The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA)  presents Frantz Zéphirin: Selected Works, an exhibition of ten paintings by the renowned Haitian artist, whose work is also featured in the 2022 Venice Biennale. Tomm El-Saieh, a Haitian-born artist and curator who lives and works in Miami, organized the display for WCMA. El-Saieh’s work is the subject of Tomm El-Saieh: Imaginary City, a year-long solo exhibition at the Clark Art Institute.

On Friday June 3rd, the Dean of Schools and Principal at San Antonio’s Young Women’s Leadership Academy tried to deny Afro-Indigneous senior, Kayla Price, from walking in her ceremony because of the eagle feather beaded onto her graduation cap. The Young Women’s Leadership Academy (YWLA), part of the San Antonio Independent School District, ranks in the top 20 high schools in the United States. Per their Non-discrimination Statement,

Overall we loved this new play. The actors were compelling in their roles and the direction of Skip Greer navigated them nicely. There were twists and turns that kept us engaged.Henry Stram was a very good if not great Warhol. He was actually too pretty with none of Andy’s awkward enigma. This was a play after all and not a documentary. To portray an authentic Andy would have added another half hour at least. This production kept it tight and sweet.

American Symphony Orchestra  hosted American Masters, a symphonic concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center featuring the world premiere of Roberto Sierra’s newly commissioned Concerto for Electric Violin, performed by acclaimed electric violinist Tracy Silverman. The program also offered works by three Pulitzer Prize-winning composers: Melinda Wagner, Richard Wernick, and Shulamit Ran. Tickets were free, a gift to New York music lovers,

Thinking Cap Theatre, based in South Florida, has mounted a strong production of the classic play, Fefu & Her Friends by Maria Irene Fornes. The mostly plotless play is an absurdist piece featuring eight female characters. Fefu & Her Friends touches on themes such as female relationships, insanity, and gender roles.

The Ringo Starr All Stars were cancelled from Tanglewood's Popular Artists last season. It was rescheduled for this coming week, Friday, June 17. The BSO announces that it yet again will be rescheduled.

The dark comedy “Don Giovanni” holds a place as one of the greatest operas ever composed.  In the hands of a world class company like San Francisco Opera with a great orchestra and the ability to attract some of the best artists to grace the stage, the production is as musically rich as it is professionally performed.

Harvey Milk, the re-tooled opera, premieres at Opera Theatre of St. Lotus.  It is a smashing hit. Composer Stewart Wallace talks about again looking at the work, first draft  created in 1994-5. He now lives in Rome and is in St. Louis for event. He presents the title character and his friends as human. Michael Korie is librettist and contributes a journalist's eye for detail in moving scenes.

Ira Levin (author of novels Rosemary’s Baby and A Kiss Before Dying) wrote this play that he billed as a comedy/thriller in 1978. It had a long Broadway run and was made into the 1982 film starring Michael Caine, Christopher Reeves and Dyan Cannon.

The Peabody Essex Museum has long collected Native American material and is now doing so intensively. In that regard it is an outlier. Contemporary Native American artists have been egregiously neglected by the mainstream American art world — we lag far behind Canada. The PEM has just reinstalled its American collection, which runs from the Colonial era to the present, and it is an ambitious, intriguing, but problematic exhibition.

Attending a performance in the Ted Shawn Theatre, a renovated barn, at renowned Jacob's Pillow could be a sweltering experience. Having been closed in 2019 it reopens for the 90th season of 2022 with a $9 million upgrade. That features a new cooling and air ventilation system, orchestra pit, expanded accessibility for artists and audience members, an increased stage depth by 10 feet and enhanced technology.  

Artistic director, Julianne Boyd, in her storied career will be remembered for her many stunning musicals. That run ends this season with a revival of the 1978, Tony winner, Ain’t Misbehavin: The Fats Waller Musical Show. The jukebox musical runs some two hours with an intermission.

Today, decades after it was written and first premiered at New York City Opera, X, the Life and Times of Malcolm X, feels both deeply rooted in classic opera traditions of Wagner, Strauss and Berg and deeply connected to our jazz heritage. The work is as much Charlie Mingus as it is say Parsifal, which composer Anthony Davis often references. A semi-staged concert version was performed at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester, Massachusetts, near Malcom's childhood home.

A Musical Offering is Bach’s final work.  After his visit to Potsdam during which King Frederick offered him a phrase to elaborate on, he returned home where he died three years later,  The work’s complexity is often noted.  Running many musical lines simultaneously in canons and fugues yields rich linear results. Bach undoubtedly heard the vertical harmonies which the canonical runs create. They are as radical as any composer’s who followed him: dissonance, chromaticism, even odd and undefinable sounds abound.  The performance makes the case for Bach, known as the pinnacle of baroque music, as the founder of all music that followed.  

A Strange Loop, the musical, is an exuberant yet sad story about a young, queer Black man who is struggling to write a musical.  In fact, Michael R. Jackson, winner of Tonys for Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical, spent twenty years putting this show together.

Jonathan Berry (no relation) directs this script, the midwest premiere of a debut work by playwright/actor Eboni Booth, a Vermont native. It’s the first production in Steep Theatre’s new home, a short walk from its earlier home on Berwyn Avenue. She was one of 10 playwrights awarded a 2021 Steinberg Playwright Award, given annually to up-and-coming American playwrights.

A free, public opera adaptation of Romeo & Juliet on the historic Boston Common opens Boston Lyric Opera’s 2022/23 Season with two performances August 11 and 13 at 8PM. Based on Charles Gounod’s 1867 musical setting of the classic drama with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, and an English translation by Edmund Tracey, the production is co-presented in partnership with (CSC) and the City of Boston.

What a last seven years it’s been for Peter Gelb and the Metropolitan Opera: Conflicts among board members and between labor and management; allegations of sexual abuse against late music director James Levine; COVID furloughs that left orchestra members in serious financial trouble; the firing of Anna Netrebko over her refusal to denounce Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Jeffrey Arlo Brown sat down with Gelb to talk about those issues, plus Gelb's aesthetic priorities for the Met and whether he has a secret Twitter account.

The work of Michel Andreenko, a Ukrainian émigré modernist painter and stage designer, is featured in two exhibits at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. The main exhibit in the West Gallery—Michel Andreenko: Revisited—is a career survey, almost a retrospective, of the artist’s work from the 1920s through the 1970s. The parallel exhibit—Michel Andreenko and Ukrainian Artists in Paris—focuses on the work of Andreenko and his fellow artists who moved to Paris to escape Russia. The exhibits, postponed for two years due to the pandemic, are curated by Adrienne Kochman, UIMA curator.

Exhibition reconsiders the multidisciplinary practice of one of the twentieth century’s great artists,

HallSpace  presents recent sculpture and paintings by Joe Caruso. This body of work was sparked by Caruso's interest in power figures and art forms that enable human beings to find their connections to the spiritual world. It all started out while he was walking through an outdoor flea market in Paris, and he discovered a small African sculpture from Benin. 

After a six week run at Geffen Playhouse MAN OF GOD written by Anna Ouyang Moench and directed by Maggie Burrows has launched the three play season for the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Four Korean American teen girls are confined to a Bangkok hotel room during a field trip with their Pastor. It appears that he is a voyeur and predator. Once outed the comedy entails fantasy acts of revenge.

On Saturday, July 23 at 3 pm, the Clark Art Institute hosts a performance by acclaimed Jacob’s Pillow alumnus Jonah Bokaer. The choreographer and visual artist performs a solo choreography inspired by Auguste Rodin’s sculpture, Fallen Angel.

Although still on its maiden voyage, already Firehouse stands out as a Best in the Berkshires destination. We wish them success for the sake of all of us who enjoy fine dining.

During a stint at Sing Sing Tony Sirico was inspired by a visiting troupe of actors. What followed was years of bit parts and supporting roles. There were lots of opportunities given the public's unquenchable thirst for mobbed up entertainment. He hit the jackpot as Paulie Walnuts in the 1999-2007 run of HBO's Sopranos. He died this week at 79.