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Sean Baker, who wrote and directed Anora, a Main Slate film at the Film at  Lincoln Center’s New York Film Festival, pleaded at Cannes where he won the Palme d’Or in the spring, for compassion and support for sex workers. He does not see his film as mainstream, but you may if you give it a try.  It is moving, fun, surprising and, yes, sympathetic.

Created in close dialogue with the Andrews-Humphrey Family Foundation, Trouble combines Benny Andrews’ (1930–2006) extensive archive with a selection of his paintings and works on paper to reflect the fullness of the artist’s practice, life, and advocacy, and the ways they are intertwined.

Tony Kushner's award-winning two-part classic centering on homosexuality and AIDS during the epidemic in the 1980s is given a magnificent production by Oakland Theater Project with taut direction and exceptional acting. Fiction that is anchored in reality with one real historical figure, also drifts into fantasy. Its powerful treatment finds corollaries in today's world.

Organized against the backdrop of the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Power of the People: Art and Democracy at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), presents diverse perspectives on democracy through 175 works of art that include ceramics, coins, inscriptions, paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, posters, and fashion

Regarded as the most popular of McPherson's, plays a generation on The Weir is being given an intimate, lively production, directed by Eric Hill. Its trope, locals gathered in a small pub in a remote village verges on a cliché of Irish culture. The one act play conflates copious amounts of “small” shots of whiskey accompanied by pints of Harp or Guinness. As we snidely learn the real men drink stout.

Robert Downey Jr.. is everything you could hope for and more in this New York stage debut as the title character in Ayad Akhtar’s McNeal.  Downey started his career playing a dog in Pound directed by his father.  Familiar to filmgoers, his physical presence on stage at the Lincoln Center Theater combines his casual warmth with an edge demanded by a role in which his character may well have precipitated a suicide.

An orphan Marie was adopted by a French army regiment as an infant. She promised to marry only a member of the regiment but falls in love with an outsider. Complications ensue as she learns that she was born to a marquise and is spirited away to live a noble life and have an arranged marriage within her new station. But this is a comedy. Do you really think that's going to happen?

Earle Montrose Pilgrim (1923-1976) was an artist, jewelry maker, and experimental filmmaker. His role in the advanced art of Provincetown remains unheralded. With his wife Lily they resided in the back of their jewelry shop at 393 Commercial street. They invited artists like Lester Johnson and Alan Kaprow to show their work. After 1954 their shop housed Sun Gallery.

The most iconic Daoist temple on Wudang Mountain is the Golden Summit Temple, situated atop the highest peak, Jade Emperor Peak. This temple is dedicated to the Jade Emperor, a supreme deity in Daoist mythology, and is a symbol of the mountain’s spiritual significance. The temple’s architecture is awe-inspiring, with intricate carvings, colorful murals, and a grand main hall housing a colossal statue of the Jade Emperor.

The annual Fall Jazz Sprawl is a week of free and ticketed jazz events throughout Berkshire County. The series includes some events that were organized by Berkshires Jazz, as well as others that were planned and sponsored by the venues presenting the artists. The series concludes with a headline concert featuring the Grace Kelly Quartet plus a string section augmented by the Kids 4 Harmony advanced ensemble.

Early on in his role as artistic director, Alan Paul, saw Primary Trust at its off Broadway premiere. He booked it for Barrington before it won a Pulitzer Prize. The production at Barrington Stage couldn’t be more timely. Not surprisingly this deliciously intimate drama is well on its way to a sold out run.

Ex-spouses have remarried to other partners on the same day. Seeing one another on adjoining terraces at their honeymoon hotel, the exes rekindle their love-hate relationship. Will they re-unite? What about their new spouses? Are they a match?

Opera Philadelphia is a company that has done everything right for the past decade and yet continues to struggle to reach an audience. On April 25 it was announced that Anthony Roth Costanzo, a Princeton-educated counter tenor who not only attracts audiences as a singing artist but also has successfully experimented with programming, would begin his term as general director and president on June 1. His first public act as head of the company was to offer tickets at $11 and then pay-what-you-want or can on top of that.

Handmaids act as birthing surrogates in the dystopian land of Gilead, the successor to the United States after a coup by Christian fundamentalists. Like others, Offred was captured trying to escape the country and has been detailed as a handmaid. She now fears exile to the "colonies" or execution for not following the strict Ten Commandments based rules of Gilead. Poul Ruders's music is as chilling as the original story from Margaret Atwood.

The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art, will premiere on October 18, 2025 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and subsequently tour North America from 2025–2027. The exhibition will be on view at Peabody Essex Museum from February through June 2027.

Both artists have their own extensive exhibition histories. Both have in recent years have become more playful and experimental in their independent approaches. Synchronicity exists between their recent work. Each separately builds and composes imaginary imagery that reflect interior preoccupations with the mysterious and the mischievous. Reception Saturday the 19th of October at 3pm.

The British born Tony Vevers served as a Staff Sargent for two years during WWII. After which he studied fine arts at Yale on the GI Bill. He and his wife, artist Elspeth Halvorsen, settled in Provincetown. He did carpentry to pay the bills. He showed at the legendary Sun Gallery and was later a founding member of the prestigious Long Point Gallery. Their daughter Tabitha is an artist married to artist/ photographer, Daniel Ranalli.

Tamino falls in love with the daughter of the Queen of Night, Pamina, from her picture. To win her hand, he must conquer three trials to become an initiate into a religious order. This classic receives a sterling production from cast, creatives, and conductor, 19-year-old wonderkind Alma Deutscher.

Leah Hawkins performed in the Officers Room at the Park Avenue Armory. She mesmerizes for her moment as Strawberry Woman in Porgy and Bess.  You perked up for her Masha in Queen of Spades.  She has performed an off-stage prayer in Aida and graduates to the highly-anticipated title role of the opera in Arizona next spring. A singer who can stop a show in a minute in a 4,000 seat venue, filled the intimate Officers Room room to overflowing. 

Maggie is a heartfelt musical that should appeal to a wide range of audiences. It is the antithesis in many ways of what some would expect of a Goodspeed musical – there is not a tap dance or big dance number in sight.

Alicia Key has created herself as “Ali” in the musical Hell’s Kitchen now playing on Broadway. Keys grew up in the Manhattan Plaza complex, a few blocks from Times Square. Built during one of New York’s deep downturns, the building was supposed to be an upper middle class apartment house. Discounted apartments did rent.  It became one of New York’s most desirable residences for artists. It formed the artist Keys.

Zombie Modernism is Modernism without the authoritative stance of self-consciousness. There is no one home.

In this opera drawn from history, Sweden's Gustavus III loves Amelia, the wife of his friend and ally Renato. When the husband finds out, he joins assassin conspirators from the disaffected nobility. This Verdi masterpiece, replete with dramatic music, is given the finest treatment by accomplished principals and creative staging designers.

Get ready to immerse yourself in the rich tapestry of East Boston’s artistic community at “Harboring Creativity,” an exhilarating two-day art event happening for its second year at the iconic ICA Watershed on November 16 and 17, 2024, from 11 AM to 4 PM with a reception on Saturday from 4pm – 6pm with food donated by local restaurants.

Both Gabrielle Barzaghi and Susan Erony are among the contemporary women artists whose work is on view at the Cape Ann Museum through September 29. They are having solo shows at Gloucester's Matthew Swift Gallery.