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The Clark Art Institute celebrates Earth Day on Thursday, April 22, with two guided programs that invite visitors to connect with nature and art on the Clark’s campus. Clark educators lead ninety-minute outdoor experiences that inspire participants to write, draw, move, and more as they explore the unique natural settings of the Ground/work exhibition.

The Clark Art Institute’s popular First Sundays Free program continues on Sunday, May 2. Admission to the galleries is free to all visitors for the entire day, but advance registration is necessary.    

The Orchestra Now presented its first live concert of the 2020-21 season at the Fisher Center, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson. It was a smashing success.

It's spring at Hancock Shaker Village. That means time for one of its most popular events. For family fun come see all the newborn animals from lambs and piglets to chicks and goats.

Noah Haidle’s sweet and painful play, Smokefall, directed by Anne Kaufman, staged by Goodman Theatre in 2013-14, and now streaming as part of Goodman’s Encore series.

The Huntington announces the return to live, in-person performances following an incomparable year-and-a-half of stages left dark because of the global pandemic. The 7-play season will begin on August 27, 2021 and take place primarily at the Wimberly Theatre in the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA in the South End while The Huntington Theatre undergoes a transformational renovation; one production will take place at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre.

John Wilkens has adapted “The Waste Land” to the stage as a vehicle for a solo performer.  Oakland Theater Project has produced the staging, starring the multi-talented Lisa Ramirez and directed by Michael Socrates Moran.  This production is the first live performance with a live audience sanctioned by Actors Equity in the state of California since the start of the pandemic.  But to accomplish the approval, the performance is outdoors, and the audience remain in their cars. 

The Cutting Edge Concert Series 23rd season began this week. Victoria Bond has held this series through thick and thin.  It comes to us live streamed and is a treasure.

Debuting on April 24, 2021 in the Lampos Gallery, Under New Management: The Commodification of the Permanent Collection features works from Fuller Craft’s permanent collection selected by guest curators and Boston-area artists Oliver Mak, Kenji Nakayama, and Pat Falco. Operating as a fictitious marketing company, MFN Integrated Solutions, the curatorial team aims to activate the collection.

The Niceties is an explosive drama that asks us how we might be contributing to systemic racism. The Eleanor Burgess drama takes place on a prestigious university in the Northeast. Island City Stage in suburban Ft. Lauderdale is presenting the show in person and online. In-person performances continue through April 18. Streaming will be available from April 16-25.

With large format watercolor on paper Robert Morgan renders superbly crafted representational images. A recognizable object or landscape, however, is generally juxtaposed with another crisply rendered but puzzling element. They form visual equations but cleverly askew. In the work of this artist one plus one often does not add up to two. It's left to the viewer to do the math.

The always delightful Les Arts Florissants’ bring us a performance of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Grand Motets, now available on Qwest TV. Qwest was developed by Quincy Jones, whose middle name is “Delight.”  And delight is what he brings us with the 17th century music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier. 

Marking the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s triumphant return to its summer home, BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons—who leads eight orchestra programs this summer—opens the BSO’s Tanglewood season on Saturday, July 10, with an all-Beethoven program, featuring one of the festival’s most preeminent guest artists, Emanuel Ax, performing the Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor, on a program with one of Beethoven’s most iconic works, Symphony No. 5.

Bang on a Can announces the hourly schedule for its next Bang on a Can Marathon – Live Online – on Sunday, April 18, 2021 from 1-5pm ET. All 15 pieces on the program will be world premiere performances of newly commissioned works, streamed from musicians' homes around the country and across the world. Over its first six live online Marathons in 2020-2021 (May 3, June 14, August 1, October 18, February 21, and March 21) Bang on a Can has presented more than 125 performances, including 47 world premieres of new commissions and over 150 composers and performers. Bang on a Can plans to continue these Marathons, streaming online at live.bangonacan.org,

Juilliard announces the launch of Juilliard LIVE, a new streaming initiative offering performances from across its three divisions—music, dance, and drama—online to a global audience. The broad initiative, part of the school’s long-term strategic plan, was accelerated over the past year when indoor performances were halted due to the pandemic. With a mix of livestreamed and on-demand content, Juilliard LIVE expands student performance opportunities both now and in the future, and it will increase accessibility to the performing arts for audiences around the world.

The Museum of Wild and Newfangled Art (mowna), a newly opened one-of-a-kind online museum born out of the pandemic and specifically designed for the digital age, will launch their first online Biennial show on Friday, April 30, 2021 at https://www.mowna.org/. The show will run until September 22, 2021.   

Thornton Wilder's Our Town is a widely produced icon of American Theatre. It is the subject of a new oral history by Howard Sherman.

The Attacca Quartet won its first Grammy in 2019 for Caroline Shaw’s Orange. They favor music of living composers, as does Melissa Smey, Executive Director of the Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre and the new Lenfest Center for the Arts on the north campus. What was Mozart doing on your birthday? Decomposing.

Robert Morgan was born and raised in Pittsfield but became a citizen of the world. Now retired from a career in international finance he has returned to his roots. That means full time in the studio creating enormous representational/ surreal works on paper. Widely exhibited the new work will be seen at Blue Heron Gallery Online, a virtual art gallery. Well known in the Berkshires the virtual exhibition exposes the work to a readily accessible internet audience.

The Irish Repertory Theatre has given ten streamed performances, or arranged for them, during the time of Covid. Each one has added immensely to our pleasure. The latest comes straight from Dublin. It is a one man performance on stage by the actor Brendan Conroy. His lilting voice, describing the bleak Aran Islands and the lives of its inhabitants draws us in. We quickly understand that the man who wrote the words, J. M. Synge, was a musician. As words roll in Conroy's mouth, we hear musical phrases, dips and crescendos, textured takes on vowels and consonants.

Growing up in Rochester, the home of Eastman Kodak, Carl Chiarenza's interest in photography began at an early age. On many levels it is significant that Career Retrospective: Journey into the Unknown is being presented at the George Eastman Museum. It remains on view through June 20.

New Normal Rep.'s inaugural production is the dramedy Jericho, by the company's artistic director, Jack Canfora. The new online theater company's debut production features strong acting, quality direction. Jericho is streaming through April 4 at NewNormalRep.org. The play is touching and funny, but not particularly original.

American art scholar Patricia Hills has researched and published the work of genre painter Eastman Johnson (1824-1906). She is seeking funds to launch a Catalogue Raisonné website working with the National Academy of Design.

Blue Heron Gallery Online, a virtual art gallery, will be presenting the art of North Adams artist Chalice Mitchell beginning at noon on Saturday, March 1, 2021.  The show, appearing on www.blueherongallery.online, will feature her paintings, and present the artist in photographs and her Artist Statement.

Playwright Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s poignant drama deals with trauma and loss that most of us, thankfully, will never have to handle. She speaks to the fears that women particularly suffer – and moreso, women of color; and moreso yet, teenage girls of color.  These core elements are enhanced by a rich exploration of boundaries – parent-child, teacher-student, parent-teacher, friend-to-friend, as well as those of professional and sexual propriety.