Boston Globe

The familiar story of the fat knight Falstaff's comeuppance by the two married women he attempts to seduce takes on a new complexion in Otto Nicolai's best known work. Boston Midsummer Opera’s production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor" was given three performances at Boston University's Tsai Performance Center.

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Since a world premiere and mixed reviews at American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge in 2010 the musical Johnny Baseball has undergone extensive revisions. On the intimate Nikos Stage its a hit for the Williamstown Theatre Festival where is has a short run through August 3. While feisty and mostly upbeat the energy shifts from fan outrage over the alleged Curse of the Bambino to a love story and the complex theme of institutional racism. That's at least three balls to keep in the air. Take away the fan base for the Red Sox and Yankees in the Berkshires and you wonder if the show has the momentum to make the playoffs.

The Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF) season is in high gear. We attended the first WTF press conference to cover the next two productions of 'Pygmalion' by George Bernard Shaw and Johnny Baseball, the Boston Red Sox story, now a musical. It turned out to be a lively event!

If shows are not instant hits in regional theaters they rarely get a second chance. It is especially difficult to develop musicals. Johnny Baseball, a musical about the Boston Red Sox and the Curse of the Bambino, opened at American Repertory Theatre in June, 2010. The idea started in 2003 and development, with six new songs and other changes continues. It opens on July 24 at Williamstown Theatre Festival. During a recent press conference we asked about love/ hate relationships which resulted in Globe critic Louise Kennedy losing her job in reaction to her Johnny Baseball review.

Anna Myer and Dancers, North American Family Institute/Youth Link, and Bennington College present a new iteration of the dance, music, and spoken word pieces “Hoop Suite” and “Hindsight Now” on Saturday, July 13 at 8 p.m. in the VAPA Theater on the Bennington College campus

Marcel Duchamp invented the categories of Found Object, Readymade and Assisted Readymade. With wit and an economy of means he created a small but seminal oeuvre of iconic objects. Because of his continuing influence Duchamp may be regarded as the greatest artist of the 20th century. By default. His humor and inventiveness richly inform the retrospective by Tony Fehrer at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Mass.

A blessing and curse the life and career of the artist Matuschka has been defined by a single iconic image. It has both opened and closed reports on work that came before and after the cover of the New York Times Magazine in 1993. The media entirely focuses on that image and her somewhat complex and freaky life. Attempts to evaluate her as an artist are few and far between.

After its last outing at the Met a dozen years ago, Harbison's grand opera seemed to be forgotten. Now, a trimmer, more fleet version brings the works virtues to the fore. The opera will be performed at Tanglewood on July 11.

Julianne Boyd, the artistic director of Barrington Stage in Pittsfield called for a morning chin wag about the upcoming season. That led to a lively discussion of the current state of theatre and impact of criticism. Now in its 8th season the company has just completed raising $7 million. This is part one of an extended dialogue.

The Boston Theater Critics Association (BTCA) announces its nominations for the 31st Annual Elliot Norton Awards. The awards, which recognize excellence in Greater Boston theater, will be presented on Monday, May 13, at 7 p.m. at the Paramount Mainstage, 559 Washington Street, Boston.

Don Pomponio takes out a personal ad in the local rag to find a husband for his daughter Lisetta. Mistaken identities ensure confusion, which leads to hilarity. In the end two young lovers find their mates, but not before Quakers and Turks make their appearance.

Set aside, a day, week, month or year to fully absorb and comprehend the obsessive/ compulsive details of a troika of new special exhibitions at Mass MoCA. The sprawling contemporary art museum in North Adams has just launched Mark Dion: The Octagon Room, One Minute Film Festival: 10 Years, and Life’s Work: Tom Phillips and Johnny Carrera. During a gala celebration we caught just a tantalizing glimpse of dauntingly dense and complex work.

American folk singer Joan Baez, and folk rock duo the Indigo Girls, have been added to the 2013 Tanglewood line-up, with a special concert in the Shed on Sunday, June 23, 2013, at 2:30 p.m. Joan Baez and the Indigo Girls last performed at Tanglewood on August 30, 1990. Also performing this year will be Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five and Guster with support from Boothby Graffoe as part of their 30 city “Last Summer on Earth Tour” on Tuesday, July 23, 2013, at 7 p.m.

In this posting the pairing may seem unlikely at first. One artist is male, a senior citizen, an experienced artist with a well developed aesthetic while the other is female with the 21st century making up the majority of her life, little experience in comparison yet an aesthetic that while still evolving is already firmly anchored in the soul of a visionary artist.

A well-meaning state representative introduced a bill that would have made Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner” the official state rock song of Massachusetts. Now, a pair of Boston-area representatives have introduced a rival bill to make Aerosmith’s “Dream On” the official Commonwealth rocker. Here's a bit of vintage show and tell about the bands.

A 1970 concert at Harvard Stadium by Ten Years After inspired the first published use of the word gonzo. We recall the birth of Gonzo Journalism on the occasion of the passing of British rock star Alvin Lee at 68.

For Homatorium I, Chamberlain creates an environment in the inner gallery resembling the feeling of Frank Lloyd Wright's Zimmerman House; marking a shift for Chamberlain, as she focuses for the first time on a singular site.

Steve Miller Band performs on July 29. The witty and fast-paced radio program Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! appears in the Shed on Thursday, August 29. Let the good times roll.

Even before Mass MoCA opened Joe Thompson was negotiating with the Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping to participate in the group exhibition Unnatural Science in 2001. That led to a retrospective organized by the Walker Art Center. Major installations followed in the vast Building Five by Cai Guo-Qiang and currently Phoenix by Xu Bing which is on view for the coming year. This is the first of two parts of a dialogue about contemporary Chinese Art.

Currently two massive sculptures comprising Phoenix by the Chinese artist, Xu Bing, are installed in the vast space of Building Five at Mass MoCA. We first were introduced to the work of the artist through a 1995 exhibition Language Lost at Mass College of Art. It was our first exposure to contemporary Chinese art which has since moved to the critical mainstream. This is a portfolio of vintage images of that earlier project.

The 2013 Jacob's Pillow season kicks off with a gala on June 15 and winds down on August 25. Three are numerous highlights including Dance Theatre of Harlem, Compagnie Käfig a word-of-mouth hit of Festival 2012, with six sold-out performances, the return of Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, from Brazil Companhia Urbana de Dança, and a return of the stunning, French 3e étage which was astonishing with its 2011 appearance. The legendary Martha Graham Dance Company will perform. Subscriber ticket sales begin January 28 and go on sale to the public on April 8.

It is usual for the world's great museums to swap their masterpieces for special exhibitions. It is the quid pro quo of doing business. Currently, however, an unusually large number of its greatest treasures are missing from the walls of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Some 26 works, however, have been loaned strictly for cash by the entrepreneur Marco Goldin and his for profit organization Linea d’Ombra. In Italy Goldin is known as "The King Midas of the art world." If that's the case what should we call deal maker Malcolm Rogers of the MFA?

With its French and Russian traditions, the BSO seemed the ideal orchestra to present these two rarities. But the Stravinsky had never been done before, and the Ravel only 3 times. Both works are oddities within the composers’ oeuvre, but that makes them even more of a delight to encounter.

Many recall the fine cuisine of Chef Gerhard Schmid from his Gateways Inn in Lenox in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, and the Devonfield Inn, formerly known as Haus Andreas in Lee, from 1980-1994. He is now presiding over the kitchen of Haflinger Haus an elegant mansion in Adams, Mass. Some 40 members of the Berkshire International Club gathered there to enjoy his special Octoberfest menu.