Front Page

In 2023, the last year of her life, and 100th anniversary of surrealism, Katherine Porter sent me a small automatic drawing and a letter. It got lost in the studio's detritus. Recently recovered it offers poignant glimpses into the endgame of her life and work.

Distinguished playwright Marcus Gardley creates an homage to the Black community in Oakland that he grew up in, and particularly to strong women and their contributions. Adeline and Laney are transplants from the South, and their beauty salon is an institution for decades before the women face economic and personal challenges.

In January the Eclipse Mill in North Adams offers Master Class Workshops with Jim Peters and Arnela Mahmutovi?. Also 12 artists may apply to participate in Back to to the Woodshed.  .

Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library, a new play by Jenny Lyn Bader,  takes place in a prison cell in Alexanderplatz, Berlin.  Mrs. Stern is better known today as Hannah Arendt, her birth name.

The striking work of Cape Ann modernist, Umberto Romano, is on view at the annex of the Cape Ann Museum. The artist, curator, and historian, Susan Erony, delivered a lecture on the murals that the artist created during the Depression years of the 1930s. Erony is currently working on a history of the art of Cape Ann.

Now in his 90s, the Italian born Mario Diacono is a revered legend of the Boston art world. He was known for exhibiting single works by renowned artists. These were accompanied by theoretical essays written in Italian and then translated. Few of the works entered Boston collections but found their way to Europe. He has emerged from retirement. To visit the gallery one must 1.open the gold box. 2.click on Faros Directory 3. Enter the name Mario Diacono Gallery 4. Next, click on call 4. Proceed to open the door. 5. Prepare to be amazed.

In the summer of 1984 I started research in Provincetown. Ellen O'Donnell (Rankin) got me started by setting up contacts for interviews. Our interview provides a window into a time when Provincetown was still affordable for artists. In my archive I have a receipt for an inn at $35 a night. Things have changed since then and not for the better. Provincetown is no longer a viable option for young artists

An equity national touring production of the stage musical adaptation of the movie "Some Like it Hot" is touring the country. The tour includes several stops in Florida. It's hard to make out the words that the performers are saying and singing.

Film at Lincoln Center presents a Robert Siodmak retrospective from December 11 to December 19.  Siodmak, according to his 98-year-old brother (with whom he worked),spent his entire life in film studios and on location.  Robert made films in many different genres. Yet he is best known, and not well-enough known, for his contributions to the film noir form.

The modernist Umberto Romano (1906-1982) is the subject of a retrospective, curated by Martha Oaks, at the annex of the Cape Ann museum through December 29, 2024. The main museum is closed for renovation. The exhibition is free to the public in the 12,000 square foot Janet & William Ellery James Center, which was completed in 2020. It includes 2,000 square feet of flexible exhibition and community programming space. 

There is the excitement of the going, the anticipation of arrival, and a purpose to be fulfilled.  There is excitement in the coming back, the thought of sleeping in your own bed, of waking up in familiar surroundings.  Nonetheless, more than 40 hours of travel, flights, train rides, bus rides, and climbs, are daunting at any age.  In my case, that is a few weeks shy of age 75.

The Adams based plein art artist Alvin Oueliet is presenting Ellipticals, a suite of new paintings, at Images Cinema in Williamstown. There will be a reception for the artist on Wednesday, December 11.

Playwright Dominique Morisseau grew up in Detroit.  Her trilogy based on life in the auto town is magnificent. She braves the tough subjects of our times. Her father was born in Haiti and she now eplores her Haitian roots in "Bad Kreyol" produced by the Signature Theater and Manhattan Theatre Club.

A long time Provincetown resident, artist and chef, Alice Brock, has died just days before Thanksgiving. In 2014 we reminisced about the fame game. She returned to the Berkshires to host a dinner at Dream Away Lodge. She described her cuisine as "heavy handed" which may well be a metaphor for her remarkable life.

The Berlin Philharmonic completed a three-day visit to Carnegie Hall in New York. The world’s greatest orchestra and its greatest conductor, Kirill Petrenko, did not disappoint.  The programming combined an anniversary  (the 200th birthday of Anton Bruckner), with fresh visits to favorites like Anton Dvorak’s 7th Symphony and a Violin Concerto by the film composer Erich Korngold.

Designed by the leading Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo, the reimagined Doris Duke Theatre occupies the site of the former studio theater from 1990, destroyed by fire in November 2020.  The new theater aims to become one of the world’s most technologically advanced dance venues, providing a makerspace for artists seeking to integrate artificial intelligence, extended reality, robotics, and immersive platforms into live performance.

A pioneer of Surrealism, Carrington’s work crosses boundaries and mediums, embodying a boundless curiosity and unorthodox spirit that transcends the conventional. Born into a staid upper-middle-class Anglo-Irish family, Carrington would spend her life freeing herself from the gendered strictures imposed upon her.

David Lang's Pulitzer Prize-winning Passion opera The Little Match Girl will be performed in its original form with four artists both singing and playing instruments at the Crypt in New York.

We viewed the stunning 2017 retrospective “Salvatore Del Deo: A Storied History” at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis. In 2023, then 95, he was the subject of national news when there was an attempt to evict the renowned artist and chef from his historic summer Provincetown dune shack.

Once again, Pittsfield-based Barrington Stage Company (BSC) was the big winner of the evening with their productions of Next to Normal, La Cage Aux Folles, Primary Trust, and Boeing, Boeing taking home many top prizes. The Mac-Haydn Theatre, in Chatham, NY, tied with BSC artists in the categories of Outstanding Choreography and Outstanding Direction of a Musical, and with artists from the Berkshire Theatre Festival for Outstanding Sound Design.

Thornton Wilder’s classic play Our Town, which many consider it one of the great American plays – is getting a very good revival at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway.

n the morning after the election, I woke up to an America that is the “same as it ever was,” to borrow lyrics from The Talking Heads.  I just didn’t realize what that “same” was. America had spoken, revealing its true self at this moment to me, and I am deeply saddened by what I heard.

Founded in 1983 by Gregorij von Leitis, Elysium—between two continents is an organization dedicated to combating hate, racism, and anti-Semitism through the transformative power of art.

The Matthew Swift Gallery recently paired two of the leading contemporary Gloucester artists. There is compelling synergy though the artists are quite different. Gabrielle Barzaghi reflects on her family heritage with inventive mythology. The range of Susan Erony embraces the cosmos in minute detail. They breathe the salt air that has inspired generations of leading Cape Ann painters. They thrive in a community that has long been indifferent to the experiments of modernism.

Oakland Theater Project presents Dave Malloy's 23 dramatic vignettes about love, loss, whiskey, and the afterlife built into a song cycle. Calling on all manner of musical idioms, but with the constant of a mournful cello, it engages both musically and dramatically.