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Mark St. Germain has crafted a moving and funny portrait of the great radio and television sex-pert, Dr. Ruth Westheimer. It plays at the Safra Hall in the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Scott Schwartz directs. Dr. Ruth triumphs over Hitler.

A new work by George Meyer and commissions by Inna Falik are performed in New York. This program took place on The Barge, one of New York’s most charming venues.  You rock on the boat as you watch perfumers reflected in the boat’s windows.  Boats pass by outside, traveling up and down the East River. The Wall Street skyline shimmers in the background. A welcome way to end a difficult year.  Live music. 

The Woman in Black has drawn sufficient audience to run on London’s West End for over 30 years – second in longevity only to Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap.”  It’s had productions around the world and has been translated into 14 languages.  Not bad bona fides. Produced by American Conservatory Theater it plays at ACT’s Strand Theater, 1127 Market St., San Francisco.

The premise of the play that actually goes wrong is introduced by Chris Bean, president of the Cornley University Drama Society (played by Matt Mueller). The drama society is staging the play The Murder at Haversham Manor in the USA, a production made possible, the program notes, by the British-American Cultural Exchange Program.

Flying Over Sunset, a new musical with book by James Lapine and music by Tom Kitt premieres at the Lincoln Center Theater. It features Aldous Huxley ( Harry Hadden-Paton), Cary Grant (Tony Yazbeck)and Claire Boothe Luce (Carmen Cusack), who all experimented with LSD in the 1950s. Both Huxley and Luce wanted to expand their horizons. Grant went to a psychiatrist for a supervised dose of the drug at the recommendation of his then wife, Betsy Drake.

Roundabout Theater is mounting Alice Childress’ play, Trouble in Mind. It premiered off Broadway in 1957 to excellent reviews. Transfer to Broadway failed when the producers demanded changes the playwright refused to make. Now we get a look.

Conrad Tao is a special pianist. He is a master of technique and so much more. He performs as a listener, always hearing the harmonics of a note he strikes (or even plucks). In his own compositions and in his interpretation of the work of others, he calls our attention to the richness of a tone,  colored by many notes, in geometric order above the note struck.

Donald Shambroom’s art embraces a hybrid notion of the societal whole and the individual as its own kind of whole. He leans on the structure of a visual language derived from Rauschenberg to insert images of faces known from mass media side by side with those of people in his immediate family. Sometimes there is text given the same weight as the faces and bodies.

Shakespeare & Company announces  the first three titles slated for production during its 45th Season, beginning in June 2022. Two works by Shakespeare and a modern production will open the season, which also marks the one-year anniversary of The New Spruce Theatre – Shakespeare & Company’s 500-seat amphitheater, constructed in the summer of 2021.

 Lynn Nottage, the first female American playwright to win two Pulitzers, has created the story for MJ, the musical celebrating Michael Jackson.  It has been due on Broadway for a while.  The opening date is now postponed until February.  Previews opened this week. If it stays in previews until the line of tickets dwindles, it will be a financial success.  If it formally opens to reviews, it will succeed despite pederasty accusations.

NFT art is a new way of categorizing digital artworks that enables artists to monetize their creations. A pertinent question: how does valuing a physical artwork compare to valuing a virtual work of art? It turns out that the value of NFTs and crypto art is based on the value of cryptocurrency. NFTs are sold on the basis of Ether or Ethereum. The Ethereum is translated into monetary value. For example, if an NFT sells for 2 Ethereum, that would translate at the moment into about $2,255 dollars. If the speculative value of the Ethereum drops, then so does the value of the artwork.

Inna Faliks is a superb concert pianist, who also heads the piano studies department at the University of California, Los Angeles.  Her recordings are devoted to revealing kindred spirits. Husband and wife, Robert and Clara Schumann, are offered together in The Schumann Project. Their entwined influence is suggested. Her interpretations of Beethoven will be presented as part of a Barge Concert in New York on December 16.

The magic of this play lies in the everyday ordinariness of each character’s lives which frequently tend to echo our own. I might add, when the lights went down there was not a dry eye in the house. Nor was there a heart left untouched.

The play is set two years after Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have married and settled at his home. The family is arriving to celebrate Christmas.

In Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, playwright Tom Mula tells the familiar tale, but from Jacob Marley's perspective. City Theatre in Miami has mounted an engaging production that runs through Dec. 19. Long-time British Actor Colin McPhillamy plays 18 characters in this minimalist production.

It comes as no surprise that the oldest piano in the world, created in 1720 by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua, is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An earlier instrument was recorded in the inventory of the Medici family in 1700, but the Met’s piano is the oldest to survive today.  It has hammers and dampers, two keyboards, and a range of four octaves, C–c”’ The instrument was on view for concertgoers, who enjoyed a talk by Leon Botstein om the development of the instrument. He focused on Beethoven's response to more notes with a wider dynamic range, The Orchestra Now performed the Emperor Concerto, Shai Wosner at the modern Steinway and Leon Botstein conducting.

As ever in our prayers a universal wish.

“The Sound of Music”, is a show that the whole family can enjoy. It’s based on an inspirational true story of the famous Austrian von Trapp Family Singers and their escape to Switzerland on the eve of Germany’s 1938 Anschluss, and it’s annexing of Austria prior to World War II that will break out one year later.

Bend but don't break.

In "The People Downstairs," versatile and prolific South Florida playwright Michael McKeever presents the Anne Frank story from the perspective of the people who hid the 13-year-old girl and others during World War II. Palm Beach Dramaworks (PBD) in West Palm Beach is presenting the world premiere.

Jeremy Denk performed “The Old Testament of Keyboard Music,”  Bach’ s Well Tempered Clavier (WTC) , at the 92nd Street Y in New York. The artist selects works to which he can bring new insights. Bach, he sensed, was trapped by the Glenn Gould performances in the mid-20th century. Audiences found the neuroses Gould implanted in Bach suitable for the century’s mood. They also appreciated the humming he added to the piano notes. Other performers flatten the work to sound more like a harpsichord, sewiwgmachine style.

Written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon and directed by Ariel Bock, The Wickhams features many familiar characters of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, as well as some new faces: a no-nonsense housekeeper, a spirited new maid, and a love-sick, enterprising footman. The staff is deeply engaged in holiday preparations at Pemberley, the estate of Elizabeth and Darcy.

If you like Dickens’ A Christmas Carol performed by shadow puppets with special effects from an overhead projector, Manual Cinema has an adaptation of the holiday classic for you. Its 2020 virtual production of the Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol is available for viewing this year and it’s still quirky and delightful, even though it retains its earlier pandemic theme. (Yes, we’re still in the damnable pandemic or endemic, so enjoy this view of it.)

There's lots of fun for the whole family on stage in Connecticut. Here's a cheat sheet.

It may sound like ‘Heresy’ to some of my colleagues, but for me personally, the gifts that resided inside the genius that was Stephen Sondheim was an acquired taste.