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Michael/Dorothy comes alive on Broadway. The updated book by Robert Horn in the musical version of Tootsie shifts the action from the soap opera world to that of Broadway and improves the narrative and dynamics. David Yazbeck’s pop score with sparkling and penetrating lyrics adds another dimension with a sharper focus on female empowerment.

Several years ago, 2015 Pop Songwriter of the Year Ross Golan, who has written for Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, Michael Bublé, and many more, developed a concept album called The Wrong Man. The project morphed into a one-man theatrical show that won Ovation Awards in Los Angeles. Now, a compelling, fully-formed, dark, rock opera appears Off Broadway.

This mind-bending drama is performed by a great, almost all-British cast headed by two of contemporary theater’s most renowned artists. Jonathan Pryce is André, the father. The equally formidable Eileen Atkins plays his wife.

Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning has more religious, personal, and political exposition (read talk) than many a mind can absorb at one sitting, The play is essentially a snapshot of the current divisive state of affairs in this country.

Queen Mary I is infatuated with the Scottish adventurer Fenimoore, who is in love with Clothilde, who in turn loves Ernesto. Romance and political intrigue are treacherous bedfellows in this opera based on Victor Hugo’s play about Mary Tudor. A remarkable and largely forgotten opera, its expressive vocal characterization paints an unforgettable portrait of a Queen and the repercussions of her indulgence in an unwise love. Presented as a fully-staged production in Italian with English subtitles. Libretto by Leopoldo Tarantini.

Last summer for exhibitions at Gallery 51 and the Eclipse Gallery, both in North Adams, with Amanda at Beck's Printing I created large format digital prints on canvas. There were five last summer. Three classical based surreal prints are included in the November exhibition at Real Eyes Gallery in Adams. Ten more large canvases have been created for the project curated by gallerist Bill Riley. There are also some framed giclee prints as well as original collages.

Jazz entrepreneur Fred Taylor has passed at 90. He never retired producing concerts and programming for the Cabot Theatre in Beverly. Not surprisingly his yet to be published autobiography, a collaboration with Richard Vacca, is titled What and Quit Show Business. Taylor booked Boston's Jazz Workshop/ Paul’s Mall from 1963 to 1978. From 1991 to 2017 he booked Scullers Jazz Club and produced the Tanglewood Jazz Festival from 2001 to 2007.

Boston’s country singers Annie Brobst & Samantha Rae are behind the Country Women for Women’s Cancer Benefit at Hard Rock Café. The sold out event will occur on Saturday, November 2 at 8PM. The fundraiser will help the Susan F. Smith Center Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

During a recent visit to the Museum of Fine Arts a school group was inappropriately treated in a blatantly racist manner. That has caught the museum, and its director Matthew Teitelbaum, in the cross hairs of media whiplash. There is a shameful legacy of racism and anti Semitism at the MFA. It will take decades to make appropriate changes.

White Lights Festival at Lincoln Center brings bunraku Puppet Theater from Japan to The Rose Theater. Hiroshi Sugmoto, an artist of many disciplines, has updated Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s Love Suicides at Sonezaki. Monzaemon was Japan’s Shakespeare and first to advance the notion that lovers whose relationship could be realized in this world could find happiness in a Buddhist paradise.

The play by Robin Glendinning is based on fact. Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, the first Irish priest to hold the title of Notary of the Holy Office, spent WWII at the Vatican, where he proved to be a man of action.

I was invited to a 'pop-up' John Hiatt show the Noho section of Manhattan. It was a solo rooftop performance.

Some flaws exist in this production of Billy Elliot directed by Gabriel Barre and choreographed by Marc Kimelman. Barre has changed a few things from the original show and overall they work,

The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse at Lyric Stage Company is not the usual family oriented family entertainment. This hilarious satire comments that some 50 million turkeys are slaughtered to feed the occasion. The only juveniles suited for this production are delinquents.

The artist Martin Mugar has posted a number of provocactive think pieces to this site. His self published book Drawing and Painting provides lesson plans for progressive faculty and students. It distills what he learned earning an MFA degree at Yale followed by decades of teaching. Like all of his writing the book is challengings and insightful.

Inside common experiences, one financial and the other political, are revealed in a broad slapstick comedy, Quiet Enjoyment and Duck, darkly humorous explorations of Snowden's dilemma and ours.

Repertorio Espanol Presents The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao based on the novel by Junot Diaz. It is written and directed by Marco Antonio Rodriquez. The Pulitzer winning novel (2008) creates a painfully socially dysfunctional character. A young Dominican man armors himself within the world of sci-fi fantasy in order to weather the difficult process of assimilation. The story is as much a tale of one man's unbearable loneliness as it is a metaphor for the scars and trauma of ruthless dictatorial oppression, social fragmentation, ultimate immigration and assimilation.

This fictional account tells of the life of the real Afong Moy, who in 1834 at age 14, became the first Chinese female to step foot in the United States. Unique to her era, only in the 20th century did Chinese women begin to trickle into this country. The Chinese Lady is a two person play by Lloyd Suh.

In The Crypt, composer and performing artists collaborate. Selections of a talented impresario invite artists and audience to enter special moments together. Sounds reverberate from stone as candles cast warm light. Moments nourish the soul to spread and re-capture the precious environment for which composer John Luther Adams has always fought. Adams now focuses on the power of music to transform. In the bows and string of the Jack Quartet, it does.

Falling is a touching, honest look at a family caring for an autistic young man. New City Players' production presents a master class is naturalistic acting. The production runs through Sunday.

James Aponovich is on the short list of leading American realist painters. He is having a stunning exhibition of new work at the Clark Gallery in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

Nabucco evidences the Verdi sound and style associated with the masterpieces of his rich middle period. The music is melodious throughout, with demanding arias and complex ensembles, though none are among his more memorable. However, the overture, which includes many of the opera’s themes, captivates and is often performed on its own in concert halls.

“The Clark’s upcoming summer season is an ambitious program highlighting new discoveries and new initiatives,” said Olivier Meslay, Hardymon Director of the Clark. “We are truly energized by the opportunity to activate our entire campus by sharing exhibitions that will introduce our visitors—and the world—to artists whose work is vibrant, dynamic, and inspiring. This summer’s programs span more than one hundred years of artistic practice and explore a rich array of themes through both historic and contemporary lenses.”

In recognition and celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Jazz Studies department and the Jazz Studies program, New England Conservatory is hosting Jazz50, a year-long series of concerts and events.

Super diva Barbara Hannigan and the Jack Quartet with Sae Hashimoto on vibraphone performed the music of John Zorn in the Veterans Room of the Park Avenue Armory. Hannigan had selected this room because she wanted the audience to have an intimate experience. We heard her daring and beautiful take on Zorn’s Jumalattaret, which was even more bold and beautiful than its US premiere in Ojai last June.