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Recent IRS filing reveals that when former Berkshire Museum director, Van Shields, abruptly departed he was given $92,000 in two payments. The second is due in January. There are also figures for the costly legal battles that resulted in selling 22 works of art to raise $53.25 million. From July 1 to Dec. 31, 2017, the museum incurred $1.6 million in legal costs. In April it paid off the full $1,852,426 outstanding balance on a $2 million line of credit.

During the busy summer season in the Berkshires we eat and run. Winter is for more elaborate, experimental meals. On every level it means putting more spice in your life. Since Labor Day we have been having fun experimenting in the kitchen.

Renowned performer Sally Struthers stars and shines as Miss Hannigan in regional production of Annie. The cast excels in a touching, but not overly cute mounting. Annie plays Boca Raton's The Wick Theatre through Dec. 23.

The Head and The Load by William Kentridge was prepared at Mass MOCA and arrives full-blown at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. We come, if not to know, to appreciate the contributions of hundreds of thousands of Africans to the Western effort in World War I. Who knew that African men were forced into service?

Sideshow Theatre accomplishes a lot on a small stage in its world premiere production of HeLa by J. Nicole Brooks at the Greenhouse Theater Center. The scenes in HeLa go back and forth in time from 1951 to 1981-84 and finally 2001 when Suhaila, now an aerospace engineer, visits her Aunt Bird, who is suffering from cancer.

Nathan Irving “Nat’ Hentoff (June 10, 1925 – January 7, 2017) passed at 91 some time ago. Why then, in the waning moments of 2018, write a review of a book written some 32 years ago? Reading a memoir by a legendary radical journalist and jazz critic resonated with my own memories of growing up as a Boston Boy.

Apple Boys bring the Barbershop Quartet into the 21st century. This musical form my have started as early as Beaumarchais in Barber of Seville in the 18th century. Both black and white musicians claim ownership. Every culture which discovered “harmony” in combined voices has used the four singer form.

The extraordinary history of the Second World War casts a long shadow on any art music written in Europe in the 1930s and '40s. This week, the New York Philharmonic paired two of these works in a program of extraordinary intensity under music director Jaap van Zweden: a program that seemed to ask the following. Can art music, created under the shadow of extraordinary political and human event, somehow manage to transcend its origins and remain relevant to the audiences of today?

Handel’s Israel in Egypt was performed at Carnegie Hall by MasterVoices under Ted Sperling’s baton. The Oratorio planned for Easter and Passover is often presented at Christmas and Hanukkah.

Lauren M. Gunderson has been the most produced playwright in America for the last two years, and her work has won several awards, including the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics New Play Award for I and You. Gunderson’s conceit about four women ready for revolution is clever, and in act one, a bit too mannered, even coyly cute. But act two becomes more serious.

Chelsea Opera is an enterprising company, now over fifteen years old. They presented two one-act operas by composer Tom Cipullo, a master of drama and the placement of notes in the voice. The setting in Christ and St. Stephen’s Church worked perfectly as staged by Dean Anthony, a singer who has spent the last decade successfully directing. A golden glow surrounds the now 68-year-old Josephine Baker who is being interviewed in her dressing room.

Dennis Krausnick was a leader of Shakespeare & Compan, in Lenox, since its inception. In 1976 he was awarded an M.F.A. in Acting from New York University. It was at N.Y.U. where he met Tina Packer. They married in 1998. In 1978 Dennis helped found Shakespeare & Company with Tina and Kristin Linklater.

Actor Brian Dennehy is currently presenting a Master Class in acting with his one-man presentation of two One Acts: Eugene O’Neill’s “Hughie” and Samuel Beckett’s obtuse “Krapp’s Last Tape”.

No work by Puccini has suffered more neglect and critical ignorance than Il Trittico, his "triptych" of three single act operas that premiered at the Metropolitan Opera one hundred years ago. Part of what has hurt the reputation of this work- comprised of three operas designed to be performed together and in a certain sequence- is the unfortunate habit producers have of playing these works individually, or pairing them "Cav-Pag" style with operas by other composers.

In Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery, Gladys is the center of the story as her grandson, her daughter and son-in-law and a young artist she has befriended deal with this decline over a two year period. Elaine May is making a rare stage appearance.

Hello Girls takes a most serious context, the fate of the troops in the trenches of WWI, and tackles the still relevant issue of women's rights and equality. The play harvests an engaging, upbeat and energized performance. Interesting and visually meaningful use of overhead projections (Lacey Ebb) provides both context and mood. The set plays with use of wire and lines, telephone lines, stringed instruments, rail lines battle-lines, and lines of march, which work together remarkably well.

An equity national touring production the recent Tony-winning revival of Hello, Dolly! is splendid. A superb Betty Buckley stars in the tour, which recently played in Miami and is marching its way north. Buckley's Dolly is modest, patient, friendly, joyful and vulnerable. .

Chuck Yates is one of the finest actors in the Coachella Valley winning many Desert Theatre League (DTL) Award trophies for excellence in theatre. In Rebeck's masterful The Understudy we have two male actor-candidates and one avenging female stage manager from Hell named Roxanne. She puts two male actors Harry and Jake auditioning for the role of the ‘understudy’ through their paces before giving them the okay to join the performing cast.

Chelsea Opera is a vibrant company committed to presenting new opera as well as the classics. On 1 December they will mount two one act New York premiers by the gifted composer, Tom Cipullo. Cipullo is rightly known as a composer for the voice, as well as a dramatist who creates a sound world of apt harmonies and melodies which reveal deep character and emotion. Opportunities to hear his work in New York are eagerly anticipated.

The invulnerability of middle-class achievement is haunted. Spooked by the present staccato-like news flashes from the television tell of black men shot, killed, dead . “We” don't discuss that sort of thing at dinner. Dark phantoms, shadows of women slide along the corridor where fear is a weakness which is not part of who 'we' are.

Holiday season is prime time for Broadway. Here is a tip sheet of six shows we saw during a recent week on the Great White Way.

Despite some critical pans, Frozen has a strong enough pre-sale to guarantee many weeks on Broadway’s turf. Thanks are due to all the little girls who can’t get enough of the tale of Elsa and Anna, two Scandinavian sisters who yearn to be close despite mysterious magic separating them.

American Son by Christopher Demos-Brown won Berkies for its premiere at Barrington Stage Company. It has transferred to Broadway starring Kerry Washington and Steve Pasquale. Kenny Leon, credited with many August Wilson plays, has done a fine job directing this.

Mother of the Maid by Jane Anderson had its world premiere at Shakespeare & Company in 2015. Since then there have been revisions . Tina Packer as Mother was recast with the star power of Glenn Close. This transfer of a burn baby burn slice of medieval barbarity continues to be an incongruous tear jerker.

Amigos: Charles Giuliano, Robert Henriquez, David Zaig is the final exhibition of the season of Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams. The commonality of these Berkshire based artist friends is the scale and ambition of their work. The exhibition opens on Friday, November 16, 5 to 8 PM.