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In recent years the Paul Taylor Dance Company has regularly appeared at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. It has been a decade since the company performed at Jacob's Pillow. For its 85th season the company was lured bac k for its 16th time. Add one more when in 1954, as a dancer, Taylor made his Pllow debut with Pearl Lang's Company. On this occasion the program featured three iconic works.

In its smaller Nikos Stage the Williamstown Theatre Festival features another, homegrown, world premiere. Last summer playwright Harrison David Rivers was a fellow at the renowned festival. The play that he was developing Where Storms Are Born is being produced this season. Again there is a focus on diversity and plot points hinged on gay characters, There is risk taking in this strategy wih bold and progressive but unresolved results.

Several recurring themes frame the arc to provide color to the story telling. Detailed sexual activity with graphic anatomical references as well as analogies such as bullets and exploding grenades are often described. Unfortunately, the tsunami of f-bombs reduce their effectiveness and seem like a child's learning a nasty word and mindlessly repeating it until it becomes meaningless.

59 East 59th Street Theaters is presenting New York’s annual Edinburgh Festival Preview. The acting in the plays is terrific. While these are works in process, the directors give us engaging productions on provocative themes.

A light drizzle evoked soft programming and attendance for the Friday night peformance of Andris Nelson's conducting at Tanglewood. Perhaps there was a conservation of energy for tonight's historic two and a half hour performance of Wagner without an intermission. But history was made last night as well with the astonishing debut of pianist Daniil Trifonov performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, K. 467. As they say, the crowd went wild.

“In the Heights” by Lin Manuel Miranda chronicles the daily struggles of the neighborhood in its day to day existence of raising families, paying the rent and trying to keep one’s business from going bankrupt, along with the age-old frustration of the younger residents in not being able to make their own choices in their searches for love, romance, and marriage.

Celebrate the newly completed greenhouses in Fletcher Steele and Mable Choate's historic and recently renovated gardens at Naumkeag in Stockbridge, Massachusetts from 4-7pm on Saturday, July 22nd.

New musical based on comic book focuses on the Japanese immigrant experience in the turn-of-the-century San Francisco The how's scenic design draws inspiration from comic strips. The world premiere production of The Four Immigrants: An American Musical Manga by Min Kahng runs through Aug. 6

2017 marks the 4th appearance of the popular Chamber Music group, The Knights, at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall. With over 40 band members, based in Brooklyn, the popular group presented a varied show of classics and music with modern scores.

The new Met Tosca will premier with James Levine replacing Andris Nelsons at the helm. Kristine Opolais stepped out of the title role. They are together in Tanglewood for what promise to be a starry evening on August 26th.

The ever popular Sushi House in North Adama has been relaunched as Meng's Pan Asian. With an attractve design makeover and tweaked menu it was packed when our local arts group gathered for its usual Thursday night meeting. One of the best local, family friendly, affordable restaurants just got a whole lot better,

Vermont novelist Howard Frank Mosher died on January 29th of this year. Filmmaker Jay Craven worked closely with the Northeast Kingdom writer since 1985, making five films based on his stories. Craven will be on tour this summer, screening his first Mosher feature film,“Where the Rivers Flow North,” and providing reflections on three decades of collaboration with the Northeast Kingdom writer.

Naked Lunch is never going to be a mainstream film, but the opportunity to peer into the twisty subconscious of the creative mind and the keen brilliance of a jazzman the caliber of Ornette Coleman was a perfect coming together of two seemingly opposed forces. And no Interzone insectoid typewriter would argue with that.

The world premiere of the dark dramedy "Vignettes on Love" by David Steele provides enjoyable entertainment as it explores the dynamics of love from its giddiness to its hurt. It is produced by PlayGround and plays at Potrero Stage in, San Francisco, through July 30.

In our coverage of the Ella Fitzgerald at Tanglewood we commented on the decline of jazz programming. While Tanglewood has cut back drastically, Ed Bride, the director of Jazz Pittsfield in a letter reminded me other programming with centennials this year for Ella, Buddy Rich, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie.

Ella Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996) was among yhe foremost jazz singers of her generation. In Ozawa Hall a centennial celebration was organized by arranger, Lee Musiker in collaboration with classical singers Stephanie Blythe and Dawn Upshaw. Together they are mentoring vocal fellows who comprised most of the program.

Lester Bangs tells us the story of his life, how he got turned on to words reading Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, how he discovered the music that changed his life, and how he began to write music reviews. Also how he began to consume pills by the handful (acid, with beer) and Romilar cough syrup by the bottle.

The stage designs, lighting and props for Jessica Land Dance evoked a particular invention of abstract art. The now established company, founded in 2011, makes annual visits to Pillow this time on the main stage of Ted Shawn Theatre. The dance is varied, fresh and inventive.

Sondheim on Sondheim presents a multi-media scrapbook on the life and work of Broadway's genius, Stephen Sondheim. A unique personal glance at not only Sondheim's life, but his creation of Broadway musicals. This evening provides insight into Sondheim's process and the life experiences that influenced his work. The eight vocalists, including four Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows, deliver Sondheim's music with feeling and vocal power.

Martina Arroyo, spinto soprano supreme, has committed a foundation in her name to the production of operas in which young talent, on the cups of careers, are given a chance to perform. At the Danny Kaye Theater in New York, George Bizet's Carmen was as fresh and compelling as any recent performance of this delicious warhorse.

With Cymbeline it seems that Tina Packer, the founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company, has completed her personal cycle of the canon. Although rarely performed, arguably Packer has saved the best for last. This is a complex and messy play but with brilliant direction, a gifted cast and super production that welter of confusion has been turned on its head with stunning results. This is the must see play of the Berkshire season and is on the short list of best productions by Packer and S&Co.

It’s often said that in some museums you go from a masterpiece to something less in a step. The Frick, mainly the inspiration of the daughter of the steel magnate from Pittsburgh who dueled with Andrew Carnegie, each work that hangs on the walls of the Frick home in New York is perfection.

For Nelsons and the BSO the performance of Gustav Mahler's sublime, mystical, poetic and powerful Symphony No. 2 in C Minor proved to be physically and emotionally exhausting.

Ft. Lauderdale company's Twelfth Night achieves mixed results. Production of Shakespeare comedy is highly energetic, entertaining. The play is staged in intimate space through July 23

Measure for Measure is a romantic comedy, ending with the lusty union of a Duke and a prospective nun with other nuptials pending. Yet it is an odd romantic comedy, propelled by the Sermon on the Mount. Director Simon Corwin and his team make the message contemporary. Man's darker side often conflicts with society's laws. The play comes as close to being timeless as any of the Bard’s works.