Boston Lyric Opera has boldly re-adapted Poe’s famous gothic horror story “The Fall of the House of Usher” with music of Philip Glass. It streams on operabox.tv for seven days starting on January 29/

Preparing for live-reopening, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is sharing its rehearsal process. Arin Arbus, a regular as TFANA, directs. She and John Douglas Thompson have worked together on Otello and Macbeth. Now they take on Shylock and Merchant of Venice.

Georgia has been very much our minds this year and last. The state significantly contributed to the return of Happy Days. The Atlanta Opera Company is offering Love Letters to Atlanta on February 14. Morris Robinson, Jamie Barton and Kevin Burdette.

The Garden Theatre in Winter Garden, near Orlando, is presenting A Class Act, based on the life of A Chorus Line lyricist Edward Kleban. The touching and funny production runs through Feb. 7. You must wear a mask and practice social distancing in order to attend.

The Chinese New Year is Friday, February 12, the Year of The Ox.  To those who celebrate, Xinnian Kuaile.

Five new short musicals will mark their world premieres virtually. The shows came out of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's "15-Minute Musical Challenge." The Cleveland-area's Beck Center for the Arts, in collaboration with the Baldwin Wallace University Music Theatre Program, will present the shows.

Blue Heron Gallery Online, a virtual online art gallery, will be presenting the art of Boston artist Peter McGrath beginning at noon on Friday, February 12, 2021.  The show, appearing on www.blueherongallery.online, will feature both sculptures and paintings, and present the artist in photographs and his Artist Statement. The artist is the brother of North Adams gallerist, Michael McGrath.

The marvelous New York Theatre Ballet is offering Sunday conversations on dance in their Between the Acts Series.  Agnes de Mille was featured recently.  Diana Byer, the founder of the troupe, spoke with Anderson Ferrell and Diana Gonzalez-Dudert from the De Mille Working group, Broadway dancer and actor Dirk Lumbard, and NYTB’s Elena Zahlmann. Diana Byer, the company's founder, president, and artistic director, has said: "...Right now ballet is dominated by a very athletic style, and it's important that there's not just one style out there. I'm really committed to keeping this other way of working alive, a way that's more about the meaning of a gesture, the feeling of the music, or a story.'

The work of Benny Andrews (November 13, 1930 – November 10, 2006) is complex, compelling and problematic. The son of Georgia sharecroppers he matured to be a true polymath in the art world. Today he is regarded as a leader in the development of African American art. He was also a part of the movements of figurative expressionism and the Rhino Horn group. This is the third exhibition and an extensive catalogue from Michael Rosenfeld Gallery which represents the estate.

Long Distance Affair takes you on a virtual trip across the world to view short plays. Miami's Juggerknot Theatre Company and New York's PopUP Theatrics run the program. Travel to Lagos, Nigeria; Mumbai, India; Mexico City, Mexico; Los Angeles, Calif., Portland, Oregon; and Beirut, Lebanon. The current run of Long Distance Affair continues through Feb. 21.

Without foregoing any production value, and in fact capitalizing on new opportunities, Opera Philadelphia has been leading the field in contemporary productions that attract new audiences. Over the past decade daring experiments have been undertaken, always with careful consideration. A warehouse was the setting for the production of an opera about Andy Warhol (reminiscent of a Factory?). Composers in residence have been encouraged to test the limits of an operatic stage, like Philip Venables’ Denis and Katya, designed as a social media transmission.

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) announces Glenn Kaino: In The Light of a Shadow from April 3, 2021 through September 4, 2022. Curated by Denise Markonish, the show will take over MASS MoCA’s signature Building 5 galleries, with a series of immersive installations that create a sense of wonder and hope while issuing an urgent call to action. 

Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables and Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach will pair up to produce a play about Emily Dickinson. The co-production of The Belle of Amherst will stream from April 2-6. A crew will film the production on Palm Beach Dramaworks’ mainstage. No audience members will be present.

The annual mid winter 10X10 New Play Festival new play festival is back for its tenth year. This time virtual from Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. The plays are generally fun. Ones your don't care for are gone in ten minutes and there are nine more to consider. There are always hits and misses and it's fun to participate and debate.

“This extraordinary collection of images reminds us of photography’s power to preserve and amplify the full emotional range of lived experience. Together, these 48 photographs serve as both memory and documentary evidence of the extremes of war. They are powerful and memorable,” said Matthew Teitelbaum, Ann and Graham Gund Director. “Imagine the journey: passed from the photographer to a fellow prisoner in the Lodz Ghetto, hidden and brought to New York City in a small envelope, passed from one generation to another after a lifetime of care, and now preserved permanently in one of America’s great collections of photography. That, too, is powerful and memorable.”

The works featured are inspired by Andy Moerlein’s fascination with ancient practice of collecting and displaying unusual and often awkward stones. Brought indoors and placed on pedestals, these stones (Scholars Rocks, Viewing Stones) are transformed into icons of personal or imagined journeys. These rocks have influenced philosophers and artists for thousands of years.

On the fourth Monday of every month, the Copland House brings us Underscored,  zoomed performances from Aaron Copland’s study. Contemporary composers are featured. This must attend musical event is presented in collaboration with the Graduate Center of the City University  of New York. Founder and pianist Michael Boriskin introduced the premiere of John Musto’s Cello Sonata.

Skyspace will augment one of the world’s most comprehensive experiences of installations by James Turrell while realizing a vision the artist had when visiting the museum’s campus in 1987. The Skyspace will join a long-term exhibition of Turrell works at MASS MoCA, which includes one work from each of the six decades of the artist’s career.

Audiences will find a missing person in the show Safe House, a hybrid between a film and a live show. Sarasota's Urbanite Theatre's production runs through April 4.

MASS MoCA staff petitioned the National Labor Relations Board today, March 8th, for a union election. The unit includes curators, art fabricators, educators, facilities, other front-facing staff, and more.

While no others loomed so large in the public’s fascination, “The Queen’s Gambit” was certainly not the first performance work to feature chess as a central theme.  Among others was Anthony Clarvoe’s play “The Art of Sacrifice” which was first produced in 2006. This production is captured with Zoom technology.  Director Desdemona Chiang has chosen to use conventional Zoom format with actors facing separate fixed cameras.  With this limitation, actors appear as talking heads delivering competing monologues.

When James Laughlin founded New Directions he wanted the company to be a place where writers could carry out their experiments in print. His initial mission was simple: introduce American readers to  international, modernist writers who could not get their work published in the United States--Dylan Thomas, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov (Laughlin rejected his scandalous blockbuster, Lolita!), and many more. "These writers were really radical,” says publisher Barbara Epler. Today they are part of the canon. Indeed, they are its twentieth-century core. 

Artist Carrie Mae Weems will join students from Williams College, Bennington College, and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts for an online public conversation at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 1. Some 500 individuals may register for the Zoom lecture which will later be available on YouTube.

Hancock Shaker Village, one of the most comprehensively interpreted Shaker sites in the U.S. and the oldest working farm in Western Massachusetts, announced today the appointments of Linda Johnson as Curator and Brenda Lynch as Director of Development, a newly created position.  

Growing up in Rochester, the home of Eastman Kodak, Carl Chiarenza's interest in photography began at an early age. On many levels it is significant that Career Retrospective: Journey into the Unknown is being presented at the George Eastman Museum. It remains on view through June 20.