On Broadway and in Hollywood, the backstage genre endures and endears like few others. In the history of American entertainment, no backstage montage has proven more heart wrenching and more diverse in its themes explored and its characters examined than “A Chorus Line.”

To make money Deborah Sampson told her story to Hermann Mann who published The Female Review: Life of Deborah Sampson: The Female Soldier in the War of Revolution. To boost sales he played loose with the facts. Jan Lewis Nelson expresses Sampson’s anguish over fabrications. She saw action but did not fight in the Battle of Yorktown as Mann falsely claimed.

Near the 60th anniversary of the movement’s founding, this exhibition highlights the contributions of four pioneering Japanese artists—Shigeko Kubota (1937–2015), Yoko Ono (b. 1933), Takako Saito (b. 1929), and Mieko Shiomi (b. 1938)—and contextualizes their role within Fluxus and the broader artistic movements of the 1960s and beyond.  

Straw hat is old hat. Summer once meant shows performed in actual barns by talented and young kids. Or tours led by well-known movie and TV stars whose popularity had diminished. Not anymore.

Opening with the alluring pitch “How would you like to receive $40,000 with no strings attached?” Angela lures her prey into her seductive scheme.  But one of the devices of the Circle is wearing masks, which suggests that there is indeed something hidden beneath the surface.

In a co production with Chautauqua Theater Company, Barrington Stage Company is presenting a world premiere tiny father by Mike Lew and directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel. There is another production scheduled for Geffen Hall in Los Angeles.

No matter whether you read it in school or more recently or even never read the novel, you owe it to yourself to see the absolutely fabulous new stage adaptation now at the Bushnell through Sunday, July 2.

During raucous encores Million Dollar Quartet blasted the audience up out of their seats at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. By popular demand Berkshire Theater Group revises its prior production at the smaller Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge.

For the eighth year, the performing arts centers at The Egg and the University at Albany have announced that they will present Dance in Albany, a joint dance series featuring eight offerings for the 2023-24 season.  Six of the performances will take place at The Egg at the Empire State Plaza with the remaining two at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on the uptown University at Albany campus.  

Rhiannon Giddens is leading new music which is both classical and popular. Her commitment to telling stories that have been buried and to showing us the world as it really is in music heralds anew age.

Locally rooted musical collective Floating Tower, working with Berkshire artist Joe Wheaton, will fill The Adams Theater July 1-2 with a unique, poignant musical tribute to the people of Ukraine. 

Chinese American artist, advocate and director Phil Chan, whose book Final Bow for Yellowface altered the conversation about Asian representation on ballet stages around the country, turns his attention to opera this September, when he directs a new, Asian American take on "Madama Butterfly" for Boston Lyric Opera (BLO). 

In Tina Packer's The Contention (Henry VI, Part II) we have the best possible cast and production of the rarely seen early play. It's described as the best of a trilogy. The first act focuses on why Henry is not fit to be king. A notion with which he would likely agree. Through a lot of exposition it sets up the eventual War of the Roses between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster. As heads roll the second act lurches into hilarious farce.

We announce the lineup for our popular Berkshire Jazz Showcase, a free event on Pittsfield’s First Street Common Saturday, July 8, 1-5pm.  

At the 2023 Ojai music festival, Rhiannon Giddens, musical director, and a supremely talented group of musicians, presented a program that challenged the audience to take a musical journey with them around the world.  

The taut, austere, information crammed, one act play “Photo 51” rights a wrong. It dramatizes the true life story of the unaccredited role played by Rosalind Franklin (Rebecca Brooksher) in the discovery of the double helix pattern in DNA.

Cultivating stillness requires hard work and perseverance. Stillness is far more than merely thinking simple thoughts, and it is much more than a weekly yoga session, a massage to calm yourself, or alcohol to settle yourself.  It is a state of being.

"Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks" is a touching comedy about an odd couple who share at least one thing in common: their humanity. An impressive production is running through July 3 in the tiny Empire Stage in Ft. Lauderdale. Stage veterans Larry Buzzeo and Lory Reyes co-star.

With his first production, Cabaret, Alan Paul, the artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, has set a new benchmark for musical theatre in the Berkshires. Given the unchecked rise of fascism in America the musical which focuses on the beginnings of Nazi Germany could not be more powerful and relevant. This is a scorching production which will blow you away. Barrington's version of the iconic musical clicks on all cylinders,

Handel’s Xerxes is a sex-positive party in this ecstatic production presented by Komische Oper. The theater itself is a beautiful little jewel box seating about 1200 people, an intimate setting appropriate to a production that would highlight intimacy.

In 1999, Anthony Braxton caught the performance of an Improv group at Wesleyan College where he has taught for twenty-three years. Among its members was Lin Manuel Miranda. He picked a trooper and asked him to do an improvisation with him. The duo, collaborating on compositions 279 to 283, was the inspiration for this funny, hip and moving improv designed by Experiments in Opera (EiO).

San Francisco Opera celebrated its centenary at War Memorial Opera House with a grand concert of 21 operatic pieces, performed by 15 principals and the company’s orchestra and chorus.  Artistic Director Eun Sun Kim, past Artistic Director Donald Runnicles, and past Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Summers shared the baton.  Matthew Shilvock, only the seventh General Director of the company, hosted the glorious event.

Gabrielle Barzaghi is one of the leading contemporary artists residing on Cape Ann. Horse Opera is Barzaghi's fourth solo exhibition at the Matthew Swift Gallery, and presents a significant new body of her work comprising more than a dozen drawings.

Long before the Brooklyn Museum discovered the notorious Hannah Gadsby of "Nanette" and engaged her services as a curator of Pablo Picasso, Susan Rennie was gripped by the idea that art most often was created by the male gaze. 

Trouble in Mind, at Hartford Stage, was written in the mid-50s. It was the first full-length play by Alice Childress whose career encompassed acting and writing both plays and novels. The play deals with topics that are major points of discussion today both in our society and the theatrical world: representation, authenticity, sexism, and workplace bullying