Wineries have loved the Bobal grape for many years. They used it primarily as a blending grape. Today's new age of winemakers believe the grape can stand on its own. After sampling dozens of wines made with the varietal its hard to disagree.

Its spring time in New England and the flowers are blooming. The bears are out of their dens and the days are longer. As a devoted wine person and year-round Rose drinker it has been a wonderful journey this past winter to narrow down the Roses i have sampled to a few favorites. I recommend them for your summer libations.

Boston Lyric Opera has surpassed their charge to “translate this story in the moment for the audience” as stated by renowned theater and opera director Anne Bogart, who joined the creative team at the helm of “The Handmaid’s Tale” production.

Its been one hundred years since the Franco family started in the Prosecco business. Who knew Prosecco existed so many years ago? The Prosecco varietal is now known as Glera, the new name of the grape. This way there is no confusion with the town of Prosecco and the DOC label attached to the wine. The Franco family have been pioneers of present day Prosecco, especially Primo Franco, who is known as the 'architect' of modern day Prosecco.

The play opens in the early 1960s in a civil rights office in Virginia. The leader – Rachel Helen Christopher has arranged for Rosa Parks to come and to speak to a group; it is the big day. But will it actually happen?

Palm Beach Dramaworks' production of The House of Blue Leaves is a laugh fest, but lacks enough darkness. A talented cast of well-known South Florida performers excel in their roles. The actors and director convey the play's pathos and nail comic timing .While John Guare's play is a farce, it will surely leave you thinking.

It’s amazing that this classic musical by Meredith Willson is having its first production at Goodspeed. It seems perfectly suited to the theater.

This year, Green River will host over 30 bands on three stages that will ensure a constant groove and plenty of options for music lovers of every stripe. While many come for a particular artist, many more recall finding new favorites throughout the weekend. So whether you think you are a dyed-in-the-wool Americana, Blues, Cajun, Country, Jazz, or Soul fan, by the end of the weekend, you might just change your (i)tune. Regardless, you are sure to find plenty to like and do.

Ensemble Studio Theatre and Radio Drama Network Present Five one-act plays in the superb annual festival. Five writers, five directors and 16 actors bring us an amusing and thoughtful collage of 21st century dilemmas.

Tootsie may not be the perfect adaptation of a hit movie, but it is very good and very enjoyable

Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in suburban Miami is mounting a riveting production of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer- and Tony-Award-Winning, scorching drama Doubt: A Parable. The play feels relevant in our divisive world and because the priest abuse scandal still remains fresh in our minds. Four of South Florida's finest stage actors fully inhabit the roles. It never feels like they are "performing." The production runs through June 9.

The Waverly Gallery by Kenneth Lonergan conveys how families are torn apart coping with and caring for elders with dementia. In a downward spiral Gladys Green, in another stunning performance by Annette Miller, is struggling to hold on. A small Greenwich Village vanity gallery gives her something to do. In a bold move Shakespeare & Company has launched its season with a slow and demanding drama.

The spirit and poetry of Jack Kerouac and his pal, Neal Cassady, permeate the Steven Dietz play, Mad Beat Hip & Gone, now being staged by Promethean Theatre at the Edge Off Broadway. There’s even a hint of the presence of a poet named Allen.

Almost 22 years after it bowed on Broadway, The Lion King still astounds with its astonishing artistry and stunning visuals. A National Equity touring production is making stops throughout the country. A South Florida crowd roared with applause during a recent performance in Miami.

The one person, one act play "Hold These Truths" by Jeanne Sakata focuses on the true story of Gordon Hirabayashi. After Pearl Harbor he was among 120,000 Japanese Americans who were relocated to prison camps in the South West. He was charged with the crimes of violating curfew and refusing to report to a detention center. He fought the charges to the Supreme Court. He and two other dissenters lost their cases. Invoking war powers as supreme commander Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9006 was upheld as constitutional. Decades later Hirabayashi, by then a professor of sociology, was cleared of all charges. In 2012 Persident Barach Obama awarded him The Presidential Medal of Honor.

The Orchestra Now (TON) is brave. In taking on two of the seminal composers of modern music, they tackled the presentation of developing ideas about sound as music, to which the 20th century composers have added new dimensions. Some composers took the sounds out of time. Anton Webern often composed suggesting different tempi measure to measure. While Morton Feldman did not go as far as John Cage, inviting musical artists to perform whatever, whenever, he often suspended his work out of time.

As an epic memento mori the 64-year-old British pop star has created “Annie Lenox: Now I Let You Go…” A huge mound of earth scattered with her memorabilia will be on view long term at MASS MoCA. The ambitious installation will be of great interest to her global fans.

Experiments in Opera was co-founded in Brooklyn in 2010 by composers Aaron Siegel, Matthew Welch and Jason Cady. They contributed Chunky in Heat to the New York Opera Festival. It was a wild, wacky and moving work.

The three main characters – Tracy Letts as Joe, Annette Bening as Kate and Benjamin Walker as Chris deserve the accolades they have received. Each has mined the character so that the subtext is revealed. Letts and Walker are totally believable as father and son

Today, June 5, friends will gather to celebrate the 75th birthday of the curator Calude Gosselin. Not having visited Montréal in some time we made plans for travel in the fall. That changed abruptly when we were bumped off a flight to the U.K. From the road we called Claude and told him we would arrive in a couple of hours. It was great to catch up. Since the 1980s he has curated major exhibitions including Les Cent jours d’art contemporain de Montréal and Biennale de Montréal. We covered many of those projects.

Veronica's Position is a meaty comedy with offering plenty to think about. Rich Orloff's comedy is an entertaining part backstage comedy, part problem play, part satire. It takes place at the end of 1989 and the beginning of 1990 in Washington D.C. offering eerie resemblances to today's political climate.

The world premiere of David Lang's prisoner of the state takes place in David Geffen Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic. The 106 member orchestra will perform, but this can hardly be called a concert production. Instead the Hall has been transformed into a prison. Even the instrumentalists on stage are in prison. Costumes, chains and handcuffs were ordered from Bob Barker, the country's leading detention supplier.

Last year was the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s landmark horror novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, which explains why we have been able to see four different versions of the Frankenstein story on stage in Chicago during this theater season. The final production of this series is Lookingglass Theatre’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written and directed by David Catlin. After August 4 it transfers for a three week run at Princeton's McCarter Theatre Center.

Darko Tresnjak is going out with a delightful, tuneful musical that will touch your heart. For his last show as artistic director at Hartford Stage he has directed the world premiere musical, The Flamingo Kid now through Saturday, June 15.

Carmen is conducive to fresh, modernized productions, often with changes in time period, geography, and more. Here we have a traditional approach, including the original spoken dialogue, which mark it as an opera comique. This rendition confirms why the opera has stood the test of time.