The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has announced that a suite of new galleries dedicated to modern art will open to the public on December 13. Four new spaces will be unveiled on the first floor of the Museum’s Evans Wing, each showcasing works from the 20th century that include highlights from the MFA’s collection, new acquisitions, and rarely seen loans from private holdings.

A recovering art critic once asked after reading the 1619 Project, “Why don’t you hate all white people?” I asked, “What is a white person anyway?” We realized our identities are far more complex than the containers imposed on us. Whiteness is a burden, built on supremacy, nationalism, colonialism, slavery, and global violence.

The Clark Art Institute announces its exhibition schedule through 2026. The lineup includes the first public presentation of the Aso O. Tavitian Collection with an exhibition featuring selected highlights from the 331 works of art that were given to the Clark in 2024.

Must see theatre at Playhouse on Park in West Hartford.

The Ft. Lauderdale area's New City Players will present its holiday show at a different location this year. 'It's A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play' by Joe Landry will take place at General Provision Downtown, 300 S.W. 1st Ave., Suite 155, Fort Lauderdale.

Director Flemming Fynsk's moving film The Art Whisperer is in contention for awards this year. Its subject, Ginny Williams, was an art collector and gallery owner of remarkable instinct and vision.

In any long-term relationship, patterns of behavior, control, dominance, and power are fixed. But when one person begins to change the unwritten contract, it causes ripples. The other person often retaliates or fights back to reestablish the status quo.

Now in her late 80s. Patricia Hills overcame numerous obstacles to become one of the leading scholars and curators of American art. I knew her as a radical leftist feminist at Boston University. This intriguing and insightful memoir chronicles that daunting journey. The book conflates her life as wife and mother with struggles in academia which regarded the study of American art as "too easy." As a force majeure she trained a generation of Americanist scholars and curators.

For 90 minutes, a cast of eight produces sounds from a slew of props. The additions of rhythm and combinations of sounds produce an orchestration of beats. Together with choreographed movement, the result is a unique and energetic show.

Thinking Cap Theatre in South Florida presents the rarely staged William Shakespeare play, Cymbeline. This unwieldly play is a mashup of genres and styles. Scholars refer to Cymbeline as Shakespeare's "Kitchen Sink" play.

The Wick Theatre and Museum Club in Boca Raton, Fla. presents a heartwarming and invigorating production of 'A Christmas Carol.' The production features a large, talented cast that disappears into their characters.

Shakespeare & Company’s traditional winter show returns this year with Sense & Sensibility by Kate Hamill, a fast-paced, staged reading wherein the wit and romance of Jane Austen’s classic tale come to life. This year, the Austen-inspired production coincides with her 250th birthday on December 16. 

Go for the music; ignore the plot.  

I learned quite a bit about famous people from the way they treated the bartender. The ones who were polite were relaxed, I could sometimes tell just by the way they moved or sat at the bar waiting for the staff to prepare their table––that they were at ease in their skin, as the French expression goes, bien dans leur peau.

Is the large Norway maple in my garden trying to be alive? What specifically is it doing right this moment to be alive? The answer, if we are honest, is that the tree is doing nothing but allowing. It is not trying to push sap. It is not struggling to expand its canopy or striving to gather light. It is simply allowing the forces of the earth and sun to move through it. It exists in a state of perfect Wu Wei—actionless action.

Pigs Do Fly Productions' mounting of 'Better Late' by Larry Gelbart featured impressively convincing performances but scene transitions that lasted too long. The production recently ended following a three-week run.

Berkshire Opera Festival (BOF) announces its 2026 summer season under the vision of Co-founders Brian Garman (William E. Briggs Artistic Director) and Jonathon Loy (Director of Production), and new President and CEO Natalie Johnsonius Neubert. In its 11th year, the company remains unique in the culturally rich Berkshires for producing opera at the highest level.

Mark Strong is magnificent as Oedipus – a mixture of arrogance and moral certainty and idealism. It is a powerful combination. Yet he can be ruthless and cruel, and  always needs to be right; often angry at Creon, his campaign manager and Jocasta’s brother, played by a fine David Carroll Lynch.

HallSpace presents Hauntology an exhibition of wood sculpture by Jared Abner. This is Abner’s first solo exhibition at HallSpace. In 2021, he was in a 2-person show.

Susan Cross has been appointed to the new position of Director of Curatorial Affairs at MASS MoCA following a nationwide search.   

Film at Lincoln Center will present “Kozaburo Yoshimura: Tides of Emotion,” a retrospective of 13 films by one of the accomplished yet underappreciated figures of the golden age of Japanese cinema. Running from December 5 through December 11, 2025, the festival is presented in partnership with the Japan Foundation.

One night, I remember hearing loud American voices on the street outside the restaurant. A table of three or four had just left the restaurant and now they were outside the front door, upset about something. Suddenly, one of them swept back in through the red curtains and saloon doors and looked up at me and demanded directions to Pigalle, which she pronounced in a sharp New York accent as ‘Pig Alley’. ‘Where is Pig Alley?’ she demanded. ‘I didn’t come all this way to miss Pig Alley.’

Drawing from one of the four classic novels of Chinese literature, the opera tells the story of the Monkey King who claims to be more powerful than any being on earth other than the Buddha. Nonetheless, his story begins with 500 years of imprisonment but ends with his learning the ultimate lesson in life. It is hard to imagine an opera being more stunning visually.

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents the first major retrospective exhibition of the work of acclaimed 19th-century Black and Indigenous sculptor Edmonia Lewis. 30 sculptures by Lewis from public and private collections across the United States and abroad will be brought together with a number of additional objects in a range of media, giving visitors an opportunity to learn of Lewis’ mastery of marble and her remarkable, storied life.

Remember that evening, when you were still making salads, and I asked you to slip a folded note under the lettuce? From the bar I had seen these two couples come in with an unaccompanied, elegantly dressed, young woman. The waitress placed them at table five. I asked the waitress serving them to remember the salad the single woman ordered. I went back to you in the kitchen, and said, ‘Greg, slip this in her salad, it’s a note I wrote to her’.