Through the generous bequest of Charles Mooney the Chares City Public Library in Iowa houses a super collection of old master prints. The 79-piece collection includes works by Rembrandt van Rijn, Pablo Picasso, Grant Wood, Marc Chagall, Paul Cezanne, James Whistler, Paul Gauguin, Edouard Manet, Salvador Dali, Thomas Hart Benton, Jan Van Eyck, Alexander Caulder and Henri Matisse.

A quality production of a Don Margulies play Collected Stories presented in West Palm Beach leaves You With 'Theater to Think About.' This is a riveting production of an intense play.

Japp van Zweden the next music director of the New York Philharmonic, performs wonders in his current home town of Dallas, Texas.

Mike Bartlett’s Earthquakes in London is a loopy meditation on climate change, its risks and destiny. The play is performed in a chaotic way, scenes piling upon scenes, couples interrupting and exiting, music and videos starting and stopping.

Last summer during a residence at Gloucester Writers Center we interviewed its co-founder the filmmaker Henry Ferrini. We shared a mutual interest in jazz and the former club Sandy's Jazz Revival in nearby Beverly. The Center is housed in the former frame shop and home of his poet uncle Vincent Ferrini.

Miami New Drama presents American Premiere of "Terror" at Miami Beach's Colony Theatre.

Bruckner's wish list included three harps for this Symphony No. 8. There were only two, but no matter. The Staatskapelle Berlin, performing the penultimate Bruckner Symphony with Daniel Barenboim, built layer upon layer, filling the outer reaches of Carnegie Hall with complex sounds, glorious to hear. MediciTV has some of Barenboim's Bruckner available for listening for the next three months.

Sometimes the very best theatrical productions have only a few performances. Sadly, in this case a prime example of such a loss is Our Secrets, by Béla Pintér and Company. It is performed in Hungarian with English subtitles.

American Theatre Critics Association members learn about Cabaret Eclectic art form is at the center of panel discussion Cabaret shares characteristics with traditional theater.

“Baby The Musical” a musical directed by Ron Celona, boasts a cast of ten highly talented singer/actors that shine in the intimate staging space of CV REP. In addition, the production also features four, live off-stage musicians, under the first-rate musical direction of Scott Storr. In 1983 it ran for a year on Broadway.

“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, now on stage at Palm Canyon Theatre, is creatively directed, by veteran actor/director Charles Harvey, who brings a wealth of experience that cleverly breathes life into those fifty cast members, including a nine person on-stage “kid’s choir” (perhaps ages six to ten?). It’s a visual feast for the eyes and ears.

The story of the Indian math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan—who went from being a clerk in Madras in 1913 to work with a renowned mathematician in Cambridge—is told in a series of overlapping vignettes, beautifully choreographed by director Nick Bowling. Video and other electronic projections greatly enhance the production and our understanding of the math.

Bruckner's Seventh Symphony find brought him acclaim. To get away from the barbs of a merciless critic, he persuaded conductor Arthur Nikisch to open in Leipsig, far from the offending pen. The premier was greeted with fifteen minutes of applause. The Seventh is often called Bruckner's most accessible work. Barenboim conducting also shows its subtleties and complexities.

Playwright Bradon Jacobs-Jenkins has won several awards, including a “genius” grant in 2015 from the MacArthur Foundation. His other plays include Appropriate, produced in 2013 at Victory Gardens, and An Octoroon. He is a resident playwright at Signature Theatre in New York. Gloria is playing at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

Recently The Colonial Thatre in Pittsfield was the site for a packed gathering as a part of the national Women's March in protest of the extremist threats of President Donald Trump. The Colonial Theatre will be a part of the national Four Freedom's Rally on Saturday, January 28. Kate Maguire, the artistic director of the Berkshire Theatre Group, which includes the Colonial has taken a stand in activist resistance.

This production, the South Florida premiere of the musical, combines striking stage pictures, stark lighting by Rebecca Montero, eye-catching video projections by Greg Duffy and top-notch singing voices from a talented cast of veterans and younger thespians who nail Sondheim’s complex music. They are accompanied by a vibrant, live orchestra.

Semyon Bychkov brought all his rich knowledge of Tchaikovsky to David Geffen Hall and invited members of the New York Philharmonic to play their hearts out as he encouraged them in a stellar performance of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. Each and every special detail emerged in a multi-textured whole. No one wanted to leave the Hall at the conclusion.

Singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant makes her Tanglewood debut on Sunday, July 2, at 7 p.m.,in the Koussevitzky Music Shed. She began her career with alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981. On Friday, September 1, American folk-rock band The Avett Brothers—named for brothers Scott and Seth Avett—make their Tanglewood debut.

A consummate musician, Daniel Barenboim showed us how Mozart and Anton Bruckner could bring a saucy spirit to magesterial moments.

The Barrington Stage Company season begins on May 18 with Kunstler by Jeffrey Sweet. It will end on October 22 with Gaslight (Angel Street) by Patrick Hamilton. The featured musicals, a signature of BSC will be Ragtime, June 21 to July 15 and Sondheim's Company which will be directed by BSC's Julianne Boyd from August 10 to September 3.

Pearl Cleage has written six plays, nine novels and several nonfiction books. Blues for an Alabama Sky was published in 1999 and premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta. Blues weaves in references to issues that are still troubling today, such as homophobia, racism and abortion. The Harlem Renaissance is alluded to casually with references to a “party at Langston’s” and the ideas of Marcus Garvey.

The story playwright Jordon Harrison presents in Marjorie Prime is a tale set in the not-to-distant future in which artificial intelligence is used to treat dementia and depression in the forms of “primes”- ‘humanoid’ lifelike robots that speak with patients in the form of lost loved ones and provide companionship for the lonely. Marjorie’s prime is modeled to look and talk like her dead husband Walter, at age thirty.

The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) has announced the names of the seven finalists for the 2016 Francesca Primus Prize. Jointly sponsored by ATCA and the Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation, the Primus Prize, which includes a cash award of $10,000, is given annually to an emerging woman playwright.

London's newly opened Design Museum is the world's leading museum devoted to contemporary design in every form from architecture and fashion to graphics, product and industrial design. The Design Museum is now open in its spectacular new location on High Street Kensington. It is now a major venue to visit in London.

New York was shrouded in thick fog, but Marilyn Horne shone a light on the art of song and of all the arts as she began to make her case to the current administration in Washington. No statement is more clear and heart-touching than beautiful voices raised in song before a rapt audience.