New York Times

One thing you can definitely say about the eye and ear catching titles of British playwright Mark Ravenhill’s plays, like the language his characters speak, is that they are lean, mean, and always to the point. And sometimes, like his London hit play Shopping and Fucking (1996) which the New York Times reviewed under the title Shopping and ****ing when it opened at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1998, unprintable.

Modern dance masterpieces by choreographer Bill T. Jones, one of the most innovative and powerful forces in the world of modern dance and the artistic creator of Broadway hits Spring Awakening and Fela!, will come to SPAC’s Amphitheatre Stage on Thursday, June 7 @ 8 p.m.

In response to ever more devastating criticism Pater Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, is struggling to spin damage control with the media. For the past 76 years, Opera News, circulation 100,000, has enjoyed a close relationship with the Met. It has now announced that it will no longer review the Met and will focus its coverage on other companies.

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), Huntington Theatre Company, and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston announce additional events and offerings as part of the third Emerging America— an annual festival featuring groundbreaking performance by American artists June 21 to 24.

Back in 1932 the first Whitney Annual was unique. Since 1973 it has been the Whitney Biennial. Now there are lots of global Biennials. In that context the Whitney tries it keep up and stay relevant. The current version curated by Elisabeth Sussman and Jay Sanders has fewer works displayed with more space. As a signifier of recent trends one floor is devoted to performances not necessarily by artists. The downsized project is easier to digest but also quicker to forget.

The Huntington Theatre Company completes its 30th Anniversary Season , May 25 – June 24, 2012, with the perfect play for springtime: Lifetime Tony Award-winning playwright Noël Coward’s beloved sparkling comedy Private Lives. Tony Award-nominated Maria Aitken, director of the Huntington’s acclaimed productions of Educating Rita and the Olivier and Tony Award-winning Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and director of the upcoming Betrayal (November 2012) helms.

A life-long diarist, Jewish-born Professor Victor Klemperer documented the Nazi Regime from his hellish nightmare in the City of Dresden. His records of how one man and his family were humiliated and tortured by the Gestapo, how the very German language was distorted for Nazi use and the lies and degradation of an intensely evil regime are now historical evidence of what the Third Reich really was. In a lecture at Brandeis University, his former student Walter Nowojski told the story of finding and publishing Klemperer's voluminous writings. It took Nowojski 16 years, and it is a gift to civilization.

When the awards are handed out will Nina Ariadne get what she deserves; a Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role? Or will be be edged out by Stockard Channing for the role of a lifetime in Other Desert Cities. It is assumed to be a no brainer that Philip Seymour Hoffman will be Best Actor for “Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.” There is likely to be a lot of suspense during this year's Tony Awards ceremony.

The 80th Anniversary Season includes an impressive blend of world premieres, U.S. premieres, live music, company debuts, legendary dance companies, emerging choreographers, and more than 300 ticketed and free events, talks, performances, classes, exhibits, and tours hosted at the Pillow’s 163-acre National Historic Landmark site.

Bascom Lodge will open its 2012 season on Friday, June 1 and will offer breakfast, lunch, dinner and lodging, 7 days a week, until the last day of its season, on Sunday, October 21. There is also a full schedule of weekly events.

Marketing into the Hollywood style and also Broadway musicals, Peter Gelb may have happened upon a solution to developing a new opera audience. Maybe.

Barrington Stage Company was founded in 1995. In 2005, with seed money from the city, the company moved from rented facilities in Sheffield to a permanent home in Pittsfield. Three years later it transformed rented space in the nearby V.F.W. Post as a Second Stage. Now that building has been gifted and Renamed Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center. With no additional debt beyond renovation BSC has now completed its Pittsfield campus.

Beyond King Tut and Cleopatra most folks know little or nothing about the thirty dynasties and 3000 years of Ancient Egyptian Art. The Met's special exhibition The Dawn of Egyptian Art provides a tantalizing encounter with the esoteric era prior to and during the founding dynasties.

Herb Gart had a hand in the careers of many entertainment icons including Bill Cosby, Janis Ian, The Youngbloods, Charlie Daniels, Don McLean and Ed Begly, Jr. Here he chats about how it all started.

The explosive family drama OTHER DESERT CITIES, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play CLYBOURNE PARK, and the Tony Award-winning musical IN THE HEIGHTS are among the five acclaimed shows that SpeakEasy Stage will present in its 2012-2013 Season, the company’s Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault announced today.

The cabaret beckons at Ozawa Hall Saturday, June 2, 6 pm as Close Encounters With Music ushers in the summer season in the Berkshires. In a performance that evokes the twenties of the last century—a time exemplified by Art Deco, Prohibition, the loosening of social restraints, Jazz, the Charleston and flappers—“Roaring Twenties” offers a panorama of composers and styles that defined and shaped the era: Gershwin, Kurt Weill, Alexander Zemlinsky, Hanns Eisler, Cole Porter, Poulenc, Schoenberg, and Erwin Schulhoff provide a bi-continental glimpse into a decade that still looms colorful, mythical and seductive in cultural history.

After a weeklong residency, writer, director, and actor Ain Gordon will present his new contemporary theatre piece Not What Happened on Saturday, April 28, at 8 PM in MASS MoCA'S Hunter Center, as part of MASS MoCA's series of work-in-progress showings. Gordon's work, which The New York Times calls "smart" and characterized by "genuine emotion", investigates the notion of place as it relates to forgotten histories.

Nicky Silver's play THE LYONS -- a critical and popular success when it debuted last fall at Vineyard Theatre -- transfers to Broadway's Cort Theatre (138 W. 48 St.) with its entire original cast intact, including the Tony Award-winning stars Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa, along with Michael Esper, Kate Jennings Grant, Brenda Pressley and Gregory Wooddell. The Vineyard Theatre production of THE LYONS will be presented on Broadway by producer Kathleen K. Johnson. Mark Brokaw directs.

Berkshire Theatre Group announces programming for Summer 2012. BTG’s Summer of 2012 boasts a full assortment of theatrical productions, concerts, comedy, Friday Series play readings, Musical Mondays, Made in the Berkshires and more.

Claude Gosselin has been the artistic director for La Biennale de Montreal. His recent projects have focused on new and digital media attracting a younger audience. As an authority on contemporary Canadian art he is skeptical about the survey of 65 Canadian artists planned for Mass MoCA this summer. He also sees paradigm shifts for museums scrambling to attract declining audiences for the visual arts.

This summer Mass MoCA will present a survey of 65 Canadian artists curated by Denise Markonish. Recently we spoke at length with the leading Canadian curator Claude Gosselin who has organized major thematic exhibitions combining Canadian and international artists since 1985. His 2011 La Biennale de Montréal may have been his last. He plans to continue Centre international d'art contemporain de Montréal (CIAC) with a refocused program.

Helping artists to fabricate and install new works entails trust, commitment and risk taking. All of those elements went terribly wrong in a project with the artist Christoph Buchel. Ever escalating demands resulted in legal action that brought Mass MoCA to a standstill. Eventually a judge found in favor of the museum. It is painful even now to revisit the incident from which Joe Thompson and the museum have moved on.

New York City Ballet (NYCB) will bring a dazzling, diverse repertory of 16 stunning ballets from its unparalleled repertory to its summer stage at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) July 10 - 21, including the July 14 World Premiere of a new ballet by NYCB dancer Justin Peck at the annual Ballet Gala. Other major highlights include the Saratoga premieres of new ballets by Christopher Wheeldon and Benjamin Millepied; Peter Martins’ dramatic, full-length production of Romeo + Juliet; Balanchine classics including Firebird, Symphony in C and Kammermusik No. 2 and first-ever Saratoga performances of Peter Martins’ The Waltz Project and Wheeldon’s DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse.

Too much TV turns your brain to mush and causes cancer. Which is what I love about it. This week we saw the first episode of Smash. It was awesome. But I just don't understand Luck on HBO. Something about horse races. So, if you like TV as much as I do here's an update.

The evening begins at 7 p.m. with a reception in the Beard House’s charming Greenhouse Gallery as guests enjoy an assortment of hors d’oeuvres. A seated tasting menu begins around 8 p.m. The James Beard House is located at 167 West 12th Street. The price is $130 per person for James Beard Foundation members and $170 per person for the general public.