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Night Side Songs is a communal music-theater experience performed for—and with—an intimate audience that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. Inspired by American writer, philosopher, and cultural critic Susan Sontag’s observation that “illness is the night side of life.”

New City Players in South Florida triumphs with its first production of an Arthur Miller Play "All My Sons" runs through March 9 in Island City Stage's intimate black box space in Wilton Manors, near Ft. Lauderdale. Acting does not get much better than this.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning play English by Sanaz Toossi raises fascinating questions about the interconnections of language, culture, and identity. Does learning a new language result in the loss of our sense of self? Does adapting to a new culture mean you are rejecting your heritage?

. The season features expanded offerings in the spring, summer, and fall. With two mainstage productions, three Fresh Takes play readings, and a dynamic community program—including documentary films, thought-provoking panels, and creative exchanges with women-led theatre companies.

Jesus Christ's betrayal and crucifixion as rendered by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice's stands as one of the long running musicals in history. To many theatergoers, it is simply a beautifully crafted work with fine music and intense drama. Yet to some, it teems with controversy as the character representations don't fit in traditionalists' boxes.

A stiff tree may withstand a strong wind for a time, but eventually, it will snap. A willow, on the other hand, bends and sways, yielding to the wind’s force, yet it survives even the fiercest storms. This is the essence of yielding: adapting, flowing, and ultimately overcoming by not resisting directly.

Marin Alsop debuts with the Berlin Philharmonie in Berlin. Leading the Berlin Philharmonic for the first time, she chose a special, continent-spanning program. The world premiere of Day Night Day by Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen refers to the songs of the Sami, the indigenous people of northern Finland and revolves around the northern lights and ice that covers and protects the local landscape. The BSO was a commissioner.

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, is, once more, the center of the 75th Berlinale, as it has been for many years. It is cold in the city, but the area around the film festival is crowded with spectators, press people and the arrival and departure of the film elite from all over the world. Happy and exciting times are here again, as always during the festival times, this year from February 13 – 23, 2025.

For the screening of 240 films at its international berlinale, Berlin was sunny, sometimes crisply cold and at others, almost balmy.  Perhaps because it is under the big sky, this city is a perfect place to see films in which the artists take their time, and let character and story emerge paced to the subject.

The poet and multimedia artist Gerd Stern has died at 96. His friend Mark Favermann wrote about him on two occasions for Berkshires Fine Arts. His companies USCO and Intermedia were a presence in Cambridge and Boston. Most notable was a recording studio on Newbury Street where the Cars and other bands recorded.

“Our 2025 season reflects The Mount’s unique intersection of history, literature, the arts, nature, and community. With Edith Wharton as our muse, we are excited to offer an illuminating season celebrating the sharing of ideas, stories, art, and music, while providing space for our community to gather, reflect, and wander in the natural beauty of the Berkshires,” says Susan Wissler, The Mount’s executive director.

 Through a contemporary lens, Anne Bogart says the show’s depictions of domestic violence, cycles of poverty and crime, suicide, and toxic masculinity still resonate strongly. “The treatment of these issues in Carousel may seem outdated by modern standards, but its artistic merits – and willingness to tackle complex human actions – make it a thought-provoking work within the classical music theater canon."

Mckinney’s work is a deeply personal exploration of portraiture, color, and composition. Her work draws from a wide range of sources, rooted in an expansive dialogue with art history while remaining true to her unique vision.

Count Bluebeard's new wife, Judith, arrives at his castle to find seven doors that lead from the great room. Opening each door reveals something about Bluebeard's character and history. The findings are not all that she had hoped for.

Amina's sleepwalking incident creates a scandal when she's seen at the lodgings of a visiting Count. Fiance Elvino cancels his planned nuptials with Amina, but will truth and love win out? Hint: this opera is not a tragedy.

Now, decades later, The Art History Paintings are back—louder, sharper, and just as biting. The forces Kass set out to dismantle —patriarchy, racism, homophobia, and the elitism of cultural institutions— haven’t gone anywhere, making her work feel as subversive and necessary in 2025 as when she first picked up a brush.   

The arts are the canary in a coal mine. Any government sponsored attack on culture diminishes dissent. Autocracy enforces a mandate of disinformation. Serfs and slaves were denied literacy. Ideas are anathema to oligarchies and must be repressed. Nazis burned books. School boards and libraries ban them.

Filipina Luna and Korean Jane's husbands are both resident physicians working on Thanksgiving. The new acquaintances share the day. Luna is manic from beginning to end, while Jane opens up over time. The basis for friendship develops.

Potsdamer Platz is command central for the Berlin Film Festival.  While Babelsberger Studios, the oldest large-scale studio in the world, is outside Berlin, Potsdamer Platz, is near the center of the city. It sits between the home of the Berlin Philharmonic and New National Gallery, the only building Mies Van der Rohe designed in Europe after he emigrated from the continent.

A politician tapped for a cabinet position in a new government impregnates a married woman. The narrative reveals women's rights of the time; men's attitudes toward women; the relationship of church and state; and the effect of scandal on political figures. Contrasts with conditions today are considered.

On February 8, 2025 was opening night for "Pferd Frisst Hut" (Horse Eats Hat), the hilarious and wildly entertaining comic opera extravaganza written and composed by Herbert Groenemeyer for the Komische Oper, Berlin. Sold out and enjoyed by the audience, this musical work, coproduced by the Theater Basel, allowed the entire ensemble to go wild on stage.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 2025 will feature indoor performances in the landmark Ted Shawn Theatre and the newly-opened Doris Duke Theatre, as well as outdoor performances on the Henry J. Leir Stage. The return of the Doris Duke Theatre restores Jacob’s Pillow to its full presenting capacity for the first time since 2020, reuniting the Festival’s three core performance spaces and offering audiences an unparalleled range of dance experiences across the Pillow’s grounds.

To raise money for a local hospital, members of the Women's Institutes decide on a novel approach. Rather than display staid sites of Yorkshire in their annual calendar, they agree to go cheesecake. This comedy is based on a true story.

The Berlin Film Festival opens with an honorary Golden Bear Award for actress Tilda Swinton and a new film by Tom Tykwer,

Several characteristics are common in Wilson’s plays: focus on African American men, experiences of being cheated by white men or the government, and a degree of desperation. Each of these is present in this play.