Mandy Patinkin, the Tony Award-winning Broadway star whose latest television gig is Showtime’s hot series Homeland, is testing a new show titled Let Go this week at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center.

Described as an intimate concert in which Patinkin creates “musical photographs” by singing the songs of such composers as Harold Arlen, Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein and Tom Waits, it’s called a world premiere on the center’s website, but critics have been asked not to review it.

Patinkin spokesperson Catherine Major explains in an email: “The engagement at Aventura ... will be his first presentation of the show to a live audience, and it will evolve from that point forward. Given that the show is currently not fully realized, reviews by theater critics would be premature.”

Performances of Let Go are 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Saturday and Feb. 26 at the center, 3385 NE 188th St., Aventura. Tickets are $75 and $85; 954-462-0222, www.aventuracenter.org.

Christine Dolen

World premiere

The SoBe Institute of the Arts on Friday presents the world premiere of Hamlet Soundtheater/Opera by Carson Kievman, the institute’s executive artistic director. Commission by Joseph Papp, founder of New York’s Public Theater, the work is described as a “radically re-imagined musical setting” of Shakespeare’s tragedy.

"I worked on Hamlet Soundtheater/Opera with Papp for four years, and his intention was to produce it at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park," Kievman said in a statement. After the legendary theatrical producer’s 1991 death, "I placed it in my desk drawer, and there it remained for 21 years, until now."

Conducted by John Yaffé, the production will feature a cast of 13 including baritone Kenneth Mattice as Hamlet, soprano Meagan Brus as Ophelia and bass Michael Douglas Jones as Claudius and the ghost of Hamlet’s father.

Tickets for weekend performances of the opera at the Little Stage Theater, 2100 Washington Ave., Miami Beach, are $100 on opening night and $25 ($12.50 students and seniors) thereafter through March 11 at 305-674-9220 or www.sobearts.org.

Warner does Hughes

To celebrate Black History Month, actor-director (and former Cosby Show cast member) Malcolm-Jamal Warner will appear at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center Thursday with the Ron McCurdy Quartet in a performance of poet Langston Hughes’ Ask Your Mama.

The 800-line, 12-part poetic suite was written in 1961, with original jazz added later by McCurdy and Eli Brueggeman. The performance includes video images of the Harlem Renaissance.

Tickets to the 8 p.m. performance at the center, 10950 SW 211th St., Cutler Bay, are $10-$30, with $5 youth tickets available through www.cultureshockmiami.com and $5 off orchestra seats for students, seniors and active military personnel.

A 6 p.m. VIP reception honoring Miami-Dade County Commissioner Dennis C. Moss is $50 (ticket included), with proceeds benefitting the center’s education and outreach programs; 786-573-5300, www.smdcac.org.

Christine Dolen

Art in the Garden

Following its successful art installations each winter, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden launched a Thursday night series of art talks, now in its second season. Yet to go this year: Silvia Cubina, director of the Bass Museum of Art, on Feb. 23; Cathy Leff, director of the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum on March 15 and collectors Don and Mera Rubell of the Rubell Family Collection on March 29. Lectures begin at 7 p.m. and are free from members. The non-member charge is $25 for adults, $18 for seniors 65 and up and $12 for children 6-17.