Barrington Stage Company (BSC) announces full casting for the world premiere of Mark St. Germain’s new play The Happiest Man on Earth (May 24-June 17) and a new production of the legendary Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret (June 14-July 8).

The old Freighthouse has been converted into a nightclub in downtown Ypsilanti. A lifetime resident of Ypsilanti,  guitarist and jazz composer John E. Lawrence has been in residence for a week.  The final evening is a concert, sold out, with hopefuls hovering at the door.

The Winter’s Tale can be a confusing play. Written late in Shakespeare’s career, it is usually grouped with The Tempest, Pericles, and Cymbeline, as one of the “romance” plays.

Versatile theater artist Ronnie Larsen's new musical, "One More Yesterday," is running through May 14 in a fine professional world premiere production. "One More Yesterday" is an upbeat show about an aging live theater performer yearning for the spotlight one more time. "One More Yesterday" is a layered show covering many themes.

The Metropolitan Opera’s heavily promoted Champion is concluding its run in New York. The first opera by Terrence Blanchard, which succeeds his Fire in My Bones at the Met, has a weaker score than its successor.  One feels that Blanchard as composer of film scores (he is well-known as a colleague of Spike Lee), may have succumbed to the notion that music should lie under the visual track.  

Opera Philadelphia is ahead of the curve in keeping the operatic form alive and relevant. New operas and altered operas inevitably raise the question: What is opera?  Music drives a story or an idea. That is at opera’s heart.  La Boheme in Philadelphia meets the standard and then some.

Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s death, Young Picasso in Paris highlights a significant work, Le Moulin de la Galette (ca. November 1900), from the Guggenheim collection. The famous dance hall—formerly a mill engaged in the production of a brown bread, or galette—had also been depicted by such avant-gardists as Ramón Casas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vincent van Gogh.

Fat Ham turns Shakespeare’s Hamlet upside down without minimizing the issues the original raises or the brilliance. The play by James IJames won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and it is easy to see why.

Chad Smith is a visionary credited with advancing the orchestral music tradition through cutting-edge programming and cultivating industry-defining partnerships. Smith brings strategic expertise, commitment to musical excellence, and a tested ability to expand audiences and generate revenue.

Elizabeth Yilmaz and Mara Driscoll, two dancers from the Metropolitan Opera troupe, have created a performance series that’s as wonderful as it is unique.  The final performance of the spring season, and the 9th produced by this team with associate Cesar Abreu, was in the spirit of a happening.

A New Brain features music and lyrics by BSC Associate Artist William Finn (BSC: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Royal Family of Broadway), book by Finn and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner James Lapine (Broadway: Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George), and direction by BSC Associate Artist Joe Calarco (BSC: Waiting for Godot, Into the Woods, Ragtime), with music direction by Vadim Feichtner (BSC: The Royal Family of Broadway; Broadway: Falsettos, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) and choreography by Chloe O. Davis (Paradise Square).

The headline concerts include two striking vocalists: Roberta Donnay with the Prohibition Mob Band, and the first pairing of vocalist Alexis Cole with the Amherst Jazz Orchestra. Free “jazz-al-fresco” takes place on Saturday, June 10, and there will be two jazz brunches.

In a thoughtful introduction, Gadsden makes her case for Modernism, and then hones in on five wonderfully talented but quite different trailblazing industrial designers: Paul T. Frankl (1886-1958), Donald Deskey (1894-1989), Viktor Schreckengost (1906-2008), Harley J. Earl (1893-1969), and Belle Kogan (1902-2000).

Diana (Laura Linney) and Alice (Jessica Hecht) are mothers of 5-year-old daughters; it is summer in Columbus, Ohio and both are connected to The Ohio State University.

Tan Dun became famous for his Academy Award-winning track for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger.  A crossover classical composer who grew up in the country in China, and had not heard Beethoven until he was eighteen, he has made a career, merging East and West, using the conventions and tonalities of each culture.  This merger is most effective in his operas, symphonies and concertos.

Most years, we in New England experience massive storms called Nor’easter’s. In the winter months these epic events usually stop everything for a few days while we dig our way out of snow drifts and wait for electricity to resume. As artists, we relish any reason to stop in our tracks, slow time, and experience stillness.

This classic musical was originally written specifically for Ethel Merman, a huge Broadway star, by Jule Styne (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) and Arthur Laurents (book). It was loosely based on the autobiography of Gypsy Rose Lee, the stripper/actress/writer.

Rather than a simple blood-sucking horror, the play focuses largely on the relationship between Oskar, a bullied teenage boy from a broken home with a drunken mother and a largely neglectful father, and Eli, a new neighbor - who possesses an androgynous look; acts mostly like a girl; but insists that she’s not a girl, with no further explanation.

Blessed with soaring romance-style music and a dramatic source from Heinrich Heine’s take on Celtic mythology (influenced in turn by stories of the Wandering Jew), Wagner produced his first operatic masterpiece.  However, he shifted the venue to a Nordic locale more compatible with his desired social iconography.  The composer was particularly empathetic toward the title character as he identified with the isolation and persecution suffered, creating a highly engaging opera centered on this desolate soul.

By popular demand Barrington Stage Company brings back a world premiere by Mark St Germain on the stage that bears his name. The Happiest Man on Earth is a one-man show based on the holocaust memoir The Happiest Man on Earth published by Eddie Jaku when he was one hundred years old. It is profoundly performed by Kenneth Tigar.

Many of Mark St Germain's plays have premiered at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. One of his most successful was Freud's Last Session with some 200 global productions. Recently he discussed how the play is being filmed in Ireland starring Sir Anthony Hopkins. He also spoke about his new play The Happiest Man on Earth which is having its world premiere at BSC.

Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the failure of the Amrerican Dream. A top-notch production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play runs through June 11 at South Florida's Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach. .

Whenever it's on the menu I generally order osso bucco. I have enjoyed it from Palm Beach to Bologna. Even made it from time to time at home. The version at Frankie's in Lenox was among the best ever

The new Flying Dutchman at the Metropolitan Opera transports.  Grounded shortly after its debut as the pandemic erupted in March of 2020, the cast has changed. Like many of the Met's new productions, singing is excellent across the board and gives great pleasure.

In recent months, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics has been deemed by journalists and other critics as demonic forces that will endanger the future of humanity.