New York Times

In some of the most exciting and insightful productions and performances of the year there was a notable cross pollination and invention as vernacular street cultures and indigenous art forms conflated into high art. Classic works were not just revived but reinvented from the insight out. The best works of 2016 raised the bar through risk taking and challenging audiences. These rare experiences tend to make the majority of what we experience ordinary and enervating. In an era signified by ubiquitous standing ovations what is truly worthy of special recognition?

“Troublemakers” documents Virginia Dwan’s unflinching belief in projects unimaginable to most – in sheer vastness of scale and sometimes limitlessness of time to realize. Her generous patronage made some of the most profound Land Art projects realities, like Heizer’s “Double Negative,” Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” and more recently in 1996, Ross’s solar spectrum environment for the Dwan Light Sanctuary in Montezuma, New Mexico, to name but a few. Her philanthropy continues to this day with her 2013 bequest of her collection and archive to the National Gallery of Art, of which “From Los Angeles to New York: The Dwan Gallery 1959-1971” is being curated by James Meyer to open in the newly renovated East Building in 2016.

“Phil and Grace Kelly had a special relationship that evolved from mentor to collaborator to friend,” said Jill Goodwin, Woods’ wife and business manager of 40 years. “From the moment they stepped on stage in Pittsfield, and especially after he passed the torch by putting his cap on her head, their relationship grew. Phil was proud to be a part of ‘Man With The Hat,’ and they appeared together at major festivals around the world. Phil and Grace were in touch frequently, up to the day he died. Joining Phil’s group again will be a very special moment for all of us.”

This is Paul Goldberger's eighth book, but his first on an individual architect. I had a chance to review his book and interview him recently. Goldberger spent 4.5 years and many hours in conversation with Gehry and his clients and colleagues in writing the book, published last month by Alfred A. Knopf.

Music at The Colonial Theatre includes, legendary reggae band, The Wailers (part of the 10X10 Upstreet Arts Festival); Grammy Award-winning pop/rock singer, songwriter, musician, Richard Marx; Grammy Award-winning Walking In Memphis singer, Marc Cohn and “the godfather of British blues,” John Mayall.

Highlights of Jacob's Pillow Festival 2016 include a world premiere engagement created by tap dance powerhouses Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Derick K. Grant, and Jason Samuels Smith; former New York City Ballet principal dancer Wendy Whelan and choreographer Brian Brooks in an evening of new duets and solos, accompanied by eminent string quartet Brooklyn Rider; rare U.S. appearances by France-based Compagnie Hervé KOUBI and Korea-based contemporary ensemble Bereishit Dance Company; the explosive Che Malambo of Argentina; and the return of the beloved Seattle-based company Pacific Northwest Ballet.

From April 30 to June 12, 2016 at Theatre for a New Audience Arin Arbus will direct John Douglas Thompson in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” and August Strindberg’s “The Father.” They will be presented in repertory. Previously he performed as Judge Brack in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler at the New York Theatre Workshop directed by Ivo von Hove but this will be his first role in a Strindberg play.

Tom Krens joined the Guggenheim Foundation in 1988 when museums were attempting to transform to business models. Now, for North Adams he is developing Global Contemporary Art Museum. In a new paradigm it is being privately funded as a for profit institution. With reverse momentum he is establishing a business on the model of a fine arts museum.

The investigative stories depicted in "Spotlight" and "Truth" although based on events that occurred not that long ago represent that last gasp of the tradition of great American journalism. Beyond entertainment these films raise issues about the ever diminished means by which we get the news.

When I curated a solo exhibition of work by the Visionary artist Paul Laffoley it was his first Boston show in 20 years. The exhibition was ignored by the Boston Globe. A few years later, during his brief time at the Globe, Ken Johnson declared Laffoley to be the most important Boston artist of his generation. In recent years he enjoyed national and international recognition

If bad luck comes in threes what's next for the Boston theatre community. Today we have reported on the break up of a 33-year-old relationship between the Huntington Theatre Company and Boston University. Now we report news the Emerson College, the owner of the 115-year-old Colonial Theatre has plans to convert it into a student center. These developments were predicted several years ago by then NEA chair Rocco Landesman. As he suggests, here in the Berkshires, there are too many arts organizations pursuing the same limited potential donors.

Our Chicago theatre correspondent, Nancy Bishop, recently checked in at the Edison Hotel in the heart of Times Square. She reports on several hot shows: Hamilton, The Flick and Desire.

With the opening of Red Velvet at Shakespeare & Company behind him John Douglas Thompson had time for a leisurely breakfast in Lenox. It was the latest in a series of interviews about his classical and contemporary roles that started with Othello in 2006. This is the first of two parts of that recent dialogue

The renowned playwright John Guare was in Pittsfield recently for the first days of rehearsal of his play His Girl Friday. It is being directed by Julianne Boyd for Barrington Stage Company. He and others in the production met with the media for a lively give and take.

Hubbard Hall Opera Theater offers up something for everyone with their summer season.

The new Williamstown Theatre Festival artistic director, Mandy Greenfield, has launched her tenure with a double header of world premieres. In the smaller Nikos Stage a fine cast is performing Legacy by Daniel Goldfarb. There are tons of laughs and then it gets very grim and dark.

After one season the Rudd Museum of Art in North Adams has been renamed with a new mandate as Berkshire Artist Museum. It recently reopened with a Rudd installation Iceberg in the nave and That '70s show as phase one of Then and Now which will be complete later in the season.

During the Pluralism of the 1980s the Italian born artist Francesco Clemente was a part of the neo expressionist movement. Having recently reinvented himself the artist who lives in New York and India had a series of glitzy decoratve tents fabricated by artisans. The artist has painted the interiors with provocative, fluid, naive narratives. This imajor installtion in Mass MoCA's vast Building Five has been paired with the cartoon inspired, theatrical scaled paintings of the populist artist./ musician conceptualist Jim Shaw. The work is obviously fun and accessible but skates on thin ice.

I have known and much appreciated the witty and whimsical artist Raeford Liles since the 1960s. He was represented by the East Hampton Gallery when I worked there. Some years ago the artist returned to Birmingham, Alabama where he grew up. Now in assisted living his family has been working to catalog, archive and preserve decades of his work. From this extensive project has emerged the publication of a series of digital prints from his inspired Greek Pots series.

The 10th anniversary Festival will take place in various venues in the seaside village of Provincetown from Thursday, September 24 through Sunday, September 27, 2015. The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival was founded in 2006 in the birthplace of American Modern Theater where Williams worked on many of his major plays during the 1940s. The TW Festival is the nation’s largest performing arts festival dedicated to celebrating and expanding the understanding of America’s great playwright.

After a brutal winter on ever level Shakespeare & Company has launched the season with an intense and absorbing two hander The How and the Way by dramatist Sarah Treem. It stages a tense meeting between two brilliant women and scientists. A seething graduate student Rachel (Bridget Sacarino) has just learned the identify of her birth mother Zelda (Rod Randolph) a renowned scholar. By coincidence and one of many impossibilities the women are remarkably alike and even share the same field of evolutionary biology. If you can get beyond that unlikely twist of fate and other absurd literary devices this is an absorbing evening of tense and spellbinding theatre with superb performances by two fine actresses.

Now in his final weeks as director of the Clark Art Institute Michael Conforti hosted a media event promoting a blockbuster season for Northern Berkshire County. There were presentations by Joe Thompson for Mass MoCA, Tina Olsen for the Williams College Museum of Art, and Mandy Greenfield for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Notably absent from the media event were North Adams based arts presenters Downstreet, The Eclipse Mill Gallery, The Rudd Museum of Art and the fall annual Williamstown Film Festival.

Although he stuck primarily to Italian and French arias and songs, Calleja showed his range, singing in Russian, Spanish and English. A true entertainer, he cracked jokes while delivering heart-stirring vocal thrills, despite suffering from a cold.

It was really easy to expect more from Taika Waititi’s and Jemaine Clement’s “What We Do in the Shadows,” especially with Images’s sign proclaiming The New York Times’s approval: “Hilarious!” It was still a fun film to watch and follow.

Martha and the Vandellas will have them dancing in the streets. Commercial Street in Provincteown this weekend. Actually, inside Provincetown Town Hall for an early launch of the season. Saturday night is sold out but there are tickets available for the Sunday performance. Other upcoming events include Loa Lobos and Spuyten Duyvil.