Mothers and Sons by Terrence McNally, at Shakespeare & Company, is on the short list of finest productions of the Berkshire summer season. The well crafted play has been tightly directed by James Warwick. A superb cast is inspired by the pivotal, commanding performance by a living legend, Annette Miller. It's a hold onto your seat dense and devastating one act play.

The Santa Fe Opera House is the perfect venue to stage John Adams’s compelling contemporary opera Doctor Atomic, about the creation of the atomic bomb. With a riveting and intellectual, but sometimes obtuse, libretto by Peter Sellars that is largely taken from historic documents, a story whose outcome we know is still tense and absorbing

The packed audience at Tanglewood on a most beautiful day waited anxiously to hear the world premiere of a new composition from John Williams, in honor of Leonard Bernstein's ongoing 100th Year Celebration. The anticipated piece, 'Highwood's Ghost' featured Yo Yo Ma.

The opera is a play within a play. The “richest man in Vienna” has commissioned an evening’s spectacle at his manor for guests – a serious opera followed by a commedia dell’arte. It has been staged by Santa Fe Opera.

The summer long centenary celebration continued last night at Tanglewood with an All Bernstein Program conducted by Andris Nelsons. It featured Fancy Free a 1944 collaboration with choreographe Jerome Robbins for Fancy Free. That theme was expanded into their musical On the Town. The dance was performed in collaboration with Boston Ballet.

In this era which has generated a nigh unprecedented displacement and resettlement of refugees, George Pfirrmann delves into the human conundrum of self definition buried in the frightening headlines of violence and despair.

From its inauspicious Broadway debut in 1956, Candide has led a checkered existence with revisions continuing through 1988. But, despite whatever flaws, it possesses wonderful music, is highly literate and stingingly political. Its real narrative weakness is that there is too much of it. The theme gets driven home too many times with repetitious vignettes that add little. That said, Santa Fe Opera commemorates the Leonard Bernstein centennial with a superior and visually spectacular production of this important work.

It's been 40 years since the renowned and well traveled Houston Ballet has visited Jacob's Pillow. The company if noted for its depth in superbly trained principal dancers. There are many individual stars in its firmament. On a hot and steamy night they presented four works, three by artistic director, Stanton Welch AM, one a world premiere, and another by perennial Pillow favorite Trey McIntyre.

MASS MoCA, in North Adams, Massachusetts, prepares for its annual bluegrass festival, Fresh Grass. This years, three day event takes place from the 14th to 16th of September, on the grounds where art, music, dance and film thrive. .

Women Artists in Paris, 1850-1900, is an ambitious, scholarly but problematic exhibition at the Clark Art Institute. It has been drawing large crowds and ends on 3 September.

Barrington Stage Company produced West Wide Story eleven years ago and now celebrating the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein. In 2013 Barrington sents its production of Bernstein's On the Town to Broadway. With three productions in such a short span it's clear that artistic director, Julianne Boyd, views Bernstein as a bankable winner. Yet again, audiences agree with a sold out run in Pittsfield.

Mostly Mozart presents the Mark Morris Dance Group, accompanied by three excellent chamber and vocal music performances.

Since 2008 North Adams' DownStreet Art celebrations have become a monthly summer-time destination for Berkshire residents and visitors alike. Serious, fun, cultural activities and art mix and match during this day. The celebrations have always happened on the last Thursday of the month.

Here is only a small sampling of new places to eat and stay during a Detroit business trip – or any trip, for that matter. The city has dedicated itself to “coming alive” again, and there’s ample evidence that they’ve made a good start.

Area Stage Company's Cabaret reminds us of turmoil in today's world. Respected South Florida theater company scores a triumph with a vivacious mounting of Kander and Ebb's classic. ASC's interpretation of the 1998 Broadway revival runs through Aug. 26.

“A gesture, be it a leap, turn, run, fall, or walk, is only as beautiful, as powerful, as eloquent as its inner source. . . Purify, magnify, and make noble that source. You stand naked and revealed. Who are you? What are you? Who, what do you want to be? What is your spiritual caliber?” José Limón. This past week Jacob's Pillow celebrated the 70th anniversary of the company he founded.

Anchoring the season of Nikos Stage at Williamstown Theatre Festival is Dangerous House a riveting social justice drama. It took years and multiple drafts for Jen Silverman to polish a harrowing play set during the World Cup in South Africa. It focuses on the systemic rape and murder of lesbians. There was indiffernce to these crimes in the black community on the part of government and the police.

Antonin Scalia is the subject of The Originalist, a powerful play by John Strand and directed by Molly Smith. It is presented by Middle Finger Productions in association with the Arena Stage and running at 59E59 Theaters. Edward Gero brings Scalia to life.

Humor and pathos are gracefully layered in three shorts; The Plot by Claire Zajdel, Ibis by Eric Lane and Sparing Partner by Neil Labute. Crisply written and acted, all three plays convey a poignant sense of the parallel truths that inform our desire to love and be loved. Through religion, films, and the ever possible aspirations of our childhood remembrances, we create parallel truths that the characters ask us to indulge.

Cabaret artist Sydney Weisman provides a wonderful musical journey well worth listening to with songs written by the Royalty of Broadway: The Gershwin Brothers, George and Ira, Cole Porter, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields, Frank Loesser, Kurt Weill, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and a host of other iconic musical giants of Broadway’s music.

The author of some 60 plays, screenplays, and three novels over the years, Simon, at 91-years of age, still takes pen to paper (probably a yellow-lined legal pad). San Diego’s renowned Old Globe Theatre is currently staging one of Simons’ earlier, highly successful and blisteringly funny romantic comedy plays “Barefoot in the Park”; seamlessly and smartly directed by Jessica Stone.

Whitney Center for the Arts presents the Berkshire Premiere of The Fabulous Lipitones by John Markus and Mark St. Germain, a fully staged Musical, directed by Monica Bliss and Musical Director Jeff Hunt with Choreographer Ruslan Sprague, August 10-19th.

Musica Marin, with four years of producing chamber music for audiences of 60-80 guests in residential settings makes a big leap. September 21-23, 2018, they present the inaugural Musica Marin Festival in beautiful Tiburon and Belvedere. We had a chance to talk with Founder and Artistic Director Ruth Ellen Kahn and Culinary Director Mark Furr about the exciting event.

Ft. Lauderdale's New City Players concludes season with a mixed-bag production of Constellations.Actors are convincingly sweet, touching and argumentative in play about the multiverse and quantum mechanics. Skillful lighting and sound effects help make New City Players' production riveting.

It took five years for Carson McCullers to write the novel The Member of the Wedding published in 1946. She adapted it for stage with a January 5, 1950 Broadway opening and 501 performances. It was produced by Young Vic in London in 2007. It has been revised by Williamstown Theatre Festival.