Most years, we in New England experience massive storms called Nor’easter’s. In the winter months these epic events usually stop everything for a few days while we dig our way out of snow drifts and wait for electricity to resume. As artists, we relish any reason to stop in our tracks, slow time, and experience stillness.

Tan Dun became famous for his Academy Award-winning track for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger.  A crossover classical composer who grew up in the country in China, and had not heard Beethoven until he was eighteen, he has made a career, merging East and West, using the conventions and tonalities of each culture.  This merger is most effective in his operas, symphonies and concertos.

Diana (Laura Linney) and Alice (Jessica Hecht) are mothers of 5-year-old daughters; it is summer in Columbus, Ohio and both are connected to The Ohio State University.

As a painter Jeff Weaver is a man for all seasons. Some of the most engaging works are winter scenes. It’s the Gloucester that tourists never see. He creates meticulous paintings of weathered, storm battered, Gloucester commercial and residential landmarks. The works document vintage images of a working port and fishing community undergoing a change to an economy based on tourism and a glut of generic condos.

In a thoughtful introduction, Gadsden makes her case for Modernism, and then hones in on five wonderfully talented but quite different trailblazing industrial designers: Paul T. Frankl (1886-1958), Donald Deskey (1894-1989), Viktor Schreckengost (1906-2008), Harley J. Earl (1893-1969), and Belle Kogan (1902-2000).

A New Brain features music and lyrics by BSC Associate Artist William Finn (BSC: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Royal Family of Broadway), book by Finn and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner James Lapine (Broadway: Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George), and direction by BSC Associate Artist Joe Calarco (BSC: Waiting for Godot, Into the Woods, Ragtime), with music direction by Vadim Feichtner (BSC: The Royal Family of Broadway; Broadway: Falsettos, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) and choreography by Chloe O. Davis (Paradise Square).

The Season opens May 26 with Ken Ludwig's Dear Jack, Dear Louise, with David Gow and Zoya Martin, outdoors in The Roman Garden Theatre.

The headline concerts include two striking vocalists: Roberta Donnay with the Prohibition Mob Band, and the first pairing of vocalist Alexis Cole with the Amherst Jazz Orchestra. Free “jazz-al-fresco” takes place on Saturday, June 10, and there will be two jazz brunches.

Yes, there are some funny moments and some touching ones, but overall, it is hard to become engaged with the characters. Except for Janice, they appear only in short scenes that allow for little depth of character.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) visited Cape Ann initially at the invitation of his friend and fellow painter, Leon Kroll (1884-1974), and produced his first oil painting outdoors in the United States during that trip. The Whitney Museum is lending Hopper’s five oils painted in Gloucester in 1912, including Briar (sic) Neck, Gloucester (1912); Tall Masts (1912); Italian Quarter (1912); and Gloucester Harbor (1912). The exhibition will mark the first time these works have ever been shown together on Cape Ann.

Chad Smith is a visionary credited with advancing the orchestral music tradition through cutting-edge programming and cultivating industry-defining partnerships. Smith brings strategic expertise, commitment to musical excellence, and a tested ability to expand audiences and generate revenue.

Fat Ham turns Shakespeare’s Hamlet upside down without minimizing the issues the original raises or the brilliance. The play by James IJames won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and it is easy to see why.

Elizabeth Yilmaz and Mara Driscoll, two dancers from the Metropolitan Opera troupe, have created a performance series that’s as wonderful as it is unique.  The final performance of the spring season, and the 9th produced by this team with associate Cesar Abreu, was in the spirit of a happening.

Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s death, Young Picasso in Paris highlights a significant work, Le Moulin de la Galette (ca. November 1900), from the Guggenheim collection. The famous dance hall—formerly a mill engaged in the production of a brown bread, or galette—had also been depicted by such avant-gardists as Ramón Casas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh.

Live from the Edge by Universes has moments that will reach you emotionally. But the question remains, “What is it?” – Theater? A performance piece? A poetry slam?  They describe themselves as a theater company, but I would describe it as being closer to a performance piece/poetry slam than theater.

Rembrandt, the play at TheaterWorks Hartford through Sunday, May 14, is part meditation on art and part a very human exploration of love, dying and grieving

Flynn has made hundreds, perhaps thousands of drawings over the last 50 years. Choosing just 50 (really 61) drawings is nearly an impossible task. William Flynn is an artist that spends days drawing. He finds ways to express the beauty in mundane objects; an old baseball mitt, ski boots, a bicycle that was run over and flattened, cars at junkyards, an old arm chair, pop-up books, whirly-gigs.

Opera Philadelphia is ahead of the curve in keeping the operatic form alive and relevant. New operas and altered operas inevitably raise the question: What is opera?  Music drives a story or an idea. That is at opera’s heart.  La Boheme in Philadelphia meets the standard and then some.

The 2023 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) New Play Award goes to "the ripple, the wave that carried me home." The 2023 M. Elizabeth Osborn Award goes to Madison Fiedler for her play, "Spay." ATCA also presents citations to Suzan-Lori Parks for her play, "Sally & Tom," and Rebecca Gilman for her piece, "Swing State."

The Metropolitan Opera’s heavily promoted Champion is concluding its run in New York. The first opera by Terrence Blanchard, which succeeds his Fire in My Bones at the Met, has a weaker score than its successor.  One feels that Blanchard as composer of film scores (he is well-known as a colleague of Spike Lee), may have succumbed to the notion that music should lie under the visual track.  

When booking our trip, we didn't know of Feria, a one-week celebration of community and Seville's history with livestock markets and flamenco that began in 1846. But when our new friend Carlos invited us to join him in going to the fair, we jumped on it. Feria takes place one week in April each year on 25 urban blocks that lie mostly barren except for preparation and celebration of Feria. Imagine the value of the property designated for this one event!

Versatile theater artist Ronnie Larsen's new musical, "One More Yesterday," is running through May 14 in a fine professional world premiere production. "One More Yesterday" is an upbeat show about an aging live theater performer yearning for the spotlight one more time. "One More Yesterday" is a layered show covering many themes.

Aside from their earth tones, this footwear has nothing to do with Frank Lloyd Wright. As a branding strategy, it is an extremely strange choice for a contemporary sports shoe design.

Lynn Nottage's drama, "Sweat" serves as a cautionary play about what can happen when unrestrained, explosive emotions flow during especially tense, sensitive times. Main Street Players in Miami Lakes, a professional, nonprofit company, is presenting a stellar production through May 14. "Sweat" takes place during the turbulent 2000s in a blue-collar community in Pennsylvania.

Four women writers of the Harlem Renaissance meet in "Telling Tales Out of School" by Wesley Brown, directed by Woodie King, Jr.