Perhaps some were thinking of their own daughters, pre-teen rebellion, and others of their granddaughters, out of touch in distant states.

Doubtless most had happier ideas in mind, though one thing was clear: The appearance Saturday of Jackie Evancho on the final night of this year’s Festival of the Arts Boca turned an audience of concertgoers into proud, teary parents.

The 10-year-old poperatic sensation from America’s Got Talent waved excitedly at the crowd with both hands, and they leaned closer to the stage and waved right back. She beamed after finishing her arias, squeezing her arms close to her ivory dress in best aw-shucks style, and the audience jumped to its feet and roared its approval.

It was an unusual, emotional night at Mizner Park, and one that offered a healthy display of young operatic talent outside the celebrity wattage of the petite, golden-haired Pittsburgh tween. Evancho was the special attraction on a concert that also featured four rising singers who took the big crowd through some of the most familiar selections from the operatic repertoire, and did so impressively.

The Boca Raton Symphonia, which appeared in the earliest iterations of this five-year-old festival, was the house band for the evening (called A Night at the Opera) under the able direction of Constantine Kitsopoulos. The five singers alternated appearances in Whitman’s-sampler style, separated by three overtures from Italian opera and the entr’acte from Act IV of Bizet’s Carmen.

Most of the music was amplified, which gave it a slightly unrepresentative sound, but there was enough good vocalism there to be encouraged about the future of opera in North America.

All four of the adult singers gave one or more excellent performances, which in that sense made them relatively equal. Each of these voices was large and powerful, perhaps none more so than the Canadian tenor John Tessier.

Tessier’s voice is one of those lyric tenors with a cutting, thrilling vocal edge that makes it stand out immediately on stage. His Ah, mes amis, quel jour de fête, from Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, showed a voice that had no difficulty at all hitting the aria’s legendary nine high C’s, even to the point that he was able to sing the first eight at mezzo-forte, with a sense of plenty of muscle to spare.

His second appearance, also in music by Donizetti – Una furtiva lagrima, from L’Elisir d’Amore – demonstrated that he can sing with full-blooded warmth as well, spinning out rich lines of song with apparent ease and textual sensitivity. The audience loved this performance, as they did Tessier’s duet with baritone Michael Todd Simpson, in which the two men’s voices blended beautifully for Au fond du temple saint, from Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers.

Simpson was an audience favorite, first for his funny, but not overdone, reading of the Largo al factotum from Rossini’s Barber of Seville, and even more for his swaggering, aggressive take on the Toreador Song from Carmen. Simpson has a dark, full voice with a strong lower register, often a point of treachery in the verse for the Toreador Song, but not here: all the notes spoke solidly, and well.

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Holloway also scored with the Habanera from Carmen, for which her large voice was well-suited; she didn’t play much with the notes, as mezzos often do in this aria, but it was every bit as effective. Her work in Mozart was also quite fine, with a strong Non so piu cosa son from Le Nozze di Figaro early on, and then best of all, a charming duet with Simpson in La ci darem la mano, from Don Giovanni.

Opera producers often like a lighter voice type for Zerlina than Holloway’s, but the benefit of using a fuller voice like hers is the element of mature seduction that she can get across, rather than the sound of an innocent abroad in a dangerous new land.

Katie Van Kooten, an American soprano who has studied and worked in London, is a singer with a huge, commanding voice who would make an excellent Musetta for La Bohème. As it happens, she sang Puccini: Magda’s song (Chi il bel sogno di Doretta) from La Rondine, an increasingly popular selection as this opera continues to make inroads into the repertory. She almost oversang the first high notes, but in sum this was a fine, intense performance.

Her second appearance was even finer, with a beautiful, high-floating tour of Song to the Moon, from Dvorak’s Rusalka. Van Kooten has plush, orchestra-swamping vocal power to spare, a quality that suggests that she could handle the most demanding roles in the repertoire.

For its part, the Boca Symphonia did its job admirably and well, accompanying capably and giving crisp performances of the overtures to Verdi’s Nabucco and Rossini’s Barber of Seville and L’Italiana in Algeri (this last a wise mood-changing switch from the originally scheduled Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana). They also proved suitably emotive in the Intermezzo from Puccini’s early Manon Lescaut, with good work from cellist Christopher Glansdorp, violist Scott O’Donnell and violinist Misha Vitenson.

Then there was Evancho herself, the headliner of the night. She sang five pieces, part pop, part classical, including the Puccini aria – O mio babbino caro, from the one-act Gianni Schicchi – that made her name on America’s Got Talent. In its pre-mature stage, it is a pretty voice with a haunting alto quality that makes it sound like the property of someone much older, as well as something otherworldly.

Evancho does not have a lot of breath control, since her adult lungs haven’t arrived, and she has to gulp air repeatedly to sing the longer lines that will come easily to her a few years from now. But she clearly has a good ear, and even when she ran into some vocal trouble, she managed to stay on pitch and keep the basic purity of her tone production intact.

All five of her songs were arranged by pop master David Foster, and for most of them an added piano part, heavily miked, was prominent. She looked always to Kitsopoulos for her cues, followed them strictly, and then delivered, with the slightly awkward hand and arm movements that endear her to listeners, and which turned into forceful pulls to her sides at moments of high drama.

She was most effective in the two lighter selections: Lovers, from Shigeru Umebayashi’s score for Zhang Yimou’s 2004 costume actioner House of Flying Daggers, and All I Ask of You, from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Phantom of the Opera. In both, her dark lower register added real loveliness to music of derivative sweetness, and she sang them persuasively.

Her Ombra mai fu, from Handel’s opera Serse, showed that she is able to sing with evenness across the course of a song, and her terminal high note (an F, I think) was full and steady. O mio babbino caro, as expected, drew huge applause, and she sang this arrangement (down a whole step from the original) reasonably well.

Evancho reappeared at the close of the show for Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, from Turandot, normally an aria for a tenor. This is not a particularly good choice for this girl’s voice, and she struggled through it, rebounding in true trouper style with an added three-note flourish for the final chords.

Jackie Evancho is a most fortunate person, having been born with talent into a musical family that has shrewdly managed her and carefully placed her career in expert hands like those of Foster. She has said one of her voice teachers expects she’ll be able to keep her higher notes as she grows older, and build strength in her lower notes.

I don’t see any reason to doubt that, nor do I see any reason to deny that she has real ability. It will be interesting to see what happens to her as she moves from angelic adorability into a much more uncertain future, but I also expect we’ll find out, and that we’ll be hearing from Jackie Evancho for some time to come.

The film industry has been one of the best things ever to happen to the symphony orchestra, and tonight at the Festival of the Arts Boca, both will be together again. Restoration specialist John Guberman is bringing the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz to the Count de Hoernle Amphitheater tonight, to be screened to the accompaniment of live music from the Boca Raton Symphonia. Conductor Constantine Kitsopoulos, who’s worked the festival before, leads an augmented version of the orchestra for the concert. It should be fun to see the Boca Symphonia accompanying the young Judy Garland in Somewhere Over the Rainbow, as well as hear that busy Herbert Stothart music that runs underneath Margaret Hamilton as she rides her bicycle. The shows starts at 7:30 p.m. Call 571-2787 or visit www.festivaloftheartsboca.org.

Art: Orlando resident Nathan Selikoff started working with computers at age 3, growing up with a father who was a software engineer. He went on to the University of Central Florida for studies in computing and fine art, and these days the 30-year-old creates art from algorithms, making Hubble-like images that glow like star formations, among other things. Through March 25, Selikoff’s work is featured at the art gallery on the Eissey Campus of Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens (the college is currently on spring break, so you’ll have to wait until Monday to see it) in a show called Process & Influence. These are the kinds of images that inspire a lot of reflection. Precise as they are, they are nevertheless mysterious, and it’s the kind of work that makes you think about repeating patterns in nature, the power of computers, and the immensity of space. The gallery is open from 9 to 5 a.m. Monday through Friday, except for Tuesday, when it’s open until 8 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call 207-5015.

Film: The film industry in South Korea is remarkably vibrant, as exemplified by the visually polished, sensuous thriller The Housemaid, playing this week at the Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park. It is the tale of an affluent couple who hire an attractive, working-class woman to be their housemaid. But the husband soon has other plans for her, bedding her and, before long, impregnating her. This understandably enrages the wife, who focuses her anger on the servant, with violent consequences. Still, the tone is muted and artful. You wouldn’t want to see the inevitable Hollywood remake of this one. And delicate-featured Jeon Do-yuon gives a standout performance in the title role. – H. Erstein

Theater: It has been a shaky season so far for the Kravis on Broadway series, but this week the West Palm performing arts center hosts a classic produced with a lot of care. It is West Side Story, the landmark musical from 1957 that re-imagines the clash of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet on the mean streets of New York with the Jets and Sharks, warring gangs. Joey McKneely, a protégé of the late Jerome Robbins, reproduces his stunning dances with loving care and the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim score is still a thrill to hear. The production’s only misstep is trying to turn the show bilingual, having the Sharks speak and sing in Spanish, but only occasionally. A questionable idea, but nothing can really damage this show, when performed by triple-threat pros like this national tour has. Through Sunday. Call (561) 832-7469 for tickets. – H. Erstein

Music: Tonight, Japanese cellist Dai Miyata plays the second of two concerts he’s given this week under the auspices of the Kronberg Academy’s Palm Beach County operation. The first-prize winner in the Rostropovich Competition in Paris last year, Miyata will play the Sonata No. 5 (in G major) of Jean-Baptiste Breval, Beethoven’s variations on Bei mannern from Mozart’s Die Zauberflote (WoO 46), Gaspar Cassado’s Requiebros, and the Hungarian Rhapsody (Op. 68) of David Popper. The concert is set for 8 p.m. at the Ora Sorensen Gallery, 445 E. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach. Tickets are $30. Call 283-1815 or visit www.usfriendskronbergacademy.org.

The Delray String Quartet continues its current season tonight and Sunday afternoon with its annual series of concerts accompanied by pianist Tao Lin. On the program is a true rarity: The Piano Quintet in G minor of Jean Sibelius (written in 1890), along with the Arioso movement from the Concerto No. 5 (in F minor, BWV 1056) of J.S. Bach, and an arrangement of the Polovetsian Dances from Alexander Borodin’s opera Prince Igor. Rounding it out is the lovely String Quartet No. 2 of the much-neglected American composer Randall Thompson. The group plays at 7:30 tonight at All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Lauderdale, and at 4 p.m. Sunday at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach. Tickets are $20; for more information, call 213-4138.

The Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero has carved out a useful niche for herself as a musician who recalls an earlier tradition of performers who improvised in concert.

Her recital Thursday night during the fifth Festival of the Arts Boca ended with four of her improvisations, but it was the rest of her program that provided the highest interest from a purely musical point of view.

Most of Montero’s recital at the Cultural Arts Center in Mizner Park contained music of Latin America, including a major sonata by Alberto Ginastera. She opened the evening, however, with two of the four Ballades of Frederic Chopin.

In both of the Ballades – No. 1 in G minor (Op. 23) and No. 4 in F minor (Op. 52) – Montero established herself as a pianist of the poetic persuasion. Tempos were loose, melodies were front and center, and she made the most of unexpected moments such as the sudden series of soft C-major chords before the coda in the Fourth Ballade, or the descending octaves in the first agitato section of the First Ballade, which she held on to as long as feasible before cranking up the G minor motor.

She demonstrated also a large and impressive, if not immaculate, technique, but she was able to bring off the showier moments of both pieces in generally admirable fashion. But while her playing of the First Ballade made a strong impact, the climactic A major repeat of the second theme was pounded rather than played with majesty, and the performance as a whole was missing a level of polish and command that would have made the contrasting sections stand out more and the piece overall communicate more effectively.

Montero was better in the Fourth Ballade, where the pages of angry triplets in the last pages were nice and clean, and the opening bars were hushed and almost motionless, for a very pretty effect. Best of all was the short quasi-canon passage before the recap, for which the tempo slowed and each hand played its lines with Bachian purity, creating a moody, ruminative feel that set up the return of the initial music beautifully.

A set of four pieces by the Cuban pianist-composer Ernesto Lecuona came next. Lecuona’s work is greatly admired in some circles, but this is music of scant merit, in which commonplace tunes are presented through a scrim of tattered Liszt. Still, Montero played all four – Malagueña, La Cumparsa, Cordoba, and Gitanerias – with style and panache, and a heightened sense of rhythm and color. The high point came in the second strain of Cordoba, which Montero performed with surpassing delicacy and gentleness.

The program listed the Danzas Criollas of Ginastera next, but Montero skipped it, and my notes indicate she next played Brejeiro, a well-known tango by the Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth. This got a sunny, straightforward reading, and the first half closed with Joropo, by the Venezuelan composer Moisés Moleiro (1904-1979).

Based on a folk dance in which colorful skirts play an important role (as Montero explained in remarks to the half-full house), this is an exciting, well-written piece with a vivid sense of movement and color, and Montero gave it plenty of fire.

The sole programmed work on the second half was the Sonata No. 1 of Ginastera, which Montero called “a titanic work” that’s now getting its due. She played it very well, and with relative restraint considering how often Ginastera’s compositional aesthetic gives performers the green light to play with as much force and volume as possible.

In the finale, for example, the rapidly shifting rhythm was clearly and precisely marked, not hammered, and that helped the clustered chords that appear later in the movement sound logical rather than yet another element of aggressive tone-painting. The first movement, too, had this same quality of tensile clarity, while let the chief falling-scale theme speak with different colors each time it appeared.

The slow third movement expressed desolation, just as Montero promised it would, and her deliberate, quiet reading of this music gave the audience a glimpse into another part of Montero’s art.

Montero takes audience suggestions for themes to improvise upon, and insists that the themes be familiar to all the listeners. The crowd was very enthusiastic, and divided between “Latins and non-Latins,” as Montero said, which at one point led her to veto two tunes suggested by the Latin partisans, including Caballo Viejo, on grounds of general unfamiliarity.

The first theme, suggested by festival founder Charlie Siemon, was Harold Arlen’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow, for which Montero used the first eight bars, and gave it a J.S. Bach-Ferruccio Busoni treatment, its snappy ornamentations augmented by big Romantic octaves in the bass.

Billy Joel’s Piano Man came next, first played like a Chopin waltz, then transformed into the minor for a Lecuona-like habanera. Another habanera, the one by Sebastián Iradier that Georges Bizet appropriated for Carmen, followed, and this also received a Chopinesque setting, with some Liszt added to the mix.

The final theme was Consuelito Velazquez’s 1940s standard Bésame Mucho, and this returned Montero to Bach-Busoni territory, ending in a similar fashion to the Arlen song, with a proud tower of descending motifs built on a triumphant tonic major-key triad at the close.

The musical vocabulary that Montero is able to access at a moment’s notice is impressive, and there’s no gainsaying her overall level of ease and comfort at the keyboard. But it’s worth noting that these improvisations are basically clever evocations of well-known styles in which any tune at all could be dropped and still work.

That’s not to say it’s not entertaining, and it’s a much-needed revival of a 19^th-century fashion of concertizing that put a greater premium on audience connection and performer spontaneity. I just wonder what would happen if Montero improvised at a more demanding level: Could she make something as bleak as the third movement of the Ginastera sonata out of Piano Man if she took the notes and let them wander where they will?

Questions of entertainment, of course, are paramount, but I think Montero could do it. The difficulty for her is that what she does now comes so easily to her that she may shrink from stretching herself in the belief that her audience won’t follow her. But we will, and it’d be exciting to hear her try.

The Festival of the Arts Boca continues tonight with a screening of The Wizard of Oz, with live accompaniment from the Boca Raton Symphonia conducted by Constantine Kitsopoulos. The movie begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Count de Hoernle Amphitheater in Mizner Park, Boca Raton. For more information, call 866-571-2787.

Two of the current shows at the Boca Raton Museum of Art are easy to miss. But you don’t want to.

One gives us the dramatic touch of Goya, the playful Miró and the erotic side of Picasso. The other is a good bite of Latin American art. And I’m not talking Diego Rivera, Amelia Pelaez or Frida Kahlo. Believe it or not, Latin America has more where they came from.

More than 60 graphic works including lithographs, etchings and woodcuts encompass Romanticism to Modernism: Graphic Masterpieces from Piranesi to Picasso, running through June 19.

This is a black-and-white show for the most part, with six etchings from Francisco Goya’s series The Disasters of War as preamble. The 80-etchings series, published 35 years after Goya’s death, was not only a crystal-clear statement against the war but a steady one. That the artist produced more than 80 in a 10-year span (1810-1820) speaks to his strong unwavering position. As if the graphic content of the works did not speak loud enough, we get the artist’s comments as titles.

In Tampoco, (Nor this) violence and struggle are taking place right before our eyes. Much like Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari (minus the horses) and Michelangelo’s Battle of the Centaurs, Goya’s figures appear intertwined, bodies pulled, twisted, folded in uncomfortable positions. The arms, legs and heads are hard to trace back to a source.

But the more you look, the clearer it becomes that the battle is already lost. Two swords lie to the right of the panel. The expression on the male figure in the foreground is one of pain and defeat. From his compromising position his left hand still tries to push the enemy away, but it’s already too late; he is too weak.

Cruel Lastima! (A Cruel Shame!) gives us a frail-looking man holding a hat who is left with no choice but to beg for money or food. He looks tired and his clothes seem dirty. At his feet, sitting on the ground, is a woman holding a child that could be dead or alive. Another child, with not even a full head of hair yet, lies facing the land. He is one of several corpses. It is a moving, somber depiction of misery and hunger that can still inspire compassion today, even from an audience daily fed with vivid accounts of tragedies.

The Pier with Chains, Plate XVI, from the series Carceri d’Invenzione (Imaginary Views of Prisons) continues the dark tone of the show but with a much more elaborate composition full of arches, columns and stairs. The shadowy little figurines appear to be adornments more than actual humans. That the structures seen here appear imaginary is no surprise: This is one in a series of prints by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, an Italian artist who is recognizable for his architectural fantasies and fictional representations of ruins. The style, known as caprice, usually welcomes the viewer in to examine the spaces and travel around the structure as if we were really there.

A departure from these dark visions of reality comes later with colorful pochoirs (stencils) by Joan Miró and works by Marc Chagall, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Georges Rouault, who offers probably the boldest lines in the whole show with his infant-like pieces sharing the title: Cirque de l’Étoile Filante (The Shooting Star Circus).

Two samples from Miró’s famous Constellation Series are here, along with one of his most surreal prints: Personnages devant le mer (Figures by the sea) in which a couple reaching out to each other run the risk of becoming one and the same person. The female, shown with a frown and black and white breasts, is to the right.

One of my favorite stencils here – The Cock, by Miró -- features bright reds, yellows and greens and the central figure of a bird singing to a red sun up in the sky. Looking at it we can almost hear the animal’s cry; it’s less of a song and more like scream, a loud necessary stance against that bloody sun or, perhaps, because of it.

The exhibit delivers the final touch with 21 of Pablo Picasso’s graphic works, including etchings from the Vollard Suite such as Faune Revealing a Sleeping Woman (Jupiter and Antiope, After Rembrandt). Here a hairy muscular man-beast gently uncovers the sleeping Antiope. As if ordered by gods, the sunlight travels from left to right revealing more than the female’s curves.

Combat de Centaures IV is a simple depiction of a battle where one has already lost. Think about conveying drama and aggression in a few words. Picasso does it here with minimal lines that travel freely from the right side of the print to the left, delivering a fatal touch.

Yes, some of these you have seen before, but it is worth revisiting just because of the references to gods and ancient myths, things Picasso did not usually have time for, not until he turned to Southern France, away from city lights. Before this, Paris was his god. Not here. Here we get Bacchus, knights and pages. Also, watch for the artist’s take on old Degas at a brothel surrounded by girls.

Romanticism to Modernism tries on dark, bold, then childish, sensual and provocative. Housed in the Education Gallery room, the show feels intimate and personal and is certainly worth our time. Unfortunately, because it is next to the colorful costumes exhibit (the main star among the shows now running) visitors are seduced away from it.

This is the same problem with the second show: Latin American Art from the Museum's Collection, running through May 1. Most works here are done large-scale and are equally fascinating as those in the first show, though way smaller in number. But it is running in the auditorium, which means next to the museum store, and if you passed the admission/information counter you have already missed it.

At only 20 pieces, Latin American Art is meant as an introduction of important artists whose works portray themes many have expressed before: politics, society, cultural roots and the search for cultural identity. It is the diverse ways in which this group of artists, sharing the same culture, expresses these ideas that makes this a very nice show.

That internal journey/struggle to find one’s place in a new land is externalized here in SubRosa, a large-scale piece by Cuban artist Arturo Rodriguez, who has lived in Miami since 1974. The painting is divided into various panels shaped as tree leaves, each depicting a different event or scenes from the same story. The figures are almost always losing balance. They are either hanging, holding on to a rope or drowning.

In a few cases, they manage to fly aided with wings made out of leaves. The central figure is not an angel or a savior. Nobody is looking at her for help. It seems to me she is in the worst spot of all. Trapped in a blue middle, she is either being sucked in by the sky or from down under, maybe both at the same time. Everything is possible. A boat, in another panel, is sinking in a pool.

It is an image of chaos, constant movement, unpredictability. There is no place for certainty here or reassurance of any kind. And then, just like that, we step into Julio Larraz’s Atlantida, a set of three pieces offering tilted views of the sky and the sea. This Havana-born artist is known for his cloud studies and indeed, clouds are impressively depicted here.

If you have time, sit, take a minute or two to breathe the clean air. Imagine yourself on a speedboat or skydiving. From this high up, it is the dark deep blue sea that commands attention, respect and even fear. Don’t look down. Focus on the sky and be at ease.

These Larraz paintings are amazing in that very quickly they place us in the middle of a panoramic adventure no matter where you are standing in the room. One look at them is enough to take us there.

But one thing is true here. Every single piece, even those that may seem comical, carries a serious tone. Such is the case of Star of the Gardens, which Chilean artist Roberto Matta (1911-2002) created as a take on the man-machine interaction. Green has taken over the entire space. The figures do not look human, either.

To begin with, they have helmet-like heads. But two of them (the little ones to the left) give each other signs of affection while two “adults” (to the right) stare. Above the small figures a white star is erupting: There is hope (I guess).

Innocence plays a definite role in The Giraffe, by Uruguay’s Ignacio Iturria, and the work is done in real-kid fashion, meaning on cardboard, but the dark, limited colors take the fantasy away, replacing it with the vision of a seemingly tougher childhood.

On your way out, make sure to take a look at the three small figurative sculptures by Francisco Zúñiga (1912-1998), a Mexican artist born in Costa Rica. The ones here are done in bronze with green patina. Seated Nude, my favorite, is to the left. At 6 inches tall, it depicts a female squatting, slightly leaning toward the left and looking curiously at something. Both hands rest on her left foot, as if she had been there for a long time already.

As anticipated, Latin American Art leaves me wanting more. It is not that the works shown here do not impress me. It’s just that I’m greedy, which is why I like the idea of having more than one show to explore.

To have two exhibits of manageable sizes running at the same time makes more sense to me than putting together one huge show. Although when it comes to retrospectives, more is understandably the way to go. But this is not the case here. A tease is better than surfeit.

I don’t suggest you visit the museum and miss its main start. If you get pulled in by the eccentric fashion styles of Jack Sparrow and the Duchess, that’s perfectly all right. Just remember there are two additional shows hidden, like treasures, waiting to be noticed. They will not wait forever.

Frames always come down and news ones go up. But at least here, for now, you can have it all.

The Boca Raton Museum of Art is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, noon to 7 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. Tickets (through April 17) are $14, $12 for senior citizens, $6 for students. Call 392-2500 or visit www.bocamuseum.org for more information.

If you knew that a book called The Iron Whim describes itself as “a fragmented history of typewriting,” you may not bother to pick it up. But you will be glad that Michael Hollinger did, for it led him to create Ghost-Writer, his latest work to be produced by West Palm Beach’s Florida Stage.

For as dry as the book sounds, it is full of juicy literary anecdotes. “A couple of them dealt with Henry James, how the beginning of his dictating to his secretary really altered his writing style a great deal,” says Hollinger, who teaches theater at Philadephia’s Villanova University. “Most notably, after he died his secretary claimed to continue to receive dictation from him.”

That suggestion of supernatural communication from beyond the grave, or perhaps a good old-fashioned con game, was enough to get Hollinger studying James and the early 20^th century as research for his play.

Ultimately, however, he decided not to use James as a character. “I quickly jettisoned James, because for me I was really interested in the relationship between the late writer and the secretary, particularly any romantic or sexual overtones that might be there,” he explains. “James was unmarried and probably homosexual anyway, so it didn’t have the same kind of charge I was looking for.”

Instead he invented Franklin Woolsey and his loyal, unattached secretary Myra Babbage, as well as Woolsey’s understandably jealous widow, making a three-character drama. In addition, there is an unseen interrogator, sort of a stand-in for the audience, sent by Mrs. Woolsey to debunk Myra’s far-fetched account of the words she hears from the next life.

While Ghost-Writer has a supernatural component, Hollinger suggests that it could also be seen as a play about artistic inspiration. “It was kind of the last place I got to in the play, the rumination about where do the words come from anyway,” he says. “And is there not a mystical quality to that? If words come to me inexplicably from some unknown place, why can’t the same words come to Myra and she consider them hers?”

He set his play very deliberately in 1919. “I actually dabbled with the ‘30s for a while, a romantic era in some respects. However, one of the things that didn’t work about that period is that it was post the sexual revolution of the ‘20s,” explains Hollinger. “I felt that (for) the particular social restraint required for a man and woman working in the same room for hours on end, unsupervised, it really needed to be pre-‘20s.

“And particularly just post-war. Just after World War I, there was a real surge in spiritualism. So for all kinds of reasons, that year just felt right.”

Ghost-Writer is the fourth play of Hollinger’s to be produced at Florida Stage over the past 14 years, after Incorruptible, Red Herring and Opus. All seem wildly different, though the playwright says, “I do think that rhythm is something they share. A sensitivity to the sound that they make. The sound is very different in all cases, but I’m very attentive to the sounds. And I think that they all, to some degree, try to tease out a spiritual dimension or value out of the chaff of life.”

In recent years, Hollinger has been trying to bring a subtlety to his work that did not exist previously. “In ‘Opus,’ one of the things I was trying to do was write something more austere and spare and focused on human interaction. It felt like as I was maturing as a writer, I didn’t want to tap dance quite as much as I did when I was younger,” he says. “I wanted to see if the audience could be held with smaller gestures.”

With Ghost-Writer, he is trying to push that envelope further. “I thought, ‘All right, what if very little seems to happen, what if there’s a character who sits on the stage and says, “Nothing may happen today, but you have to pay really close attention, because if you don’t, you’ll miss it.” ’ I wanted to see how subtle the gestures could be and still compel an audience.”

The play, which opened Friday at the Rinker Playhouse, had its world premiere last fall at Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre Company, where many of his scripts first meet an audience. But Florida Stage is often a close second.

“Florida Stage is one of about three or four theaters only that will get the first look. It’s really because I know it’s OK if my underwear’s showing a little bit,” he says sheepishly. “That they’ll look through that and see what I’m getting at.”

Producing director Lou Tyrell responded quickly and enthusiastically. “I was so delighted, because the plays are so different,” says Hollinger. “I have such respect for a person and a company that really wants the next play to be the best version of whatever it is, not the last play you wrote.”

As with Opus, he hopes that Ghost-Writer makes its way to off-Broadway, though that is never his intention as he writes. “I don’t write plays for New York,” Hollinger insists. “I write them for whoever will do them. But I do think it’s a play that would work very well there. It’s got a New York setting and being literary, I think it might appeal to a lot of people there. I think it has the potential to be commercial.”

GHOST-WRITER, Florida Stage, Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Through Sunday, April 3. Tickets: $25-50. Call: (561) 585-3433 or (800) 514-3837.