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One can't overstate The Humans relevance to modern times. Stephen Karam's play is humorous, heartbreaking and creepy. The cast offers multi-dimensional performances in a first-rate production.

Languedoc ,in southern France, has gone from an over producer of bulk wine to a region thatcreates high quality wines with many blends that focus on grapes from the region.

We Shall Not Be Moved opened at the Apollo last weekend. Under the bright lights on the Apollo marquee on 125th Street in Harlem, the gathering crowd was dressed in high fashion, from tinsel and glitter to designer jeans and platform heels. Talk was all of the subject matter and the artists who had created this opera. Bill T. Jones is well-known, but the composer and librettist not so. People were going to see the work of their own community.

The Park Avenue Armory is presenting one of Pierre Boulez’ signature compositions, the first one to use IRCAM with all its innovation. Relatively simple material can be made to acquire sophisticated layers without losing the sound of its origins. Repons is the first product of IRCAM’s 4X computer.

Relying primarily on published sources Felix Salmon in the New Yorker has reported on the deaccessioning and New Vision of the Berkshire Museum. As Solomon states “The story of the Berkshire Museum is more than one about a second-tier local institution selling off some art. It’s a story about how fragile museum-industry norms are, how unaccountable a museum director can be, and how much destruction can be wrought during a single secret trustee meeting. (The museum’s new P.R. representative, Carol Bosco Baumann, declined repeated requests to make anyone from the museum available for an interview.)” This is consistent with the museum's bunker mentality of playing hard ball with the media.

The Williams College Museum of Art, through the end of January, is presenting “Barbara Takenaga” a stunning overview of 60 works of varying scale, that represent two decades of her oeuvre. The selection was made in collaboration with independent curator Debra Bricker Balken.

the original plan was to have Rhapsody's piano part played by Lang Lang, the international piano sensation and one of the biggest stars of this new firmament of young classical artists. Then Lang suffered an arm injury and plans were changed. The program still featured Rhapsody, but in a version fortwo pianos. The second was manned by Chick Corea, a beloved figure from the world of jazz. And serving as Lang Lang's left hand, his pupil Maxim Lando. At 14 years old, Lando is a product of Lang's International Music Foundation.

Laurence Holder’s iconic one man show Monk brings the jazz legend life to the stage. Rome Neal, actor and director, becomes Thelonious Monk, and for 90 minutes we move through the defeats and triumph’s of the man’s work, life and artistic era.

On Your Feet! opens in main characters' hometown of Miami. An energetic cast sizzles in first national tour of Broadway musical. The show's emotional core is not lost in vibrant dancing, dazzling choreography and spectacle.

The sound at David Geffen Hall during the fall and spring seasons is often awful. A six hundred million dollar plan, which would have brought the Hall to Lincoln Center Plaza level has been abandoned. Now there is talk of Mostly Mozart-ing the Hall.

Founded in 1138, the Abbye de Valmange, is still with us today, due to a miraculous idea. Save the monastery from destruction by using its large space for storing caskets of wine.

Pinot Noir is a tough grape to grow. Rot and disease are enemies of this clone. Only cool climates, like Oregon, Washington and France, specifically Burgundy, have success with Pinot Noir. Now, cool climate Chile, mainly in the Casablanca region is tackling this grape with initial success.

It's not yet Holiday season and Barrington Stage is first out of the get with booking for the 2018 season It annouices. the world premiere of The Royal Family of Broadway, a new musical comedy based on The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman & Edna Ferber, by the Tony Award winning creators of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; and West Side Story, in honor of Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbin’s 100th birthdays.

The shoulder season play Lost Lake, by Tony and Pulitzer winner, David Auburn, is an enthralling and richly rewarding two hander. It would be difficult to image a more finely nuanced production of a skillful and clever play.

Cerise Lim Jacobs, whose "Ouroboros Trilogy" was so engaging last season returns with "Rev. 23," subtitled "A Farcial Hellish Opera!" that was less successful both thematically and musically. Is end-times and rebirth an appropriate subject for farce? The production was good to look at and the music-making was fine, but still.....

Area stage Company shines in satire about race as An Octoroon's cast finds the right mixture of over-the-top theatricality and nuance. This unique play by an award-winning playwright is entertaining, yet disturbing.

Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale has only three things going for it – a sparkling score; a charming story of young love and old foolishness; and more humor than a barrel full of monkeys.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is generally considered to be the best Star Wars film ever made. The dark middle chapter of the original trilogy came out in 1980 as the second movie released, and remains a firm fan favorite. It boasts an expanded universe, a complicated storyline alternating between the flight of Han Solo and Princess Leia from the evil and remorseless Darth Vader, and the Jedi training of Luke Skywalker at the hands of the diminutive but wise Yoda.

The science of time travel is not normally associated with the classical music business. And yet, one might argue that the finest time travel device in New York City stands not in some hidden laboratory but on the corner of 57th St. and Seventh Avenue. That's right, it's Carnegie Hall, whose 2017-18 season offers the intrepid listener a chance to travel between centuries and musical worlds.

Artists committed to the continuing attraction of opera as a form that draws an audience are experimenting. A workshop of Bounce, an opera conceived by Grete Holby and her Ardea Arts in conjunction with the University of Kentucky, is performed in a park in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. With dribbles as drumming and heros like Flight and Future, the future of opera itself is secured. Now this opera goes to the University of Kentucky, collaborators on its creation.

Stephen Adly Guirgis’ 2005 play The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a deliciously irreverent romp through a parade of history and fiction, including Judas’ imagined childhood.

Hardly anyone leaves a performance of Stratford’s The Breathing Hole unaffected.

John Heginbotham of DH Dance wanted to work with Maira Kalman after he read her books. They walked together, drank coffee, talked and decided they'd like to do something. They had no idea what. Jacob's Pillow premiered the result in August. Now it is playing at BAM in Brooklyn.

Alves de Sousa grows their own grapes and experiments with blends. Father Domingos is a wine legend. He has passed the reigns to son, Tiago, who holds family tradition in wine making sacred. The results are clear.

After celebrating its record-breaking 85th Anniversary Season, Jacob’s Pillow announces new, expanded fall, winter, and spring programming as a main component of Vision ‘22, a strategic approach to the Pillow’s transformation into a year-round center for dance research and development and a civic partner in our region.