During a week in Boston we attended the First Friday gallery openings in SOWA the Harrison Avenue based gallery district. It proved to be a lively adventure catching up with so many artist and gallerist friends

Directer Joel Grey delivers a rare and rich revival. Fiddler on the Roof has come back, a comment and conversation in Yiddish about a time and place that indeed did shake the world. In the language of the people who lived it, this production is more rooted in their world, earthy, funny, deeply-moving.

Poet Anne Carson has a special touch, embedding a conversational tone in lilting lines. While Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is billed as a melologue in which some words are sung and some spoken. It asks the question opera composers always ask: what words should be spoken, and what words sung? As a struggling writer's secretary, Fleming becomes muse, moving from speech to song. She is glorious. So too is Ben Whishaw, who moves from writer to the embodiment of Marilyn Monroe.

The impact of DeCordova New England Biennial 2019 is its focus on inclusion and diversity. There is a spectrum from traditional forms of painting, sculpture and photography to social justice approaches to a range of hot button agendas. The latter work conforms to Marxist theories of art as agitation and propaganda.

The Oldcastle Theatre season in Bennington, Vermont starts on June 7 with Red by John Logan. The 48th season features four plays through October 20.

As part of a nine-play cycle, In Old Age and the multi-play aggregation from which it comes, beg particular analysis. The broader question is the standing of this Ufot family saga against other cycles. The obvious comparison is August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, which shares the commonality of exploring the African-American experience.

In 2017 San Fransicso celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. By 1968 the torch of the counterculture, with a radical twist, was passed to Boston. Cops and feds cracked heads when hippies and radicals protested in Boston and Cambridge. Just as in 1776, there were shots heard round the world. There has been no such celebration in Boston. In feisty increments there is ever increased interest and attention to a forgotten era. You can see it at The Verb Hotel, in the new film WBCN; The American Revolution, and books like Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968.

The Sheen Center's Black Box Theater is stacked with files containing the case records of 'defective' young people who are institutionalized and awaiting their death. All Our Children takes up a theme developed in Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck's latest film. The doctor in the film and the doctor running a clinic for children in the play, both are charged with duties best left to God. Who is to live, and who must die, is in play because upkeep is expensive and the State needs money for munitions.

Bound, Huang Ruo's chamber opera, is produced at the Rose Nagelberg Theatre in the Baruch Performing Arts Center. Originally commissioned by Houston Grand Opera, this production is the New York premiere. It is a fresh take by Freshly Squeezed Opera. Ashley Tate who specializes in multi-media production, directs.

Hershey Felder now takes on the life and works of Claude Debussy in a world premiere at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. The great turn of the century composer is credited as the originator of the classical music genre of impressionism, though he didn’t care for the term

Jean Bergantini Grillo was hired as a senior editor and columnist when The Cambridge Phoenix was launched by Jeffrey Tarter on October 9, 1969. She worked with renowned editor Harper Barnes trying to bring shape and coherence to a staff of hippie writers. Today she is writing a play about that era and its macho newsroom. She was one of three women on staff and knew how to use her elbows. She later wrote for The Village Voice, an experience described as chaotic, but loved four years with the Daily News.

The ONE Festival of Opera Omaha celebrated its 2nd anniversary this year. It has already become a must visit for opera lovers throughout the world. The productions here are first rate. Bringing in James Darrah, who is a director of choice for many of the best young composers, has excited opera fans. This year did not disappoint.

On Thursday, June 27 at 8 p.m., the Boston Pops and special guest Marc Martel join together for a celebration of the legendary rock band Queen. Martel, known for his striking vocal resemblance to Freddie Mercury, Queen’s lead singer, has been fronting Queen's official tribute show, The Queen Extravaganza, since 2011.

Yet again MASS MoCA has scored the top rock event of the summer. Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders will perform on Friday, July 26.

The award winning Hulu production of Margaret Atwood's "The Hanmaid's Tale" will make this Boston Lyric Opera production readily familar to audiences. Composer Poul Ruders’ stunning contemporary score brings this dark social tale to the stage in large-scale, presenting his work with a massive, multi-faceted approach to orchestration. BLO has commissioned Ruders to create a new edition of the opera, bringing an expected orchestra size to approximately 65 players, with a chorus of about 34 singers.

Lisa Yuen returns to Boston's Lyric Stage performing multiple, male roles in Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures. If you are familiar with the musical expect to see a fresh and accessible revival by director Spiro Veloudos. The production runs from May 10 through June 18.

The special exhibition “Toulouse Lautrec and the Stars of Paris” is a collaboration of the Museum of Fine Arts and The Boston Public Library. Their great combined depth in prints and posters is supplemented with loans from other museums. In addition to his signature graphic works the exhibition is expanded with paintings, photographs, and sculptures by other impressionist and post impressionist artists.

“The Niceties”, a sharp, intelligently written drama by playwright Eleanor Burgess that is smartly and seamlessly directed by seasoned director Kimberly Senior, is currently on stage at the Geffen Playhouse, in Los Angeles. What begins as a polite clash in perspectives in age and place explodes into an urgent debate about race.

Manhattan School of Music mounts a superb production of Tobias Picker's Emmeline this spring. Directed by the gifted Thaddeus Strassberger, the work has been moved into the present and resonates as a universal tale. George Manahan. who conducted the world premiere of the work at Santa Fe Opera over twenty years ago, led the orchestra, revealing all the richness of the score. Young talent created unforgettable characters in this re-telling of a Greek myth.

David Ives won a Tony for the sado/masochistic, dark comedy "Venus in Fur." Although written twenty-six ago, "All in the Timing" features six comedy vignettes that are highly relevant to audiences of 2019. There is no dated material in this cleverly written and sensationally performed production.

The Rare Biosphere, a new play by Chris Cragin Day presented by the Sea Dog Theater and directed by Christopher J Domig is a charming and poignant look at at the question of immigration. Through the lives of a very American adolescent lens we are confronted with realities which upset the norm-- and intensify choices

Here we go again messing with Chekov. This time Aaron Posner has his way with the Russian master. Uncle Vanya is a comedy in the sense that it is full of pitiable, laughable characters in awkward situations, and nobody dies (but one almost does!). In Life Sucks, Posner makes the characters more ridiculous and more expressive to add energy and bolder humor. Vanya is shlepier. Aster is more passionate for his causes. Ella is a stronger magnet.

The special exhibition "Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience" by the First Nations artist Kent Monkman is a game changer. With ferocious wit the artist deconstructs horrific aspects of Canadian history through a series of narrative, social realist paintings. We viewed the work at the McCord Museum in Montreal where the traveling exhibition closed on May 5.

At the end of the 2018/19 season the Komische Oper Berlin produced two more operas: 'Poro,' by Georg Friedrich Haendel, and 'M- Eine Stadt sucht einen Moerder,' by Moritz Eggert. Two very opposite experiences!

In a complex reconfiguration of permanent collections of Canadian museums there is a mandate for integration of First Nations work with galleries of post war abstraction. While change is welcome and necessary, for now, the juxtapositions are complex and disorienting. There is more contrast than confluence.