Leon Botstein, music impresario of the first order, declared that if Mascagni’s opera Iris was good enough for Toscanini, it was good enough for him. Many of us feel that if it’s good enough for Botstein, it’s good enough for us. The music is gorgeous. Botstein hears Wagner. We heard Puccini. The descending fifth leap from Tosca started many a phrase. Yet it was Mascagni that preceded Puccini.

In a raucous, energetic, daunting production of Peerless by Jiehae Park Barrington Stage has boldly brought twentysomething, off off Broadway to the Berkshires. This assault to the senses may not be appealing to older audiences. It gives us a lively glimpse into the mind set of evil twns evoking Macbeth to murder their way to acceptance at the colleges of their choice. Does that make sense?

What happens when you conflate Old Miss and Brooklyn routed through Boston University? As a playwright Boo Killebrew draws on her childhood and the heritage of gracious Southern women with the here-and-now sexual politics of a single mother and her sister traying to get the shards of her life together. That illusion of a stay at home wife and mother came to a screeching end with the death of her husband. Now just 29 she is picking up the pieces in a misfired drama striving for comedy.

Man’s cruelty to man is central to this comedy. This production wraps the audience into its web with humor, shock and awe.

San Diego’s venerable Old Globe Theatre is currently staging a vibrant, engaging and thoroughly delightful production of Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility”.

It seems like a win win. Bright Ideas Brewing offers uniqely crafted beer, ale and root beer in a high concept industrial space on the Mass MoCA campus. On every level from eccnetric hours, to noise levels and a flub on food it's time to rethink the business plan.

War Paint is the story of two cosmetic industry pioneers, women who achieved corporate success in an era when it was even more difficult to do so than today. But once you get past the competition between the Polish Jewish immigrant Helena Rubinstein (Patti LuPone) and the sunny blonde Elizabeth Arden (Christine Ebersole) known for her pink color palette, there’s not much story left.

Although elderly and in poor health Ira J. Bilowit, who has passed away at 90, continued to cover and work in theatre. Just last November he was co-chair, with Sherry Eaker, of a New York conference of the American Theratre Critics Association. He was among the most respected and revered members of that organization.

Barbra Streisand is in this original and highly entertaining play – sort of, although you believe she really is, judging from the electrifying, hyperventilation-defying, incredible performance from award-winning actor Chris Crawford. He plays a handful of characters throughout the roughly one-hour, 45-minute play with no intermission.

Moiiere's gift for embedding comedy in character, and weaving the elements of musical theatre in a unified whole were on full display at the Gerald Lynch Theatre. We continue coverage of the annual Lincoln Center Festival.

Shakespeare’s Macbeth was presented with no timid wariness about “the Scottish play” but instead a dark, mysterious exploration full of visual and emotional surprises, including a sexy young Macbeth and a terrifying, shifting landscape dominated by the three witches, not the royal killer couple. Stratford’s Artistic Director Antoni Cimolino is clearly the star of the production, directing it where it usually doesn’t go.

In a world gone utterly mad, for a great escape, there is nothing quite like an evening at Barrington Stage and the swashbuckling production of the perennial Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan. It has been masterfully created by that other theatrcal partnership Rando and Bergasse the pair that brought Barrington's On the Town to Broadway.

In his 80th birthday year, Reich is being celebrated by Tilson Thomas in San Francisco and in a train station outside London in September. He is in New York now with multiple concerts as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. We are fortunate indeed for this native New Yorker.

We welcome the distinguished critic Herbert Simpson and his coverage of Stratford Festival of Canada. Here he reviews Breath of Kings: Rebellion Richard II and Henry IV Part 1I which will be performed through September 24.

In “Broadway Bound,” Neil Simon shines a light on people who are flawed. You not only forgive them at the end, you feel as though you’re leaving part of your own family as the curtain closes.

The well-known historical musica "1776" about our founding fathers’ mission to make America independent from England is on stage through July 24 in the intimate, semi-circular Don and Ann Brown Theatre in Palm Beach, Florida.

Bathed in blue light, the stage could be anywhere, in the heart of Africa or New York CIty. Steve Reich, one of the titans of modern music, captured mainstream attention with Drumming. Now everyone loves the iconic piece. Lincoln Center offers it and other works of Reich in their summer festival.

The hilarious comedy The Chinese Room by the Irish playwright Michael West is having its world premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival. The current production allows for fine tuning for when the play transfers Off Broadway to Manhattan Theatre Club. It is sure to be a hit in New York.

Even if you don't know the conventions of Noh Theater, developed over 600 years in Japan, there is great pleasure in its performance. The Kanze Noh troupe sports players whose descent can be traced back 22 generations. Deep emotions are generated by performances of dramas from this rich history.

Returing to Jacob's Pillow for the twelth time Hubbard Street Dance Chicago presented a complex, varied and demanding evening of dance.

The Knights, a Brooklyn based chamber music band, play music from numerous genres and somehow unite the opposing styles into a wonderful evening of entertainment. From Hadyn to Dylan, with a little Schubert thrown in for good measure, The Knights journey begins.

Composer Huang Ruo talks about dimensionalism. You don't have to understand what the term means to get totally caught up in new dimensions in his opera Paradise Interrupted which opens the Lincoln Center Festival. Ruo's music, and Jennifer Ma's libretto based on the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden are enmeshed in The Peony Pavilion, a truncated version of the 16th century Chinese Opera. The original lasted 22 hours and has been performed by Qian Yi, a force of nature who weaves the song of the central character in the new opera.

Between Riverside and Crazy is a rowdy, raunchy play with lots of action. (Sensitive ears alert: When I said raunchy, that’s what I meant.) Yasen Peyankov directs it with style and glee.

Seth MacFarlane is known for his several tv projects, including the 14th year of the syndicated program, Funny Guy, as well as his skill in writing the movie, 'Ted.' What we didn't know was that he is a professionally trained singer, who could have had a second career if the first didn't work out.

Wastwater by Simon Stephens is a loosely connected trilogy of stories, skillfully directed by Robin Witt. They’re set near London’s Heathrow Airport, where the village of Sipson is threatened with obliteration for the sake of a new airport runway. The playwright is best known for his Tony-winning adaptation, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.