La Jolla Playhouse has the best track record of any West Coast theatre when it comes to sending their original theatrical productions to Broadway (over 30 of them to date). Their 2008 musical production “Memphis”, written by Joe Di Pietro and directed by Christopher Ashley went on to Broadway winning a 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical. “Hollywood”, again written by Di Pietro, and helmed by Ashley, is looking to pull off a Tony Award-winning ‘Daily Double’ coup.

Jordi Domenech lives in the Priorat region of Spain, close to Barcelona. He is a winemaker, a vermouth salesman, a restaurant owner and a father. He is a very busy man. This is his present day story.

Anthony Weiner may have revealed all on Twitter, but the film about his attempted political comeback as he ran for Mayor of New York in 2013 does not. It is an entertaining film. Weiner is more self-aware than many politicians, but the fact that he thinks he can behave in a style that forced his resignation from Congress apparently did not stop him from continuing that behavior. Politicians are like teenagers. You can warn them, but even after Gary Hart, they think: I am not vulnerable.

Alan Gilbert, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic has an uncanny knack for programming. Extending the ideas of where music does and does not belong in the classic/classical repertoire and how it should be produced. He has brought us semi-staged operas, adventuresome new music and live performance of film scores that were written to be heard live while the film is screened. City Lights, quintessential Chaplin, was accompanied by Chaplin's own score, played by the Philharmonic. The score had been restored and reconstructed by the conductor, Timothy Brock.

Michael Bernardi lost his father, Herschel, when he was not yet two. Still, for much of his life, he has sensed his father’s presence. His father played Tevye on Broadway over three years and 702 performances, beginning in 1965. The younger Bernardi is currently playing Mordcha in the Tony nominated Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof.

Anyone who’s required an organ transplant knows the horrible ordeals of blood tests and waiting lists. But what happens after a successful transplant is complete? Does life revert to normal for the recipient, the donor and their families?

Although just fourteen August de Forest is being given a one woman show at the Butler Institute of American Art’s Mesaros Gallery in Youngstown, Ohio. She is from a family famous for its artists and museum professionals.

Scott Carter is executive producer for HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” and previously produced the first 1100 episodes of Maher’s “Politically Incorrect.” He has written two full-length monologues. Discord premiered in 2014 in Los Angeles at the Geffen Playhouse and the NoHo Arts Center.

Before Pennsylvania’s fortress-like Eastern State Penitentiary was built on the then-outskirts of Philadelphia in the early 1820s, jails had traditionally been dirty, overcrowded rooms where prisoners were subjected to brutal treatment by the guards.

The Tony winning comedy Lend Me a Tenor by Ken Ludwig is being given a lively revival by The Footlight Players in Charleston. The first act takes a lot of exposition with long monologues. Having established the characters and plot lines the second act proved to be a fun packed roller coaster trip.

Honky Art was an attempt to created a movement of art in the late 1960s and 1970s. Little of the work has survived and what remains has been posted here. Decades later Honky Art has an uncanny and timely relevance.

There have been several incarnations of restaurants at 26 Marshall Street opposite the North Adams campus of MASS MoCA. On a Saturday night four foodies visited the recently launched Grazie Italian Ristorante. There were mistakes but overall we plan to return to an affordable Northern Berkshire dining option.

The Clinton Center has shown its ability to attract important development in the area near the center. The Heifer International purchased land adjacent to the Clinton Center for its $13.9 million headquarters. Heifer International is the 2004 recipient of Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian million-dollar prize. The mission of Heifer International is to work with communities worldwide to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth.

During the late 1960s there was such a proliferation of experimental art forms that they were gathered under umbrella terms like Pluralism and Post Modernism. It was a time of radical social and political change. In 1968, while working as a journalist in the underground press I devoted a sketch book to developing the concept of Honky Art. Some related works were used as illustrations for the alternative weekly Avatar. The idea was to conflate the consumerism and humor of Pop art with a more sarcastic social and political edge.

With over 150 guests in attendance, Berkshire Country Day raised over $60,000 to assist in their financial aid program for students.

The play, first produced in 1964 with a three-month Broadway run, is a time-warp visit to 1960s Greenwich Village. Lorraine Hansberry was concerned with the political issues and activism of the day, issues that still resonate: Political corruption, racism, homophobia, poverty and privilege.

If the audience at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts’ Au-Rene Theater was any indication, people pull for King not just because of her music. They want to see her succeed in this bio-musical. She comes across as an ambitious, yet humble, talented, yet insecure underdog.

Part of the appeal of Will Eno’s play is the variety of emotions it elicits and how sympathetically he’s written “The Realistic Joneses". Eno also doesn’t offer any easy answers. But in the end, you’ll leave the theater feeling you’re not alone in harboring questions about your existence and fears about the fragility of life and the uncertainty surrounding it. Thinking Cap Theatre is “committed to presenting high-quality, thought-provoking theatre to South Florida theatre audiences.”

Languedoc is a large wine producing region in southern France. Each year, in the village of Montpeyroux, a wine festival takes place. Jugglers, musicians and locals flood the street for this daylong celebration.

The House of Blue Leaves has sweet, poignant and tragic moments, but it’s mostly two-and-a-quarter hours of retro nonsense, reminding us or showing us what the world was like 50 years ago.

Little Women is Mark Adamo's first opera, and its spirited presentation of the Marsh family of Concord captures perfectly the struggle of a young woman to move from the warmth and support of her family home into the world of a woman. Simone de Beauvoir loved this book, as has the feminist community. Little Women seemed a perfect choice for Mannes, and composer Adamo, taking bows and hugging the cast, seemed to agree.

The Actors' Theatre of South Carolina presented The Dayporch at Threshold Repertory Theatre in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. This delightful Southern-style dark comedy could only have been written by a Southern belle who lived among Southerners.

Donizetti wrote this opera on an unusually tight schedule. Whether its differences from his other work are deliberate or accidental we will never know. The catchy arias we associate with the composer are missing, but the music is still delightful. Eve Queler introduced the opera in 1974 and reprised it at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater. A remarkable evening.

Guatemala is a wonderland of spectacular natural beauty and local color. Spread on a broad plain surrounded by hills, the capital Guatemala City is a bustling metropolis adorned by both colonial decor and modernity. Lake Atitlan ringed with towering volcanoes and quaint villages is the heart of the Mayan world with unique customs, folklore, and traditions of many color.

If you missed Octoberfest, you will have a second chance this Saturday, May 7th. Berkshire Country Day School will hold its annual Mocktoberfest fundraiser at 6:45pm. Auction items include photographer, Gregory Crewdson's artist proof and a trip to attend Octoberfest in Munich.