In recent months, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics has been deemed by journalists and other critics as demonic forces that will endanger the future of humanity.

The 18th Annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival announces its September program titled Tennessee Williams: Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Over four days, in venues throughout the town, the Festival will share Williams’ lifelong fascination with science fiction and fantasy by presenting performances of plays, short stories and unfinished works by Williams.  2023 will feature the return of the Festival’s popular “Hotel Plays” where audiences, moving from one hotel room to the next, are treated to several short works by Williams.  

Henri Giraud is a family-owned Champagne House located in Aÿ-Champagne since the 17th century. It combines a unique viticultural heritage, rooted in exceptional Champagne terroirs where Pinot Noir reigns supreme, with remarkable expertise in blending and aging, making it one of the most amazing players in Champagne.

Treat Williams, the actor known for his roles in the movies “Hair” and “Deep Rising” and the TV show “Everwood,” has died. He was 71. A  S.U.V. crashed into his motorcycle in Dorset, Vt. He was 71. We spoke with him in 2013 following a performance as King Henry in “Lion in Winter.”

The Empress faces Sophie’s choice.  Either decision - to accept or reject the shadow - could leave blood on her hands.  High drama occurs with real or perceived betrayals and threats of killing, but since nobody dies, some would characterize “Die Frau” as a comedy!

Rhiannon Giddens curated the Ojai Music Festival this year.   She often sings “I shall not be moved.”  And yet, in the strong force you feel in her wake, you know and feel she is moving and you are moved.  Giddens is fond of the double and triple entendre.  For four days we are sailing with her and we are also in her wake.

In The Memoir of a Female Soldier, a novel by Jan Lewis Nelson, Deborah takes quill pen in hand to tell her story. A wife and mother disabled by her war wound, her petition for a veteran’s pension ignored by Congress, and the victim of media misinformation, she became the first American woman to do a lecture tour. She won respect as the man she wasn’t, but sought respect for the woman she was.

A freak June storm, an ever-more-common aberration in these times of climate change-induced storms, befell the northern Berkshires last week.  It offered five inches of rain, and an hour’s worth of half-inch hail that left the ground looking as though it had snowed.  The results were devastating to the meditation garden I have been building for 4 years.

The world premiere play by Jacqueline Bircher attempts to deal with arbitrariness as well as the continual change in language and meaning, the politicization of language, and what is called “cancel culture.” It is a lot to ask one play to handle.

L. Frank Baum’s beloved “The Wizard of Oz” has become an American touchstone and introduced a bevy of memes and tropes that define our narrative.  While it is easy to sit back and enjoy it as an entertaining pastime, in its richness, it is also a fable of the American spirit.  Dorothy, despite being young and female, represents the prototypical hero on an odyssey, a quest to find her way home after defeating the odds, aided by trusty sidekicks she has met along the way.  Together, using brains and hearts and courage, they conquer fears and earn their way to becoming what they had aspired to be.

The Clark Art Institute debuts a five-part outdoor concert series this summer. The Clark presents Hermanos Gutiérrez on June 28, Joe Henry on July 5, Makaya McCraven on July 12, Darlingside on July 19, and Kathleen Edwards on August 8. All performances are free and take place at 6 pm near the Reflecting Pool.

You may recall the 1981 movie that starred Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn with Jane Fonda playing the daughter. The 1979 play by Ernest Thompson (he also wrote the screenplay) can be sentimental and predictable. But with Naughton and Dillon in the leads, you will be willing to suspend your critical judgment about the play.

“Madame Butterfly” integrates the best of the earlier "La Boheme" and "Tosca" and overlays pentatonic scale Japanese folk melodies to add a whole new dimension to the score. The popularity of this beautiful and exotic wonder should be no surprise. San Francisco Opera’s wonderous creative and visually striking production is led by four powerful singers - Karah Son, Michael Fabiano, Hyona Kim, and Lucas Meachem.

 A charming throwback, or, The High School Musical version,  of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Deutsch Oper, Berlin

About 200 hardy souls braved a damp and chilly Sunday at Shakespere & Company in support of a fundraising event for Berkshire Immigrant Center. In every sense it was a wicked cool event.

Alfred Uhry’s musical Parade, co-conceived by Hal Prince with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, is now playing to sell-out crowds and rave reviews, and back on Broadway after 25 years (for a limited run through Sunday, August 6) at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York City.

"Soul Doctor," a film about the unlikely relationship between an Orthodox rabbi and a musical/Civil Rights icon, will be shown at movie theaters nationwide on Tuesday, June 13. Nina Simone introduced Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach to Soul and Gospel music, which influenced the kind of Jewish music that he composed. Taping of the film took place in Israel five years after the original Broadway production of Soul Doctor opened in New York in 2008.

 Celebrated for creating diverse, timely and relevant opera, activist opera company White Snake Projects (WSP) and its founder Cerise Lim Jacobs today announced its 2023-24 season comprising all original operatic works including two fully-staged operas, a quartet of holiday operas as part of its annual Let’s Celebrate! series, and two WSP’s community engagement showcases: Sing Out Strong and Show Out Boston!

Pablo Picasso was the most famous and influential artist of the 20th Century. The marking of fifty years from his death has created numerous global exhibitions. Critics have waded in with evaluations that acknowledge the work but deplore the man. Simply put it begs the question. Was Pablo Picasso and asshole?

In 1944, African-American military units were always commanded by white officers, with black non-coms, and enlisted men, reflecting the plantation structure that preceded it by a century and more.  This organization represents the natural order to Captain Charles Taylor, a West Point grad, who happily manages and cajoles a platoon comprised of talented black baseball players who will get to play the Yankees if they continue to win all of their games.  To this day, a common condition persists, that racists like Taylor often carve out exceptions to allow minority peoples to reflect glory on their white overlords.

Gallery NAGA’s 46th season concludes with an exhibition by two mid-career painters working in exuberant colors and venturesome compositions. Rick Fox: From Feral Footing and Masako Kamiya: Kaleidoscope are both on exhibition from June 9 through July 14. 

Master of Puppets suffers from problems that afflict many new works. It doesn’t know what it wants to be or what it wants to say.  Is it a comedy? Satire? A thriller? It tries to be all of these, which results in uneven shifts in tone.

This summer, the Harvard Art Museums present over 100 years of dazzling and imaginative artistry through the medium of watercolor. American Watercolors, 1880–1990: Into the Light showcases more than 100 watercolors by over 50 well-known and historically underrepresented artists selected from the museums’ deep and diverse holdings—a rare opportunity because of the light-sensitive nature of these works.

About 2,500 years ago, the Acropolis of Athens was filled with statues of young women, called korai. Raised on high bases, these dedicated offerings created a forest of shimmering marble women honoring the goddess Athena. One of the finest examples of these objects, known as Kore 670, which rarely leaves the Acropolis Museum, has traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), where it is on view through January 8, 2024.

Curtis Stewart is a man for all seasons.  He took over Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Center this week. When you hear him, you know that Nietzsche was right: without music, life would be a mistake.