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Oakland Theater Project presents Dave Malloy's 23 dramatic vignettes about love, loss, whiskey, and the afterlife built into a song cycle. Calling on all manner of musical idioms, but with the constant of a mournful cello, it engages both musically and dramatically.

Aided by bird catcher Papageno, Prince Tamino sets out to rescue abducted Pamina, whom he has fallen in love with based only on a portrait. His quest faces the challenge of three trials and the threat of the Queen of the Night, mother of Pamina.

The 331 works of art in the gift include 132 paintings, 130 sculptures, thirty-nine drawings, and thirty decorative arts objects, creating an important addition to the Clark’s holdings. The entirety of the Tavitian gift will be on view when the new Aso O. Tavitian Wing opens. Following an introductory presentation at the time of the new wing’s opening, the works on paper included in the gift will be made available for study purposes and be presented in periodic displays. The majority of paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts objects will be shown on a continual basis, both in the new Tavitian Wing and in the Clark’s permanent collection galleries.

The play opens with the five-member team (one is an alternate), already a tight-knit bunch who have known each other forever. A new girl, Hilary, arrives and wants to be part of the team. The coach, Mr. K, decides she can be the second alternate; it is unlikely that she would ever be asked to substitute.

Logan receives a grant to create a "First Thanksgiving" play for schools. She finds that the woman she hired as "the Native American" in the small cast is anything but. How should she proceed with political correctness when she lacks a Native American voice in a project for Native American Heritage Month? Farcical situations ensue.

The book – the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons – by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice is one of the things that sets it above many jukebox shows. Each of the original members of the group narrates a part of the story. This allows for different perspectives on the group’s history and personalities.

My Curious Years with Charles Henri Ford is much more than a history of famous writers,  artists and glamorous parties. At its heart, it is about Tamang’s own evolving role from a simple soul without a formal education and no knowledge of  English, into a trusted member of the Ford family’s inner circle.

As their husbands depart for an overnight golf outing, Julia and Jane find that a French lover from before their marriages is coming to London. Both women have settled into marital boredom and are tantalized by the prospect of reviving their earlier passions. The playwright exposes class and gender issues amidst continuing laughter.

Contemporary composers scramble for relevant subject matter. Opera companies overlook repertoire which is excellent and seldom staged. As the 100th anniversary of Hans Werner Hene's birth approaches in 2026, his work, produced in timeless fashion, offers fresh opportunities. Frankfurt Oper shows the way.

When composing this opera, Richard Wagner was obsessed with love fanned by his infatuation for the married poet Mathilde Wesendonck and death driven by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. The two existential forces are melded in the opera's thematic thrust "liebestod" (love-death), which is also the dominant leitmotif in the music. While the orchestral score soars, the dramatic action is grounded, yet it remains a pioneer of modern music.

Hudson Hall in the Hudson Hall Opera House will present No Cowards in Our Band, an intertwined stage piece that combines nine spirituals with the reciting of original text by Frederick Douglass. In this drama,  an aging and contemplative Frederick Douglass (1818-1895). considers the social, economic, and political ramifications of slavery and the Civil War and their impact on the future of the United States. 

During the 80 minutes or so, we hear 11 songs. Most are duets between the two characters – Jessie and Lana. Jessie and Lana are fictionalized versions of Falconer and Wilde and their story. From the first meeting, when Lana goes to a bar and meets the older Jessie through a courtship of sorts, the birth of their son, and Jessie’s departure on a US tour with a band, where they are the backup/opening act.

The tradition of Baba Yaga, an old haggard witch, exists in many Slavic cultures. Playwright Kat Sandler integrates witchcraft themes into a comic detective mystery with three actors playing 14 parts.

Part 2 - Perestroika provides closure on many of the relationships and issues raised in Part 1 - Millennium Approaches. Thematically, it invokes the need for change in order to go forward and thrive, rejecting the resistant bastions of vested interest - entrenched religions and conservative politics.

Tony Kushner's award-winning two-part classic centering on homosexuality and AIDS during the epidemic in the 1980s is given a magnificent production by Oakland Theater Project with taut direction and exceptional acting. Fiction that is anchored in reality with one real historical figure, also drifts into fantasy. Its powerful treatment finds corollaries in today's world.

A funny and touching co-production of the comedy-drama Steel Magnolias produces tears, laughter. The mounting in Ft. Lauderdale runs through Oct. 20. Art Buzz Theatrics and Florida Theatrical Events are the co-producers.

The first act seemed to drag – this was the result of the overly slow development of the story by the playwright Kenneth Jones and the pacing by director Todd L. Underwood. The pacing needed to be picked up

Pembroke Pines Theatre of the Performing Arts stages "Putting it Together." The show is a Sondheim revue featuring many of the late great lyricist/composer's works. The production runs through Oct. 20 in Pembroke Pines, near Ft. Lauderdale.

Upon initial exposure the work of Richard Criddle and Joanna Klain could not be more different,. With further contemplation, however, there are many commonalities. They share an experimental and adventurous approach to materials, in her case collaged paintings, and in his assembled sculptures from found objects. Both artists evoke narrative in their work. Her's are inspired by dreams and night mares while his entail the darkest of humor.

In her candid memoir, Pow! Right in the Eye!—recently translated into English—Weill described herself as having a "difficult personality." She wasn’t wrong. Her sharp tongue and uncompromising attitude were well known. Picasso biographer John Richardson even described her as a "peppery, homely Jewish spinster with spectacles thick as goldfish bowls." Yet it was her fiery personality and unrivaled intuition for spotting talent that made her a key figure.

Pedro Almodovar will receive the 2025 Chaplin Award at Lincoln Center next spring.  Some say he cannot make a bad movie. Certainly the painterly frames of each scene in his new film,The Room Next Door, are worthy of inclusion in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum and MOMA.  Is their purpose, in this film, to distance us in time from the subject of the film, euthanasia?

Sean Baker, who wrote and directed Anora, a Main Slate film at the Film at  Lincoln Center’s New York Film Festival, pleaded at Cannes where he won the Palme d’Or in the spring, for compassion and support for sex workers. He does not see his film as mainstream, but you may if you give it a try.  It is moving, fun, surprising and, yes, sympathetic.

Created in close dialogue with the Andrews-Humphrey Family Foundation, Trouble combines Benny Andrews’ (1930–2006) extensive archive with a selection of his paintings and works on paper to reflect the fullness of the artist’s practice, life, and advocacy, and the ways they are intertwined.

The La Jolla Playhouse presented the West Coast premiere of playwright Eboni Smith’s Primary Trust, winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for drama.  Thirty-eight-year-old Kenneth, played by Caleb Eberhardt, lives in Cranberry, NY, a small town a short ride from Rochester.  Kenneth’s small town consists of the usual bowling alley, a few banks, a church, and a smattering of small family-owned businesses.  His single mom died when he was ten which led to a life growing up in foster homes

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