Fully clothed in an elegant summer suit, MASS MoCA director, Joe Thompson, during the opening of “A Cold Hole" by the artist Taryn Simon, jumped into her icy installation. That was truly shocking but what happened next is even more of a hoot.

Former MIT/CAVS Fellow, Ellen Kozak, and composer Scott D. Miller are presenting a 4-Channel Video Installation at the Hudson River Museum until September 9. The summer exhibition also includes monumental abstract drawings by Christine Hiebert as well as museum owned etchings that are titled: Donald Judd: Variations on a Theme.

Arts leaders and the media met at Shakespeare & Company to hear good news about state and federal funding. With manufacturing long gone from the region cultural tourism is the major industry. The arts season attracts more than 400,000 visitors and generates 4,000 plus jobs. Congressman Richard Neal announced $348,000 in NEA funding for the Berkshires. The federal funding cycle provides $900,700 to the Massachusetts Cultural Council and $1,092,400 to the New England Foundation for the Arts to benefit cultural groups across the state. He reported that the NEA this year got an increase of $3 million for a total of $152,849,000.

Love Never Dies, the sequel written by Andrew Lloyd Webber (music), Glenn Slater (lyrics) and Ben Elton (book) is based on the novel The Phantom in Manhattan. Of these, only Webber was involved in the original Phantom. It runs at the Bushnell, in Hartford, Conn. through Sunday, June 3

Exquisita Agonía at Repertorio Espanol is a tour de force take on modern science mixed with the age old questions about who we are and what we leave behind when we die. Director Jose Zayas has provided a perfect rhythm to the two-act piece by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Nilo Cruz.

The Album focuses on little-known collection of photographs of Nazis partying near Aushwitz.A play by Moisés Kaufman, of Tectonic Theater Project fame, is in development. South Florida audiences are seeing snippets of this new play, running for four performances.

For the first time mother and daughter collaborated to create a large, abstract, ceramic vessel emblazoned with evocative faces. With other works by both artists it resulted in a special exhibition Schön and Schön: From Generation to Generation. It remains on view, through June 28, at the North Hill community complex in Needham, Mass. Nancy Schön, now 89, is renowned for her "Make Way for the Ducklings" bronze sculptures in the Boston Public Gardens. Ellen Schön is the Ceramics Studio Supervisor and an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University College of Art and Design.

The Finger Lakes are New York states largest wine growing region, with over 150 vineyards crisscrossing the eleven Finger Lakes. One vineyard is home to New Vines B&B and is located within two miles of seven other vineyards. With a resident winemaker on premises and the use of local and homegrown crops for breakfast, it was easy to digest what the Finger Lakes region was about.

Hugh Ferris was a visionary ‘Paper Architect’ who influenced popular culture as well as a generation of architects through his heroic skyscraper renderings and delineation of construction projects. His influence can still be seen in popular culture..

Playwright David Henry Hwang’s newest musical play “Soft Power”, now enjoying its world premiere on the stage of The Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, is an excellent example of readdressing the domination of White culture of the West to the rising prominence and influence of Asian societies along the ‘silk roads’ of the East. Hwang is a prolific American-born playwright of Chinese ethnicity.

Druid Theatre of Galway, Ireland, has brought its radiant production of Samuel Beckett’s Godot to Chicago Shakespeare Theater for an abbreviated run. Directed by Garry Hynes, Druid’s artistic director, the play stars four renowned Irish actors. The stars are Didi and Gogo (Vladimir played by Marty Rea with Aaron Monaghan as Estragon), the two souls waiting at a country crossroads for someone named Godot.

Minimalism proves magical in Area Stage Company's production of Shrek The Musical. It's easy to buy into the world onstage despite visible and simple theatrical magic. Director's approach frames the show as a troupe of players at a modern Renaissance faire.

A production of the raunchy Avenue Q at West Palm Beach-based MNM Theatre Company proves a winner. Puppet work and acting shine in show that parodies Sesame Street, children's programming. The seemingly lighthearted Avenue Q is intended for mature audiences.

Wih medieval ignorance and devastating consequeneces science deniers dominate key cabinet positions in the reactionary Trump administration. Fundamentalism and misinformationm result in parents refusing to vaccinate children. These issues and concerns create uncanny relevance for the revival of Mark St. Germain's 1991 play Typhoid Mary. It launches the season for Barrington Stage Company on the stage that bears his name.

A special evening at the New York Philharmonic, in which Semyon Bychkov conducted widely diverse swathes of sound from compoers Luciano Berio and Richard Strauss.

The presentation of Light Shining in Buckinghamshire by Caryl Churchill at the New York Theater Workshop takes the bold step of exploring the true roots of American democratic values as they emerged in the tumultuous years bracketing the English Civil War 1642-1651.

The MIT Museum's current exhibitions include: 'Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies,' until January 31st, 2019 and 'Gyorgy Kepes Photographs II, MIT Years 1946-1985,' until July 15, 2018. This article also highlights the Museum's party in late April, where more than 150 people celebrated with the CAVS community. As always, photographs of artwork and people make words visible and more memorable.

While he lacked stature, Stephen Mindich, who died this week at 74, cast a giant shadow. As a hip capitalist at the height of his power he was an ersatz Citizen Kane of Boston's counter culture industry of print and broadcasting media. In 2013, his Phoenix empire exhinguished never again to take flight from the embers of fame and fortune.

Stage Door Theater near Ft. Lauderdale mounts an elaborate production of Victor/Victoria. Lavish costumes and scenery combine with style and slapstic in an enthralling musical theater experience. Triple threats are at the top of their craft in this can't-miss production.

The story told in John Strand’s play The Originalist is set in the 2012-13 term in which Scalia (Edward Gero) hires as one of his clerks a high-achieving, outspoken Harvard Law School graduate who happens to have political views directly opposed to his. Jade Wheeler plays Catherine (Cat) as ready to spar with her boss and mentor on judicial issues that came before the court as well as other political issues

In a controversial, but Tony nominated revival of Carousel, the verbal and physical abuse of Julie Jordan (Jessie Mueller) by leading man Billy Bigelow (Josh Henry) has been toned down but not eliminated. With the heightened awareness of the Me Too movement one has the right to question why we are seeing this on Broadway? While dated and deeply flawed, arguably, it is one of the great Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals.

On Sunday, June 2, the Berkshire Museum is hosting a festive opening for its summer-long juried exhibition Art of the Hills. Of 230 who applied works by 36 regional artists will be on view. I will not cross picket lines to attend the "celebration." There are no plans for Berkshire Fine Arts to view or review the exhibition.

Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, the Lithuanian conducting sensation who in 2016 at 29 years of age became the first woman to stand at the helm of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. This week she led the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Semyon Bychkov understands that no matter what the back story of a composition, it stands on its own in performance. The conductor deeply understands the music he performs. He conveys this to his orchestra. At the conclusion of a recent concert at David Geffen Hall, instrumentalists congratulated each other and the conductor, amazed and delighted that together they had reached incredible performance heights.

Equus proves particularly timely after school shootings. Palm Beach Dramaworks mounts powerful production. Intense staging of Peter Shaffer play features strong acting, excellent design work.