James Aponovich is on the short list of leading American realist painters. He is having a stunning exhibition of new work at the Clark Gallery in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

“The Clark’s upcoming summer season is an ambitious program highlighting new discoveries and new initiatives,” said Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director of the Clark. “We are truly energized by the opportunity to activate our entire campus by sharing exhibitions that will introduce our visitors—and the world—to artists whose work is vibrant, dynamic, and inspiring. This summer’s programs span more than one hundred years of artistic practice and explore a rich array of themes through both historic and contemporary lenses.”

Super diva Barbara Hannigan and the Jack Quartet with Sae Hashimoto on vibraphone performed the music of John Zorn in the Veterans Room of the Park Avenue Armory. Hannigan had selected this room because she wanted the audience to have an intimate experience. We heard her daring and beautiful take on Zorn’s Jumalattaret, which was even more bold and beautiful than its US premiere in Ojai last June.

Palm Beach Dramaworks presents a shattering 'Streetcar.' Actors, design team shine in South Florida nonprofit, professional theater company's vivid mounting of Tennessee Williams' masterpiece.

San Francisco Opera’s new production of Marriage of Figaro retains the time frame of the original (late 18th century) but moves the action from Spain to post-Revolutionary America. The shift in venue carries no significance for this opera.

“I have often been asked how my plays come about. I cannot say. Nor can I ever sum up my plays, except to say that this is what happened. That is what they said. That is what they did.”– Harold Pinter, taken from his 2005 Nobel Prize Lecture

The Boston Symphony Orchestra announces Tanglewood’s first-ever fall/winter/spring schedule of performances and activities to take place on the grounds of the famed music festival, October 2019 through June 2020.

Actor shines as Wiesenthal in GableStage production of one-character play. Tom Dugan's piece is laser focused, touching and funny. The play centers on the end of the humanitarian's "career" bringing former Nazis to justice.

LeKae, a black woman, plays the white boy Huck, and the viewer happily suspends disbelief, as she thoroughly convinces playing the role of the youth as he breaks away from the constraints of convention. They reproduce the escape from the fictitious town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, rafting down the Mississippi, wide-eyed and reveling in the beauty of the world and of freedom.

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As the final production of the 25th season, artistic director, Julianne Boyd, is directing the world premiere of a timely social justice play American Underground by Brent Askari. It postulates a future when all American Muslims are treated as enemies of the state.

Seeing Eileen Atkins and Jonathan Pryce on stage together in The Height of the Storm by Florian Zeller is watching master craftsmen work. I wouldn’t care what the play was about; I want to marvel at their skills.

Peter Brook andMarie-Hélène Estienne’s Why is playing at the Theater for A New Audience. The co-director-writer Brook’s work spans a century. Yet, as he starts this work, we are surprised and delighted by the answer to the question of the play’s title. The question is tucked away in a little box, on a little scrap of paper, like a note launched in a bottle on an ocean. It has landed at last in Brooklyn.

Boston Lyric Opera’s season opener Ruggero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” brings inventive staging and design to their production. It promotes a carnival-like atmosphere that invigorates the storyline and engages the audience.

The only Jewish family in a rural Texas town struggles with issues of illness and faith. How can the Jewish Yaweh allow the young and innocent to die of cancer while Jesus Christ offers cure and redemptio. Written and directed by Mark Harelik What the Jews Believe asks questions for which there are no answers.

With poetic irony, visitors to Ouelett’s one man exhibition at Real Eyes Gallery in Adams literally walk past his subject matter. To verify the veracity of his depictions one need but stand and gawk about on Park Street.

Isn’t Free Fall supposed to be an adaptation of Strindberg’s masterpiece Miss Julie? Many adaptations of plays update the timeline and shift the locale to one that is familiar to the audience, but playwright Megan Cohen adds a new plot layer of climate change and turns the original play’s dark humor and sharp edges into farce.

Joseph Keckler takes on the subject of singing in opera with a unique flare for the dramatic, for humor and deep delve. He is a masterful monologuist. In Let Me Die, he goes to the center of the operatic volcano, the death song. Here divas have been challenged since Monteverdi to blast out their pain in dying with vocal chords wide open and lungs at full mast. Yet they are fading away. Neither singer nor composer has ever been much disturbed by the odd idea that someone is going to a breathless state with lungs belting

West Palm Beach-based MNM Theatre Comapny delves deeper into Man of La Mancha. This production isn't just a showcase for great singers singing glorious songs. Director Bruce Linser emphacizes the darkness of the prison scenes. MNM's mounting features strong acting, singing.

Coleen MacPherson and her talented company bring 21 poems of the Polish poet Wslsawa Symborska to the stage. Symborska, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996, provides a 'script' which is both lyrical and amusing. The collaborative vision of Open Heart Surgery was born in Toronto in 2014, but this all female ensemble is international in both personnel and its vision.

Joshua Roman on cello and Conor Hanick at the piano performed a wild, raucous Alfred Schnittke Sonata bracketed by two transcendental works by Arvo Pärt. Andrew Ousley speaking at the outset as we waited for the artists to descend into the arched naves, suggested that we refrain from applauding at the end of each work. Instead we might absorb the afterglow of the music and let it seep further in. No one was tempted to break the silence with an inadvertent clap.

The New York Philharmonic performed the New York premiere of Bernard Hermann’s Psycho score, accompanying a huge projection of the film. Richard Kaufman, a veteran conductor of film and television productions, conducted. David Geffen Hall was filled with a hip audience of film buffs, who cheered when the classic image of the Bates Motel first appeared on the screen.

The rich are different from us. As a symbol of ultimate decadence Maurizio Cattelan created "America" a sold gold toilet. I lined up to take a pee in it at the Guggenheim Museum. Now it has gone missing.

Hairspray is receiving an exuberant production by Beef & Boards Dinner Theatre in Indianapolis.The musical, based on John Waters' film, reminds us that we can each do our part to right wrongs. This production runs through Oct. 6.

I have been working on sculptural surfaces for my paintings for 6 months. In addition to the resulting surface tension, the work has become more lyrical, sprinkled with recognizable imagery. Vines, galaxies, probes, suns, microbial animals and plants divide the surface and define the space.