Features:

10X10 On North announces the schedule of events for the Berkshires’ first-ever winter contemporary arts festival, creatively enlivening downtown Pittsfield February 16-26 with art, dance, film, music, theatre, and more

Tosca is now terrific, thanks to Tomer Zvulun, Angela Meade is more firmly planted in the wings and on stage, but the Ring ends up in the beheading of bobble-headed statues, a bore and a visual insult.

We may be years away from the installation of a new Music Director at the BSO, but Nelsons presence at an important event, made me wonder.

Wim Wenders started filming Pina in 2009 just a short time after the sudden death of the innovative German choreographer Pina Bausch. Accordingly the film which was shot in 3D includes only a brief archival sequence of her performing. There is little or no information provided about her as an individual in this documentary. But the magnificent film provides almost two hours of total immersion in her unique work. It sets a new paradigm for the genre of films about dance.

During the benefit screening of the Wim Wenders film Ella Baff, the artistic director of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, shared memories of the renowned German choreographer Pina Bausch. It seems she performed just once at Pillow in 1968 in a program created by Ted Shawn.

The Mission Bar and Tapas in Pittsfield has become a popular destination for live music and light dining. It will participate in 10x10 on North Street from February 16 to 26. Recently the Pit Bulls stopped by for lunch.

One of the consequences of the demise of Opera Boston was the cancellation of an opera by Michael Tippett. The Collegiate Chorale keeps Tippett live in a stunning performance of A Child of Our Time.

The Cartographer's Conundrum is a major multi-disciplinary installation By New York-based artist Sanford Biggers. This new work is inspired by the Houston, Texas based artist, scholar and Afro-futurist John Biggers (1924-2001). A cousin of his subject, Sanford Biggers' goal is to both study and expand the emerging genre of Afro-futurism, which engages science-fiction, cosmology and technology to create a new folklore of the African Diaspora.

Not to be missed Stephen Petronio’s Boston Premiere: performance of dance, music and visual imagery at the Institute of Contemporary Art; Emanuel Ax at Boston Symphony Orchestra; Sérgio and Odair Assad, duo guirtarits and Soweto Gospel Choir presented by Boston Celebrity Series. The Harvard Film Archives features live Director David Gatten in conversation with Curator Mark McElhatten. The Museum of Fine Arts presents a film on Boston College. The Boston Ballet showcases three ballets: Les Sylphides by Fokine, Polyphonia by Wheeldon and Symphony in Three Movements by Balanchine.

Berkshire theatre critic reviews for the weekly paper The Advocate. He also posts overnight for his on line site Berkshire Bright Focus. His reviews are also syndicated nationally. He started covering Broadway at the age of fourteen and now in his 60s had been doing it ever since.

The evening begins at 7 p.m. with a reception in the Beard House’s charming Greenhouse Gallery as guests enjoy an assortment of hors d’oeuvres. A seated tasting menu begins around 8 p.m. The James Beard House is located at 167 West 12th Street. The price is $130 per person for James Beard Foundation members and $170 per person for the general public.

John Douglas Thompson is renowned for his interpretations of iconic theatrical roles. This summer he returns to Shakespeare & Company with a world premiere of Satchmo at the Waldorf written by Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout. Charles Giuliano started listening to Louis Armstrong in the 1950s. Here they discuss Satchmo and his controversial manager Joe Glaser. In the play Thompson will portray both characters.

Facebook has given rise to 'Friend Me Projects,' which started publicly with an exhibition in Toronto and has expanded into different elements. In its entirety, 'Friend Me Projects' aim to engage 800,000,000 Facebook 'friends' and a global general population as well. "Every body wants to get involved" is the reaction Carole Freeman and partner Michael Bain are receiving.

The Artist-in-Residency Program at the Gardner Museum is 20 years old. Now, with a dedicated gallery and two resident apartments, it is poised to take on a higher profile. Curator Pieranna Cavalchini talks about the program.

Huntington Theatre Company announces that its 2012-2013 Season will include MacArthur “Genius” David Cromer’s groundbreaking new production of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning American classic Our Town December 7, 2012 – January 13, 2013. Cromer will direct and play the Stage Manager, a role he previously performed in Chicago and Off Broadway productions.

The playwright Mark St.Germain has a long relationship with Julianne Boyd and BSC. He is a board member and artistic associate. Now he is the first recipient of a New Work initiative and program which, this season, will see the world premiere of Dr. Ruth.

During a luncheon meeting with the media Julianne Boyd, the artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, went beyond just highlighting the coming season of productions. She conveyed the year round commitment and involvement with the Pittsfield community. It helps us to understand how in its fifteen years BSC has grown into one the nation's foremost theartical and educational organizations.

Rienzi, Wagner's third opera, was scheduled for an OONY concert performance in 2009, but the economic crisis cut it. Now Eve Queler returns with one of her signature pieces, and the staging was wonderful indeed.

Here are two contemporary releases by women with whom the blues have had their way, Ana Popovic and Candye Kane.

Annette Miller was recently nominated for a prestigious Carbonell Award, which recognizes excellence in South Florida Theatre. Miller was nominated for her role as Violet Weston in the Actors’ Playhouse production of August: Osage County , the critically-acclaimed play by Tracy Letts, which was the recipient of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

The mountain hamlet of Florida on the Mohawk Trail in the Berkshires is known for its legendary turnips. They are enormous, sweet and formidable to prepare. Mostly served during holiday feasts. It proved to be a daunting and rewarding culinary adventure.

Williamstown Theatre Festival announced today a reading of Richard Wilbur’s translation of Moliere’s classic French comedy The Misanthrope, to be held at The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA on Monday, February 27th at 7:00 PM. Proceeds from the event will go to Higher Ground, a new organization formed in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene to address affordable housing and disaster relief issues in the Northern Berkshires.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra features the cellist Gautier Capuçon while the Boston Conservatory Theatre presents The child Spells by Ravel. The Harvard Film Archives showcases Robert Fenz films with the director in person while the Museum of Fine Arts presents animation by Castles in the Sky: Miyazaki, Takahata, and the Masters of Studio Ghibli.

Rarely giving interviews, former US Poet Laureate Donald Hall agreed to have a conversation with his former University of Michigan student George Abbott White for BFA. On a beautiful sunlit November day, the two sat down at Hall's New Hampshire farm to an extensive dialogue about what went into his life and poetry. This was a special exchange both personally and professionally.

For the upcoming winter and spring 2012, the ICA has developed a full and provocative series of events that include an array of performances, film programs and lectures. Be there or be square.

In May Mass MoCA curator, Denise Markonish, will present the result of a three year long survey of contemporary art in Canada. From some 400 studio visits she has selected roughly sixty artists. During an in depth dialogue we explored our common roots as alumni of Brandeis University and its troubled Rose Art Museum. In this first installment we explore her education and career as a young curator prior to joining the staff of Mass MoCA.

The concept of Mass MoCA was initiated more than twenty years ago by Tom Krens then the director of the Williams College Museum of Art. When he departed for the Guggenheim Joe Thompson took over. The museum opened some eleven years ago with Laura Heon as chief curator and her associate Nato Thompson. Both have since parted. The team of curators Susan Cross and Denise Markonish accentuate Chapter Two of the museum's evolving history. When Markonish was hired the museum was in the midst of an ugly conflict over a later abandoned project by Christoph Buchel in the vast Building Five.

For the past three years Mass MoCA curator, Denise Markonish, has trekked across Canada making hundreds of studio visits. When not on the road she has researched exhibitions and catalogues. Few American curators and critics are as broadly informed on the vast and complex topic of contemporary art in Canada. It is a project she took on almost by default given the general lack of interest and commitment. In June the museum will exhibit the work of 64 artists in what should prove to be an eye opening and ground breaking overview. This is the third and final segment of a critical dialogue.

On the occasion of the centennial anniversary of Jules Massenet’s death, an exhibition is being held at the Paris Opera Garnier. Displayed are Jules Massenet’s reconstructed workshop, his glasses, and an inkwell set on his piano/desk, his manuscripts and opera posters.

Artist and educator Gyorgy Kepes, who championed an integrated vision of our world, using all our faculties to assimilate with "the scientist's brain, the poet's heart and the painter's eyes," played a key role in bringing art to MIT. Kepes's legacy through the Center for Advanced Visual Studies he founded was recently celebrated by the artist fellows and followers of the program.

January 2012 will kick off the momentous 80th Anniversary of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, a National Historic Landmark, National Medal of Arts honoree, and America’s longest-running international dance festival. Founded in 1933 by modern dance pioneer Ted Shawn as a retreat for his company of Men Dancers, Jacob’s Pillow has been a mecca of dance for eight decades.

Large Scale presents a rare opportunity to witness the creative process up-close in a new, illustrated monograph on the Lippincott workshop, which fabricated monumental works with such notables as Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein and Barnett Newman.

Williams College today announced the appointment of Christina Olsen as the Class of 1956 Director of the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA). Olsen is currently the director of education and public programs at the Portland Art Museum and previously worked at the Getty Foundation and Getty Museum.

In announcing a stunning, star studded program for the 35th season of Shakespeare & Company, now in his third season as artistic director, Tony Simotes provided indicators of what to expect in the future. This summer he will play his aces with former teacher and friend Olympia Dukakis in The Tempest. The company's homegrown star, John Douglas Thompson, returns after a hiatus in a new one man play Satchmo at the Waldorf.

Zurich proves that opera can be live and freshly-minted in apt productions, beautifully sung and acted and true to the composer and the form without twisting itself out of shape to satisfy. When it first opened in Paris almost two hundred years ago critics said Le Comte d’Ory was a mess, too vaudeville, and too much of a pastiche of Rossini’s previous work.

John Douglas Thompson discusses working with Sam Waterson and Bill Irwin this season in King Lear at the Public Theatre in New York. And pending plans for Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh in Chicago at the Goodman Theatre with Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy.

This summer at Shakespeare & Company John Douglas Thompson will premiere a one man play Satchmo at the Waldorf written by the Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout. Thompson is in the early stages of research on the life and music of the legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong.

The gleaming new wing at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum demonstrates how great design can preserve a historic structure. Through great vision, hard work and patient persistence, Executive Director Anne Hawley, her staff and board worked over seven years to complete a brilliant reconfiguration of a venerable art institution. Starchitect Renzo Piano masterfully created a gem.

You can take the boy out of the city but you can’t take the city out of the boy. No, cancel that. The former lizard prince, who performed the famous Whip Dance with Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, has gone country. Big time. Can you believe it? He’s showing landscapes at Architecture for Art Gallery.

A Preview Production of Far From Heaven, a new musical with a book by Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out), an original score by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie (Grey Gardens) and directed by Michael Greif (Rent; WTF’s Three Sisters), will play the Main Stage from July 19 – 29, 2012; the World Premiere of Lucy Boyle’s new play The Blue Deep will play the Nikos Stage from July 11 – July 22, 2012, directed by Drama Desk Award-winner Bob Balaban (Gosford Park; WTF’s “Fridays@3”) and featuring Tony Award-winner (and Williamstown veteran) Blythe Danner (“Meet the Parents”; WTF’s The Seagull).

Catherine Russell, who has earned comparisons to jazz icons such as Ella Fitzgerald and Bessie Smith, will share her soulful blues on Saturday, February 18, at 8pm in MASS MoCA's Hunter Center in a concert sponsored by Amtrak.

Between 1985 and 2010 the Berkshire based photographer Jonas Dovydenas made 13 trips to Afghanistan to create an edited portfolio of some 12,000 images. A selection of work has been densely hung, salon style, in the Koussevitzky Art Gallery at Berkshire Community College (BCC) in Pittsfield where they will remain on view, Monday through Friday, 9AM to 5PM through February 17.

Hands down, Desperados is the best Mexican restaurant in North Adams. Since it opened a year or so ago it has been a popular destination with a combo of affordable, not very spicy food, in a tight space that makes for noisy evenings.

Let us hope that there will always be Paris, because at the Opera Bastille, there will always be opera as it is meant to be: big, thrilling, musically completely in step and in tune. Even punk and Emo seem just right on stage with the descending staircases of Kings.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute presents its latest exhibition, Copycat: Reproducing Works of Art. Exploring the line between innovation and imitation, the exhibition features 50 prints and photographs that are both original works of art and repetitions of drawings, prints, paintings, sculptures, and architecture created by other artists.

Traditionally, architects showcased their skills or made their professional bones by designing a house. Usually these were created for close relatives or more often their parents or wealthy patrons. Today, there seems to be a widespread trend of emerging architectural firms and practitioners to want to design functional sculptural forms that are often temporary. Sculptors working closely with structural engineers also build impermanent functioning structures. The results are often provocative and sometimes spectacular.

This is the launch of the Barbecue Project. The mandate is to seek out, taste, and report on ever restaurant and pit in the Berkshires. Of which there are now quite a few. We will focus on ribs and pulled pork as well as evaluate sides and the all important variety of sauces. We got off to a great start with Mad Jacks in Pittsfield. With a promise to return to JackJack's Soul Food, also in Pittsfield, when Terrell serves barbecue on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Both together and separately the Pitt Bulls (Cisco and Pancho) have visited JackJack's Soul Food in Pittsfield. The one man operation of chef Terrell Ortiz has demonstrated flashes of brilliance and inspiration. But without extra help for prep a general lack of consistency. The full menu has not been available during our several visits. This is the second in an ongoing series surveying barbecue and soul food in the Berkshires.

Flavours, a basement restaurant at 75 North Street in Pittsfield is not what comes to mind when seeking out neighborhood rib joints. It is just an aspect of the diverse menu of the Malaysian born chef Sabrina Tan. Not just in the Berkshires, however, her Asian style barbecue is in a class by itself.

Ninety-four percent of Clyfford Still's output is now housed in a new museum in Denver. The hush hanging over his work has been broken and all the early excitement and praise he received from his peers and critics is proven correct in the paintings exhibited in this extraordinary viewing space.

At the beginning of WWII, the United States War Department was in a dilemma. They needed a more modular, lightweight way of splinting wounded personnel. They turned to the creative Venice Beach based designers, Charles and Ray Eames, to help solve the problem. The Eameses had been working on molding plywood for the previous few years. Having accessible the Navy's facilities, their design team was able to develop a molded plywood splint. Sculptural and elegant, it is now a design icon.

For the second season this summer there will be head to head musicals in Pittsfield. Berkshire Theatre Group has announced that A Chorus Line will be presented at the Colonial Theatre. While a few blocks away Barrington Stage will feature Fiddler on the Roof. Both theatre companies have yet to announce their complete summer season of plays and performances.

James Aponovich is regarded as among the foremost American realist painters. He is in the midst of a conceptual project to finish a painting a week for a year. It was the subject of a broadcast on Chronicle this past week. In May the entire series of 52 paintings will be shown at Clark Gallery in Lincoln, Mass. This was an occasion to catch up with a superb artist and old friend.

Working nine to five, six and a half days a week, the realist painter James Aponovich sees himself as an art worker. Over a year which ends in May he has set a goal of completing one new painting a week. All 52 works will be shown at the Clark Gallery in June. While he has been out of the New York art world for several years in 2014 he is scheduled for a one man show at the prestigious Hirschl & Adler Gallery. This is the second and final installment of a dialogue with the New Hampshire based artist.

In the galleries the new exhibition Sanford Biggers: The Cartographer's Conundrum will open on February 5, while the group exhibition Invisible Cities debuts on April 15. Series offered this season will include the exciting Alt Cabaret which features music and dance and MASS MoCA's Thursday night Cinema Lounge series, titled Strategic Thinking, with four films most followed by Q&As with filmmakers.

10x10 On North, the Berkshires’ first-ever winter contemporary arts festival, will creatively enliven downtown Pittsfield February 16 through 26, 2012, with a dynamic mix of new art, dance, music, theatre, and more.

Starting around Thanksgiving, filmmakers and studios start showing there wares for consideration of major recognition and box office rewards. Some years there are just a few notable movies. For some reason, this 2011 holiday season there are many. Looking at some of the major cinema presentations, there is something for everyone and probably a lot more than was expected. These few holiday weeks collectively have been like a film festival of good movies.

Writing reviews of some dozen theatre companies within a two hour radius of her home in Williamstown is just one aspect of Gail Burns. Since 1997 her site GailSez has become an invaluable documentary resource of theatre in the region. This is part two of a critical discourse.

Few Berkshire based critics see more theatre than Williamstown based Gail Burns. She is know for feisty, passionate over the top reviews. Her on line site GailSez includes not only her own reviews but compiles lists and links to all of the other critics in the region. She also posts press releases and casting calls. It is a massive archive reaching back to 1997. This is the first segment of an extensive dialogue.

After Hurricane Irene hit and destroyed 300 homes in Williamstown I was among the first responders and I am proud to say that my work recently became incorporated as a non-profit called Higher Ground dedicated to providing ongoing assistance to the flood victims and working long-term on the crucial need for affordable housing in North County.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance and MASS MoCA will co-present leading Australian contemporary dance company Chunky Move in Connected. Based in Melbourne, the company brings “blasts of choreographic excitement” (Jack Anderson, New York Times) to its performances.

In the heart of Pittsfield driving or walking by Panchos Mexican Restaurant looks lively and enticing for those hungry for flavorful, affordable ethnic food. The cuisine however did not match the colorful decor.

In the cold winter months, comfort food is what most diners crave at mealtime. The Staff Menu evolved from the popularity of Comfort Sunday at Mezze Bistro – a three-course prix fixe menu available on Sundays from November through May. Comfort Sunday has created a strong following with many regulars coming back week after week.

Both the Director and Chief Curator positions have been endowed for the first time in the Institute of Contemporary Art's 75 year history. Ellen Poss has endowed the Director position, now named the Ellen Matilda Poss Director; and Barbara Lee has endowed the Chief Curator post, now named the Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

Singer after singer, in role upon role, hits a home run at the Opera Bastille. You might think this is the way Opera should be delivered, but we don't get it at the Metropolitan Opera, so consistent performance is a thrill in Paris.

It would be difficult to match the success of the 2011 season of Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. The company set records with its productions of Guys and Doll and a riveting new work by Mark. St. Germain, Best of Enemies. But in a press conference Julianne Boyd, artistic director of BSC, stated that she doesn't want to repeat herself. Opening with a musical, Fiddler on the Roof, Arthur Miller and a farce directed by John Rando, however, looks sure to run the table on the Main Stage. With St. Germain's new Dr. Ruth among the tricks up her sleeve for Stage 2.

As tickets go on sale for the 2012 Tanglewood season we are saddened to learn of the demise of the annual Tanglewood Jazz Festival. The BSO at a later date will announce plans for the now open slot of Labor Day Weekend. But it is encouraging to learn of new dates for jazz masters Chick Corea and Gary Burton as well as a date for bass player Christian McBride.

Surgery for a brain tumor left the actress Caris Corfman with long term memory but no short term memory. In a struggle to overcome a cornucopia of health and memory issues she developed a one woman play. It is the culmination of a documentary film by Gaylen Ross which will be screened as a part of the Williamstown Film Festival. Her friend and one of the producers, the comedian Lewis Black, discussed Caris, his approach to comedy, and the play One Slight Hitch which was produced at the Williamstown Theatre Festival this past summer.

Sarah Sutro is a painter, writer and poet. Her latest publication, COLORS, Passages through Art, Asia and Nature was published in 2010. This one hundred page book offers one thousand bits of wisdom, knowledge and information about living thoughtfully, carefully and well - here and abroad.

Examining the Russian avant-garde architecture made during the brief but intense period of design and construction from 1922 to 1935, Building the Revolution is a rare exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London. The designs were directly inspired by the Constructivist art that emerged in Russia starting around 1915. Architects transformed this radical artistic language into three dimensions, creating structures whose innovative style embodied the energy and optimism of the new Soviet Socialist state. Alas, it did not last very long.

For those seeking authentic Colombian cuisine La Fogata in Pittsfield has become an essential destination. It is readily accessible on a main route into the downtown. It has been a favorite restaurant of Pancho's for several years. We compared notes of multiple visits to give an in depth report on the full range of an extensive menu. The chef and owner Miguel Gomez brings family food of the other to the starving Berkshires.

Tanglewood, one of the world’s most beloved music festivals and the famed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra located in the beautiful Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, celebrates its 75th anniversary season, June 22-September 2, with a spectacular lineup of musical guests and programs that spotlight Tanglewood’s rich tradition of presenting summertime concerts at their best since 1937.

After 11 years of planning, meetings, grantsmanship, engineering oversight and curating public art, Geordie Vining established the Clipper City Rail Trail on the west side of the City of Newburyport, MA. He took an unused Boston & Maine railroad right of way and created a walking, jogging and biking pathway that was enhanced by public art. The result is a true pride of place.

Greatly strengthening an extremely thin area of its American collection, the Boston MFA acquisition of works by major African-American artists includes 67 works from collector John Axelrod. Now the Boston institution holds one of the major groupings of African-American Art anywhere. Axelrod is selling the works to the MFA at below market values, between $5 million and $10 million.

Widely hailed as one of the best new Broadway plays, Time Stands Still is the story of Sarah and James, a photojournalist and a foreign correspondent, who are reeling after a recent brush with death while on an assignment. Will their relationship of nearly a decade be more threatened by a traditional go at domesticity than the roadside bombs of Baghdad?

Although the Metropolitan Opera is committed to driving audience from live performances in the House by mounting rehearsals for HD broadcasts, where singers often call in performances, opera is live and thriving in America, even though Opera Boston closed. The Amore Opera in New York is heir to the Amato Opera, famous for giving an opportunity to talented young performers and also for mounting unusual fare. The Amore is terrific, under the helm of Nathan Hull.

That’s Entertainment! Barrington Stage Company salutes the American movie musical with a special film series on the big screen at the Mainstage (30 Union Street) beginning January 28. Free for kids under 13.

Americans turn up their noses at Reggie Theater and Eurotrash, but certainly in Zurich, the directors understand what the implied deconstruction means. The setting may be changed, and the costumes made to match stage time, but the heart of a wonderful story remains the same. Intelligent opera designers understand that jealousy, temptation and the impact of missing handkerchiefs don't change over time. The Zurich Otello mounted by noted British stage director Graham Vick is wonderful.

For the 35th season of Shakespeare & Company there is a stunning contrast between the old- King Lear and the Tempest- and the new Satchmo at the Waldorf. Olympia Dukakis will play Prospero in The Tempest. In a play being written and developed by Wall Street Journal drama critic, Terry teachout, John Douglas Thompson returns to Lenox in a one man show focusing on jazz legend Louis Armstrong and his mobbed up manager Joe Glaser

Some 200 senior citizens stayed up late last night at Mass MoCA to cheer on their peers Jane and Jeff Hudson. They were cool to the point of stoic performing loud synthrock with pulsing, robotic, rhythm tracks. The occasion marked the re-release of their 30-year-old indy album Flesh. It was a fun night.

Jazz on a Summer's Day. The German/ Romanian artist, Elisabeth Ochsenfeld, has curated an exhibition of vintage, black and white photographs of leading American musicians by Charles Giuliano. The portraits have been enlarged and laminated for outdoor display during the Festivalul International de Jazz Garana, Romania July 21-24. Following the event the images will be donated to a museum in Garana.

After many years and much delay, the 9/11 Memorial was unveiled to the public at the 10th Anniversary of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in NYC. The ceremony was dignified and sadly beautiful; the memorial is a legacy to those who perished. The rest of the structures to be completed on the site may be anticlimactic.

In this third installment of a dialogue with Julianne Boyd, artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, we discussed the value and impact of reviews and critical dialogues. Is theater more of a life than a profession? What happens when boundaries get blurred?

Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield is winding down its most successful season. It started with the riveting one man play Zero in May. Surged through Guys and Dolls to launch high season and is currently bringing back the riveting drama The Best of Enemies which was a hit during the summer. This is part one of an extended dialogue with artistic director Julianne Boyd.

In planning plays for Barrington Stage Company artistic director Julianne Boyd relies on a small circle of trusted associates like composer/ lyricist, Bill Finn, actor Christoher Innvar, and playwright Mark St. Germain. Usually she is developing programming two and three years into the future. Since, ultimately, decisions fall on her shoulders she describes it as a lonely job.

Starbucks founder Howard Schultz bet that even when people got their wish to work at home, they would want to spend a good part of their day in the presence of others. The Greene Space suggests another venue that provides this with a live radio presence.

It's a storied threatre, the Berliner Ensemble! Bertold Brecht premiered his 'Three Penny Opera' there in 1929. He opened with 'The Caucasian Chalk Circle' in 1954, when he took over the theatre at Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin. Today's production, presented with a 2011 vision by director Manfred Karge and ensemble, delivered food for thought as it did in 1954.

This vast restaurant on the main drag between Pittsfield and Lenox changes hands and food themes every couple of years. Tex Mex attracts drive by tourists during high season but is on life support during the winter months. In order to survive restaurants must attract a local audience to sustain year round. Significantly, during our disappointing visit the cavernous space was virtually empty.

The Opening Night concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2011-12 season will give music fans an extraordinary opportunity to hear Anne-Sophie Mutter in a program of Mozart Violin Concertos Nos. 3 and 5, when she returns to the Symphony Hall stage on Friday, September 30, to make her first BSO appearances in the dual role of conductor and soloist.

For most of its more than hundred year history Boston's Museum of Fine Arts had relatively little interest in the work of living artists European or American. That proved to be a costly error when it bought its first Picasso. It missed the boat on Abstract Expressionism, Pop and Minmal Art. With the opening of the Lind Wing for Contemporary Art Malcolm Rogers, the director of the MFA, assured us that the museum will be a player in contemporary art.

For a chain the barbecue at 99 was surprisingly good. The full rack of St. Louis style rubs was cooked perfectly. But finished with a generic barbecue sauce. No matter how they are done the steak tips at 99 are always terrific.

Pancho took a pass on the BBQ buffet at Bounti Fare in Adams. He didn't miss much. If you are looking for a bargain and tons of food then check it out. But if you really deeply care about BBQ, well, that's another matter.

In 2001 David A. Ross, after a four year "honeymoon" was fired as the director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Prior to that he served as director of Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Since departing as a museum director Ross has been a chameleon after decades in the art world with more than nine lives. Today he performs as lead singer with the band Red. His day gig is running a graduate program for the School of Visual Arts in New York.

David Ross is less than impressed by the installation of the Museum of Fine Arts's new Linde Family Wing of Contemporary Art. He also expressed impatience with the lack of fundraising acumen by Carl Belz during his directorship of the Rose Art Museum. But Ted Stebbins of the MFA was a gentleman whom everyone loved.

David A. Ross started a career in museums at 20 while still an undergraduate. He became curator of video art for the Everson Museum of Syracuse. His career as a museum director ended abruptly, at 53, in 2001 when he was fired just short of four years at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Currently he lives in Beacn, New York and commutes as chair of the MFA in Art Practice program at New York's School of Visual Arts.

In this fourth and final installment David Ross discusses the phenomenon of museum expansions and the creation of global satellites by the Guggenheim. He applauds Adam Weinberg for moving the Whitney to the Meatmarket. Surprisingly, he says that as the Whitney's director he would have lacked the guts for such a bold decision.

With Brooks Ashmanskas, currently playing in God of Carnage at The Huntington Theatre, you come to expect the unexpected. Starting with a straight interview it doesn’t take long for the wheels to come off. From there it devolves into a comedic, bar knuckles slug fest. But all in outrageous fun. Read this and weep. Tears of hysterical joy.