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The Tony Awards' presenters announced the nominees for the 74th Annual Tony Awards. The pandemic cut this past Broadway Season short. Alanis Morissette's musical, Jagged Little Pill, leads the way with 15 nominations. In the Play category, Jeremy O. Harris' Slave Play comes out on top with 12 nominations. A date for the Tony Awards presentation has yet to be announced.

After 22 years as a curator of the deCodova Museum, Dr. Nick Capasso, for the past 8 years has been director of the Fitchburg Art Museum. It is one of the poorest regions of the state. The community is 35% Latino and 55% of school children speak Spanish at home. The museum is unique for its bilingual initiatives and community outreach. There is diversity in all aspects of its exhibitions and programming. The museum shows New England artists. The collection has grown with an emphasis on photography, African, African American, and American art. Meeting daunting challenges the Fitchburg Art Museum is a remarkable success story.

Victoria Bond brings a distinctive, rich ear to her musical composition in many forms. A recent commission provided a chance to collaborate with Paul Barnes, a go-to pianist for both Bond and Philip Glass. Bond's Simaron Kremata is based on a Greek chant and opens with a five note melody which repeats.

Familiar Trees is a new gallery at 411 North Street, Pittsfield. There wiil be a reception for Franklin Einspruch on Saturday, October 17, 2020, 1-4 PM. The exhibition Half Step Half Fall runs through November 21. His Cloud on a Mountain is a book of comics poetry conceived during artist residencies in 2015 and 2018 at Bascom Lodge, at the summit of Mount Greylock in Berkshire County. Familiar Trees specialized in high-quality used books with an emphasis on art, poetry, and literature.

Broadway will remain shuttered through at least May 30 which will mark 444 days since all 41 theaters went dark due to COVID-19. Broadway officials have said that they project productions to eventually resume over a series of rolling dates.

I am the President and CEO of Ikavina Wine and Spirits, LLC and the brand-owner of “Wanna Be” Wines; the meaning has a lot more, just remember that Yahoo and Google made no sense at first. I am essentially the rebel of Black people in the wine industry, and I am one of few African Americans involved in importing and distribution.

Alan Watts once said that trying to define who you are is like trying to bite your own teeth; one of my Zen Buddhist masters used to say it was like trying to see your own eyeballs.

This past summer the artist, Ariel Klein, was in the thick of New York’s protests against the police inflicted murder of George Floyd. He was a resident of Brooklyn and its community of artists. His take on that is on view as “Rise Up” at the Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams.

Thinking Cap Theatre's leaders were determined all along to present Laced at the end of October. The political play's timeliness is hard to deny. The Ft. Lauderdale theater company is also presenting short plays to commemorate the suffrage centennial.

The 2020 B3 Biennial in Frankfurt/Germany will open with 'Hello Truths, Extravaganza Virtuale' on October 9 in the US East Coast time zone @ 4 pm and in Frankfurt/Main @ 10 pm. The festival will be concluded after ten days on October 18. More than 100 artists from 23 countries will participate in an array of virtual events.

Images Cinema, an art house in Williamstown. has been shut down going on eight months. Here is an update from executive director, Doug Jones.

In 1842, Edgar Allan Poe published one of his most famous stories, which turns out to be a parable for 2020. The Masque of the Red Death concerns a prince who gathers his wealthy friends within the walls of his castle when the Red Death rampages through the countryside, killing everyone who is exposed to it.

The Provincetown based conceptual artist, Jay Critchley, is known for wit and outrageous projects. Trump has him mad as hell and he can't take it anymore. Rather than just get mad he's getting even. His latest stunt it literally to tar and feather the White House.

Richard Curtis, masterful playwright and master of mystery, has produced a new creepy podcast series in time for Horror Season. Episode 1, You Have a Guest, is available now. A demon’s dozen disturbing audio dramas are conjured out of the dark imagination of this horror dramatist. .

The skinny is that former FBI director, James Comey, adhered so closely to his moral convictions that he impacted Hillary Clinton losing the election. She won the popular vote but lost the Electoral Collage by a razor thin margin. A last minute decision to reopen investigation of her e-mails, later rescinded, made the crucial difference. One would think that President Trump would owe one to Comey. See this compelling Showtime drama with Jeff Daniels and Brendan Gleesen to see how things fell apart. Trump insisted that Comey behave as His FBI Director.

Suzette Martin's project of 200 'prayer flags' has been installed at the River Street Park in North Adams, MA, behind MASS MoCA. They have been fastened along a fence at 6' apart. A proto-project, also titled 'Airborne Transmission' of then 19 flags can still be seen on the grounds of the Eclipse Mill in North Adams. These 'flags' have been there since August. The new installation is impressive and will have a much larger impact, by reminding us that the entire Nation is still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic, now with more than 200,000 deaths in the USA. Please read below.

Eleanor, which was filmed earlier this month without an audience at BSC’s Boyd-Quinson Mainstage, will be available to stream on October 3 & 4 at 7:30 pm ET. Tickets ($15) can be ordered from OvationTix and a link will then be sent to the ticket holder within 24 hours of the scheduled performance.

The retrospective "Philip Guston Now" was scheduled to open in June 2001 at the National Gallery. It would travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, then to Tate Modern in London, and finally, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Of 125 paintings and 75 drawings some 24 works caricature the Ku Klux Klan. Fearing backlash the museums have postponed to 2024 to develop programming that contextualizes the work. The MFA has a history of ambivalence to the artist's work. From 1973 to 1978 he taught a graduate seminar at Boston University.

“Necessary Sacrifices” deals with the relationship between US President Abraham Lincoln and the acclaimed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Douglass was an escaped slave who became a prominent activist, author, public speaker and a leader in the abolitionist movement during the Civil War.

In the age of COVID, Stephen Karam's dramedy The Humans is particularly timely. The Olney Theatre Center is streaming the play through Oct. 4. Karam balances comedy, creepiness, and drama. The Olney Theatre Center production features first-rate performances.

Rob Kapilow begins his “What Makes it Great” evenings with a discussion of special elements in a musical work to be performed in its entirety at the conclusion of the evening. Kapilow is a conductor and performer. Always responsive to a live audience, he draws us in, elucidating us as he instructs. Now he is streaming from an empty Merkin Hall. Yet you become addicted in one outing. Through Kapilow, listening to music has added whole new dimensions. Orli Shaham provides examples for a discussion of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 5. She also gives a deeply moving performance of the Appassionata.

We are swept along by her lilting Irish brogue as Geraldine Hughes takes the stage in her Belfast Blues. Irish Repertory Theatre chose the play to open their fall season streaming. Charlotte Moore and her partner Ciarán O’Reilly chose well. This one woman shows draws the portraits of twenty-four characters, all presented through the vessel of Hughes. Yet we never wonder who is speaking. We learn the gestures and tics of each character and come to be entranced.

Leave it to Woodie King, Jr. mastermind of the now fifty years young New Federal Theatre, to get our new streamed delivery form better than anyone else (Irish Repertory Theater excepted). For two evenings, starting on September 21 and then on September 28, the NFT is presenting Poetry Jams. The first one, hosted by Rev. Rhonda Akanke' McLean-Nur is a marvel of commonplace images elevated to song. The Reverend at first sees herself as strong black women in history. She admits that neither she nor the Queen of the Nile bear much resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor.for starters.

Ever wonder what the great artist, sculptor, architect, painter and poet, Michelangelo, ate and drank? According to his handwritten, and illustrated, 16th century grocery list, the Master thrived on a diet of fish, bread and lots of wine.

HBO’s just released film “Coastal Elites”, navigates the COVID-19 experience in a comedic and satirical way (for a deadly subject matter) with five vignette monologues, by five actors; each breathing life into playwright Paul Rudnick’s spot-on slices of pandemic life during this unprecedented experience, and all deftly directed by Jay Roach.