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This was the last of the plays both in time period and when it was written. It seems that Skeleton Crew is less dependent on the influences of August Wilson and Lorraine Hansberry than the other works. Morrisseau seems more sure of herself in this work.

Phenomenal Nature, the first American retrospective of the remarkable sculptures of Indian artist, Mrinalini Mukherjee, will be on display at the Met Breuer until September 29 and is well worth viewing.

Leo Mateo, the artistic and Executive Director of the Miners Alley Playhouse, is a fan of the podcast form. One day, he heard about Mae Brussell, a prominent conspiracy theorist who lived from 1922-1988. Her radio broadcasts were extremely popular. She dove into JFK’s murder, giving herself as a birthday present 26 volumes of the Warren Commission report. Her life and impact are explored in Josh Hartwell's highly entertaining and provocative new play.

Garrison Keillor and 'A Prairie Home Companion' are out to pasture. Chris Thile, successor and host of 'Live From Here' made their second appearance at Koussevitzky Music Shed in Lenox, Massachusetts. The musical, comedic, live radio show on American Public Media radio stations featured Thile and his back-up band of musicians, a female trio, a comedian and a pianist-composer-singer from Hudson, New York.

Paul Pelkonen, a brilliant critic, died suddenly of heart failure at the age of 46. Paul was one of the great pleasures of reporting on music. He loved it as much as anyone could, and knew more about it than most people. His taste was impeccable.

The fourth annual Berkshire Mountains Faerie Festival, Saturday, June 15 in North Adams, was the best so far. It takes time to develop an event and get the word out. For the first time there was a full parking lot and long line when the fanciful gate opened at 10 AM. There was a full schedule of family activites for the next twelve hours.

In 1967-68 Steve Nelson was the manager of the legendary rock and blues club The Boston Tea Party, and later ran The Woodrose Ballroom in western Mass. In his memoir Gettin’ Home: An Odyssey Through the ‘60s, he recalls the long and winding journey which took him from high in the Andes to become the foremost producer/promoter of concerts by The Velvet Underground. He will read from his book and chat about those times on Thursday, June 20 at 5:30.

Trident Gallery in Gloucester is presenting Gabrielle Barzaghi: The Tzar’s Children. There will be a discussion wth the figurative /narrative artist on Sunday, June 16, at 4 PM.

As a conductor, Barbara Hannigan is full of physical energy and a dynamic beat. Listening to her sing and conduct feels intimate, intuitive, and collaborative. Bowled over by Hannigan’s deep musicality, her sense of the proper degree of vibrato is often overlooked. She has just the right amount of delicate breath in each note, giving the slightest hint of texture to a smooth and pure line. One’s sense of this may be a matter of taste, but the style suits the music she chooses to sing.

The play won Artemisia’s 2016 Fall Festival of new play readings. Julie Proudfoot has been working with Traci Godfrey since then to refine the play for Artemisia, which is dedicated to new feminist plays that center on women who own their own narratives.

Playwright Lee Blessing, back in 1988, debuted his fact-based drama “A Walk in the Woods,” about two arms negotiators; one American John Honeyman (J.Todd Adams) and one Russian Andrey Botvinnik (David Ellenstein), is now wowing audiences at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach, CA.

A Bronx Tale's heart and humor makes this crowd pleasing musical a worthy afternoon or night at the theater. An equity national touring production is playing in Ft. Lauderdale through later this month. Loyalty, family and trust are some of the themes examined in A Bronx Tale.

The Ojai Music Festival in California is almost 75 years old. In this magical setting an hour and a half north of Los Angeles, music making is very much here and now. Each year, an artistic director selects a music director and works with her to program four days of performance, talk and film screenings. While coming for one program undoubtedly gives pleasure, the maximum effect of this festival is to be had by immersion. This is not your ordinary concert program. One performance follows another by design and relationships become more clear as the days pass.

The story is based on The Blue Stocking Society of 1750 London. It was a society of creative, sophisticated, and educated women; women who came together to discuss literature, philosophy, and art in their London homes. They sought to bring the conversations and opinions of the day that were happening in the men’s private clubs and coffee houses into the parlor room where women could participate as well.

A major part of freshman orientation on many campus is about Title IX – sexual activity, consent, the school’s policies and the penalties that may result from violation of these.

Carmen is conducive to fresh, modernized productions, often with changes in time period, geography, and more. Here we have a traditional approach, including the original spoken dialogue, which mark it as an opera comique. This rendition confirms why the opera has stood the test of time.

About Face: Stonewall, Revolt and New Queer Art commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, a spontaneous rebellion by gay activists after a police raid on a gay bar in Greenwich Village. Curated by Jonathan David Katz, Ph.D., activist, art historian, writer and university professor, the exhibit features almost 500 works of art in every conceivable media.

Darko Tresnjak is going out with a delightful, tuneful musical that will touch your heart. For his last show as artistic director at Hartford Stage he has directed the world premiere musical, The Flamingo Kid now through Saturday, June 15.

New Orleans master Dr. John has died. Perhaps he was 77 but like most aspects of the musician it is yet another factoid swathed in swamp gas. On June 1, 2002, with singer Jimmy Scott, he jammed the inner court yard of MASS MoCA. Over the years I covered him numerous times including his witch doctor Gris Gris phase in the late 1960s. He long ago earned a spot in the pantheon of America's greatest musical tradition.

Last year was the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s landmark horror novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, which explains why we have been able to see four different versions of the Frankenstein story on stage in Chicago during this theater season. The final production of this series is Lookingglass Theatre’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written and directed by David Catlin. After August 4 it transfers for a three week run at Princeton's McCarter Theatre Center.

Today, June 5, friends will gather to celebrate the 75th birthday of the curator Calude Gosselin. Not having visited Montréal in some time we made plans for travel in the fall. That changed abruptly when we were bumped off a flight to the U.K. From the road we called Claude and told him we would arrive in a couple of hours. It was great to catch up. Since the 1980s he has curated major exhibitions including Les Cent jours d’art contemporain de Montréal and Biennale de Montréal. We covered many of those projects.

During a recent road trip we visited museums in Montreal, Ottowa and Toronto. We noted different strategies to intergate First Nations artists into special exhibitions and permanent collection galleries. A third of the exhibition space of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto features First Nations artists. With an unfavorable comparison only a handful of American museums have a commitment to feature Native American art and culture.

Experiments in Opera was co-founded in Brooklyn in 2010 by composers Aaron Siegel, Matthew Welch and Jason Cady. They contributed Chunky in Heat to the New York Opera Festival. It was a wild, wacky and moving work.

Veronica's Position is a meaty comedy with offering plenty to think about. Rich Orloff's comedy is an entertaining part backstage comedy, part problem play, part satire. It takes place at the end of 1989 and the beginning of 1990 in Washington D.C. offering eerie resemblances to today's political climate.

The world premiere of David Lang's prisoner of the state takes place in David Geffen Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic. The 106 member orchestra will perform, but this can hardly be called a concert production. Instead the Hall has been transformed into a prison. Even the instrumentalists on stage are in prison. Costumes, chains and handcuffs were ordered from Bob Barker, the country's leading detention supplier.