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One of the most accomplished artists of the Berkshire region, Pennie Brantley is displaying her crisply rendered painting at Real Eyes Gallery in September. She states that, "Perhaps ironically, my attraction to painting unpeopled structures, especially from travels to other cultures, is inspired by a keen awareness of those who have lived in or made them -- or simply the march of humanity past them sometimes over centuries.  The images that stir my need to paint them have made me more intensely aware of the connectedness people share..." 

When was the last time you listened to music that was composed by a piece of birch wood? Eve Beglarian, in collaboration with superstar bassist Robert Black, one of the founding members of the renowned Bang-on-a-Can All-Stars, has composed a fascinating new work entitled "A Murmur in the Trees."

Woodie King Jr. will receive a Tony Honoring for Excellence in the Theatre on September 26. These awards were established in 1990. It's about time! King and his New Federal Theatre have been producing excellent work for over fifty years.

“Viral Load”, an exhibition of works by artist Suzette Marie Martin at the Eclipse Mill Gallery, is a meditative suite of ten mixed-media paintings on canvas, bearing witness to the cumulative, collective loss of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here Martin Mugar considers two abstract painters. The gesture of Forge is one of the traditional hand-application of the brush to canvas. The notion of a painting existing in time took on some meaning when I saw the show of David Row at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. It is probably one of the more perfect installations I have ever seen.

 Our Laundry & Machine Shop desperately needs a new roof. What's involved? 24,320 cedar shakes. 48,640 nails. 4,500 square feet of roof.

Welcome to Walden the new play presented by TheaterWorks in conjunction with Riverfront Recapture running through Sunday, Aug. 29. It will also be available for streaming from Sunday, Aug. 15 to Sunday, Aug. 29.

We are all spokes on a wheel. We need to turn this wheel together and steer it towards our common humanity. The mask erased our face and revealed our eyes. Hopefully we can redress bias with new understanding when we take them off and see our faces again.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will present the largest-ever U.S. exhibition of artwork by groundbreaking multimedia artist, performer, musician and writer Laurie Anderson from Sept. 24–July 31, 2022. “Laurie Anderson: The Weather” will debut more than 10 new artworks, interspersed with select key works from throughout her career.

This production features a translation by Ian Johnston, who has translated many Greek works. I have read better translations, this one lacks poetry. At times the wording is jarring, too informal for such a work.

Maltz Jupiter Theatre in Southeast Florida will kick off this upcoming season by presenting "Jersey Boys" in a baseball stadium. The season opens on Jan. 11, with Jersey Boys running from Jan. 11-30. Maltz Jupiter Theatre will re-open following a $36 million expansion. Highlights of the theater’s expansion include a new larger stage.

Please join Close Encounters With Music for an End-of-Summer Celebration and Auction. You will enjoy beautiful vistas, a scrumptious lunch, an appearance by the PRISM quartet (saxophones). and an auction of exciting items to bid on,

Born in Bolivia, but now living on a 38-meter boat on a Belgian Canal, Florinda Suárez Heredia paints what she feels.  Knowing from an early age that she would be a painter, she began her artistic career in her native country, later moving to Belgium.  Her work has been presented in galleries all over Europe, as well as the United States.

For many years and especially in this long period of Covid-19 isolation, Susan and Leslie have spent many days independently walking the beaches and woods of Cape Cod, Susan in Provincetown (and other far flung places), and Leslie in Brewster.  Confirmed tree huggers, they have been scavenging for weathered or fallen wood.

This fall, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain are proud to present the North American premiere of The Great Animal Orchestra, a collaborative work between pioneer bioacoustician Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists. Over the course of nearly 50 years, Bernie Krause collected more than 5,000 hours of recordings of natural environments.

One hundred and thirty-nine years after Richard Wagner’s final opera Parsifal premiered at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, it was performed in concert in this house that Wagner built for its performance. Apparently, Richard Wagner himself took the podium to conduct Act III of Parsifal at the Festival performance in 1883.  He died later that year in Venice. There is  no recording of the performance, but witnesses  commented on the extremely slow tempos and the majesty of the reading.

The forecast for Lenox on August 15 is for hot, swing Jazz, provided by the inimitable Svetlana and the Delancey 5.  Their outdoors performance will take place at the historic Gateways Inn  in picturesque downtown Lenox, and starts at 4pm.  

The final concert of the season on Sunday, September 5, features the all-female Cassatt String Quartet and celebrated pianist Ursula Oppens. Opening the program, Oppens will play selections from Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s intimate cycle of piano pieces, Das Jahr (“The Year”). 

The musical “I Do!  I Do!” covers familiar ground that is nearly universal in most places and times.  The vignettes from 60 years of marriage include that unforgettable first night; gender roles; pregnancy and the challenges in rearing children; how people change over time, and often in opposite directions; the special highs of being a couple; infidelity, disinterest, and reconciliation; and ultimately, shared dotage.  Whew! 

It happened during the last week in June. Two prominent paintings by 20th-century masters were recovered nearly a decade after they had been stolen from a gallery in Athens. A contractor was arrested for committing what had become a notoriously audacious theft of works by Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondrian.

For many, public art  conjures up images of bronze statues of a soldier on horseback, images of historically significant and/or forgotten politicians or leaders, or symbolic (often mythological) figures of metaphoric significance. But these days public art takes a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and forms. It can be temporary or permanent.

Everyone has an absolute right to place their own lives in danger.   The Darwin Award was created to recognize such people posthumously.  But no one has the right to place anyone else’s life in danger.  To do so is selfish and ignorant.  Even freedom has its limits – – fire in a crowded theater, for instance.

The two season Israeli series "Fauda" was a boffo smash on Netflix. Accordingly I binged on its more or less sequel "Hit and Run." The creative team jumped the pond to create an Israeli/ American production in English and Hebrew. In seeking a wider and American audience the team lost its Sabra base and churned out yet another mediocre action thriller. If you are a 'Fauda" fan this will be a major disappointment.

The production is enjoyable due to the hard work and talent of the cast. Because of various complications caused by Covid, the cast does not include any members of Actor’s Equity.

The Irish Repertory Theatre has expanded our notion of performance in their streamed productions.  A company with a small theatre (146 seats in the main house), now offers its consistently superior productions to the wide audience they deserve.