One can't overstate The Humans relevance to modern times. Stephen Karam's play is humorous, heartbreaking and creepy. The cast offers multi-dimensional performances in a first-rate production.

It was thrilling, poignant and terribly sad last night when many artists, friends and community packed the Berkshire Museum for a vernissage of the sprawling, eclectic, and dazzling retrospective Morgan Bulkeley: Nature Culture Clash. It may be the last such project focused on a Berkshire based artist. As a part of its New Vision the museum is dumping 40 works of art and reconfiguring. Van Shields and the board refuse to discuss the fate of the remaining collection of 40,000 objects and the role if any of the fine arts in its plans.

Crossing premiered at ART in Cambridge, Mass. in 2015. Now it comes to BAM as part of the Next Wave Festival.

One of the more obscure of Sondheim's musical, the Huntington Theatre Company's terrific production underscore's its vitality and quality. Director Maria Friedman’s stunning London production of Merrily We Roll Along received universal rave reviews – the most five star reviews in West End history as well as the Olivier Award for Best Musical. Now she has recreated it for Boston audiences. Travelling backwards in time over 20 years in the entertainment business, this musical focuses on the relationships of close friends Franklin, Charley, and Mary, and features some of Sondheim’s most memorable songs, including “Good Thing Going,” “Old Friends,” and “Not a Day Goes By." Seeing the show is like an old friend remembered.

The Williams College Museum of Art, through the end of January, is presenting “Barbara Takenaga” a stunning overview of 60 works of varying scale, that represent two decades of her oeuvre. The selection was made in collaboration with independent curator Debra Bricker Balken.

Laurence Holder’s iconic one man show Monk brings the jazz legend life to the stage. Rome Neal, actor and director, becomes Thelonious Monk, and for 90 minutes we move through the defeats and triumph’s of the man’s work, life and artistic era.

The Park Avenue Armory is presenting one of Pierre Boulez’ signature compositions, the first one to use IRCAM with all its innovation. Relatively simple material can be made to acquire sophisticated layers without losing the sound of its origins. Repons is the first product of IRCAM’s 4X computer.

the original plan was to have Rhapsody's piano part played by Lang Lang, the international piano sensation and one of the biggest stars of this new firmament of young classical artists. Then Lang suffered an arm injury and plans were changed. The program still featured Rhapsody, but in a version fortwo pianos. The second was manned by Chick Corea, a beloved figure from the world of jazz. And serving as Lang Lang's left hand, his pupil Maxim Lando. At 14 years old, Lando is a product of Lang's International Music Foundation.

Founded in 1138, the Abbye de Valmange, is still with us today, due to a miraculous idea. Save the monastery from destruction by using its large space for storing caskets of wine.

On Your Feet! opens in main characters' hometown of Miami. An energetic cast sizzles in first national tour of Broadway musical. The show's emotional core is not lost in vibrant dancing, dazzling choreography and spectacle.

Relying primarily on published sources Felix Salmon in the New Yorker has reported on the deaccessioning and New Vision of the Berkshire Museum. As Solomon states “The story of the Berkshire Museum is more than one about a second-tier local institution selling off some art. It’s a story about how fragile museum-industry norms are, how unaccountable a museum director can be, and how much destruction can be wrought during a single secret trustee meeting. (The museum’s new P.R. representative, Carol Bosco Baumann, declined repeated requests to make anyone from the museum available for an interview.)” This is consistent with the museum's bunker mentality of playing hard ball with the media.

The sound at David Geffen Hall during the fall and spring seasons is often awful. A six hundred million dollar plan, which would have brought the Hall to Lincoln Center Plaza level has been abandoned. Now there is talk of Mostly Mozart-ing the Hall.

Pinot Noir is a tough grape to grow. Rot and disease are enemies of this clone. Only cool climates, like Oregon, Washington and France, specifically Burgundy, have success with Pinot Noir. Now, cool climate Chile, mainly in the Casablanca region is tackling this grape with initial success.

It's not yet Holiday season and Barrington Stage is first out of the get with booking for the 2018 season It annouices. the world premiere of The Royal Family of Broadway, a new musical comedy based on The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman & Edna Ferber, by the Tony Award winning creators of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; and West Side Story, in honor of Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbin’s 100th birthdays.

Cerise Lim Jacobs, whose "Ouroboros Trilogy" was so engaging last season returns with "Rev. 23," subtitled "A Farcial Hellish Opera!" that was less successful both thematically and musically. Is end-times and rebirth an appropriate subject for farce? The production was good to look at and the music-making was fine, but still.....

Hardly anyone leaves a performance of Stratford’s The Breathing Hole unaffected.

Artists committed to the continuing attraction of opera as a form that draws an audience are experimenting. A workshop of Bounce, an opera conceived by Grete Holby and her Ardea Arts in conjunction with the University of Kentucky, is performed in a park in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. With dribbles as drumming and heros like Flight and Future, the future of opera itself is secured. Now this opera goes to the University of Kentucky, collaborators on its creation.

Stephen Adly Guirgis’ 2005 play The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a deliciously irreverent romp through a parade of history and fiction, including Judas’ imagined childhood.

Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale has only three things going for it – a sparkling score; a charming story of young love and old foolishness; and more humor than a barrel full of monkeys.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is generally considered to be the best Star Wars film ever made. The dark middle chapter of the original trilogy came out in 1980 as the second movie released, and remains a firm fan favorite. It boasts an expanded universe, a complicated storyline alternating between the flight of Han Solo and Princess Leia from the evil and remorseless Darth Vader, and the Jedi training of Luke Skywalker at the hands of the diminutive but wise Yoda.

The science of time travel is not normally associated with the classical music business. And yet, one might argue that the finest time travel device in New York City stands not in some hidden laboratory but on the corner of 57th St. and Seventh Avenue. That's right, it's Carnegie Hall, whose 2017-18 season offers the intrepid listener a chance to travel between centuries and musical worlds.

Area stage Company shines in satire about race as An Octoroon's cast finds the right mixture of over-the-top theatricality and nuance. This unique play by an award-winning playwright is entertaining, yet disturbing.

The shoulder season play Lost Lake, by Tony and Pulitzer winner, David Auburn, is an enthralling and richly rewarding two hander. It would be difficult to image a more finely nuanced production of a skillful and clever play.

Alves de Sousa grows their own grapes and experiments with blends. Father Domingos is a wine legend. He has passed the reigns to son, Tiago, who holds family tradition in wine making sacred. The results are clear.

Last night we enjoyed a fabulous German dinner with 200 or so other celebrants at Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsfield. For just $12 there was a traditional feast of hand rolled, beef rouladen with red cabbage, noodles, and a vegetable medley. That ended with delicious Black Forest cake.