In 1833, the African-American actor Ira Aldridge (Brandon Greenhouse) was the first black man to play the leading role in Othello in a London theater.

Composer Alan Menken, lyricist Stephen Schwartz and book writer Peter Parnell have created a heartfelt, heartbreaking and riveting version of the popular Victor Hugo novel.

Ian Bostridge not only admits that he has been obsessed for years by Winterreise, but he has written a superb book on the piece and obsession. The wonderful tenor has so absorbed the music and poetry that he seems to step behind the performance and let this remarkable work shine. Thomas Adès constantly reveals Schubert at the piano.

Today, almost 40 years later, you’ll find Andrea McArdle on the Wick Theatre stage, co-starring in a musical, They’re Playing Our Song, that made its Broadway debut just about two years after her Broadway bow.

In “Night of the Iguana,” largely considered the prolific Tennessee Williams’ last commercial success, the playwright, no stranger to symbolism, once again uses a vivid symbol to represent characters trapped in a prison of loneliness and unfulfilled desires.

If you travel overseas and are looking for a Lounge to spend downtime in, consider the No1 Lounge group. We used the Gatwick Lounge for nearly three hours between flights.

Enchantment. Provocation. Rapture by enrapping. The animator Miwa Matreyek performs as a shadow silhouette in two pieces, one that suggests that beauty of the quotidian, and the other which puts us inside human evolution through geologic time from the Big Bang. You are swept into her vision.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibit on 27 Rue de Fleurus, the Gertrude Stein/ Alice B. Toklas salon frequented by Picasso, Matisse, Man Ray, and others, largely consisted of blown up black and white photos. In every way, the Master Voices production colors these lives. In addition to the sublime presence of Stephanie Blythe as Gertrude, Heidi Stober and Theo Lebow thrilled.

The absurdist playwright Luigi Pirandello wrote the play in 1922. The current production is based on an adaptation by Tom Stoppard. Nick Sandys’ direction makes the most of the witty dialogue written by the always engaging Stoppard.

Dyno rockers Jeff and Jane Hudson will present an (ahem) New Wave Party at the Williams Inn on November 19. The vintage punk rockers are promoting their latest release The Middle which combines new and old material. Until recently they operated an antiques store at Mass MoCA. Jane is a legendary genius while Jeff is generally viewed as a piece of work. Together they make strange and rhapsodic music. Never miss one of their iconic events.

There has been extensive media coverage of the First Annual Berkshire Theatre Awards. The winners of The Berkies have been announced. There will be an awards celebration 5 pm on November 13 at Mr. Finn’s Cabaret in Pittsfield. In this first round of awards Barrington Stage Company and Shakespeare & Company dominated in most categories. The smash hit Pirates of Penzance ran the table. The Larry Murray Award, named for the founder, will be the only suprise of the gathering of critics, media and theater mavens.

Can listeners experience music as their own, an inside experience enjoyed by performers? Yes, in the extraordinary productioin conceived by Jochen Sanig and brought to life by the Rundfunkchor Berlin under Simon Halsey assisted by Nicolas Fink. The setting was Synod House at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Brahms' Requiem was the experience.

The Cherry Orchard was Anton Chevkov’s last play. He drew a picture of an old Russian family at the end of their run, their beloved cherry orchard and the hundreds of acres that it fills will be auctioned in August to pay the debts of Liuboff Andreievna Raneyskaya. Liuboff, the role originally created by Chekhov’s wife, is now enlivened by Diane Lane in her return to the New York stage. Lane’s first Broadway appearance was in The Cherry Orchard decades ago.

Bling, bling, bling went our heartstrings during a first encounter with Nick Cave's "Until" which will be on view at MASS MoCA for a year. The installation which has a festive, crowd pleasing appeal is a not readily apparent statement about deaths of African-Americans in police custody in places like Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere.

For the first annual Berkshire Theatre Awards seven shows received more than five nominations each including 11 for The Pirates of Penzance and eight for Broadway Bounty Hunter, both produced by Barrington Stage Company. Seven nominations were received for Or, and six for The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare & Company. Also popular with five nominations each are The Rose Tattoo (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Little Shop of Horrors (Berkshire Theatre Group), and American Son (Barrington Stage).

“Hand to God,” the biting, darkly comic, disturbing, thought-provoking and meaty play is receiving a solid southeastern premiere at GableStage in Coral Gables, Florida through Oct. 30.

Sir Simon Rattle, the great conductor of the Berliner Philharmonika, joined forces with an A list orchestra, the Philadelphia, to perform Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony. In an interview Rattle says, Mahler "was my road to Damascus moment. This is something that has lived with me all my life. And it is something that will never stop being a challenge and a discovery."

The 1993 Mark St. Germain play, Camping with Henry and Tom, is as fresh as a daisy in a timely revival at Barrington Stage Company. With an update of just five lines Henry Ford, originally inspired by third party candidate Ross Perot, has an uncanny resemblance to the worst aspects of Donald Trump.

How fortunate we are to have class Ambassadors for the new crop of musical talent. Both Ryan Thorn, baritone, and Andrew Sun, pianist, have participated at Marilyn Horne's Santa Barbara school and in its competition. Horne stepped to the front of the altar at a church on the upper West Side of Manhattan and made the case for the importance of Song, from Solomon to Richard Rogers.

Playwright Joe Sutton creates George Orwell twisting moment to moment. Jamie Horton is magnificent in the wrenching role. Orwell’s discomfort, his loneliness, his humor and passion are all developed before us in language that is very much the author’s. Director Peter Hackett brings off this complicated character in an enormously engaging piece.

Gustavo Dudalmel went from the street to El Sistema with a music program for poor kids in Venezuela. Over time, the role of music in society has become ever more important and consuming for him. He mission is comparable only to Riccardo Muti's.

Stephen Sondheim’s stunning masterpiece centers on enigmatic painter Georges Seurat and his obssession with “the art of making art.” Certainly, one of the most acclaimed musicals ever, this Pulitzer Prize winner features a glorious score, with the songs “Finishing the Hat,” “Putting it Together,” and “Move On,” and is directed by Artistic Director Peter DuBois who did a superb job with last year's A Little Night Music.

“The Normal Heart” deals with multiple thought-provoking, timely themes and issues that spur discussion, make us look inward and potentially take action: The need to work together toward a common goal, the uselessness of fighting and blaming one another, reconciliation among family members, the agenda of the press and government, the right to be recognized as valued citizens and feel loved as well as to live and die with dignity.

Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier" is a model of passionate communication via music. The story of the Marschallin who hands over her young lover Octavian to a girl his own age drips with fin-de-siecle melancholy. The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s performance of Richard Strauss’s beloved comedy “Der Rosenkavalier” was as close to perfection as I have heard.

The Bakelite Masterpiece by Kate Cayley in Stockbridge at the Unicorn Theatre is a co-production of WAM and Berkshire Theatre Group. An artist is on trial for selling Vermeers to the Nazis. He has to make a fake to prove his innocence. The play is based on a true story in post war Holland.