Pablo Picasso was the most famous and influential artist of the 20th Century. The marking of fifty years from his death has created numerous global exhibitions. Critics have waded in with evaluations that acknowledge the work but deplore the man. Simply put it begs the question. Was Pablo Picasso and asshole?

In 1944, African-American military units were always commanded by white officers, with black non-coms, and enlisted men, reflecting the plantation structure that preceded it by a century and more.  This organization represents the natural order to Captain Charles Taylor, a West Point grad, who happily manages and cajoles a platoon comprised of talented black baseball players who will get to play the Yankees if they continue to win all of their games.  To this day, a common condition persists, that racists like Taylor often carve out exceptions to allow minority peoples to reflect glory on their white overlords.

Gallery NAGA’s 46th season concludes with an exhibition by two mid-career painters working in exuberant colors and venturesome compositions. Rick Fox: From Feral Footing and Masako Kamiya: Kaleidoscope are both on exhibition from June 9 through July 14. 

Master of Puppets suffers from problems that afflict many new works. It doesn’t know what it wants to be or what it wants to say.  Is it a comedy? Satire? A thriller? It tries to be all of these, which results in uneven shifts in tone.

This summer, the Harvard Art Museums present over 100 years of dazzling and imaginative artistry through the medium of watercolor. American Watercolors, 1880–1990: Into the Light showcases more than 100 watercolors by over 50 well-known and historically underrepresented artists selected from the museums’ deep and diverse holdings—a rare opportunity because of the light-sensitive nature of these works.

About 2,500 years ago, the Acropolis of Athens was filled with statues of young women, called korai. Raised on high bases, these dedicated offerings created a forest of shimmering marble women honoring the goddess Athena. One of the finest examples of these objects, known as Kore 670, which rarely leaves the Acropolis Museum, has traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), where it is on view through January 8, 2024.

Curtis Stewart is a man for all seasons.  He took over Merkin Hall at the Kaufman Center this week. When you hear him, you know that Nietzsche was right: without music, life would be a mistake.

Jack Torrance, an unstable recovering alcoholic and unsuccessful writer, hires on as caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies during its off-season. He hopes that the seclusion will not only give him undistracted time for writing but also allow him to rebuild his relationships with his wife, Wendy, and son, Danny. What the parents don’t realize is that Danny possesses “the shining,” which is the psychic ability of clairvoyance. This attribute will allow the boy to see the hotel’s sordid past and set the stage for the horrors to come.

A longtime Pillow favorite, Mark Morris Dance Group will bring audiences The Look of Love, an homage to the music of the late Burt Bacharach, which had its world premiere in 2022 and which Fjord Review called “a breath of fresh, brilliant, joyous—and much needed—air.” A towering figure of popular music, Bacharach is known for his soaring melodies and unique orchestrations influenced by jazz, rock, and Brazilian music.

The new Flying Dutchman at the Metropolitan Opera transports.  Grounded shortly after its debut as the pandemic erupted in March of 2020, the cast has changed. Like many of the Met's new productions, singing is excellent across the board and gives great pleasure.

The show is based on the novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which was turned into a fine film in 1993 and a more recent film in 2020. The young adult book, as it would now be described, was written in 1911.

By popular demand Barrington Stage Company brings back a world premiere by Mark St Germain on the stage that bears his name. The Happiest Man on Earth is a one-man show based on the holocaust memoir The Happiest Man on Earth published by Eddie Jaku when he was one hundred years old. It is profoundly performed by Kenneth Tigar.

An example of Department of Play’s approach was recently on display at Northeastern University’s Gallery 360’s exhibition At Play. The collective views its mission as fostering group discovery and involvement in the thoughtful (playful?) envisioning of an evolving urban environment.

Lately I've been writing little metaphysical screenplays for dolls, dogs and humans. My friend Roy Rallo - with whom I work in opera - has been shooting them with my help.

Whenever it's on the menu I generally order osso bucco. I have enjoyed it from Palm Beach to Bologna. Even made it from time to time at home. The version at Frankie's in Lenox was among the best ever

Many of Mark St Germain's plays have premiered at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. One of his most successful was Freud's Last Session with some 200 global productions. Recently he discussed how the play is being filmed in Ireland starring Sir Anthony Hopkins. He also spoke about his new play The Happiest Man on Earth which is having its world premiere at BSC.

Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the failure of the Amrerican Dream. A top-notch production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play runs through June 11 at South Florida's Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach. .

Each year at the Ojai Festival in California a different Music Director is given the freedom and the resources to imagine four days of musical brainstorming. Ojai’s signature blend of an enchanted setting and an audience voracious in its appetite for challenge and discovery has inspired a distinguished series of musical innovators—from Pierre Boulez, Aaron Copland, and Igor Stravinsky and Jeremy Denk, Dawn Upshaw and Barbara Hannigan.  John Adams has directed twice. 

Blessed with soaring romance-style music and a dramatic source from Heinrich Heine’s take on Celtic mythology (influenced in turn by stories of the Wandering Jew), Wagner produced his first operatic masterpiece.  However, he shifted the venue to a Nordic locale more compatible with his desired social iconography.  The composer was particularly empathetic toward the title character as he identified with the isolation and persecution suffered, creating a highly engaging opera centered on this desolate soul.

The new comedy "Tracy Jones" is running at the Ft. Lauderdale-area's Island City Stage as the last leg of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. "Tracy Jones," by Stephen Kaplan, is about a lonely woman who throws a party for every other woman in her state also named Tracy Jones. The play highlights loneliness and the human need for connection. .

Rather than a simple blood-sucking horror, the play focuses largely on the relationship between Oskar, a bullied teenage boy from a broken home with a drunken mother and a largely neglectful father, and Eli, a new neighbor - who possesses an androgynous look; acts mostly like a girl; but insists that she’s not a girl, with no further explanation.

This exhibition in North Adams ends on May 29 and so we also introduce the Old Stone Mill Center in Adams, MA, on Rt. 8, outside of downtown, direction to S. Adams. Both are worth a visit!

This classic musical was originally written specifically for Ethel Merman, a huge Broadway star, by Jule Styne (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) and Arthur Laurents (book). It was loosely based on the autobiography of Gypsy Rose Lee, the stripper/actress/writer.

 Hosted by MacArthur Genius-Award-winning playwright, director, and performance artist Taylor Mac, BSC’s Gala will transport attendees to the pre-war Berlin Kit Kat Club for an evening of pleasure featuring a cabaret lineup that will include burlesque artist Gypsy Layne Cabaret & Co.

The once fabled Williamstown Theatre Festival, under interim artistic director Jenny Gersten, has cut back this season.