Alice Austen is well-known to residents of Staten Island, where her family home, Clear Comfort was perched on a hill over looking the New York harbor. Like Vivien Maier her story attracts the attention now that it did not in her own lifetime.

In a traditional production of “Midsummer,” the setting of law and order is the palace of Duke Theseus. In this production, that setting becomes Hermia’s house and the nearby school.

Eighteen years ago Cellist Yo Yo Ma and a core of global musicians formed Silk Road Ensemble. Yet again their appearance was a musical treat and highlight of the Tanglewood season.

Tony and Pulitzer winning Wendy Wasserstein, who died ten years ago at 55, was among the most successful and admired playwrights of her generation. One of her lesser Broadway plays, An American Daughter, is being revived at Williamstown Theatre Festival. It features a strong woman and candidate for high office who, because of a gaffe on camera, is being crucified by the media. Does this sound familiar?

At Lincoln Center Paavo Järvi conducted the Mostly Mozart Orchestra softly yet he carried a big baton, from La Sidone which Arvo Part composed for the opening of the Olympics in Turin Italy. We are reminded that this year’s Olympics opened on the very day of this concert.

The play, “Stalking the Bogeyman,” by David Holthouse illustrates to what extent silence can aggravate, anger and agonize. The piece is a gripping, thought-provoking, bold theatrical work running through Aug. 28 in a riveting Southeastern premiere production by GableStage in Coral Gables, Florida.

In a couple of weeks Ultra Cosmic Gonzology will be hot off the presses. Already word is spreading on Facebook. There was a recent sighting at a taco joint in Vermont. The offical book launch will be staged with a reading at the Gloucester Writers Center, on Wednesday, August 31 at 7:30 PM. The address is 126 East Main Street, Gloucester.

In the late 1980s, the Canadian Pacific Coast city of Richmond, British Columbia, known to most as the location of Vancouver International Airport, welcomed a wave of new residents, mostly from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China. By 2013, Richmond had an immigrant population of 60%, with 50% of residents identifying as Chinese.

At the end of the hour long piece Ce que le jour doit à la nuit (What the Day Owes the Night) choreographed by Herve Koubi the cycle of a single day finds closure in gradual darkening signifying night.

Last year the one-man-show Cry "Havoc" by Stephan Wolfert was given a couple of performances at Shakespeare & Company. It has returned with a longer but limited engagement. A number of individuals during a post performance talk back indicated that they returned to see it again. This is an astonishing and visceral experience that one simply must see at least once. It is arguaby the most compelling show of the Berkshire season. It has been hinted that it may become an annual event for the company.

Dusting off a proud fact of VIrginia's history, playwright Richard Strand provides a hugely entertaining evening of theatre on the dour subjects of the Civil War and slavery.

Tanglewood On Parade is the yearly event that brings families and friends together for the day. Traveling musicians, clowns and musical activities lead up to the finale, the '1812 Overture', fireworks and canons being fired.

Grey Gardens” is once again being staged by the award-winning director Michal Wilson who helmed the production back in 2007. His cast in this 2016 production stars a sensational Rachel York as ‘little’ Edie Beale/Edith, and a terrific Betty Buckley as Edith Bouvier Beale.

In Norman Rockwell's 1961 Saturday Evening Post illustration "The Connoisseur" a dignified gentleman gazes on a simulacrum of a Jackson Pollock painting. It provided the impetus for a mishegos attempt to locate the representational populist illustrator as responding to the avant-garde art of that formative era.

MASS MoCA heads into the fall with the 6th annual FreshGrass Festival on September 16-18, a rollicking weekend largely devoted to artists in roots and acoustic bluegrass music — and powers through until December when Dinosaur Jr. takes the stage in a night of power-grunge. In between, swoon for Benjamin Clementine in the Hunter and Eisa Davis up in the Club — and witness what might be one of the most powerful, poignant, and political works we have ever exhibited.

Mass MoCA is home to the renowned Fresh Grass music festival. Over 50 bands will play on the grounds of the museum, during this three day event. It takes place from September 16th to 18th. Rosanne Cash and Ricky Scaggs are a few of the headliners.

For fabulous summer fun Let the Good Times Roll at Charleston's Music Hall.

"Foreign Affairs," the international performing arts festival at the Berliner Festspiele is history, literally. This year's festival was the last one of its five-year run. The last three years were under the artistic leadership of Matthias von Hartz and brought ever-expanding public involvement and an increasingly frenetic search for innovative alternatives to theater practices at large. Here is an overview and musings about the final festival as named.

Now in his 75th year pianist Chick Corea with a trio of jazz masters- bass player, Christian McBride and drummer Brian Blade- visited Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood. It was amoing the best of the many times we have heard him perform.

Fidelio is a political opera, but not politics rooted in biography, which John Adams and Philip Glass have undertaken. Here is an ordinary political prisoner, starving to death for his principles. Edward Snowden might be the model for the role today if the big guys could catch him.

Led by museum director, Joe Thompson, we joined a 'hard hat tour" of the final phase of MASS MoCA renovation and construction. The $65 million project will be completed with a Memorial Day, 2017 weekend of opening celebrations.

In the 19th century, no one musically-inclined would have imagined percussion as the central arbiter of musical taste two centuries later. Yet today no one could live without percussion and the So Percussion Quartet makes the case for striking objects of every imaginable variety, including flower pots and tea cups.

In A Room of One's Own, a speech delivered to college women, by Virginia Woolf, I first learned of Aphra Behn (1640-1689). During the bawdy period of Restoration comedy she was the first British woman to earn a living writing plays. In addition to a play about her Or, and a play by her, The Emperor of the Moon, through the efforts of Shakespeare & Company we now know a lot more about this pioneer of women in theatre.

An ambitious unpublished author is guided to meet his writing idol through an editor. What unravels reveals how fame can isolate, and how ambition can move one to do unexpected things. Judd Hirsch is a marvel, Kristin Griiffith shines and Rupak Ginn turns in a nuanced performance.

After 30 years with Balanchine's New York City Ballet, and a repertoire of some 50 works, Wendy Whelan has extended her career as a solo artist in collaboration with several choreograher partners. She premiered this direction at Jacob's Pillow in 2013. She has now returned with Some of a Thousand Words partnering with Brian Brooks.