Shakespeare & Company announces the first four titles of the 2024 season, including a World Premiere and a musical exploration of Shakespeare’s language and music.  In addition to titles yet to be announced, Shakespeare & Company's 47th Season includes: 

As the New York Times reported on December 17, “When (Romy) Golan arrived at Koons’s 10th Avenue studio in New York last winter for her interview, she said she was asked to sign a filming release giving the artist the right to “view and approve any footage, still images and/or promotional material that are proposed for use.” Golan had no plans to film her interview or take photographs but signed the release." Koons effectively killed the story in Brooklyn Rail.

Palm Beach Dramaworks (PBD) in South Florida is the first stop for "The Messenger" in the National New Play Netwwork Rolling World Premiere Program. A cast of four excels in PBD's production, which runs through Dec. 24. Ultimately, "The Messenger" is about the need to speak out or take action in the face of hatred and violence.

Paintings by Mark Rothko, with evaluations reaching $80 million, are out of range for museums to borrow and insure. Currently there are two, once-in-a lifetime exhibitions of his work. Through April 2, 2024, more than a hundred paintings are on display at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris.  Through March the National Galley has Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper with a hundred works drawn from all phases of his career.

On the cusp of WWII David Smith created a series of fifteen, dinner plate scaled, bronze relief sculptures. A gift from his estate fourteen bronzes and one on extended loan have been donated to the Harvard Art Museums. There is irony that Medals of Dishonor are displayed on a campus engulfed in responses to inappropriate remarks by its President, Dr Claudine Gay, before Congress. Under pressure she has resigned. Because of war, and atrocities on both sides in Israel and Gaza, both Jewish and Islamic students proclaim that they do not feel safe on college campuses.

The Prisoners, a riveting play, entertains and shines a necessary light on unhealthy obsessions. While four performances remain, one of them is sold out. The theater is located in the Ft. Lauderdale suburb of Wilton Manors.

I don’t do a ten-best list; instead, I like to recall some of my favorite shows of the past year.

Elle, a shallow but genuine and smart fashionista obsessed with the color pink, is dumped by her status seeking boyfriend who is off to Harvard Law School. Surprisingly (and true, except the law school was Stanford in real life), Elle insinuates an acceptance as well. Her presence provides humorous contrast to the staid environment.

Pembroke Pines Theatre of the Performing Arts mounted a comical and believable production of Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park." The production ran through Jan. 28. "Barefoot in the Park" takes place in New York City during the 1960s.

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.

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 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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

This classic musical was originally written specifically for Ethel Merman, a huge Broadway star, by Jule Styne (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) and Arthur Laurents (book). It was loosely based on the autobiography of Gypsy Rose Lee, the stripper/actress/writer.

Rather than a simple blood-sucking horror, the play focuses largely on the relationship between Oskar, a bullied teenage boy from a broken home with a drunken mother and a largely neglectful father, and Eli, a new neighbor - who possesses an androgynous look; acts mostly like a girl; but insists that she’s not a girl, with no further explanation.

Blessed with soaring romance-style music and a dramatic source from Heinrich Heine’s take on Celtic mythology (influenced in turn by stories of the Wandering Jew), Wagner produced his first operatic masterpiece.  However, he shifted the venue to a Nordic locale more compatible with his desired social iconography.  The composer was particularly empathetic toward the title character as he identified with the isolation and persecution suffered, creating a highly engaging opera centered on this desolate soul.

By popular demand Barrington Stage Company brings back a world premiere by Mark St Germain on the stage that bears his name. The Happiest Man on Earth is a one-man show based on the holocaust memoir The Happiest Man on Earth published by Eddie Jaku when he was one hundred years old. It is profoundly performed by Kenneth Tigar.

Many of Mark St Germain's plays have premiered at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. One of his most successful was Freud's Last Session with some 200 global productions. Recently he discussed how the play is being filmed in Ireland starring Sir Anthony Hopkins. He also spoke about his new play The Happiest Man on Earth which is having its world premiere at BSC.

Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the failure of the Amrerican Dream. A top-notch production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play runs through June 11 at South Florida's Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach. .

Whenever it's on the menu I generally order osso bucco. I have enjoyed it from Palm Beach to Bologna. Even made it from time to time at home. The version at Frankie's in Lenox was among the best ever

The new Flying Dutchman at the Metropolitan Opera transports.  Grounded shortly after its debut as the pandemic erupted in March of 2020, the cast has changed. Like many of the Met's new productions, singing is excellent across the board and gives great pleasure.

In recent months, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics has been deemed by journalists and other critics as demonic forces that will endanger the future of humanity.