Shakespeare & Company has announced tickets are on sale now for the three Classic productions of its 45th Season: Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure, and An Iliad, an adaptation of Homer’s epic poem by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare.  

The Mountaintop features fine performances. It is the type of show that audience members will like, feeling as though they saw something meaningful. I am part of the group that thinks this is a very flawed play that often takes the easy way out.

For Black History Month, Broadway has opened its arms and stages.  Skeleton Crew, by an honored Black playwright, makes no mention of race. The cast is all Black. The characters are all Black. The city of Detroit, where the play takes place, has been felled by race riots and a hardhit economy. 

Slow Burn Theatre Company has mounted a radiant production of Once On This Island. The musical is a calypso-flavored re-telling of The Little Mermaid. The production runs through Feb. 20 in Broward Center for the Performing Arts' Amaturo Theater.

Julia Garner's Ruth in the series Ozark could not be more different that Anna in the Shonda Rhimes series Inventing Anna. At 27, with one Emmy under her belt, she's on the prowl for more. Currently I am bingeing her shows on Netflix.

Close Encounters with Music presents the Berkshire debut of Van Cliburn medalist Yekwon Suwoo. The pianist will appear at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington March 20 with acclaimed violinist Daniel Phillips, violist Daniel Panner, and cellist and artistic director Yehuda Hanani. 

The Huntington’s Board of Trustees and Advisors, announced today the appointment of acclaimed stage director, producer, and community builder Loretta Greco as The Huntington’s next Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director. She will be the first woman in the role and the fourth artistic leader in The Huntington’s 40-year history.

Playwright Terrence McNally’s paean to Maria Callas is less a dramatic narrative than a platform for a virtuoso performance by an actress capable of displaying La Davina’s charisma and self-absorption. Sonoma Arts Live offers an absolutely delightful rendering of this chamber play. 

Four instruments shimmering in the lights of Roulette, the iconic Brooklyn venue, might suggest you are at the brass concert. The saxophone in all its glories, principally soprano, tenor, baritone and bass, Is a member of the wind group. It sounds are full, rich, warm and smooth. Together, the Prism group makes one single sound. It can be raucous for fun. Or very dark when the mood requires.

The IS183 Art School’s Berkshire Artist Residency program is now accepting applications. Since 2012, IS183 Art School has coordinated Artist Residencies that pair local visual artists with cultural institutions and historic landmarks across the Berkshires. This is the second year artists can apply for a residency at two local institutions - The Red Lion Inn and Chesterwood. 

Broadway Bound? Black No More is packed with A list creative talent. It is in a limited run produced by the New Group, The book’s creators wondered whether rap would work for a serious story. Black No More succeeds in spades. Andy Blankenbeuler (Lian Manuel Miranda’s dance man) learned to tell a story in movement from Bill T. Jones. Jones is the choreographer of this show.

Opening up next week on March 2nd Kingston Gallery presents Borders/Boundaries a member's group show curated by Erica Licea-Kane and Krystle Brown, and Julie S. Graham: Visual Books curated by Chantal Zakari and Mags Harries. 

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, a collaboration between the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene and New York City Opera opened Off Broadway on Holocaust Remembrance Day for a limited run of eight performance from January 27- February 6 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Sung in English, also with subtitles, and running three barely noticeable hours with one intermission, the opera sold out even before it opened.

Bruce Graham's new play, The Duration, is about, among other things, how different people deal with grief. The world premiere production is running through March 6 at Palm Beach Dramaworks in South Florida. The Duration is a layered, engrossing piece of live theater.

Lope deVega is not simply setting us up for a good laugh. The play takes a sharp look at the meaning of the ideal woman. What attributes are truly important? Is there room in marriage for the intellectually driven woman? Is there room for the woman who cannot enhance her husband's social standing? Is economic security the real motive for our emotional commitments?

There is always humor and empathy to ease the pain of life’s ups and downs. The trick is to find it.  Desert Ensemble Theatre (DET) of Palm Springs found it in their delightful production of “Salty”, written by A.J.Clauss that is innovatively staged by Artistic Director Jerome Elliott.

Chapeau! An amazing undertaking has drawn to a close in Berlin, Germany.  Amid still active Covid-19, Marietta Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, the heads of the film festival Berlinale, brought about the 72nd international film festival in real time.

The Clark Art Institute’s latest exhibition presents four centuries of war imagery from Europe and the United States in As They Saw It: Artists Witnessing War, on view March 5–May 30, 2022. Spanning European and American art from 1520–1920, the exhibition of prints, drawings, and photographs shows how artists have portrayed periods of military conflict.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), has acquired the painting Tailleur pour dames (1957), a major work by Remedios Varo (1908–1963), a leader of the Surrealist movement in the Americas. In order to purchase Varo’s masterpiece the Museum is deaccessioning three 20th-century paintings: Abiquiu Trees VII (1953) and A Sunflower from Maggie (1937), both by Georgia O’Keeffe, and On a Shaker Theme (1956) by Charles Sheeler.

After all my complaints, you may wonder why I recommend Music Man on Broadway so highly. Easy. Hugh Jackman and more Hugh Jackman, the glorious score and the sweetly romantic story.  

First Down is a terrific new play by Sevan now running at the 59e59 Theatres. Johanna McKeon directs the quartet to give us insight into the pain caused outsiders in the United States by people who were outsiders themselves when they arrived.

The Ukrainian, Julia Kissina is quite well known and established in Germany and Russia and does work in all kinds of media, including as a performance artist and fiction writer. She writes in Russian and has had a number of books published there and in Germany.

Gordon Getty is his own man, as composer, librettist and supporter of the arts. His new opera, Goodbye Mr. Chilps, premieres on film on March 2nd at the Walter Reade Theatre. Berkshire Fine Arts asked a few questions.

When Bill Wadsworth sent images and asked what I thought the response was to post Ukrainian Writer and Artist Julia Kissina. Calling attention to this artist in exile could not have been more timely and relevant. It evoked significant reader responses and raised basic questions. This second posting addresses that interest. Many have asked where they may view the work and there was a query from a curator regarding a possible exhibition.

The Clark Art Institute debuts Soundings: New Music at the Clark, a concert series presented in collaboration with the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. On Saturday, March 19 at 3 pm, Soundings: Some Favored Nook, the first concert of the series, takes place in the Clark’s Michael Conforti Pavilion