New additions to the Popular Artist Series at the Tanglewood Music Festival bring a parade of classic rock, contemporary pop, and R&B stars to the Koussevitzky Music Shed between June 20 and Independence Day, supplementing several more previously announced dates in July and August. New additions to the Shed lineup include Roger Daltrey with KT Tunstall, Brandi Carlile, and Jon Batiste, as well as John Fogerty and George Thorogood on tour together and Jason Mraz with the Boston Pops conducted by Sean O’Loughlin.

Most of the humor is of the middle-school-boy type – lots of insults and adolescent sexual innuendo. How much of this you find funny or just too much depends on your sense of humor and how much seeing grown men call each other a variety of offensive words is enjoyable. How many sexual jokes do you want John’s father, who is ninety, to make? For me, it was way overdone.

Hunter Foster, who played Sam Philips in the original Broadway cast, directs this production with a fine hand. His experience with the show reveals itself in the nuances and choices he makes. The scenic design by Josh Smith shows us the studio of Sun Records in Memphis in the 1950s. The founder of the studio, Phillips helped put rock ‘n roll on the charts.

The blue heron, a majestic bird with piercing yellow eyes and a spear-like beak, embodies a unique paradox. It is a creature of both profound stillness and lightning-fast action. But it is the heron’s stillness that truly captivates, a quality that has enthralled artists, writers, and philosophers for centuries. This stillness isn’t just an absence of movement; it’s a potent force, a language of patience, focus, and a deep connection with the environment.

In my new paintings I am imagining “evolutants” stuck in the mud, from remains of the flora and fauna of the smallest cell-like creatures to the evolution of our present human form, painted as staggered layers of history. They are colorful, animated patterns of biological and imaginary forms painted in acrylic and oil.

 Spring fast approaches, with good news from our friends at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, and the opening of the box office for our own Pittsfield CityJazz Festival.

I was apprehensive about Long Wharf’s new production, which runs through Sunday, March 10, mainly when I read that director James Dean Palmer is known for his “reinterpretations” of classics.

Redwood, a musical drama conceived and written by Tina Landau and Idina Menzel, is currently playing at the La Jolla Playhouse.  Composer Kate Diaz provides the expansive score with lyrics by Diaz and Landau.  Redwood tells the story of Jesse (played by Idina Menzel), a hard-charging, no-holds-barred New Yorker who is struggling to find purpose in her life following the death of her young adult son. 

The 74th Berlinale is Europe's first international film festival of the year. Always a glamorous happening with stars galore, this year's events from February 15-25th,  2024 have drawn to a close.

The squirrel comes each day to eat peanuts with me on one of the benches in the meditation garden that surrounds my training and teaching deck.  Sometimes she will sit in my lap, sometimes she will sit on the cushion beside me, and sometimes she just sits on the cinder block armrest.  But she comes every day, and several times at that.

First Friday, March 1, 5 - 8:30pm, will feature the reception & artist talks at Boston Sculptors in the South End. Works by Ed Andrews and Leslie Wilcox will be on view through March 31. There will be artist talks on Saturday March 16 from 2-5 PM.

Percy MacKaye’s 1922 poem, Dogtown Common, is a beloved document of Gloucester lore. It tells the story of two legendary figures, Tammy Younger and her niece Judy Rhines, shunned for practicing witchcraft. It was inspired by Charles Mann’s 1906, The Story of Dogtown or In the Heart of Cape Ann, that compiles recollections about the outsiders, berry-pickers, subsistence farms and self-proclaimed witches that inhabited Dogtown after it was abandoned in the early 1800s.

The Guggenheim acquired 102 works by more than 60 artists, over half of whom are new to the collection. The works, spanning from 1928 to the present day, further the Guggenheim’s commitment to expanding the purview of its interpretation and presentation of modern and contemporary art by focusing on acquiring works that embody diversity and innovation.

One of the unique features of the show is that it is up to the director and the performers to decide which famous women performers and songs are in the drag sequences. Here, Connors and the cast have offered terrific performances.

Barrington Stage Company  will celebrate its 30th  anniversary season with two major musical revivals, a world premiere play, two regional premiere plays and a raucous comedy featuring three of BSC’s most beloved associate artists.

Celebrated comedian-actor-singer Robert Klein and Grammy Award–winning songwriter and singer Julie Gold are among the 14 artists who will be honored for their musical and comedy artistry at the 39th annual Bistro Awards gala on Monday, April, 1 at Gotham Comedy Club in New York. As is the Bistro Award tradition, the evening will feature performances by all the awardees.

The nine companies to perform for one week each in the Ted Shawn Theatre are, in chronological order: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, The Royal Ballet of the United Kingdom, Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Social Tango Project, MOMIX, Camille A. Brown & Dancers, Parsons Dance, Soledad Barrio & Noche Flamenca, and Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Berkshire Opera Festival  (BOF) announces its 2024 season in Great Barrington, MA and New York City. The only company of its kind in the Berkshire region, BOF produces opera at the highest level under the vision of esteemed co-founders Brian Garman (Artistic Director) and Jonathan Loy ((Director of Production).

Williamstown Theatre Festival announces The Plastic Bag Store, produced by MASS MoCA in association with WTF, opening May 9. Created by artist Robin Frohardt and produced by Pomegranate Arts, this immersive, multimedia experience will be open from May 9 through September 2 in MASS MoCA’s Building 1.

During the dead of winter yet again, for the thirteenth time, we embraced 10x10 New Play Festival at Barrington Stage Company. At least for a matinee we woke from hibernation to embrace the treat of arts in the Berkshires.

In conjunction with the 160th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) will present newly commissioned and recent works by Sadie Barnette, Alfred Conteh, Maya Freelon, Hugh Hayden, Letitia Huckaby, Jeffrey Meris, and Sable Elyse Smith in a new exhibition visualizing Black freedom, agency, and the legacy of the Civil War today and beyond.

The jester Rigoletto's life is dedicated to the care and safety of his daughter, Gilda. When she is kidnapped and compromised by his employer, the Duke of Mantua, he plans revenge but is also cursed by the father of another victim of the Duke's lechery. His plans backfire catastrophically. The glorious opera receives a powerful treatment.

The playwright points out that sanitation people often feel “invisible” to the people whose garbage they pick up. In the same way, both Marlowe and Danny feel they have become invisible.

The composer and librettist both grew up in Argentina during Juan Peron's return to power and his third wife Isabel's ascension to the presidency on his death. Employing magical realism, the ghost of Evita, Juan's second wife beloved by the people, looms over Isabel, who fails to capture a similar relationship, despite the machinations of her advisor, Ministro. Lush neo-romantic music and Argentina's dramatic political events in the last half of the 20th century drive this beautifully produced rendition.

Christopher Demos-Brown's suspenseful play, "The Cancellation of Lauren Fein" is experiencing a riveting world premiere production at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach. The production runs through Feb. 25. Demand for tickets was high, so Palm Beach Dramaworks extended the production of the timely and layered play by a few performances.