Broadway stars at Prelude

If you're still casting about for a way to spend New Year's Eve or New Year's night -- and if you don't mind parting with some serious bucks -- the entrepreneurial Barton G. Weiss (yes, that Barton G) has cooked up an enticing, sophisticated option.  Every so often, for a couple of nights each time, he's turning his Adrienne Arsht Center eatery Prelude into what must be Miami's swankiest supper club.

Actor-singer Cheyenne Jackson kicks off the series Friday and Saturday with (based on the three numbers I heard at a press preview today) a varied set of songs and stories, like the one he told about growing up poor in Idaho in a house without running water or an indoor bathroom.  Which is true, though his mom thinks that's too much sharing.

Jackson has two movies coming out in 2011 (Smile and The Green).  He's on 30 Rock and Glee, and soon will add Curb Your Enthusiasm to his TV resume.  His Broadway credits include Xanadu and Finian's Rainbow. In October, he and Michael Feinstein sold out Carnegie Hall with their show The Power of Two.

Judging from Jackson's mini-set -- Feeling Good from The Roar of the Greasepaint, Joni Mitchell's A Case of You and Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come -- Prelude is as viable a supper club (with excellent sound) as it as an upscale restaurant. 

Future evenings will feature Tony Award winner Karen Olivo (Jan. 13-15) and Hair star Gavin Creel (Jan. 21-22).

The price tag for Jackson's gig ranges from $75 for standing room (with a two-drink minimum) to $295 for dinner and show on New Year's Eve.  For info, call 305-357-7900 or go to the Arsht Center's web site.

Florida Stage unveils 1st Stage lineup

For its fifth annual 1st Stage New Works Festival, Florida Stage is shifting its staged reading extravaganza to a long weekend at its new home in West Palm Beach's Kravis Center for the Performing Arts.

Running Feb. 4-6, with a kickoff reception Feb. 3, this year's festival will feature readings of seven new plays -- some of which, as in the past, will get future full productions.

On this year's bill are Israel Horovitz's Beverley, a comic love triangle involving a woman and two men in their 70s; Deborah Zoe Laufer's Leveling Up, a play about video game addicts who just might have a future launching missiles; Kew Henry's Poet, about two muses assigned to Edgar Allan Poe; Carter W. Lewis' The Americans Across the Street, featuring a world-weary man whose greatest delight is ranting at his neighbors; Andrew Rosendorf's Brilliant Corners, about a divorced jazz lover whose family wants money; Christopher Demos-Brown's Captiva, a dark comedy about a family reunion upended by a hurricane; and John Herrera's Tiempo de amor, a play about a young woman torn between an older Spaniard and her controlling mother in 1920s Havana and Tampa.

In addition to the readings and opening party, a keynote address (past speakers include Marsha Norman, John Guare and Horovitz) will be part of the new play celebration.

For information, call Florida Stage's box office at 1-800-514-3837 or visit the theater's web site.

Holiday (theater) grab bag

I'll be away for the next three weeks, returning before the New Year for Beauty and the Beast, a story on the delightfully frank Sharon Gless in A Round-Heeled Woman at GableStage, and more.  But before I go, here's a quick look at some of the holiday (and other) shows happening right about now.

* Tonight through Sunday, the Irish Theatre of Florida is presenting the tragicomedy Red Roses & Petrol, a play by Sinead O'Connor's brother Joseph.  It happens at 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday at the Bienes Center for the Arts , 2801 SW 12th St., Fort Lauderdale.  Tickets are $21, with student discounts. Call 954-513-2272.

* Leslie Jordan performs Deck Them Halls, Y'all, a show combining his southern charm and adult humor, in the Broward Center's Amaturo Theater at 7 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $40 and $50, available by calling 954-462-0222 or via the center's web site.

* Pinecrest Gardens has a festival built around the works of Charles Dickens on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.  Admission is $5 (free for kids 5 and under).  Dickens' A Christmas Carol gets performed on a stage in the Banyan Bowl at the Gardens, 11000 Red Rd. in Pinecrest.  Choirs, artisans, puppeteers, mimes and bell ringers are part of the holiday celebration. Call 305-669-6990 or visit the Gardens web site for info.

* Three shows are happening this weekend at Miami's New World School of the Arts.  The John Kander-Fred Ebb musical Curtains happens tonight-Dec. 12 in the Louise O. Gerrits Theater on the 8th floor of the New World building at 25 NE Second St.; admission is $12 ($5 for students).  David Henry Hwang's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt goes on Saturday-Sunday (and admission is free) in the school's Studio Theatre (Room 5903) on the 9th floor.  And George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara (another free production) happens Saturday-Sunday in Room 5902 on the 9th floor.  For the performance schedule and other details, call 305-237-3541 or visit the New World site.

Happy holidays to all!

New Theatre signs a star

As part of its premiere-filled season, Coral Gables' New Theatre has already announced its production of Shirley Lauro's The Radiant, a play about Marie Curie.  Now, via its new e-newsletter, the 25-year-old troupe has revealed that Angelica Torn will star as the scientist whose work in the field of radioactivity won her two Nobel prizes.

Torn, daughter of Rip Torn and Geraldine Page, last appeared in South Florida in the 2005 production of Edge, a solo show about poet Sylvia Plath at the Coconut Grove Playhouse.  She won a Carbonell Award for her earlier appearance as Honey in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Playhouse.

The Radiant will be at New Theatre, 4120 Laguna St. in Coral Gables, March 25-April 17, 2011.

Also just announced are this year's celebrity playwrights for New Theatre's annual Miami Stories fundraiser on Feb. 17: businessman and arts leader Ricky Arriola, attorney Marlon Hill and outgoing Miami-Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson.

For info on New Theatre, where Rogelio Martinez's Fizz (a wild comedy about former Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta and the flop that was New Coke) opens this weekend, call 305-443-5909 or visit the company's web site.