Bang on a Can announces the hourly schedule for its next Bang on a Can Marathon – Live Online – on Sunday, April 18, 2021 from 1-5pm ET. All 15 pieces on the program will be world premiere performances of newly commissioned works, streamed from musicians' homes around the country and across the world. Over its first six live online Marathons in 2020-2021 (May 3, June 14, August 1, October 18, February 21, and March 21) Bang on a Can has presented more than 125 performances, including 47 world premieres of new commissions and over 150 composers and performers. Bang on a Can plans to continue these Marathons, streaming online at live.bangonacan.org,

With large format watercolor on paper Robert Morgan renders superbly crafted representational images. A recognizable object or landscape, however, is generally juxtaposed with another crisply rendered but puzzling element. They form visual equations but cleverly askew. In the work of this artist one plus one often does not add up to two. It's left to the viewer to do the math.

John Wilkens has adapted “The Waste Land” to the stage as a vehicle for a solo performer.  Oakland Theater Project has produced the staging, starring the multi-talented Lisa Ramirez and directed by Michael Socrates Moran.  This production is the first live performance with a live audience sanctioned by Actors Equity in the state of California since the start of the pandemic.  But to accomplish the approval, the performance is outdoors, and the audience remain in their cars. 

The Niceties is an explosive drama that asks us how we might be contributing to systemic racism. The Eleanor Burgess drama takes place on a prestigious university in the Northeast. Island City Stage in suburban Ft. Lauderdale is presenting the show in person and online. In-person performances continue through April 18. Streaming will be available from April 16-25.

Debuting on April 24, 2021 in the Lampos Gallery, Under New Management: The Commodification of the Permanent Collection features works from Fuller Craft’s permanent collection selected by guest curators and Boston-area artists Oliver Mak, Kenji Nakayama, and Pat Falco. Operating as a fictitious marketing company, MFN Integrated Solutions, the curatorial team aims to activate the collection.

The Clark Art Institute’s popular First Sundays Free program continues on Sunday, May 2. Admission to the galleries is free to all visitors for the entire day, but advance registration is necessary.    

It's spring at Hancock Shaker Village. That means time for one of its most popular events. For family fun come see all the newborn animals from lambs and piglets to chicks and goats.

Noah Haidle’s sweet and painful play, Smokefall, directed by Anne Kaufman, staged by Goodman Theatre in 2013-14, and now streaming as part of Goodman’s Encore series.

The Clark Art Institute celebrates Earth Day on Thursday, April 22, with two guided programs that invite visitors to connect with nature and art on the Clark’s campus. Clark educators lead ninety-minute outdoor experiences that inspire participants to write, draw, move, and more as they explore the unique natural settings of the Ground/work exhibition.

What a pleasure to see Bay Area opera companies offering alternatives to traditional live performance productions until we are able to return to the opera houses to experience their magnificence as intended.  Following its streaming production of “Three Decembers” by Jake Heggie, Opera San José now offers a curated trilogy of one-act operas.  Marital relationships, or more loosely, love constitutes the common bond among the trio.  With each requiring only two singing parts, they are highly conducive to the strictures of pandemic era productions.

Laozi says the great Way is easy. Once we find our place in the world, and learn to live in harmony with it, this may be true. Part of finding our place, though, is living without fear.

Newport Music Festival announces the complete seventeen-concert schedule for its 53rd season, from July 4-20, 2021. All concerts will be held outdoors at historic mansions and venues in Newport, Rhode Island including The Breakers, Bellevue House, Castle Hill Inn, The Chanler at Cliff Walk, King Park, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center, Norman Bird Sanctuary, and Rough Point. The full schedule is included below and available at www.newportmusic.org. Tickets will go on sale to the public on April 19.  

Onsite events run June 30-August 29, with online streaming through September 23. Newly imagined—with the safety of artists, staff, and audiences at the forefront of all planning—the Festival will feature commissioned works and world premieres, present new site-specific performances created especially for the Pillow’s 220-acre campus, and engage hundreds of artists who have had incredibly limited performance opportunities for the last year.

Mezze is a destination for fine dining in Williamstown. Last week, Chef Nick broke down his first whole East Mountain Farm heritage pig since before the pandemic. This brings us hope. Hope to continue supporting our farmers, hope to continue to serve you from nose to tail, and hope that we'll continue expanding how we gather together, together. hich hails from Italy; it is a zero ABV spirit that replaces gin though possesses a similar flavor profile.

The performing arts series Works & Process announces the addition of 6pm performances at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as a part of New York state’s “Safely Bringing Back the Arts” pilot program. Since March 19, under the guidance of the Department of Health, two concurrent series of performances produced by Works & Process are taking place in the Guggenheim’s iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed rotunda. These reduced-capacity events are among the first indoor performances the state has permitted since it closed venues due to the pandemic a year ago, reaching a milestone in the recovery of the city’s cultural sector.

A Bronx Tale is a crowd-pleasing, familiar tale. A production of the stage musical is docked at Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre. The production, which runs through May 22, features strong acting.

Tippet Rise is a striking arrival on the music scene.  Just when interest in conventional venues offering conventional programs is waning, along comes a venture located amidst grazing cattle on 12,000 acres in Fishtail, Montana. The venue traveled east for its spring festival. You begin to get a sense of how they fill their mission wherever they alight. The splendid array of talent seems present wherever they are. Topping the list in New York are veterans Richard Goode and Claire Chase.

Our staff pick is inspired by tagine Djaj Mqualli, from Meknes, one of Morocco's imperial cities and an incredible agricultural region producing and trading olive oil since Roman times. This dish is often featured as part of Iftar, the evening meal following 15 hours of fasting, prayer, and reflection that is eaten at sunset during Ramadan.

Irish Repertory Theatre is streaming its 11th production in the time of Covid. Today we seldom see heterosexual women of three generations loving their men, despite difficulties that boyfriends and husbands bring to a relationship. This is a tender, funny revelation.

Based on past and current research Steve Nelson posits that the designation for our species Homo sapiens be upgraded to Homo electric. While human anatomy evolves at a glacial rate the species responds to cultural and technological developments. None more-so than diverse uses of electricity. Prior to which we communicated face to face or by snail mail. It took weeks for news to travel across our nation. The telegraph changed that followed by the Atlantic Cable, wireless and telephones. During the pandemic kids are educated through remote learning and parents work from home. We have evolved through our electronic devices.

MIT List Visual Arts Center has organized This Way, a series of nine artist-designed walks and experiences that offer us diverse points of entry—some intimate explorations of physical embodiment and sensory experience, others guided modifications of scale, space, and geography, or novel considerations of language, architectures, or landscapes. Borrowing its title from a 1961 series by conceptual artist Stanley Brouwn, while also drawing inspiration from Fluxus and the dérive or “drift” of the Situationists, This Way takes up themes of movement and performance, ritual and meditation, and both abstract and concrete explorations of a range of spaces we occupy.

The Oscar winning actress, Olympia Dukakis, died yesterday at 89. She will be remembered in the Berkshires for two productions at Shakespeare & Company. Then in her 80s she was lured to Lenox by her former student the artistic director Tony Simotes.

Palm Beach Dramaworks (PBD) is seeking donations for an almost $1 million effort to implement COVID-safety measures. The Southeast Florida nonprofit, professional theater company will fund the work almost entirely through donations. The work includes installing a new HVAC system to ensure proper filtration. The project will precede PBD's 2021-22 season, which starts on Oct. 5.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. With the stage of the grand War Memorial Opera House dark for over a year, the San Francisco Opera fashioned a creative fix – not a permanent solution, but one which offers a measure of the thrilling artistry that only live opera can provide. In overcoming myriad technical, logistical, marketing, and public health issues, the company has produced a wonderfully charming “Barber of Seville” that will live in our memories. Gioachino Rossini’s 19th century imagination could probably conceive of people driving automobiles, but patrons attending one of his great comedic operas while ensconced in their vehicles would probably be beyond his wildest notions.

Live music is back at Music Mountain! On Sunday, July 4, Music Mountain’s 92nd Chamber Music Concert Season kicks off  with the Shanghai Quartet  -- called "utterly sublime" by The New York Times -- playing Beethoven String Quartet in B Flat Major, Op. 18 #6, Zhou Long Chinese Folk Songs and Smetana String Quartet in E Minor, “From My Life.” Chamber music concerts will continue every Sunday afternoon at 3pm through Labor Day.