or five while listening to some good local bands and laughing at some piss-poor ones. And that's what going to a bar is all about, isn't it?
The oldest gas station in Delray Beach is still the best place in town to get gassed. All right, so that's a bad pun. But there's something about the funky, open-air bar in Delray's now-trendy downtown that inspires goofiness. And it's not just the giant picture of Elvis, the mounted fish, the moldy-looking moose head, the stained longhorns, or the giant Orange Crush bottle cap. It's the atmosphere, the blending of the past with the present, of down-home folk with glitterati, of wannabes with I-don't-cares. The bar at Elwood's is the former station's car lift; once used to hoist cars above the heads of greasy mechanics, it now serves as a place for patrons to rest their elbows while hoisting brewskis. Just as Elwood's is proud of its past, it makes no apology for its location. When trains scream by on the adjacent tracks Thursday nights, Scott Ringersen, Delray Beach cop by day and Elvis impersonator by night, simply raises his voice. Ditto 301 East, the versatile band that calls the bar home. While renowned for its ribs, the best thing about Elwood's is free -- grab a barstool, sit back, and watch the well dressed, pretentious types stroll down the avenue or gawk at the impressive array of Harleys lined up in the parking spots owner Mike Elwood reserves for his biker friends. If you're looking for quiet conversation, go elsewhere. At Elwood's there's always something to shout about.
When the well drinks have gone dry at other Broward bars, parched partyers' divining rods point to Casey's. Seven days a week from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m., ice cubes are clinking, the DJ is spinning, and nobody (thank God!) knows your name. Best of all, after-hours gal Susan Hayslett provides service with a sympathetic smile. She doesn't smirk when you roll in, eyeliner smudged, and order a shot of Jäger. In fact you kinda get the feeling she's been there, too. And in that case, make it a double.
Holiday Bowl might be small, but it has a '50s ambiance that you can't find at gargantuan game rooms and theme parks. This joint's sincerity so impressed Carnival Cruise Lines last year that it shot a commercial here depicting tourists on vacation -- in the Bahamas. Its 16 lanes, café, and lounge have catered to bowling aficionados, Québecois tourists, and hackers for more than 40 years. Manager Bernie Harrold rolled his first gutter ball here when he was seven years old. At two bucks a game, it's easy to see why other youngsters have followed his lead. Murals on both sides of the alley picture kids taking aim. The "Beer Frame" lettering on the east side of the alley refers to a time when the trailing party in the fifth frame had to buy the next round. Nowadays the alley hosts leagues, tournaments, and also those looking for a drink or dinner. The pro shop polishes your ball for eight bits, and if you arrive in sandals, don't fret. You can pick up a pair of socks there as well. We recommend it. After all, some of those shoes have probably been around for decades.
So you and your mate are tired of evenings spent vegging out to Friends or Ed? Dinner on Las Olas or Clematis too pricey for your slender wallet? Try Dania Jai-Alai, where the entry fee starts at $1.50 and the game is faster than the NHL and NBA combined. The competitors, who are mostly from Spain and France, play a kind of Basque handball that will keep you quite literally glued to your seat for hours. (Yeah, neither the crowd nor the facility is especially highbrow.) And when you're not ogling the fronton, people-watching is primo. Old guys stand outside the seating area and holler the last names of their favorite players, while younger fellows scream obscenities in raspy Spanish and families munch on a variety of perfectly delightful and unhealthy fare. Then there are the bets, which start at two bucks. You don't have to wager, but you get more involved when you do, and the pots can be sweet. The fronton opened in 1953, back when sports in South Florida meant anything that included gambling, and it still has the feel of that era. Everyone, but everyone bets at Dania Jai-Alai -- security guards, concession-stand workers, even pets. The biggest pot on a recent Sunday afternoon was $578.40. And just think, you skinflint, you won't even have to pay for the air conditioning.
It's a rickety old place with only six screens. But how can you go wrong at $2 admission on weekdays and $2.50 on weekends, especially when the person who books the films always manages to include one or more features from the art-house circuit? Maybe the choices reflect the fact that most of the clientele consists of retirees from the Northeast who, whatever their shortcomings, have a taste for movies with more to them than bang-bang, snicker, and leer. You may hate to find yourself behind them on the highway, but you could do worse than find they're ahead of you in the ticket line.
Here it is a rainy Saturday afternoon, and there's not much to do. Going to the movies doesn't seem like such a good idea, unless you're dying to see Crocodile Dundee Got Fingered or whatever. So how about this? Ride the Tri-Rail. If you live down south, hop on at the Hollywood station and locomote through Fort Lauderdale, Pompano and Deerfield beaches, then Boca and Delray, to the end of the line in Mangonia Park. If you live up north, take it the other way. Or try both. Flat-fare, all-day adult tickets are available on weekends for $4, and they're good for one-way, round-trip, or multiple rides in each direction. So pick up your portable CD player, grab your favorite book, and enjoy. Or look out the window and be glad you're not stuck in the traffic jam that's bound to spring up on I-95.
An unsuspecting man walks into Voodoo Lounge on a Sunday night. It's a bit too early to be going to a club, but he's bored at home and figures, "Well, what the heck? Let's start the night off early." The first patron, he saunters up to the bar with blasé self-confidence. He orders a Stoli and Red Bull, then casts a glance at the tall drink of water at the other end of the bar. Now that is one tall, leggy blonde. Damn. He sips a bit more of the Stoli, especially after the blonde gives him a dirty look. Wait a minute. That's no woman. That's a man! Ah well, if you don't know any better, it's an easy mistake to make Sunday nights at the Voodoo, when the club puts on two performances of "Life's a Drag," South Florida's top female-impersonation show, which begins at 11:30 p.m. and 1 a.m. Hosted by Daisy Deadpetals and featuring fellow dragsters Lady Valentina, T.P. Lords, Lola Lush, and Glitz Glamour, the performance includes lip-synchs of songs by popular female pop stars. These people do it well; they are professionals. Anyone could have mistaken them for the real McCoy, even this guy I'm talking about, who looks absolutely nothing like me.
Best Concert of the Past 12 Months
Brian Wilson and the Pet Sounds Orchestra
Upon its release in 1966, the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album was seen as a stumbling block in the band's career, a detour from the AM-radio hit parade. Thirty years later you can't swing a surfboard without hitting a critic who places Pet Sounds in any position but best record of all time. The album has even warranted a four-CD boxed set, perhaps the most elaborate analysis of any single album ever. South Florida was lucky enough to be included on the tour when Wilson assembled a 10-piece band and 55-piece orchestra to reproduce faithfully each and every intricate note of the Pet Sounds album, even down to the Coca-Cola cans and bicycle horns used on the original recording. Though the man appeared more than a little out of it (unsurprising considering his legendary chemical intake), Wilson presided over a piano and TelePrompTer while his band churned through a thrilling "Sloop John B.," complete with crystalline harmonies; the sepulchral bliss of "You Still Believe in Me;" the James Bond drama of the title track; and the heavenly heartache of "Caroline, No." Elevating a simple mid-'60s pop record into an experience rivaling anything the Beatles ever produced, Wilson's performance finally cashed Pet Sounds' postdated paycheck.
One look at the dress code, outlined on a sign above the front door, and you know you're in the right place. It reads: "No muscle shirts, tank tops, cut-off or beach shorts, spurs, knives or guns." And for good measure, keep those cigars, pipes, and clove cigarettes in the car, buddy. You're at Davie Junction, the most Western bar in South Florida. The décor is pure country honk, featuring dark paneling, neon beer signs, and wagon wheels. For a reasonable price you can get yourself a longneck, scoot your boots, and tuck into a big steak. (The place bills itself as a "Western-style nightclub" but offers a full menu.) The bands play both kinds of music, country and western. And management offers line-dancing lessons so you don't have to look so dang stupid trying to figure it out.
Finally a nightclub does it right. Unlike typical dark rooms with bars and dance floors, Sutra has a theme that it sticks with. After getting past those velvet ropes and walking down a hallway with straw mats, one enters a place that can be described only as haremesque. The dance floor is small, but only because there is a bar on one side, some tables on another, a large bed heaped with Turkish pillows on the third, and on the fourth what appears to be a shrine to Buddha, a small room with couches and prayer rugs forming a semicircle around the jolly messiah. Slipping between the bar and the Buddha, one passes another bar then reaches the stairs. The second floor features yet another bar as well as a VIP lounge, which is made up of a series of oh-so-comfy couches and throw pillows surrounded by a gauzy, transparent curtain. All in all the only things missing from the scene are the harem girls. Oh, and by the way, the DJs this place attracts, including Nicco and Sweet Peach, are some of the best in town.
The last time we stopped at Sneakers, a guy was bellied up to the bar wearing a boa (constrictor, not feather), a woman was lying on the bar as the bartender poured a drink into her mouth, and a band was playing Skynyrd covers on the minuscule stage. We chatted with a tipsy dude who insisted he was a helicopter pilot and offered to take us for a ride. We declined, preferring to suck down Buds and endure the occasional cue in the ribs. In other words this is a slice of paradise, especially after a night tippling at the area's froufrou drinkeries. Sneakers is just like the town it serves: ragtag and eclectic with a hint of danger -- just the way we like it.
Artistic director Michael Hall did South Florida theatergoers two favors this season. First he brought the socially relevant and riveting docudrama The Laramie Project to his stage. It was the play's first production after its off-Broadway debut. Second he assembled a troupe with the range and experience to make the production not only important theater but good theater as well, including Kim Cozort, Jason Field, Laurie Gamache, Jacqueline Knapp, Pat Nesbit, Mark Rizzo, Robert Stoeckle, and Michael Warga. Dressed in drab brown tones, the ensemble of eight portrayed more than sixty characters, from townspeople to ranchers, doctors, reporters, and friends of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die by two local boys in Laramie, Wyoming. With fluid and subtle transitions, these characters switched roles seamlessly, revealing an unforgettable cross section of small-town America and a staggering array of attitudes.
Did you know alligators can climb trees? Or that they can hear your pinky hit the water four miles away? Or that the blazing color of bougainvillea comes not from its flowers but from its leaves? These fun facts and more can be had for a buck and 30 minutes of your time at Knollwood Groves in Boynton Beach. Originally owned by the vaudeville comedy team Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, better known as Amos and Andy, the 71-year-old orange grove offers visitors a slice of Old Florida and enough trivia to win bar bets for years to come. A tractor-pulled cart leaves every hour on the hour for tours of the pesticide-free grove, traveling through a genuine Florida jungle hammock, past a 1000-year-old water oak and a four-story-high bougainvillea vine, as well as gumbo limbo, ginger, and coffee trees. For the kiddies it makes stops to visit turtles, a wild boar, and of course gators. On Saturdays at 2 p.m. the grove also features an alligator show with Martin Twofeather. At $6 for adults and $4 for kids, it ain't half bad -- you can even pet the gator. Still the $1 tram tour, which begins at 10 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m., is better. The grove is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. seven days a week in season. (It's closed Sundays in the summer.) There's even a gift shop that sells funky Florida stuff, like plastic gators that sing, and a fruit stand where you can pick up oranges, green pepper or papaya jelly, and vine-ripe tomatoes for, you guessed it, a buck a pound.
Back in January a group of dirty, greasy hippies decided they'd had enough of the lack of jam-oriented music in South Florida. The form is dear to the hearts of all these types, years of following the Grateful Dead having inured them to hours of musical enterprise. They wanted to create a happening that would gather the bands they enjoyed as well as fellow fans. Thus began the Festival Tribe Musical Event. Now a three-day party for the pot-smoking, patchwork pants-wearing, patchouli-sniffing crowd is held the first weekend of every month just a few blocks from the Broward County line in Miami-Dade. "This is not a one-person operation," says organizer Barry Sacharow. "It is a loosely knit organization, and we have a lot of fun." The music is not just for wastoid white boys with dreadlocks. Sure, groups like Grateful Dead cover band Crazy Fingers participate, but the festival boasts excellent bluegrass, percussion, tribal, and world tunes as well. The Festival Tribe Musical Event -- it ain't your daddy's Woodstock.
Best Film Festival
Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival
Last year we honored the FLIFF in this category almost begrudgingly, in part because it was "pretty much the only game in town." Well, after a decade and a half it's still the biggest game in town and at 28 days has expanded to claim the dubious honor of being the longest film fest in the world. (Palm Beach, of course, has its own affair, but it just doesn't stack up.) Fortunately the FLIFF has clung to the things that have long set it apart, including its predilection for films with little or no commercial potential, its support for gay and lesbian cinema, and its occasional sixth sense when it comes to anticipating Academy Award contenders. The most recent festival gave us samples of each: the shamefully overlooked Maze, a fascinating study of an unlikely romance between a Tourette's-afflicted painter (Northern Exposure actor Rob Morrow, who also directed the flick) and a friend (Laura Linney, whose excellent work was overshadowed by her Oscar-nominated performance in You Can Count on Me); the knockout, Cassavetes-style gay drama Straight Man and the uneven but worthwhile lesbian-themed coming-of-age tale Swimming; and the Oscar-nominated Shadow of the Vampire, as well as the surprisingly overlooked State and Main from director David Mamet. The festival also reaffirmed its commitment to independent filmmaking with a tribute to John Waters, including a screening of his underrated Cry-Baby, a showing of a documentary about him titled In Bad Taste, and an appearance by the rogue moviemaker.
Formerly known as Ed Matus' Struggle, the recently rechristened Disconnect is one of the area's most popular rock bands. Occupying a niche in the psychedelic/shoe-gazer/emo realm, the band's surreal, shifting songs allow listeners to lose themselves in an intoxicating haze of swirling guitar. That his band was once briefly dubbed the Juan Montoya Experience is a joke with a kernel of truth at its core: Come to watch Disconnect, and you'll end up staring at the diminutive, Colombian-born maestro of the six-string. Using his Gibson SG and rack of pedals as a sonic flamethrower, the flamboyant Montoya makes a joyful noise; the pleasure of watching him lose himself in the swells of sound is why Disconnect continues to please old fans and rack up new ones.
Some national movie chains continue to shrink, while others focus on constructing mammoth multiplexes. Our Best Movie Theater of two years ago, meanwhile, has survived by morphing into that rarity, a true independent. The Gateway still snags the occasional mainstream flick, but it has become the best bet for such edgy independent fare as Requiem for a Dream, Nurse Betty, and the recent Memento. More specifically it has become a haven for the small but thriving genre of queer cinema. Edge of Seventeen, Trick, The Broken Hearts Club, Boys Life 3, and the Oscar-nominated Before Night Falls are just a few of the gay-oriented flicks that have played there. And a corner of the theater's lobby has become a virtual gay community-resource center, featuring magazines, newsletters, fliers, brochures, and business cards. No wonder some members of the gay and lesbian communities refer to the Gateway as the Gayway.
Best Lesbian/Gay/Straight/Undecided Bar
K&E's II Doors Down
Elaine Roberts wants to make one thing perfectly clear: K&E's II Doors Down is not a lesbian bar. It's not that Roberts is lesbian-averse. After all she and co-owner Kathy Spatenga have been together -- both personally and professionally -- for more than 20 years. It's just that this is a new millennium and it's time to quit classifying things. "I don't want to be labeled a lesbian bar, because we aren't one. We're an alternative-lifestyle bar. We're a straight bar. We're a gay bar. We're a lesbian bar. We're just a bar. We're for all kinds of people," she says. "What is a gay bar, anyway? Are we running around naked with our wangs hanging out?" Hardly. This bar, which justifiably calls itself the "best-kept secret in Lake Worth," is a classic neighborhood joint -- the kind of place where you walk in, order a $2 draft, and instantly feel comfortable. Located just across Dixie Highway from Lake Worth's recently revitalized downtown, K&E's is often overlooked by those rushing to crowd into upstart imitators along Lake and Lucerne avenues. And if clubbers overlook the bar, it's understandable. Located in an old storefront, K&E's doesn't look like much from the outside. But inside, its décor borders on quaint, including the handmade pine bar, which Kathy designed and Elaine's brother-in-law built, and the small dining room, complete with paisley-print tablecloths, low lights, and framed posters on the walls. Elaine says the bar got its reputation as a lesbian bar because it's the successor to Kathy's Bar, a private, women-dominated club that Spatenga operated from 1979 to 1986. But when Roberts and Spatenga opened K&E's eight years ago, Elaine said she wanted to redefine "gay pride" and attract a diverse clientele. She got her wish. And it's easy to see why: The drinks are affordable, the food is good, and the conversation is lively. What more could any bargoer -- gay, straight, or in between -- want?
Every Tuesday at 10:30 p.m., culture high and low meets and makes out at Marya Summers's poetry slams. Among our favorite parts is lap poetry, the perfect expression of slammistress Summers's sophisticated appreciation of the South Florida sleaze factor. The décor and the crowd at this restaurant, lounge, and coffeehouse are about as cool as things get -- the retro-chic décor reflects the same arch sensibility that co-proprietor Rodney Mayo (who also owns Respectable Street) brings to all his enterprises. An eclectic, adventurous menu, full bar, and reasonable prices only add to the appeal. Pray that Summers gets drunk and some literary enthusiast volunteers to spank her, pour l'art. Or maybe just bring your own Wallace Stevens-like verse, step onto a table, and be brave enough to read it.
The resemblance to Bob Dylan is probably not entirely coincidental. A Palm Beach resident since 1995, MacDonald moved here to care for his aging parents and, it would seem, the small South Florida folk community. MacDonald paid his dues as a journalist, law student, conscientious objector, and traveling folksinger before becoming a major player in the Greenwich Village Fast Folk movement in the '80s and '90s. Today MacDonald is a regular at Palm Beach clubs such as Paddy Mac's and the Coffee Gallery Café, where he often invites local talent to join him on-stage. On a recent night at the CG, he looked as if he belonged, unfazed by passing cars, boisterous teenagers, bikers, and the noisy cover band two doors down. Decked out in sandals, Hawaiian shirt, and shorts, he sang and played his heart out using just "six strings and a hole big and round" (which is also the title of a MacDonald song). The political messages still inhabit his songs, but MacDonald's latest album, 1999's Into the Blue, tempers an angry attitude with songs about the weather, marriage, and nature. In other words he's adapted well to Florida.
Best Local Album of the Past 12 Months
The Rocking Horse Winner
Growing up in a suburban labyrinth of faceless strip malls, endless asphalt, and cookie-cutter subdivisions -- instead of Hades, we've named it Davie -- wouldn't seem to foster good music. But that's the hometown of most of the young members of the Rocking Horse Winner. And they've produced one of the most sublime albums Broward and Palm Beach counties have ever heard. From the chiming guitar of Henry Olmino and heavenly vocals of Jolie Lindholm, you'd think these kids were raised on a strict diet of the Sundays and the Innocence Mission. But you'd be wrong; somehow these sweet, melodic songs grew out of a punk-rock appetite. Drummer Matt Crum and bassist Jeronimo Gomez provide the foundation for this collection of some of the most memorable and flawlessly produced music ever to originate from the 'burbs. The State of Feeling Concentration's pastel-hued love songs, such as the lovely "Raspberry Water" and "Sweet Smell Before the Rain," are more than a much-needed respite from South Florida's dance-music/heavy-metal stranglehold: They're nothing less than pure pop perfection.
You won't find Anita Drujon holed up in some musty warehouse living tortured-artist clichés as she goes about producing her work. Sure, she spends plenty of time working in her Pompano Beach studio, a sunny condo not far from the ocean. But she's also actively engaged in the South Florida arts community. She's an adjunct professor at Broward Community College, Florida Atlantic University, and the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, where she regularly participates in group exhibitions, and a member of a handful of area art guilds. None of this would make much difference, of course, if her work were mediocre. It's not. Drujon, who was educated in Boston and Miami, is one of the few artists who devote themselves to encaustic, a relatively obscure medium that uses heated wax applied to hard surfaces such as wood or Masonite and then manipulated in various ways. Drujon helps keep this esoteric art alive, and she combines it with other media to glorious effect.
In an interview with New Times last year, GableStage artistic director Joe Adler said, "Television, and to some extent movies, is about maintaining a level of mediocrity. This is not the case with theater. It's a much bigger commitment. The audience is a participant." Adler combined his numerous years of film and TV experience with his passion and directorial savvy, turning Popcorn into a dark satire about the movie industry, among other things. With his trademark emotive directorial style, Adler knows how to get the best out of his actors. By pairing Claire Tyler and Paul Tei in the lead roles, he created just the right balance of innocence and evil. Adler consistently shows a keen awareness of the context of contemporary theater. He never makes theatergoers slaves to the stage. And he often uses film, video, music, and sound to propel the play into the audience's imagination. In Popcorn Adler offered a reminder that live theater can offer excitement that television and film can't -- without record, play, and rewind.
Picking out a top local jazzman is easy when he is also one of the greatest of all time. Ira Sullivan was a guiding light in Chicago's hard-bop scene of the 1960s. One of the few jazz musicians equally skilled with trumpet, flügelhorn, and every flavor of saxophone, Sullivan has played with more or less every big name in jazz during a career spanning 50 years. Perhaps the only reason he hasn't achieved the godlike status of Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie is that he virtually refuses to travel and is reticent about recording. In fact he has released only two albums in the last two decades. The last time he toured was more than a decade ago, with Red Rodney, the trumpeter who in 1949 replaced Miles Davis in Charlie Parker's bebop quintet. Despite all this, Sullivan is still recognized as one of the great names in jazz. Nowadays, apart from the occasional trip back to sweet home Chicago, he plays a few places around South Florida, including One Night Stan's in Hollywood the first Thursday of every month.
The six members of the Broward/Miami-Dade combo See Venus like to describe their heady sound as somewhere between Brian Wilson and Stereolab. Damn them, but we can't think of a more accurate comparison. Venus' space-age, bachelor-pad music is at once futuristic and retro, impossibly cool, and uncommonly catchy. Leader Christopher Moll began strolling down the pop path in the early '90s with his band Twenty-Three, but the full-bodied sound of See Venus seems to be what he's been striving for; with six members cavorting about with horns, keyboards, samplers, basses, and guitars, little white space exists on the band's crowded canvas. The sweet vocals of Rocky Ordoñez and Erica Boynton combine and captivate, making the melodious "Shine Like Stars" and the bouncy, Brazilian "Boy Bubble Blue" must-have confections. Find the band creating its magic at venues like Tobacco Road and Respectable Street.
Straddling the line between high art and unadulterated, lowbrow, cover-band fun, Fort Lauderdale's Hashbrown appeals to hard-rockers, hip-hop heads, and fans of Parliament-style funk. The quartet is adept at kicking down a thickened, spicy, funked-up, urbane rock that's guaranteed to make your booty move and your mind follow. But the dance floor isn't the only place to enjoy Hashbrown: Plenty of the Velcro-strength hooks on tracks such as the rambunctious "HOD" and the silky "Over & Done" from their new Fuzzy Logic CD have the staying power of an all-day lollipop. Bassist-singer Jay Spencer is fully in charge of the nonstop hip-hop 'n' roll. Guitarist Duncan Cameron serves up obtuse, jazzy chords to add a bit of a professorial air. Drummer Rick Kanner dishes out never-ending, party-style beats. And DJ Boogie Waters is Hashbrown's secret weapon, piping a stream of vinyl samples atop the groovalicious funk. Catch the band at the Poor House most weekend nights or at the Surf Cafe in Boca Raton.
Boca Raton resident Chris Carrabba is a newfangled hybrid in the acoustic singer/songwriter mold. Though he uses roughly the same approach Woody Guthrie employed during dust bowl days, he's updated the formula slightly. Using the name the Dashboard Confessional, Carrabba strums unplugged, emo-punk anthems that connect on a gut level with his teenage and twentysomething audiences. The new Dashboard Confessional full-length CD, The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, delivers the heart-on-the-sleeve, poignant lyrics with which his fans often sing along, as in "Again I Go Unnoticed": "So what's another day/When I can't bear these nights/Of thoughts of going on without you." You can find Carrabba touring the nation with the likes of Snapcase or Face to Face or witness him in stool-perching mode at Ray's Downtown Blues.
The Music Lesson dismantled the myth that good drama must arise from a dramatic situation. In this play by Tammy Ryan, a couple of musicians, Irena and Ivan, take refuge in Pittsburgh from war-torn Sarajevo and end up giving music lessons to American children from a broken family. What made Florida Stage's production exceptional was the acting, featuring the talents of Maggi St. Clair Melin, Jessica K. Peterson, Joris Stuyck, Elizabeth Dimon, Amy Love, Ashton Lee, Craig D. Ames, Eddi Shraybman, and Ethel Yari. The alienation and suffering these characters felt moved through the audience like slow ether, emanating from their simplest gestures. In fact the play is a gestural masterpiece, with all the action centering around an invisible piano. More than a metaphor, classical music becomes a tangible character, so that The Music Lesson is not just another account of human tragedy desensitized by a flood of overt emotion and sentimentality; it is a moving account of people trying to rebuild their lives.
We laughed. We cried. We begged for more. Then we saw Muvico Parisian 20 and realized we could never go back to another theater. While the trend-setting Fort Lauderdale-based theater chain's other South Florida multiplexes -- its Egyptian-themed temple of film in Pembroke Pines, its salute to the '50s in Pompano Beach, and its palatial tip of the hat to Addison Mizner in Boca Raton -- are impressive, its Parisian 20 in CityPlace is truly the pièce de résistance. Originally sold to the public as a French opera house, the theater has been described in the company's recent press releases as a movie chateau. Whatever they call it, this place is as eye-popping as anything on the silver screen. With sweeping staircases, intricate molding, and sky blue walls adorned with white columns, wainscoting, and hand-painted murals of Rubenesque cherubs, the lobby is nothing if not stunning. Popcorn in this theater? Au contraire. While it is on the menu, theatergoers can feast on things besides the usual snack bar fare, including quesadillas, shrimp, and, in the upstairs bar, sushi and pan bellos. But the real treat comes not from hearing, smelling, or tasting a thing but, when the lights dim and you sit back in a comfortable rocking chair with plenty of leg room, from realizing no one's head is in the way. As they say in Paris, ahhh.
For much of its half-century history, the Boca Raton Museum of Art was crammed into a woefully inadequate structure on Palmetto Park Road -- an acoustically atrocious set of galleries that was hardly worthy of the extensive holdings. Under the stewardship of long-time executive director George S. Bolge, the museum built a solid track record of creative programming, but there was no getting around it: the building sucked. That changed in January, when the new and improved Boca Raton Museum of Art opened at its spacious, not to mention gorgeous, new digs at the northern end of Mizner Park. With 44,000 square feet and two levels, the museum now has a showcase not only for major exhibitions such as its inaugural Picasso retrospective but also for displays drawn from its permanent collection, which includes pre-Columbian art, African art, English ceramics, modern and contemporary European and American art, photography, and a world-class collection of prints.
What once was a place to fill up your tank is now a place to get tanked. Bill's Filling Station, for six years a popular fixture in a converted gas station, fills up every day after work with regular Joes (the gay ones, anyway) enjoying two-fers till 9 p.m. -- and all night on Monday. A cozy patio and bar out back make smoking easier and less offensive, and a well-stocked CD jukebox inside near the main bar keeps the place alive with music. Doesn't matter what you wear, how old you are, or from which side of the tracks you hail; the other friendly faces may not know your name, but pretty soon they'll at least know your taste in men. Speaking of tracks, Bill's is next to the railroad line that cuts through gay-friendly Lake Ridge, and the occasional passing train means shots are just 50 cents. That makes it easy to tie one on.
If work and other commitments prevent you from catching concerts by AC/DC, Guns N' Roses, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Van Halen, or Aerosmith, fret not; Fort Lauderdale hosts one of these dinosaurs, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof, almost every week. If you're tired of Axl Rose lying low for years at a time, you can stoke your fire with Paradise City, a Guns N' Roses look-and-sound-alike act. Run Like Hell makes a mint performing the songs of Pink Floyd. And you'll never have to worry who Van Halen's hired as its new screamer when you go to see tribute act Fair Warning. Fort Lauderdale's perennially cheesy Metal Factory is the oasis for these imitators of the woolly mammoths and mastodons of the music world.
A lot of folks sit around and wonder why up-and-coming bands don't make it to South Florida. Sure, lots of local bands appear in our clubs and bars. And we get the occasional hit-maker playing at an arena or amphitheater. But what about all those groups that are popular and receive plenty of radio airtime yet couldn't fill an arena if their collective lives depended on it? Where are they? Well, one of the biggest problems was the lack of a midsize venue. Orbit has solved this predicament, at least for the foreseeable future. Once an unpretentious Winn-Dixie, it reopened last November as a sprawling nightclub with more than enough floor space for our favorite entertainers. Another bonus to the place is that it doesn't stick to one genre. The list of bands that have come to Orbit is vast and varied, including Thin Lizzy, Insane Clown Posse, the Psychedelic Furs, Paul Oakenfold, the Orb, and the Specials. Given the club's success to date, Orbit may be the impetus for a new wave.
Best Not-So-Cheap Thrill
Skydive America Palm Beach
If you get your kicks by hurtling toward the earth at more than 120 miles per hour from an altitude of about two and a half miles -- and who doesn't? -- Skydive America is your kind of place. But it'll cost you: as much as $159 for the jump. (Find four or more friends foolish enough to accompany you, and the price drops to $139 each.) What does it get you? A short video screening on what you're about to experience, a personal briefing from the instructor to whom you'll be harnessed, and then the jump: 65 seconds of free fall followed by another four to six minutes of "canopy flight" after you (or your instructor) deploy the parachute. Your view will include Lake Okeechobee and the sugar cane fields of western Palm Beach County. Factor in another $79 if you want to document the look of terror on your face with a video and still photos. And if you're too giddy to drive back home after all this, $20 will get you a night at nearby Clouds Edge Ranch, a 3.5-acre complex of air-conditioned bunkhouses, campgrounds, showers, kitchen facilities, and a pool. They'll even throw in a towel and soap.
Even people who aren't theater buffs love one-acts. Perhaps it's because our brains have been conditioned by too many Budweiser and Taco Bell commercials, but one-acts have the strange appeal of being enigmatic, energetic, and, most importantly, short. This season Chuck Pooler took the one-act a step further by packing Neil LaBute's Iphigenia in Orem with so many maniacal twists that it took the emotional toll of a two-hour drama. As a middle-aged salesman holed up in a roadside motel, Pooler led theatergoers from feeling sorry for his washed-out, pudgy, pathetic self to utter shock when he confesses that he suffocated his infant daughter and then pretended it was an accident. On the dimly lit and barren stage of Drama 101, Pooler's subtlety and unassuming delivery managed to seep into the subconscious of the audience and root out all preconceptions of what it means to be a murderer while at the same time replanting age-old questions about good and evil.
Tune into 90.9 FM on a Friday night, and you'll probably wonder if the Federal Communications Commission has suspended its rules regarding off-color language. The truth is, the FCC would love to find the secret location of surreptitious, scandalous Nine-Oh-Nine and shut it down but quick. Until it does so, however, this is the place to listen to the thuggiest, nastiest, bootius maximus hip-hop you've never heard. DJs regularly interrupt the music for impromptu sing-alongs and shout-outs to homeys. And they take calls from enthusiastic partyers in Lauderhill, Sunrise, Hollywood, Plantation, and points beyond who are only too happy for the chance to talk on the air. However, 90.9 isn't legal, and sometimes you'll tune in to find nothing but dead air. As one late-night DJ recently explained, "When we say we underground, we mean underground."
There's something all too gratifying about skipping a traditional meal and heading straight for the hard stuff. So why not head over to Mark Militello's eatery in the heart of Fort Lauderdale's restaurant row? Bypass the white tablecloths and go straight to the bar, which, like the restaurant, is void of Chanel suits and Armani wallets after 2:30 p.m. Order a Grey Goose martini, complete with three juicy olives, for $9 or a slender flute of Laurent-Perrier rosé brut for $16.50. A charming bartender will gladly bring you a bowl of fresh strawberries and hand-whipped cream to accompany the pink bubbly. As you order round three and afternoon melts into early evening, rest easy on one of the bar's leather-backed stools and ignore the hammer that has now begun to bang on your frontal lobe. It could be worse. You could be at work.
Grab a helping of Plutonium Pie, but expect no creamy dollop of whipped cream to soften the blow. No, brave reader, you will need lead mittens, protective visor, and earplugs of titanium to withstand the ferocious storm emitted by this local trio. After a brief fling with "punktry" last year, singer-axsmith J. Christ, his girlfriend Max Pluto, and his sister Lucy Rex have returned to form (straightforward, slam-happy hardcore) with their new Nuclear Pussy album. Expose yourself to Plutonium Pie at area venues such as Tobacco Road, the Poor House, and Churchill's Hideaway.
You can take your fingers out of your ears now. Since 1998 the folks at NSU's Radio X have made the local airwaves safe and, yes, sound, for the discriminating listener. Radio X, South Florida's only FM college station, has a lot riding on it. If it sucked, listeners craving alternative and local music would be out of luck. Fortunately the nightly program is chockablock with DJs such as Jenocyde (Jen Birchfield) who spin a musical mishmash that reflects their own unique preferences. Jenocyde's show (which airs Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights at 7 p.m.) has an unpredictable but always rockable play list that includes Radiohead and Rocket from the Crypt. This is one DJ whose nickname fits. She kills it.
Fifty years old on May 10, this station would wipe the floor with the competition -- if there were any. As it is WLRN remains a beacon of taste and intelligence in the vast wasteland of corporately controlled South Florida radio. The station's NPR news and public affairs programming is reliably enlightening, but locally produced shows are also first-rate. Standouts include jazz every weekday night from Len Pace (with a voice like Barry White on Quaaludes) and on Sundays from Ted Grossman (whose shtick is pure Noo Yawk). WLRN was the radio station that did the mostest, firstest, to bring reggae to the States, chiefly due to the efforts of the legendary Clint O'Neil. O'Neil still lays down the smooth patter overnight Tuesday through Saturday, handing the reins to protégé Ital-K on the off nights. Also note Michael Stock's Saturday-afternoon folk-music show, which has kept the boho flame alive for 20 years now. The station's strongest South Florida flaa-va comes from its broadcasts of the Miami-Dade School Board's meetings, at which you can occasionally hear expelled students come in to plead their cases. You won't believe the stories they tell. In a gesture that shows the station's commitment to public service, it offers a show en kreyol for the benefit of the local Haitian community, evidence of the station's continued dedication to the ever-changing needs and interests of the South Florida community.
It's about sex, so it must be good, you say? You're damn right! But The Vagina Monologues is not just about sex. More specifically it's about female sex and -- anatomically speaking -- the vagina. Eve Ensler's play was originally produced in an Obie Award-winning run in 1997 and has been playing to packed houses and rave reviews since then. Luckily the Broward Center for the Performing Arts brought the show to South Florida, and the Big V managed to live up to all the hype -- and then some. It consists of a series of monologues based on interviews the playwright conducted with women from a fascinating cross section of the American female population: old women, young women, married women, single women, lesbians, college professors, actors, corporate professionals, African-American women, Hispanic women, Asian-American women. Actresses Sharon Gless (remember Cagney and Lacey?), Starla Benford, and Sherri Parker Lee educated and enlightened us. (Did you know the clitoris has more nerve endings than any other human organ?) They also simultaneously moved us to tears and laughter. We need a cigarette.
If our strip of lights between ocean and swamp bore more than a passing resemblance to normalcy, clubs that stage rock music wouldn't be such an endangered species. But in South Florida (a place about as easy for touring acts to reach as Michigan's upper peninsula in the wintertime), venues worthy of live national talent are as rare as the Florida panther. Among the pathetic selection, the 14-year-old Respectable Street stands out. More than any other live music venue in the region, Respectable Street looks and feels like a real club. You won't have to deal with toilets similar to the horrific loo in Trainspotting, nor will you be required to endure ridiculous washroom-attendant bullshit. After all, this is rock 'n' roll, not charm school. The sound system is topnotch, the room the perfect size, the sightlines good, and the aesthetics just so -- dark, classy, and hip. Recent bands that have made the trek to Respectable Street include Fishbone, Dick Dale, the Meat Puppets, American Analog Set, Gitane Demone, and local favorites the Rocking Horse Winner, Pank Shovel, and Legends of Rodeo. There's really no contest in this category. It's Respectable Street by a length!
Not since the death of Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar have jack-tars wept such tears as they did July 31, 1970. That was the day the British Navy ceased issuing daily rations of rum, a tradition that was 315 years old when the government finally put a stop to it. It was one thing to be a drunk sailor in 1700; you might forget to lash down a cannon. But it was quite another problem to be inebriated at sea in the 1970s; you could accidentally send off a few nuclear torpedoes. Then in 1979 enterprising British expatriate Charles Tobias got permission to start publicly selling Pusser's Rum, the official rum of the British Navy, which had never been offered for sale to any civilian. These days Pusser's is available in only a handful of bars in the subtropics. Luckily for citizens of Fort Lauderdale, one of those establishments is right in town. Pusser's at the Beach serves up the original recipe, which has been formulated through a 300-year trial-and-error process. Best rum in Broward and Palm Beach counties? Heck, that hardly does it justice. What is offered today is arguably the best rum in the world. Ever.
Best Solo Show
The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith
Very early on in The Devil's Music, Miche Braden belted out a low blues note to let audiences know she is not just an actress; she's also a phenomenal singer. But Braden's acting was the real prize. The range of her characterization was sassy, wise, bitter, and flirtatious. She was inexhaustible, singing 13 gut-wrenching tunes in 90 minutes with no intermission or scene change. Her stamina and heartbreaking blues lent numerous dimensions to the character of Bessie Smith, giving her the stage presence of a diva and the theatricality of a broken woman. Although finding a talented actress who also happens to have a voice like Smith's is rare, Braden's exceptional performance proves it is possible.
The owners of this sprawling affair, which is convenient to both I-95 and the yuppie communities along Village Boulevard, say it is among Florida's largest sports bars, with more than a hundred TVs. Only two of them are big-screens, but that's of a piece with the intimate atmosphere. There are 5 a.m. sports bars -- slightly seedy, aprowl with lonely singles and anonymous mobs -- then there is the Ale House: a gathering of down-to-earth couples and groups who welcome strangers in a laid-back atmosphere clean-cut enough to draw a scattering of families. Most folks cheer for the local heroes -- any Florida team will do -- but the Washington Redskins fan club makes this place its home during the winter months, too. The décor's memorabilia includes a collection of vintage '60s sports-hero "nodders," little plastic dashboard dolls whose heads bob up and down. The usual Florida bar food menu features wings, burgers, ribs, and seafood crisply presented, and the grilled dolphin sandwich is a winner.
There is a little neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale called Harbor Beach, most of which is south of the 17th Street Causeway. It is a place of retired folks in nice little houses; until you reach the beach, where little houses are replaced by massive condominiums. Beyond this wall of high-rises is a small private beach, the existence of which is known by just a few select people. Even during the day, the sandy beach is only sparsely populated, and at night no one is there at all, except for the occasional condo owner walking the sand... or rolling in it with a significant other or some version thereof. This brings us to our point. Deserted beaches are primo stomping grounds for getting naked and going swimming. The gates to this beach close at dark, but not to worry: Access is still easily gained through condo parking lots. Of course if you are caught and escorted from the premises because of your nudity, New Times will deny any knowledge of ever publishing this....
This past season, every time a set caught the eye as aesthetically pleasing or clever, it was inevitably one of Rich Simone's creations. Simone's sets always seem to help bridge the gap between the audience and the actors, using the stage not only as a meeting point but also as a point of departure. Most recently his specialty seemed to be setting the mood for licentiousness, adultery, and other forms of sexual high jinks, as he did in Things We Do for Love and The Real Thing. In Things We Do for Love Simone created a three-story home perfect for the bawdy upstairs-downstairs humor that British playwright Alan Ayckbourn had in mind when he wrote this farce about a nymphomaniac, a soon-to-be spinster, a drunkard, and a vegetarian. Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing had a more sophisticated design (clean lines and streamlined contemporary furnishings) for this more erudite group of lovers (also British, come to think of it). Simone cleverly made use of upstage space to depict the playwright's play within a play. You could say he has a Thing for stage design.
So let's say Goldilocks has come to South Florida to find the strip joint that is juuuuust right. And say, for this issue of New Times, that little Goldy is a hetero guy. She looks for a club that's neither sleazy nor overly pretentious, a place where ham-fisted security goons aren't watching your every move. Our fairy-tale voyeur would feel quite comfy at Booby Trap, where the atmosphere is more discotheque than roadhouse. Variety is the name of the game at Booby Trap; dancers have been pulled from the ranks of amateurs, local pros, and porn stars. On a recent Wednesday night, a steady stream of entertainers showed up for work at the club sporting ponytails and workout suits, transformed themselves backstage, then wriggled and disrobed through several songs. After completing their sets, they mingled and chatted with patrons. A statuesque brunette was offered a lengthy neck-and-shoulder rub by one happy customer. Adult film star Harmony Grant jiggled her stuff during three sets. Frugal oglers will be happy to know that the cover charge is a mere $5 and the only pressure to keep buying drinks is the pounding of your heart.
This year Ray Lockhart proved that you can trick the devil, but you can't fool an audience. As Lem, the man who murdered musician Robert Johnson, Lockhart was not only pivotal to the play's denouement but also essential to the emotional chemistry on-stage. Portraying a long-absent and embittered husband, Lockhart filled M Ensemble's tiny set with the emotional intensity and stage presence of a man who has spent the past few years splitting rocks and returns to find his wife bedding down with a handsome, mysterious stranger. Lockhart's raw physicality and confident stage presence elevated the quality of this drama immensely without overshadowing the rest of the cast. Finding the balance between rage and passion, his quarry worker turned out to be the gem in this bitter tragedy.
To succeed in a supporting role, an actress must know her part within the context of the play as well as she knows the character she plays, and Tanya Bravo is one local actress who accomplishes this feat so consistently that her presence on the cast list always ensures an enigmatic evening of drama. She possesses the intensity and stage presence of an actress who always inhabits her character -- be it a punked-out band groupie in Caldwell Theatre's As Bees in Honey Drown, the young-girl version of Ruth in New Theatre's The Book of Ruth, or more recently as Chrysothemis in New Theatre's Electra. As the practical but ultimately vulnerable sister of Electra, Bravo showed her ability to channel conflicting emotions in relatively limited speaking parts. Her control and sharp instinct guarantee that her performance is never diminished by the size of the role she plays.
Besides delivering first-rate performances, Florida Stage artistic director Louis Tyrrell this season struck the right chord with music lovers and theatergoers alike. His productions of Syncopation, The Music Lesson, and The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith proved theater can sing, dance, wail, and waltz. Syncopation, the story of two immigrants in 1911, underscored the basic human need to dance and hear music. As the characters awkwardly stumbled through the waltz and fox trot, they became more human. The Music Lesson transformed classical music classes into moving instruction on life and loss. The Devil's Music was a closely woven tapestry of the blues great Smith's music and harrowing life. Actress Miche Braden gave the role the electrifying singing voice and powerful stage presence it warrants. All three shows enlivened good theater with impressive, live, musical accompaniment. In each piece melody became an integral part of the cast as well as a vibrant and multifaceted vehicle for the excellent drama Florida Stage continues to produce.
The bare-wood, dimly lit, rustic interior of the Poor House is a stark contrast to the majority of nightlife locales around downtown Fort Lauderdale's Himmarshee Village. Likewise, denizens of the Poor House are likely to be locals hoping to groove to live, original music (from the likes of Hashbrown, Plutonium Pie, Mr. Entertainment, or the Hep Cat Boo Daddies) rather than the canned dance fare booming from its neighbors. Here you'll rub up against a velvet Elvis, not velvet ropes. The suds selection is also top-drawer. During the steamy summer months, quaff a tall Tucher studded with a lemon slice. When it's cool outside grab an Amber Bock or a nutty Newcastle. The barkeeps are amateur comedians, which adds to the fun. The music's loud enough that you can hear every note, indoors or out. And you can get close enough to the performers to see the whites (or at least reds) of their eyes. If you're put off by the chi-chi crowds prowling the downtown streets on weekends, dip into the Poor House -- it feels normal in here. And is that so wrong?
Best Venue for National Acts
Broward Center for the Performing Arts
If you live in or around the "Venice of America" that is Fort Lauderdale and don't have a boat -- or even that much more economical option, a friend with a boat -- try attending an event at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. Architect Benjamin Thompson designed the Au-Rene Theater to replicate the experience of being on an ocean liner. He perched it on a hill overlooking the New River and pointing toward the Atlantic, curved the structure and filled in the front with a stories-high wall of glass to resemble the prow of a ship, and finished the theater's ceilings and balustrades in lapstrake cypress. The blue-and-green waves in the carpeting underfoot add to the sensation of being on the bounding main. Oh, did we mention that the acoustics are perfect? Or that there's not a compromised sightline in the auditorium? Or that the venue offers the crème de la crème of national acts from the symphony to the Broadway musical to the Grammy Award winner? No? Silly us.
Best Act to Leave in the Past 12 Months
Chris Chandler
He was just passing through, never staying in one place more than a year. We knew that, but it's still hard to admit that's he's really gone -- with no forwarding address. That's probably why we feel a little like a jilted lover. The good news is, Chris Chandler liked us. He really, really liked us. He wrote about the area in an e-mail to his South Florida friends, "I like to think of Hollywood as pre-scene'.... The rent is cheap, there are a dozen places to hear affordable live music where the beer is cheap, and there are no A&R reps shaking the bushes to find Eminem taking a leak." High praise indeed. And of course, audiences who heard Chandler perform know this "folken-word" poet was just warming up his praise when he typed that missive. We'll miss the guy who pointed out poetically that the coldest place on earth is a South Florida movie theater, that karaoke-style, cover-tune-like guitar-strumming is crap, and that many of our residents look like George W. Bush when he's asked a simple question (which goes a long way toward explaining the election). Let's hope we do something really stupid that attracts national attention soon so Chandler comes back for a visit.
Theatergoers found a lot of reasons to dislike Paul Tei this season. He played a cold-blooded child-murderer in New Theatre's Never the Sinner and a hot-blooded serial killer in GableStage's Popcorn. But he is so good at being bad that we can't really hold it against him. Tei is the kind of actor who looks at a role not only as an opportunity to perform but also as a chance to create a persona. Consequently he can portray several different degenerates without his performances overlapping. As Wayne, the gun-toting redneck in Popcorn, Tei kept us riveted to our seats -- appalled and laughing. But as Richard Loeb, a wealthy young Chicago man who, along with his lover, kills a young boy on a Nietzsche-inspired whim, he was outstandingly appalling. Tei never let audiences simply dislike his character. With his willingness to take risks and push the boundaries of character definition, he could make Ted Bundy funny. He dared to play the insolent, arrogant murderer Loeb as childlike and capricious -- clubbing a kid in the head one moment and going out for hot dogs the next. Tei's topnotch acting transformed these two good plays into excellent ones.
An actress's success in a dramatic role can fall into one of two categories: the ability to make the unbelievable believable, and the ability to make the believable unbelievably incredible. Bridget Connors managed to do both in her role as a young Jewish woman dying of a terminal illness. That's the believable part. Rachel's plight could easily have been a case study in Harold S. Kushner's book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. She expressed all the predictable emotions and asked all the right metaphysical questions. The not-so-believable part is the conversion experience she had, which was facilitated by her sister, a devout member of the Christian Science faith. Believable or unbelievable, Connors brought something magical to the role from the moment she stepped on-stage. Her ability to be simultaneously earthy and ethereal left theatergoers feeling as if they were seeing a tragedy for the first time.
There are traditional galleries, and then there's Lumonics, "a specialized sensory environment," as its founders put it, which is easily South Florida's most unusual venue for multimedia art. Housed in a nondescript strip of businesses just north of the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, Lumonics brings together light sculptures, water sculptures (in other words, fountains), performance art, digital video, laser art, dance, and music, all in one blow-your-mind complex. Dorothy Tanner and her husband, Mel (who died in 1993), started Lumonics as a showcase for large-scale acrylic sculptures that combine bright colors with internal lighting. Those pieces, along with water sculptures, are still displayed in a few small rooms and in the large main theater, which is where things really get interesting. From an upstairs control booth, a pair of artists (originally Dorothy and Mel, now Dorothy and Marc Billard) create one-of-a-kind performances set to music that include digital video projections and lasers dancing across a 35-foot wall that serves as their palette. Tanner and her collaborators originally created their soundtracks using jazz, classical, and New-Age music, but have lately leaned more toward original material by Tanner and Billard. And their regular hour-and-a-half shows have evolved more or less into "happenings," with the main performance followed by late-night parties in the adjacent Nite-Light gallery, where visitors can dance to cutting-edge DJ music or just hang out among the light sculptures.
Who can turn the world on with a smile? Who can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? Better still, who can sponsor a punk-rock food fight, inviting fans to attend a show and pelt band members with fruits and vegetables? It's the Mary Tyler Whores, of course, Broward's messy purveyors of stripped down, below-the-belt punk. For authenticity the band includes Joey Image, original drummer for protohardcore pioneers the Misfits. For fun the band sports an irreverent, clever handle. And for the hell of it, the musicians will let you throw your rotten citrus at them for no extra charge. Fort Lauderdale's Culture Room is a prime spot to pick up these Whores.
What sort of music do you like to hear when you just wanna party? In South Florida some folks gravitate toward whumpity-whump thumpatronics. That's fine, but when you want a rippin' guitar solo and high-octane rockabilly, there's no better choice than the Hep Cat Boo Daddies. Comprising rip-snortin' guitar slinger/singer Joel DaSilva, bassist Sean "Evil" Gerovitz, and drummer Randy Blitz, the Boo Dads perform instrumental surf, slow-simmered blues, and even the occasional Smithereens cover in their action-packed live shows. There's nothing fancy about what the trio does. In fact every town oughta have lean, no-frills fare like the HCBDs, who you can always be found thrilling weekend crowds at the Poor House.
Enter the tent of white sailcloth and gauze. Supreme Beings of Leisure play on the stereo, which is apropos, as leisure reigns supreme here. Proceed to the marble-top bar and order a drink, which will be ready in approximately the amount of time it takes to cast your lazy gaze across the Intracoastal. It's all trendy white upholstery in here, like a J.Lo video, but somehow you're too chilled out to care. Perhaps you could be bothered to amble into the dark-wood lounge, where the music's louder, the light is darker, and candles flicker in the fireplace. You are feeling... supremely languorous. Nevis. Rhymes with bliss.
When considering such a lofty title as this, there are a great many factors to consider. The easiest thing to do is first rule out any place that is overpriced, which excludes the beach bars, the Las Olas Riverfront, Himmarshee Village, and, well, just about every other place in Fort Lauderdale. Next lose any place where you can't get a nice European beer. Now all the dives are gone as well. You'd think there would be nothing left, but luckily a few communities surrounding Fort Lauderdale still have bars where the owners believe in serving quality drinks in a price range that allows even those bargoers on a strict budget to get tanked. Wilton Manors is one of those communities, and Shakespeare's Pub is about the best thing going. On a righteous night at Shakespeare's, you can drink a high-quality yet reasonably priced beer or five while listening to some good local bands and laughing at some piss-poor ones. And that's what going to a bar is all about, isn't it?
The oldest gas station in Delray Beach is still the best place in town to get gassed. All right, so that's a bad pun. But there's something about the funky, open-air bar in Delray's now-trendy downtown that inspires goofiness. And it's not just the giant picture of Elvis, the mounted fish, the moldy-looking moose head, the stained longhorns, or the giant Orange Crush bottle cap. It's the atmosphere, the blending of the past with the present, of down-home folk with glitterati, of wannabes with I-don't-cares. The bar at Elwood's is the former station's car lift; once used to hoist cars above the heads of greasy mechanics, it now serves as a place for patrons to rest their elbows while hoisting brewskis. Just as Elwood's is proud of its past, it makes no apology for its location. When trains scream by on the adjacent tracks Thursday nights, Scott Ringersen, Delray Beach cop by day and Elvis impersonator by night, simply raises his voice. Ditto 301 East, the versatile band that calls the bar home. While renowned for its ribs, the best thing about Elwood's is free -- grab a barstool, sit back, and watch the well dressed, pretentious types stroll down the avenue or gawk at the impressive array of Harleys lined up in the parking spots owner Mike Elwood reserves for his biker friends. If you're looking for quiet conversation, go elsewhere. At Elwood's there's always something to shout about.
When the well drinks have gone dry at other Broward bars, parched partyers' divining rods point to Casey's. Seven days a week from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m., ice cubes are clinking, the DJ is spinning, and nobody (thank God!) knows your name. Best of all, after-hours gal Susan Hayslett provides service with a sympathetic smile. She doesn't smirk when you roll in, eyeliner smudged, and order a shot of Jäger. In fact you kinda get the feeling she's been there, too. And in that case, make it a double.
Holiday Bowl might be small, but it has a '50s ambiance that you can't find at gargantuan game rooms and theme parks. This joint's sincerity so impressed Carnival Cruise Lines last year that it shot a commercial here depicting tourists on vacation -- in the Bahamas. Its 16 lanes, café, and lounge have catered to bowling aficionados, Québecois tourists, and hackers for more than 40 years. Manager Bernie Harrold rolled his first gutter ball here when he was seven years old. At two bucks a game, it's easy to see why other youngsters have followed his lead. Murals on both sides of the alley picture kids taking aim. The "Beer Frame" lettering on the east side of the alley refers to a time when the trailing party in the fifth frame had to buy the next round. Nowadays the alley hosts leagues, tournaments, and also those looking for a drink or dinner. The pro shop polishes your ball for eight bits, and if you arrive in sandals, don't fret. You can pick up a pair of socks there as well. We recommend it. After all, some of those shoes have probably been around for decades.
So you and your mate are tired of evenings spent vegging out to Friends or Ed? Dinner on Las Olas or Clematis too pricey for your slender wallet? Try Dania Jai-Alai, where the entry fee starts at $1.50 and the game is faster than the NHL and NBA combined. The competitors, who are mostly from Spain and France, play a kind of Basque handball that will keep you quite literally glued to your seat for hours. (Yeah, neither the crowd nor the facility is especially highbrow.) And when you're not ogling the fronton, people-watching is primo. Old guys stand outside the seating area and holler the last names of their favorite players, while younger fellows scream obscenities in raspy Spanish and families munch on a variety of perfectly delightful and unhealthy fare. Then there are the bets, which start at two bucks. You don't have to wager, but you get more involved when you do, and the pots can be sweet. The fronton opened in 1953, back when sports in South Florida meant anything that included gambling, and it still has the feel of that era. Everyone, but everyone bets at Dania Jai-Alai -- security guards, concession-stand workers, even pets. The biggest pot on a recent Sunday afternoon was $578.40. And just think, you skinflint, you won't even have to pay for the air conditioning.
It's a rickety old place with only six screens. But how can you go wrong at $2 admission on weekdays and $2.50 on weekends, especially when the person who books the films always manages to include one or more features from the art-house circuit? Maybe the choices reflect the fact that most of the clientele consists of retirees from the Northeast who, whatever their shortcomings, have a taste for movies with more to them than bang-bang, snicker, and leer. You may hate to find yourself behind them on the highway, but you could do worse than find they're ahead of you in the ticket line.
Here it is a rainy Saturday afternoon, and there's not much to do. Going to the movies doesn't seem like such a good idea, unless you're dying to see Crocodile Dundee Got Fingered or whatever. So how about this? Ride the Tri-Rail. If you live down south, hop on at the Hollywood station and locomote through Fort Lauderdale, Pompano and Deerfield beaches, then Boca and Delray, to the end of the line in Mangonia Park. If you live up north, take it the other way. Or try both. Flat-fare, all-day adult tickets are available on weekends for $4, and they're good for one-way, round-trip, or multiple rides in each direction. So pick up your portable CD player, grab your favorite book, and enjoy. Or look out the window and be glad you're not stuck in the traffic jam that's bound to spring up on I-95.
An unsuspecting man walks into Voodoo Lounge on a Sunday night. It's a bit too early to be going to a club, but he's bored at home and figures, "Well, what the heck? Let's start the night off early." The first patron, he saunters up to the bar with blasé self-confidence. He orders a Stoli and Red Bull, then casts a glance at the tall drink of water at the other end of the bar. Now that is one tall, leggy blonde. Damn. He sips a bit more of the Stoli, especially after the blonde gives him a dirty look. Wait a minute. That's no woman. That's a man! Ah well, if you don't know any better, it's an easy mistake to make Sunday nights at the Voodoo, when the club puts on two performances of "Life's a Drag," South Florida's top female-impersonation show, which begins at 11:30 p.m. and 1 a.m. Hosted by Daisy Deadpetals and featuring fellow dragsters Lady Valentina, T.P. Lords, Lola Lush, and Glitz Glamour, the performance includes lip-synchs of songs by popular female pop stars. These people do it well; they are professionals. Anyone could have mistaken them for the real McCoy, even this guy I'm talking about, who looks absolutely nothing like me.
Best Concert of the Past 12 Months
Brian Wilson and the Pet Sounds Orchestra
Upon its release in 1966, the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album was seen as a stumbling block in the band's career, a detour from the AM-radio hit parade. Thirty years later you can't swing a surfboard without hitting a critic who places Pet Sounds in any position but best record of all time. The album has even warranted a four-CD boxed set, perhaps the most elaborate analysis of any single album ever. South Florida was lucky enough to be included on the tour when Wilson assembled a 10-piece band and 55-piece orchestra to reproduce faithfully each and every intricate note of the Pet Sounds album, even down to the Coca-Cola cans and bicycle horns used on the original recording. Though the man appeared more than a little out of it (unsurprising considering his legendary chemical intake), Wilson presided over a piano and TelePrompTer while his band churned through a thrilling "Sloop John B.," complete with crystalline harmonies; the sepulchral bliss of "You Still Believe in Me;" the James Bond drama of the title track; and the heavenly heartache of "Caroline, No." Elevating a simple mid-'60s pop record into an experience rivaling anything the Beatles ever produced, Wilson's performance finally cashed Pet Sounds' postdated paycheck.
One look at the dress code, outlined on a sign above the front door, and you know you're in the right place. It reads: "No muscle shirts, tank tops, cut-off or beach shorts, spurs, knives or guns." And for good measure, keep those cigars, pipes, and clove cigarettes in the car, buddy. You're at Davie Junction, the most Western bar in South Florida. The décor is pure country honk, featuring dark paneling, neon beer signs, and wagon wheels. For a reasonable price you can get yourself a longneck, scoot your boots, and tuck into a big steak. (The place bills itself as a "Western-style nightclub" but offers a full menu.) The bands play both kinds of music, country and western. And management offers line-dancing lessons so you don't have to look so dang stupid trying to figure it out.
Finally a nightclub does it right. Unlike typical dark rooms with bars and dance floors, Sutra has a theme that it sticks with. After getting past those velvet ropes and walking down a hallway with straw mats, one enters a place that can be described only as haremesque. The dance floor is small, but only because there is a bar on one side, some tables on another, a large bed heaped with Turkish pillows on the third, and on the fourth what appears to be a shrine to Buddha, a small room with couches and prayer rugs forming a semicircle around the jolly messiah. Slipping between the bar and the Buddha, one passes another bar then reaches the stairs. The second floor features yet another bar as well as a VIP lounge, which is made up of a series of oh-so-comfy couches and throw pillows surrounded by a gauzy, transparent curtain. All in all the only things missing from the scene are the harem girls. Oh, and by the way, the DJs this place attracts, including Nicco and Sweet Peach, are some of the best in town.
The last time we stopped at Sneakers, a guy was bellied up to the bar wearing a boa (constrictor, not feather), a woman was lying on the bar as the bartender poured a drink into her mouth, and a band was playing Skynyrd covers on the minuscule stage. We chatted with a tipsy dude who insisted he was a helicopter pilot and offered to take us for a ride. We declined, preferring to suck down Buds and endure the occasional cue in the ribs. In other words this is a slice of paradise, especially after a night tippling at the area's froufrou drinkeries. Sneakers is just like the town it serves: ragtag and eclectic with a hint of danger -- just the way we like it.
Artistic director Michael Hall did South Florida theatergoers two favors this season. First he brought the socially relevant and riveting docudrama The Laramie Project to his stage. It was the play's first production after its off-Broadway debut. Second he assembled a troupe with the range and experience to make the production not only important theater but good theater as well, including Kim Cozort, Jason Field, Laurie Gamache, Jacqueline Knapp, Pat Nesbit, Mark Rizzo, Robert Stoeckle, and Michael Warga. Dressed in drab brown tones, the ensemble of eight portrayed more than sixty characters, from townspeople to ranchers, doctors, reporters, and friends of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die by two local boys in Laramie, Wyoming. With fluid and subtle transitions, these characters switched roles seamlessly, revealing an unforgettable cross section of small-town America and a staggering array of attitudes.
Did you know alligators can climb trees? Or that they can hear your pinky hit the water four miles away? Or that the blazing color of bougainvillea comes not from its flowers but from its leaves? These fun facts and more can be had for a buck and 30 minutes of your time at Knollwood Groves in Boynton Beach. Originally owned by the vaudeville comedy team Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, better known as Amos and Andy, the 71-year-old orange grove offers visitors a slice of Old Florida and enough trivia to win bar bets for years to come. A tractor-pulled cart leaves every hour on the hour for tours of the pesticide-free grove, traveling through a genuine Florida jungle hammock, past a 1000-year-old water oak and a four-story-high bougainvillea vine, as well as gumbo limbo, ginger, and coffee trees. For the kiddies it makes stops to visit turtles, a wild boar, and of course gators. On Saturdays at 2 p.m. the grove also features an alligator show with Martin Twofeather. At $6 for adults and $4 for kids, it ain't half bad -- you can even pet the gator. Still the $1 tram tour, which begins at 10 a.m. and ends at 4 p.m., is better. The grove is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. seven days a week in season. (It's closed Sundays in the summer.) There's even a gift shop that sells funky Florida stuff, like plastic gators that sing, and a fruit stand where you can pick up oranges, green pepper or papaya jelly, and vine-ripe tomatoes for, you guessed it, a buck a pound.
Back in January a group of dirty, greasy hippies decided they'd had enough of the lack of jam-oriented music in South Florida. The form is dear to the hearts of all these types, years of following the Grateful Dead having inured them to hours of musical enterprise. They wanted to create a happening that would gather the bands they enjoyed as well as fellow fans. Thus began the Festival Tribe Musical Event. Now a three-day party for the pot-smoking, patchwork pants-wearing, patchouli-sniffing crowd is held the first weekend of every month just a few blocks from the Broward County line in Miami-Dade. "This is not a one-person operation," says organizer Barry Sacharow. "It is a loosely knit organization, and we have a lot of fun." The music is not just for wastoid white boys with dreadlocks. Sure, groups like Grateful Dead cover band Crazy Fingers participate, but the festival boasts excellent bluegrass, percussion, tribal, and world tunes as well. The Festival Tribe Musical Event -- it ain't your daddy's Woodstock.
Best Film Festival
Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival
Last year we honored the FLIFF in this category almost begrudgingly, in part because it was "pretty much the only game in town." Well, after a decade and a half it's still the biggest game in town and at 28 days has expanded to claim the dubious honor of being the longest film fest in the world. (Palm Beach, of course, has its own affair, but it just doesn't stack up.) Fortunately the FLIFF has clung to the things that have long set it apart, including its predilection for films with little or no commercial potential, its support for gay and lesbian cinema, and its occasional sixth sense when it comes to anticipating Academy Award contenders. The most recent festival gave us samples of each: the shamefully overlooked Maze, a fascinating study of an unlikely romance between a Tourette's-afflicted painter (Northern Exposure actor Rob Morrow, who also directed the flick) and a friend (Laura Linney, whose excellent work was overshadowed by her Oscar-nominated performance in You Can Count on Me); the knockout, Cassavetes-style gay drama Straight Man and the uneven but worthwhile lesbian-themed coming-of-age tale Swimming; and the Oscar-nominated Shadow of the Vampire, as well as the surprisingly overlooked State and Main from director David Mamet. The festival also reaffirmed its commitment to independent filmmaking with a tribute to John Waters, including a screening of his underrated Cry-Baby, a showing of a documentary about him titled In Bad Taste, and an appearance by the rogue moviemaker.
With its rum-voiced narrator nattily attired in white à la Fantasy Island's Ricardo Montalban, the nation's longest-running Polynesian floorshow could easily be played as a joke. But while the enormous restaurant trades on fantasy, it is refreshingly free of irony. Opened in 1957, the Mai-Kai hails from a time when exotic meant chic, fondue was fun, and women dressed for dinner with gardenias in their hair. This was pre-postcolonialism, of course, but even so, the feel of Mai-Kai lies somewhere between dated and timeless. The beautiful, long-haired dancers (male and female) are in fact trained by Mai-Kai owner-choreographer Mirielle Thornton, a native Polynesian. So while they evoke South Seas signifiers, the dancers never stoop to cruise-ship camp. Instead they perform a storytelling medley that's fun -- and funny only when it's meant to be.
Formerly known as Ed Matus' Struggle, the recently rechristened Disconnect is one of the area's most popular rock bands. Occupying a niche in the psychedelic/shoe-gazer/emo realm, the band's surreal, shifting songs allow listeners to lose themselves in an intoxicating haze of swirling guitar. That his band was once briefly dubbed the Juan Montoya Experience is a joke with a kernel of truth at its core: Come to watch Disconnect, and you'll end up staring at the diminutive, Colombian-born maestro of the six-string. Using his Gibson SG and rack of pedals as a sonic flamethrower, the flamboyant Montoya makes a joyful noise; the pleasure of watching him lose himself in the swells of sound is why Disconnect continues to please old fans and rack up new ones.
If you're driven to drink as soon as you punch out, chances are it's not because you're dying for loud Top 40 drivel and preternaturally perky service. You want to get down to business after a day of conducting business. That's why New Times staff members have long been fixtures at Maguires -- where dark wood paneling and photographs depicting the old country lend a genuine, drinking-as-art atmosphere that could not exist at a yuppie watering hole or tourist trap. Bartenders and waitresses attentively fill your cup of cheer with fine liquor or earthy draft beer. Thirsty patrons who are thrifty like the prices: From 4 to 7 p.m., imports cost $3.25, domestics $2.75, and well drinks $2.50. Plentiful free food (sometimes mediocre) is available, and a full menu of pub-style comestibles is offered if you're willing to pay. Every Thursday through Sunday, a live combo plays traditional Irish melodies -- much better accompaniment for drowning your workday woes than cheesy renditions of the latest pop tunes.
Some national movie chains continue to shrink, while others focus on constructing mammoth multiplexes. Our Best Movie Theater of two years ago, meanwhile, has survived by morphing into that rarity, a true independent. The Gateway still snags the occasional mainstream flick, but it has become the best bet for such edgy independent fare as Requiem for a Dream, Nurse Betty, and the recent Memento. More specifically it has become a haven for the small but thriving genre of queer cinema. Edge of Seventeen, Trick, The Broken Hearts Club, Boys Life 3, and the Oscar-nominated Before Night Falls are just a few of the gay-oriented flicks that have played there. And a corner of the theater's lobby has become a virtual gay community-resource center, featuring magazines, newsletters, fliers, brochures, and business cards. No wonder some members of the gay and lesbian communities refer to the Gateway as the Gayway.
Best Lesbian/Gay/Straight/Undecided Bar
K&E's II Doors Down
Elaine Roberts wants to make one thing perfectly clear: K&E's II Doors Down is not a lesbian bar. It's not that Roberts is lesbian-averse. After all she and co-owner Kathy Spatenga have been together -- both personally and professionally -- for more than 20 years. It's just that this is a new millennium and it's time to quit classifying things. "I don't want to be labeled a lesbian bar, because we aren't one. We're an alternative-lifestyle bar. We're a straight bar. We're a gay bar. We're a lesbian bar. We're just a bar. We're for all kinds of people," she says. "What is a gay bar, anyway? Are we running around naked with our wangs hanging out?" Hardly. This bar, which justifiably calls itself the "best-kept secret in Lake Worth," is a classic neighborhood joint -- the kind of place where you walk in, order a $2 draft, and instantly feel comfortable. Located just across Dixie Highway from Lake Worth's recently revitalized downtown, K&E's is often overlooked by those rushing to crowd into upstart imitators along Lake and Lucerne avenues. And if clubbers overlook the bar, it's understandable. Located in an old storefront, K&E's doesn't look like much from the outside. But inside, its décor borders on quaint, including the handmade pine bar, which Kathy designed and Elaine's brother-in-law built, and the small dining room, complete with paisley-print tablecloths, low lights, and framed posters on the walls. Elaine says the bar got its reputation as a lesbian bar because it's the successor to Kathy's Bar, a private, women-dominated club that Spatenga operated from 1979 to 1986. But when Roberts and Spatenga opened K&E's eight years ago, Elaine said she wanted to redefine "gay pride" and attract a diverse clientele. She got her wish. And it's easy to see why: The drinks are affordable, the food is good, and the conversation is lively. What more could any bargoer -- gay, straight, or in between -- want?
Every Tuesday at 10:30 p.m., culture high and low meets and makes out at Marya Summers's poetry slams. Among our favorite parts is lap poetry, the perfect expression of slammistress Summers's sophisticated appreciation of the South Florida sleaze factor. The décor and the crowd at this restaurant, lounge, and coffeehouse are about as cool as things get -- the retro-chic décor reflects the same arch sensibility that co-proprietor Rodney Mayo (who also owns Respectable Street) brings to all his enterprises. An eclectic, adventurous menu, full bar, and reasonable prices only add to the appeal. Pray that Summers gets drunk and some literary enthusiast volunteers to spank her, pour l'art. Or maybe just bring your own Wallace Stevens-like verse, step onto a table, and be brave enough to read it.
Best Live Music in a Restaurant
Mangos Restaurant & Lounge
Where is it written that a jazz club must be a bar? Something about the form lends itself more to lingering over dinner than the tenth beer. The jazz kicks in around 9:30 p.m., and the local jazz bands booked there play to a packed house. In the smoking section, which is closest to the stage, an open table is as rare as desert rain. One recent night a woman belted out jazzy covers of Stevie Wonder with a backing group consisting of a bassist, a drummer, a keyboardist, and a saxophonist/flutist. The notes mingled with the tastes and smells of hearty, homey fare such as the herb-roasted turkey breast in cranberry chutney sauce, cementing Mangos' stature as a culinary and musical force with which to be reckoned.
The resemblance to Bob Dylan is probably not entirely coincidental. A Palm Beach resident since 1995, MacDonald moved here to care for his aging parents and, it would seem, the small South Florida folk community. MacDonald paid his dues as a journalist, law student, conscientious objector, and traveling folksinger before becoming a major player in the Greenwich Village Fast Folk movement in the '80s and '90s. Today MacDonald is a regular at Palm Beach clubs such as Paddy Mac's and the Coffee Gallery Café, where he often invites local talent to join him on-stage. On a recent night at the CG, he looked as if he belonged, unfazed by passing cars, boisterous teenagers, bikers, and the noisy cover band two doors down. Decked out in sandals, Hawaiian shirt, and shorts, he sang and played his heart out using just "six strings and a hole big and round" (which is also the title of a MacDonald song). The political messages still inhabit his songs, but MacDonald's latest album, 1999's Into the Blue, tempers an angry attitude with songs about the weather, marriage, and nature. In other words he's adapted well to Florida.
Best Local Album of the Past 12 Months
The Rocking Horse Winner
Growing up in a suburban labyrinth of faceless strip malls, endless asphalt, and cookie-cutter subdivisions -- instead of Hades, we've named it Davie -- wouldn't seem to foster good music. But that's the hometown of most of the young members of the Rocking Horse Winner. And they've produced one of the most sublime albums Broward and Palm Beach counties have ever heard. From the chiming guitar of Henry Olmino and heavenly vocals of Jolie Lindholm, you'd think these kids were raised on a strict diet of the Sundays and the Innocence Mission. But you'd be wrong; somehow these sweet, melodic songs grew out of a punk-rock appetite. Drummer Matt Crum and bassist Jeronimo Gomez provide the foundation for this collection of some of the most memorable and flawlessly produced music ever to originate from the 'burbs. The State of Feeling Concentration's pastel-hued love songs, such as the lovely "Raspberry Water" and "Sweet Smell Before the Rain," are more than a much-needed respite from South Florida's dance-music/heavy-metal stranglehold: They're nothing less than pure pop perfection.
You won't find Anita Drujon holed up in some musty warehouse living tortured-artist clichés as she goes about producing her work. Sure, she spends plenty of time working in her Pompano Beach studio, a sunny condo not far from the ocean. But she's also actively engaged in the South Florida arts community. She's an adjunct professor at Broward Community College, Florida Atlantic University, and the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, where she regularly participates in group exhibitions, and a member of a handful of area art guilds. None of this would make much difference, of course, if her work were mediocre. It's not. Drujon, who was educated in Boston and Miami, is one of the few artists who devote themselves to encaustic, a relatively obscure medium that uses heated wax applied to hard surfaces such as wood or Masonite and then manipulated in various ways. Drujon helps keep this esoteric art alive, and she combines it with other media to glorious effect.
In an interview with New Times last year, GableStage artistic director Joe Adler said, "Television, and to some extent movies, is about maintaining a level of mediocrity. This is not the case with theater. It's a much bigger commitment. The audience is a participant." Adler combined his numerous years of film and TV experience with his passion and directorial savvy, turning Popcorn into a dark satire about the movie industry, among other things. With his trademark emotive directorial style, Adler knows how to get the best out of his actors. By pairing Claire Tyler and Paul Tei in the lead roles, he created just the right balance of innocence and evil. Adler consistently shows a keen awareness of the context of contemporary theater. He never makes theatergoers slaves to the stage. And he often uses film, video, music, and sound to propel the play into the audience's imagination. In Popcorn Adler offered a reminder that live theater can offer excitement that television and film can't -- without record, play, and rewind.
Picking out a top local jazzman is easy when he is also one of the greatest of all time. Ira Sullivan was a guiding light in Chicago's hard-bop scene of the 1960s. One of the few jazz musicians equally skilled with trumpet, flügelhorn, and every flavor of saxophone, Sullivan has played with more or less every big name in jazz during a career spanning 50 years. Perhaps the only reason he hasn't achieved the godlike status of Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie is that he virtually refuses to travel and is reticent about recording. In fact he has released only two albums in the last two decades. The last time he toured was more than a decade ago, with Red Rodney, the trumpeter who in 1949 replaced Miles Davis in Charlie Parker's bebop quintet. Despite all this, Sullivan is still recognized as one of the great names in jazz. Nowadays, apart from the occasional trip back to sweet home Chicago, he plays a few places around South Florida, including One Night Stan's in Hollywood the first Thursday of every month.
The six members of the Broward/Miami-Dade combo See Venus like to describe their heady sound as somewhere between Brian Wilson and Stereolab. Damn them, but we can't think of a more accurate comparison. Venus' space-age, bachelor-pad music is at once futuristic and retro, impossibly cool, and uncommonly catchy. Leader Christopher Moll began strolling down the pop path in the early '90s with his band Twenty-Three, but the full-bodied sound of See Venus seems to be what he's been striving for; with six members cavorting about with horns, keyboards, samplers, basses, and guitars, little white space exists on the band's crowded canvas. The sweet vocals of Rocky Ordoñez and Erica Boynton combine and captivate, making the melodious "Shine Like Stars" and the bouncy, Brazilian "Boy Bubble Blue" must-have confections. Find the band creating its magic at venues like Tobacco Road and Respectable Street.
Straddling the line between high art and unadulterated, lowbrow, cover-band fun, Fort Lauderdale's Hashbrown appeals to hard-rockers, hip-hop heads, and fans of Parliament-style funk. The quartet is adept at kicking down a thickened, spicy, funked-up, urbane rock that's guaranteed to make your booty move and your mind follow. But the dance floor isn't the only place to enjoy Hashbrown: Plenty of the Velcro-strength hooks on tracks such as the rambunctious "HOD" and the silky "Over & Done" from their new Fuzzy Logic CD have the staying power of an all-day lollipop. Bassist-singer Jay Spencer is fully in charge of the nonstop hip-hop 'n' roll. Guitarist Duncan Cameron serves up obtuse, jazzy chords to add a bit of a professorial air. Drummer Rick Kanner dishes out never-ending, party-style beats. And DJ Boogie Waters is Hashbrown's secret weapon, piping a stream of vinyl samples atop the groovalicious funk. Catch the band at the Poor House most weekend nights or at the Surf Cafe in Boca Raton.
Boca Raton resident Chris Carrabba is a newfangled hybrid in the acoustic singer/songwriter mold. Though he uses roughly the same approach Woody Guthrie employed during dust bowl days, he's updated the formula slightly. Using the name the Dashboard Confessional, Carrabba strums unplugged, emo-punk anthems that connect on a gut level with his teenage and twentysomething audiences. The new Dashboard Confessional full-length CD, The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, delivers the heart-on-the-sleeve, poignant lyrics with which his fans often sing along, as in "Again I Go Unnoticed": "So what's another day/When I can't bear these nights/Of thoughts of going on without you." You can find Carrabba touring the nation with the likes of Snapcase or Face to Face or witness him in stool-perching mode at Ray's Downtown Blues.
The Music Lesson dismantled the myth that good drama must arise from a dramatic situation. In this play by Tammy Ryan, a couple of musicians, Irena and Ivan, take refuge in Pittsburgh from war-torn Sarajevo and end up giving music lessons to American children from a broken family. What made Florida Stage's production exceptional was the acting, featuring the talents of Maggi St. Clair Melin, Jessica K. Peterson, Joris Stuyck, Elizabeth Dimon, Amy Love, Ashton Lee, Craig D. Ames, Eddi Shraybman, and Ethel Yari. The alienation and suffering these characters felt moved through the audience like slow ether, emanating from their simplest gestures. In fact the play is a gestural masterpiece, with all the action centering around an invisible piano. More than a metaphor, classical music becomes a tangible character, so that The Music Lesson is not just another account of human tragedy desensitized by a flood of overt emotion and sentimentality; it is a moving account of people trying to rebuild their lives.
We laughed. We cried. We begged for more. Then we saw Muvico Parisian 20 and realized we could never go back to another theater. While the trend-setting Fort Lauderdale-based theater chain's other South Florida multiplexes -- its Egyptian-themed temple of film in Pembroke Pines, its salute to the '50s in Pompano Beach, and its palatial tip of the hat to Addison Mizner in Boca Raton -- are impressive, its Parisian 20 in CityPlace is truly the pièce de résistance. Originally sold to the public as a French opera house, the theater has been described in the company's recent press releases as a movie chateau. Whatever they call it, this place is as eye-popping as anything on the silver screen. With sweeping staircases, intricate molding, and sky blue walls adorned with white columns, wainscoting, and hand-painted murals of Rubenesque cherubs, the lobby is nothing if not stunning. Popcorn in this theater? Au contraire. While it is on the menu, theatergoers can feast on things besides the usual snack bar fare, including quesadillas, shrimp, and, in the upstairs bar, sushi and pan bellos. But the real treat comes not from hearing, smelling, or tasting a thing but, when the lights dim and you sit back in a comfortable rocking chair with plenty of leg room, from realizing no one's head is in the way. As they say in Paris, ahhh.
For much of its half-century history, the Boca Raton Museum of Art was crammed into a woefully inadequate structure on Palmetto Park Road -- an acoustically atrocious set of galleries that was hardly worthy of the extensive holdings. Under the stewardship of long-time executive director George S. Bolge, the museum built a solid track record of creative programming, but there was no getting around it: the building sucked. That changed in January, when the new and improved Boca Raton Museum of Art opened at its spacious, not to mention gorgeous, new digs at the northern end of Mizner Park. With 44,000 square feet and two levels, the museum now has a showcase not only for major exhibitions such as its inaugural Picasso retrospective but also for displays drawn from its permanent collection, which includes pre-Columbian art, African art, English ceramics, modern and contemporary European and American art, photography, and a world-class collection of prints.
What once was a place to fill up your tank is now a place to get tanked. Bill's Filling Station, for six years a popular fixture in a converted gas station, fills up every day after work with regular Joes (the gay ones, anyway) enjoying two-fers till 9 p.m. -- and all night on Monday. A cozy patio and bar out back make smoking easier and less offensive, and a well-stocked CD jukebox inside near the main bar keeps the place alive with music. Doesn't matter what you wear, how old you are, or from which side of the tracks you hail; the other friendly faces may not know your name, but pretty soon they'll at least know your taste in men. Speaking of tracks, Bill's is next to the railroad line that cuts through gay-friendly Lake Ridge, and the occasional passing train means shots are just 50 cents. That makes it easy to tie one on.
If you're visiting Fort Lauderdale and you rent a car at the airport, chances are you'll drive by this sign, which is nestled amid the foliage along Federal Highway. The aqua and pink tubes of its classic roadside advertisement have flickered since 1949, beckoning would-be diners to the table. The sign would seem a good omen for visitors and locals alike, hearkening back to a simpler time when all a South Floridian really wanted was a tropical cocktail with a surf and turf. Some things change. Newer neon often stamps out the old. But the Tropical Acres sign still stands. So, if you pass this little landmark on your way into or out of town, don't forget to say goodnight.
If work and other commitments prevent you from catching concerts by AC/DC, Guns N' Roses, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Van Halen, or Aerosmith, fret not; Fort Lauderdale hosts one of these dinosaurs, or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof, almost every week. If you're tired of Axl Rose lying low for years at a time, you can stoke your fire with Paradise City, a Guns N' Roses look-and-sound-alike act. Run Like Hell makes a mint performing the songs of Pink Floyd. And you'll never have to worry who Van Halen's hired as its new screamer when you go to see tribute act Fair Warning. Fort Lauderdale's perennially cheesy Metal Factory is the oasis for these imitators of the woolly mammoths and mastodons of the music world.
A lot of folks sit around and wonder why up-and-coming bands don't make it to South Florida. Sure, lots of local bands appear in our clubs and bars. And we get the occasional hit-maker playing at an arena or amphitheater. But what about all those groups that are popular and receive plenty of radio airtime yet couldn't fill an arena if their collective lives depended on it? Where are they? Well, one of the biggest problems was the lack of a midsize venue. Orbit has solved this predicament, at least for the foreseeable future. Once an unpretentious Winn-Dixie, it reopened last November as a sprawling nightclub with more than enough floor space for our favorite entertainers. Another bonus to the place is that it doesn't stick to one genre. The list of bands that have come to Orbit is vast and varied, including Thin Lizzy, Insane Clown Posse, the Psychedelic Furs, Paul Oakenfold, the Orb, and the Specials. Given the club's success to date, Orbit may be the impetus for a new wave.
Best Not-So-Cheap Thrill
Skydive America Palm Beach
If you get your kicks by hurtling toward the earth at more than 120 miles per hour from an altitude of about two and a half miles -- and who doesn't? -- Skydive America is your kind of place. But it'll cost you: as much as $159 for the jump. (Find four or more friends foolish enough to accompany you, and the price drops to $139 each.) What does it get you? A short video screening on what you're about to experience, a personal briefing from the instructor to whom you'll be harnessed, and then the jump: 65 seconds of free fall followed by another four to six minutes of "canopy flight" after you (or your instructor) deploy the parachute. Your view will include Lake Okeechobee and the sugar cane fields of western Palm Beach County. Factor in another $79 if you want to document the look of terror on your face with a video and still photos. And if you're too giddy to drive back home after all this, $20 will get you a night at nearby Clouds Edge Ranch, a 3.5-acre complex of air-conditioned bunkhouses, campgrounds, showers, kitchen facilities, and a pool. They'll even throw in a towel and soap.
Even people who aren't theater buffs love one-acts. Perhaps it's because our brains have been conditioned by too many Budweiser and Taco Bell commercials, but one-acts have the strange appeal of being enigmatic, energetic, and, most importantly, short. This season Chuck Pooler took the one-act a step further by packing Neil LaBute's Iphigenia in Orem with so many maniacal twists that it took the emotional toll of a two-hour drama. As a middle-aged salesman holed up in a roadside motel, Pooler led theatergoers from feeling sorry for his washed-out, pudgy, pathetic self to utter shock when he confesses that he suffocated his infant daughter and then pretended it was an accident. On the dimly lit and barren stage of Drama 101, Pooler's subtlety and unassuming delivery managed to seep into the subconscious of the audience and root out all preconceptions of what it means to be a murderer while at the same time replanting age-old questions about good and evil.
Tune into 90.9 FM on a Friday night, and you'll probably wonder if the Federal Communications Commission has suspended its rules regarding off-color language. The truth is, the FCC would love to find the secret location of surreptitious, scandalous Nine-Oh-Nine and shut it down but quick. Until it does so, however, this is the place to listen to the thuggiest, nastiest, bootius maximus hip-hop you've never heard. DJs regularly interrupt the music for impromptu sing-alongs and shout-outs to homeys. And they take calls from enthusiastic partyers in Lauderhill, Sunrise, Hollywood, Plantation, and points beyond who are only too happy for the chance to talk on the air. However, 90.9 isn't legal, and sometimes you'll tune in to find nothing but dead air. As one late-night DJ recently explained, "When we say we underground, we mean underground."
There's something all too gratifying about skipping a traditional meal and heading straight for the hard stuff. So why not head over to Mark Militello's eatery in the heart of Fort Lauderdale's restaurant row? Bypass the white tablecloths and go straight to the bar, which, like the restaurant, is void of Chanel suits and Armani wallets after 2:30 p.m. Order a Grey Goose martini, complete with three juicy olives, for $9 or a slender flute of Laurent-Perrier rosé brut for $16.50. A charming bartender will gladly bring you a bowl of fresh strawberries and hand-whipped cream to accompany the pink bubbly. As you order round three and afternoon melts into early evening, rest easy on one of the bar's leather-backed stools and ignore the hammer that has now begun to bang on your frontal lobe. It could be worse. You could be at work.
Grab a helping of Plutonium Pie, but expect no creamy dollop of whipped cream to soften the blow. No, brave reader, you will need lead mittens, protective visor, and earplugs of titanium to withstand the ferocious storm emitted by this local trio. After a brief fling with "punktry" last year, singer-axsmith J. Christ, his girlfriend Max Pluto, and his sister Lucy Rex have returned to form (straightforward, slam-happy hardcore) with their new Nuclear Pussy album. Expose yourself to Plutonium Pie at area venues such as Tobacco Road, the Poor House, and Churchill's Hideaway.
You can take your fingers out of your ears now. Since 1998 the folks at NSU's Radio X have made the local airwaves safe and, yes, sound, for the discriminating listener. Radio X, South Florida's only FM college station, has a lot riding on it. If it sucked, listeners craving alternative and local music would be out of luck. Fortunately the nightly program is chockablock with DJs such as Jenocyde (Jen Birchfield) who spin a musical mishmash that reflects their own unique preferences. Jenocyde's show (which airs Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights at 7 p.m.) has an unpredictable but always rockable play list that includes Radiohead and Rocket from the Crypt. This is one DJ whose nickname fits. She kills it.
Fifty years old on May 10, this station would wipe the floor with the competition -- if there were any. As it is WLRN remains a beacon of taste and intelligence in the vast wasteland of corporately controlled South Florida radio. The station's NPR news and public affairs programming is reliably enlightening, but locally produced shows are also first-rate. Standouts include jazz every weekday night from Len Pace (with a voice like Barry White on Quaaludes) and on Sundays from Ted Grossman (whose shtick is pure Noo Yawk). WLRN was the radio station that did the mostest, firstest, to bring reggae to the States, chiefly due to the efforts of the legendary Clint O'Neil. O'Neil still lays down the smooth patter overnight Tuesday through Saturday, handing the reins to protégé Ital-K on the off nights. Also note Michael Stock's Saturday-afternoon folk-music show, which has kept the boho flame alive for 20 years now. The station's strongest South Florida flaa-va comes from its broadcasts of the Miami-Dade School Board's meetings, at which you can occasionally hear expelled students come in to plead their cases. You won't believe the stories they tell. In a gesture that shows the station's commitment to public service, it offers a show en kreyol for the benefit of the local Haitian community, evidence of the station's continued dedication to the ever-changing needs and interests of the South Florida community.
It's about sex, so it must be good, you say? You're damn right! But The Vagina Monologues is not just about sex. More specifically it's about female sex and -- anatomically speaking -- the vagina. Eve Ensler's play was originally produced in an Obie Award-winning run in 1997 and has been playing to packed houses and rave reviews since then. Luckily the Broward Center for the Performing Arts brought the show to South Florida, and the Big V managed to live up to all the hype -- and then some. It consists of a series of monologues based on interviews the playwright conducted with women from a fascinating cross section of the American female population: old women, young women, married women, single women, lesbians, college professors, actors, corporate professionals, African-American women, Hispanic women, Asian-American women. Actresses Sharon Gless (remember Cagney and Lacey?), Starla Benford, and Sherri Parker Lee educated and enlightened us. (Did you know the clitoris has more nerve endings than any other human organ?) They also simultaneously moved us to tears and laughter. We need a cigarette.
If our strip of lights between ocean and swamp bore more than a passing resemblance to normalcy, clubs that stage rock music wouldn't be such an endangered species. But in South Florida (a place about as easy for touring acts to reach as Michigan's upper peninsula in the wintertime), venues worthy of live national talent are as rare as the Florida panther. Among the pathetic selection, the 14-year-old Respectable Street stands out. More than any other live music venue in the region, Respectable Street looks and feels like a real club. You won't have to deal with toilets similar to the horrific loo in Trainspotting, nor will you be required to endure ridiculous washroom-attendant bullshit. After all, this is rock 'n' roll, not charm school. The sound system is topnotch, the room the perfect size, the sightlines good, and the aesthetics just so -- dark, classy, and hip. Recent bands that have made the trek to Respectable Street include Fishbone, Dick Dale, the Meat Puppets, American Analog Set, Gitane Demone, and local favorites the Rocking Horse Winner, Pank Shovel, and Legends of Rodeo. There's really no contest in this category. It's Respectable Street by a length!
Not since the death of Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar have jack-tars wept such tears as they did July 31, 1970. That was the day the British Navy ceased issuing daily rations of rum, a tradition that was 315 years old when the government finally put a stop to it. It was one thing to be a drunk sailor in 1700; you might forget to lash down a cannon. But it was quite another problem to be inebriated at sea in the 1970s; you could accidentally send off a few nuclear torpedoes. Then in 1979 enterprising British expatriate Charles Tobias got permission to start publicly selling Pusser's Rum, the official rum of the British Navy, which had never been offered for sale to any civilian. These days Pusser's is available in only a handful of bars in the subtropics. Luckily for citizens of Fort Lauderdale, one of those establishments is right in town. Pusser's at the Beach serves up the original recipe, which has been formulated through a 300-year trial-and-error process. Best rum in Broward and Palm Beach counties? Heck, that hardly does it justice. What is offered today is arguably the best rum in the world. Ever.
Best Solo Show
The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith
Very early on in The Devil's Music, Miche Braden belted out a low blues note to let audiences know she is not just an actress; she's also a phenomenal singer. But Braden's acting was the real prize. The range of her characterization was sassy, wise, bitter, and flirtatious. She was inexhaustible, singing 13 gut-wrenching tunes in 90 minutes with no intermission or scene change. Her stamina and heartbreaking blues lent numerous dimensions to the character of Bessie Smith, giving her the stage presence of a diva and the theatricality of a broken woman. Although finding a talented actress who also happens to have a voice like Smith's is rare, Braden's exceptional performance proves it is possible.
The owners of this sprawling affair, which is convenient to both I-95 and the yuppie communities along Village Boulevard, say it is among Florida's largest sports bars, with more than a hundred TVs. Only two of them are big-screens, but that's of a piece with the intimate atmosphere. There are 5 a.m. sports bars -- slightly seedy, aprowl with lonely singles and anonymous mobs -- then there is the Ale House: a gathering of down-to-earth couples and groups who welcome strangers in a laid-back atmosphere clean-cut enough to draw a scattering of families. Most folks cheer for the local heroes -- any Florida team will do -- but the Washington Redskins fan club makes this place its home during the winter months, too. The décor's memorabilia includes a collection of vintage '60s sports-hero "nodders," little plastic dashboard dolls whose heads bob up and down. The usual Florida bar food menu features wings, burgers, ribs, and seafood crisply presented, and the grilled dolphin sandwich is a winner.
There is a little neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale called Harbor Beach, most of which is south of the 17th Street Causeway. It is a place of retired folks in nice little houses; until you reach the beach, where little houses are replaced by massive condominiums. Beyond this wall of high-rises is a small private beach, the existence of which is known by just a few select people. Even during the day, the sandy beach is only sparsely populated, and at night no one is there at all, except for the occasional condo owner walking the sand... or rolling in it with a significant other or some version thereof. This brings us to our point. Deserted beaches are primo stomping grounds for getting naked and going swimming. The gates to this beach close at dark, but not to worry: Access is still easily gained through condo parking lots. Of course if you are caught and escorted from the premises because of your nudity, New Times will deny any knowledge of ever publishing this....
This past season, every time a set caught the eye as aesthetically pleasing or clever, it was inevitably one of Rich Simone's creations. Simone's sets always seem to help bridge the gap between the audience and the actors, using the stage not only as a meeting point but also as a point of departure. Most recently his specialty seemed to be setting the mood for licentiousness, adultery, and other forms of sexual high jinks, as he did in Things We Do for Love and The Real Thing. In Things We Do for Love Simone created a three-story home perfect for the bawdy upstairs-downstairs humor that British playwright Alan Ayckbourn had in mind when he wrote this farce about a nymphomaniac, a soon-to-be spinster, a drunkard, and a vegetarian. Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing had a more sophisticated design (clean lines and streamlined contemporary furnishings) for this more erudite group of lovers (also British, come to think of it). Simone cleverly made use of upstage space to depict the playwright's play within a play. You could say he has a Thing for stage design.
So let's say Goldilocks has come to South Florida to find the strip joint that is juuuuust right. And say, for this issue of New Times, that little Goldy is a hetero guy. She looks for a club that's neither sleazy nor overly pretentious, a place where ham-fisted security goons aren't watching your every move. Our fairy-tale voyeur would feel quite comfy at Booby Trap, where the atmosphere is more discotheque than roadhouse. Variety is the name of the game at Booby Trap; dancers have been pulled from the ranks of amateurs, local pros, and porn stars. On a recent Wednesday night, a steady stream of entertainers showed up for work at the club sporting ponytails and workout suits, transformed themselves backstage, then wriggled and disrobed through several songs. After completing their sets, they mingled and chatted with patrons. A statuesque brunette was offered a lengthy neck-and-shoulder rub by one happy customer. Adult film star Harmony Grant jiggled her stuff during three sets. Frugal oglers will be happy to know that the cover charge is a mere $5 and the only pressure to keep buying drinks is the pounding of your heart.
This year Ray Lockhart proved that you can trick the devil, but you can't fool an audience. As Lem, the man who murdered musician Robert Johnson, Lockhart was not only pivotal to the play's denouement but also essential to the emotional chemistry on-stage. Portraying a long-absent and embittered husband, Lockhart filled M Ensemble's tiny set with the emotional intensity and stage presence of a man who has spent the past few years splitting rocks and returns to find his wife bedding down with a handsome, mysterious stranger. Lockhart's raw physicality and confident stage presence elevated the quality of this drama immensely without overshadowing the rest of the cast. Finding the balance between rage and passion, his quarry worker turned out to be the gem in this bitter tragedy.
To succeed in a supporting role, an actress must know her part within the context of the play as well as she knows the character she plays, and Tanya Bravo is one local actress who accomplishes this feat so consistently that her presence on the cast list always ensures an enigmatic evening of drama. She possesses the intensity and stage presence of an actress who always inhabits her character -- be it a punked-out band groupie in Caldwell Theatre's As Bees in Honey Drown, the young-girl version of Ruth in New Theatre's The Book of Ruth, or more recently as Chrysothemis in New Theatre's Electra. As the practical but ultimately vulnerable sister of Electra, Bravo showed her ability to channel conflicting emotions in relatively limited speaking parts. Her control and sharp instinct guarantee that her performance is never diminished by the size of the role she plays.
Besides delivering first-rate performances, Florida Stage artistic director Louis Tyrrell this season struck the right chord with music lovers and theatergoers alike. His productions of Syncopation, The Music Lesson, and The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith proved theater can sing, dance, wail, and waltz. Syncopation, the story of two immigrants in 1911, underscored the basic human need to dance and hear music. As the characters awkwardly stumbled through the waltz and fox trot, they became more human. The Music Lesson transformed classical music classes into moving instruction on life and loss. The Devil's Music was a closely woven tapestry of the blues great Smith's music and harrowing life. Actress Miche Braden gave the role the electrifying singing voice and powerful stage presence it warrants. All three shows enlivened good theater with impressive, live, musical accompaniment. In each piece melody became an integral part of the cast as well as a vibrant and multifaceted vehicle for the excellent drama Florida Stage continues to produce.
Best Venue for National Acts
Broward Center for the Performing Arts
If you live in or around the "Venice of America" that is Fort Lauderdale and don't have a boat -- or even that much more economical option, a friend with a boat -- try attending an event at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. Architect Benjamin Thompson designed the Au-Rene Theater to replicate the experience of being on an ocean liner. He perched it on a hill overlooking the New River and pointing toward the Atlantic, curved the structure and filled in the front with a stories-high wall of glass to resemble the prow of a ship, and finished the theater's ceilings and balustrades in lapstrake cypress. The blue-and-green waves in the carpeting underfoot add to the sensation of being on the bounding main. Oh, did we mention that the acoustics are perfect? Or that there's not a compromised sightline in the auditorium? Or that the venue offers the crème de la crème of national acts from the symphony to the Broadway musical to the Grammy Award winner? No? Silly us.
With its rum-voiced narrator nattily attired in white à la Fantasy Island's Ricardo Montalban, the nation's longest-running Polynesian floorshow could easily be played as a joke. But while the enormous restaurant trades on fantasy, it is refreshingly free of irony. Opened in 1957, the Mai-Kai hails from a time when exotic meant chic, fondue was fun, and women dressed for dinner with gardenias in their hair. This was pre-postcolonialism, of course, but even so, the feel of Mai-Kai lies somewhere between dated and timeless. The beautiful, long-haired dancers (male and female) are in fact trained by Mai-Kai owner-choreographer Mirielle Thornton, a native Polynesian. So while they evoke South Seas signifiers, the dancers never stoop to cruise-ship camp. Instead they perform a storytelling medley that's fun -- and funny only when it's meant to be.
If you're driven to drink as soon as you punch out, chances are it's not because you're dying for loud Top 40 drivel and preternaturally perky service. You want to get down to business after a day of conducting business. That's why New Times staff members have long been fixtures at Maguires -- where dark wood paneling and photographs depicting the old country lend a genuine, drinking-as-art atmosphere that could not exist at a yuppie watering hole or tourist trap. Bartenders and waitresses attentively fill your cup of cheer with fine liquor or earthy draft beer. Thirsty patrons who are thrifty like the prices: From 4 to 7 p.m., imports cost $3.25, domestics $2.75, and well drinks $2.50. Plentiful free food (sometimes mediocre) is available, and a full menu of pub-style comestibles is offered if you're willing to pay. Every Thursday through Sunday, a live combo plays traditional Irish melodies -- much better accompaniment for drowning your workday woes than cheesy renditions of the latest pop tunes.
Best Live Music in a Restaurant
Mangos Restaurant & Lounge
Where is it written that a jazz club must be a bar? Something about the form lends itself more to lingering over dinner than the tenth beer. The jazz kicks in around 9:30 p.m., and the local jazz bands booked there play to a packed house. In the smoking section, which is closest to the stage, an open table is as rare as desert rain. One recent night a woman belted out jazzy covers of Stevie Wonder with a backing group consisting of a bassist, a drummer, a keyboardist, and a saxophonist/flutist. The notes mingled with the tastes and smells of hearty, homey fare such as the herb-roasted turkey breast in cranberry chutney sauce, cementing Mangos' stature as a culinary and musical force with which to be reckoned.
If you're visiting Fort Lauderdale and you rent a car at the airport, chances are you'll drive by this sign, which is nestled amid the foliage along Federal Highway. The aqua and pink tubes of its classic roadside advertisement have flickered since 1949, beckoning would-be diners to the table. The sign would seem a good omen for visitors and locals alike, hearkening back to a simpler time when all a South Floridian really wanted was a tropical cocktail with a surf and turf. Some things change. Newer neon often stamps out the old. But the Tropical Acres sign still stands. So, if you pass this little landmark on your way into or out of town, don't forget to say goodnight.
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