The Ancram Opera House, in collaboration with Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company, presents STILL LIFE,  by internationally renowned playwright, director and producer Emily Mann, and directed by Mann’s good friend and protegee, Jade King Carroll. The play is a searing and revealing documentary play about the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam conflict on a former marine, his wife, and mistress.

The ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance unveiled its live, in-person performances celebrating diverse and challenging theatre, music, and dance programming for the Williams College community and beyond.

The appeal of the show draws on the naughty titillation of the fin de siècle cabarets that emerged in the steamy Montmartre district of Paris, where the working set, bohemians, and the demi-monde (the upper class who go slumming), sat side-by-side.  The Moulin Rouge marked the spiritual epicenter, where the can-can was originated and danced by courtesans. 

Some observers of Jonathan Spector’s brilliant new play on cognitive illusion will unconsciously tap into the allegory of the persistence of Trumpism. Kudos to Director Josh Costello for the masterful orchestration of the many moving parts of this complex production.  It is remarkable that a world premiere night could go off so smoothly with such a multitude of ways it could go wrong. 

The historical drama, "Bent" has stirred controversy for suggesting that Jewish people received less harsh treatment than homosexuals at the Dachau concentration camp. A solid co-production between Empire Stage and ArtBuzz Theatrics is playing in South Florida.

Death of Classical keeps classical music alive in unusual and inviting locations and attracts the curious who often are unfamiliar with this form of music. Collaborating with the Green-Wood Cemetery in the Angel’s Share series, the audience walked through the beautiful Brooklyn graveyard to its Catacombs for a mesmerizing presentation of songs by a twelfth century composer, herbalist and politician, Hildegard Von Bingen.

Mark Anthony Turnage was very young when composer Hans Werner Henze asked him to create an opera for the first Munich Biennale Summer Festival. Turnage, already attracting attention for his musical language which draws on Miles Davis, Janácek and Stravinsky, had caught Henze’s ear.  Henze’s own work ranges in reference from serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition. 

Co-Directors Jeffrey Mousseau and Paul Ricciardi are proud to announce the 2022 fall season at the Ancram Opera House in Ancram, NY. “We are excited to welcome audiences back to the Opera House for our fall season which includes a highly anticipated revival of Emily Mann’s Obie Award-winning documentary play, Still Life,” says Paul Ricciardi; with Jeffrey Mousseau adding, “the project extends an examination of war and its impact on all of us which we initiated last season with our acclaimed production of An Iliad.”

Sunday, September 11, the Clark Art Institute continues its Locals at the Lunder Center series with a free concert by two-guitar duo Elkhorn, followed by local musical group Sound For. Presented in partnership with Belltower Records (North Adams, Massachusetts), the performance kicks off an upcoming series of live music events that feature new experimentations in sound, in conjunction with the changing of the seasons. The concert takes place at 4:15 pm on the Lunder Center’s Moltz Terrace. In the event of inclement weather, the event moves to the Clark’s auditorium.

Celia Smith and her sister-in-law Charity Smith had been sending letters to the Arnold Print Works requesting a meeting for their New Idea – Printed Cloth Dolls.  They never received a reply, so with a Sample Doll in hand, they made the trip to North Adams in 1890, but were turned away at the door. Initially the dolls were hand made with cloth scraps. They caught on and sold well. Arnold Print Works agreed to Buy the Partners’ Patented Designs. Royalties were10 Cents per Printed Fabric Yard.  In the 1892 Holiday Season, 200,000 Doll Sheets were Sold.

The group comprised 16 artists of whom nine were men and seven women. They were Magdeleine Arbour, Marcel Barbeau, Paul-Émile Borduas, Bruno Cormier, Marcelle Ferron, Claude Gauvreau, Pierre Gauvreau, Muriel Guilbault, Fernand Leduc, Françoise Lespérance-Riopelle, Jean-Paul Mousseau, Maurice Perron, Louise Renaud, Thérèse Renaud, Jean Paul Riopelle, and Françoise Sullivan.

Charles Giuliano's sister Pip's youthful travels in Asia bring back memories of France in the 70's and my interface with Weltschmer

What makes “Xanadu” fun is its light-heartedness and tongue-in-cheek humor based on ridiculously unrealistic happenings.  It’s camp.  It’s kitschy.  It’ll make you smile a lot and laugh out loud

 Ed Stitt lives close to Larz Anderson Park, a landscaped and wooded 64-acre parkland in Brookline and it has lately become his personal playground.  Stitt’s new painting exhibition trumpets the exquisite sweeping slopes, expansive lawns, and magnificent trees that comprise the park.  As if this weren’t enough, it also offers expansive views of downtown Boston.

The 34th edition of the International Dance Festival in Berlin has drawn to a close. From August 5th-27th, 2022, Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) showcased in 10 locations throughout Berlin and with 21 productions what is good, new, and exciting in contemporary dance worldwide.

The play by Amy Herzog focuses on the relationship between a nonagenarian grandmother and her adult grandson. Neither fits the stereotypical mold. Then director David Kennedy selected Mia Dillon to play the grandmother and Clay Singer, the grandson. Almost perfect.

In the historic apple orchard there will be a free artist's talk and reception on Friday, September 2nd from 5:00 to 7:00pm at Chesterwood,  4 Williamsville Road, Stockbridge, MA.

Duplin’s Grape Stomp returns after a two-year hiatus -- bigger than ever! A jamming concert, plenty of wine from the world’s largest muscadine winery and a chance to taste the family-owned winery’s new, top-secret Christmas wine are just some of the reasons to attend.  

Hershey Felder currently plays “Chopin in Paris.”  The great 19th century Romantic composer and pianist may hold special significance to the current imitator, as the living one is also of Polish extraction, though via Canada.  The presentation holds to Felder’s usual high standards and wins praise from audiences.

We waited for two and a half hours but Godot never showed up. Barrington Stage has gamely taken on an avant-garde masterpiece with mixed success.

Broadway saw this musical revitalized in an edgy form in 2019.  That production, directed by Daniel Fish, won a Tony for “Best Revival of a Musical” and is currently touring. The production is noted for other departures from the past.  In keeping with the edginess of the new look, Act 2 opens like an acid rock concert.  With a thick manufactured fog covering the stage, an instrumental medley blasts with deafening, dissonant distortion leading into the famous dream sequence dance.

Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony have developed a specialty: revealing the texture of sound. In a concert at  Elbphilharmonie, an event in the orchestra’s 75th year of touring, they displayed daring and diverse sounds not often heard. The Maestro and the musicians find buried clues to the balanced mix of rhythms, dynamics in detailed performance directions.

"M. Butterfly" is composed in the modern operatic style without the lush melodies and memorable arias of old.  Yet, it is fitting.  Western mode dominates Ruo's score, but Asian motifs are also introduced.  Conventional western instruments comprise the orchestra, but when needed, Ruo extracts Asian ornamentation through use of 5-tone scales.

The invariable element of this opera is its formidable music.  Premiered in 1865, Wagner's heroic love story presented difficulty in orchestration and near insurmountable vocal challenges.  The composer led the musical world to the brink of atonalism with uncommon chord structures and harmonies never heard before, that were largely unappreciated at the time.

On July 27, 2022, a bill creating a Slavery Remembrance Day, introduceed by Congressman Al Green of Houston, Texas, passed in Congress.  August 20th was the date in 1619 White Lion ship with 20 “and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrived in the British colony Point Comfort in Virginia.