Playwright Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s poignant drama deals with trauma and loss that most of us, thankfully, will never have to handle. She speaks to the fears that women particularly suffer – and moreso, women of color; and moreso yet, teenage girls of color.  These core elements are enhanced by a rich exploration of boundaries – parent-child, teacher-student, parent-teacher, friend-to-friend, as well as those of professional and sexual propriety.

The Irish Repertory Theatre has given ten streamed performances, or arranged for them, during the time of Covid. Each one has added immensely to our pleasure. The latest comes straight from Dublin. It is a one man performance on stage by the actor Brendan Conroy. His lilting voice, describing the bleak Aran Islands and the lives of its inhabitants draws us in. We quickly understand that the man who wrote the words, J. M. Synge, was a musician. As words roll in Conroy's mouth, we hear musical phrases, dips and crescendos, textured takes on vowels and consonants.

Thornton Wilder's Our Town is a widely produced icon of American Theatre. It is the subject of a new oral history by Howard Sherman.

The Attacca Quartet won its first Grammy in 2019 for Caroline Shaw’s Orange. They favor music of living composers, as does Melissa Smey, Executive Director of the Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre and the new Lenfest Center for the Arts on the north campus. What was Mozart doing on your birthday? Decomposing.

The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art (mowna), a newly opened one-of-a-kind online museum born out of the pandemic and specifically designed for the digital age, will launch their first online Biennial show on Friday, April 30, 2021 at https://www.mowna.org/. The show will run until September 22, 2021.   

The always delightful Les Arts Florissants’ bring us a performance of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Grand Motets, now available on Qwest TV. Qwest was developed by Quincy Jones, whose middle name is “Delight.”  And delight is what he brings us with the 17th century music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier. 

The Cutting Edge Concert Series 23rd season began this week. Victoria Bond has held this series through thick and thin.  It comes to us live streamed and is a treasure.

The Huntington announces the return to live, in-person performances following an incomparable year-and-a-half of stages left dark because of the global pandemic. The 7-play season will begin on August 27, 2021 and take place primarily at the Wimberly Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA in the South End while The Huntington Theatre undergoes a transformational renovation; one production will take place at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre.

The Orchestra Now presented its first live concert of the 2020-21 season at the Fisher Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson. It was a smashing success.

The great graphic designer Milton Glaser once said, “there are three responses to a piece of design—yes, no, and WOW!” WOW! is what you’ll say to New Directions’ newly assembled set of fifty postcards celebrating its greatest salesman, Alvin Lustig—a creative genius who revolutionized the craft of book-cover design. Each of the postcards in this glorious collection is a work of art in its own right.

Hemingway was an enigma wrapped in a mystery that could always get away with things that ordinary people could or word never do. He relished his celebrity status to the hilt and he was a party-going   charmer when he needed to be.  He was envied by men, and was desired by women from afar.  In his twenties he had matinee idol looks, and worked them to his advantaged.

The world needs new heroines, and Dodson creates them for this exhibition. In her new series of wood sculptures, Dodson re-imagines Albrecht Durer’s “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” as Amazon warriors.

The Huntington presents Black Beans Project, a world premiere digital work by Huntington artist-in-residence Melinda Lopez and award-winning performer Joel Perez, directed by Jaime Castañeda, and available for on-demand streaming from May 11 – 30, 2021.

Bang on a Can announces the hourly schedule for the second OneBeat Marathon – Live Online – on Sunday, May 2, 2021 from 12pm - 4pm EDT, curated by Found Sound Nation, its social practice and global collaboration wing. Over four hours the OneBeat Marathon will share the power of music and tap into the most urgent and essential sounds of our time. From the Kyrgyz three-stringed komuz played on the high steppe, to the tranceful marimba de chonta of Colombia's pacific shore, to the Algerian Amazigh highlands and to the trippy organic beats of Bombay’s underground scene – OneBeat finds a unifying possibility of sound that ties us all together.   

We are rooted in the Byzantine chant in this evening’s concert.  Pianist Paul Barnes chants in the Greek Orthodox service. As an introduction to each based on specific chants, he sang. We first heard the tones mixed with breath and feeling of these remarkable interpretations of the psalms. Listeners are able to slip into the works with echoes of their origins fresh in the memory.

A Letter to Harvey Milk had a successful run at the Acorn Theatre in New York in 2018.  It is streming free with suggested donations for the Actor’s Fund and The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Now it is streaming live.

American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University announces today the ensemble of magicians to perform in the return engagement of The Conjurors’ Club created by Vinny DePonto and Geoff Kanick. Back by popular demand, the live interactive multi-magician experience runs online April 28 - May 16, 2021.  

Peter Brooke: Light Slides will open to the public on Friday, April 30.  Due to Covid-19 precautions, there will be no public reception for the artist.  The artist will be present on May 15 and 22 from 1-4pm to chat with visitors.  Gallery NAGA’s hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 to 5, with no appointment necessary. Brooke’s paintings are fabrications based solely on memories of his travels and surroundings.

Seats and tables are now available for the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival’s annual fundraiser, to be held outdoors under a tent at the Bas Relief Park behind Provincetown Town Hall on Saturday, June 5 at 4pm Eastern.  

FreshGrass features bluegrass traditionalists and innovators on four stages and platforms throughout the museum’s 16-acre campus. Festival programming also includes FreshScores, a silent film with original live music; FreshGrass commissions and world premieres; instrument and industry workshops; pop-up performances and retail; and local Berkshire food and spirits vendors.   

Jeff Gurner plays Truman Capote in this production directed by Kevin Connor. Guner does not hide Capote’s self-destructive tendencies and he manages to keep Capote from sounding like a whiner. On some level, he makes us see and feel Capote’s pain.

Manhattan Theatre Club in association with The Huntington presents the virtual premiere of The Niceties, written by Eleanor Burgess and directed by Kimberly Senior. The presentation reunites the original stars Lisa Banes and Jordan Boatman, and has been reimagined for the virtual stage since its original production in MTC’s 2018-2019 Season at The Studio at Stage II. 

The Orchestra Now opened its belated celebration of Beethoven’s birthday. Their performance of the Fifth Symphony lay somewhere between the unearthly suggestion the composer may have intended, and a fierce protest. From the introduction of iconic Da, da, da, DUM, either a major or minor key although we’re told this is a minor piece, to the figure's infinite variety of repetition through the piece, TON reminds us of why this is the symphony of symphonies.

WAM Theatre will present a special limited run of Madeline Sayet’s solo show, WHERE WE BELONG, directed by Mei Ann Teo. This Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company film adaptation, produced in partnership with Folger Shakespeare Library, is filming now at Woolly Mammoth in Washington, D.C., and will be available for digital streaming through WAM Theatre June 24-27, 2021 only.

The experiment continues.  San Francisco Opera broke new ground with their production of “Barber of Seville” – live performances of an opera at a “drive-in” with music delivered by FM radio to patrons seated in their vehicles.  Now the company’s resident artists, the Adler Fellows, are giving their annual concert series at the same venue, the beautiful and versatile, Frank Lloyd Wright designed Marin Center.