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If I Were You possesses a compelling score with drama to match. Full of symbols of soul transporters and apples and grieving elephants as well as contrasting venues from offices to bars, it stimulates the ears and eyes and holds the attention throughout

Blck, Whyte, Gray is performed at the Mostly Mozart Festival, a clear invitation for a wide swathe of ethnic groups to join the Festival audience, and also a pleasure and a revelation for regulars. Advance notice was served at the White Light Festival last fall, when Blck, Whyte, Gray was a smash hit of the Festival.

For a deliciously entertaining evening of theater it is hard to top Working: A Musical at Berkshire Theatre Group. Last night the intimate Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge was filled to capacity by a thoroughly delighted audience.

Anton’s Well’s Artistic Director Robert Estes scored a coup by securing the Bay Area premieres of two one-act plays – Escaped Alone and Here We Go – by Caryl Churchill, who some consider Britain’s finest living playwright.

It was standing room only last night for the packed performance of Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders. On a perfect summer night, with just a touch of heat relief, they performed on stage in a large courtyard of MASS MoCA.

Murder for Two is a zany treat at Suburban Miami's Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre. Martin Landry gives a tour-de-force performance, playing more than a dozen murder suspects in hit musical comedy mystery. The two cast members prove multi-threats, as they not only act but play the piano like pros.

The International Contemporary Ensemble started off its 12th annual Mostly Mozart season at the David Rubenstein Atrium in Lincoln Center. The first concert was free and attracted an overflow crowd. Bringing the audience up to date and beyond, Mostly Mozart has offered free concerts of contemporary music in an act of generosity. People appreciate the chance to listen to a new landscape of composers.

The approach of the Lucy Kirkwood play, The Children at Shakespere & Company, is conceptual. It’s rather like a BBC detective series where there is investigation of a murder that we don’t witness. There is crime but the audience is spared the horrific details. Characters are involved with cleaning up the meltdown of a nuclear power plant which entailed their flawed design.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary since his death the Clark Art Institute has organized a scholarly exhibition Renoir: the Body, the Senses. At his best few 19th century masters can match his charm and popular appeal. His greatest works were included in the 1985-1986 blockbuster exhibition Renoir, which was shown in London and Paris before it came to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It broke MFA records with 500,000 plus visitors. The Clark show by comparison is small and uneven.

Cellist Kian Soltani partnered with pianist Julio Elizalde in a late evening concert in Lincoln Center's nightclub in the sky, the Stanley Kaplan Penthouse. Mostly Mozart presented Soltani, who like Mozart, was born in Austria.

Davone Tines was looking for a project to touch him deeply. His college classmate Michael Schacter suggested reading Langston Hughes' poems. The Black Clown hit him in the gut. Years ago Hughes had felt just as he did. Schachter and Tines collaborated on a moving and energetic musical monologue prompted by the poem. It is a wild theatrical success in its New York premiere.

Hamlet is tormented to avenge the murder of his father by Gertrude, his mother and her lover Claudius, his uncle. First performed in 1609 they have been scorned by audiences ever since. John Updike's novel Gertrude and Claudius presented their sordid collaboration as a love story. That has been tranformed into a drama directed by Julianne Boyd for Barrington Stage Company. While the production is problematic it is among the best and most intriguing of the many plays of a prolific playwright.

The Brightness of Light by Kevin Puts had its world premiere at The Shed at Tanglewood. Rod Gilfry, baritone, and Puts' collaborator Renee Fleming, sang the baritone and soprano roles of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keefe, who were married for twenty-two years. Often living and working in different parts of America, they corresponded. Puts scoured the correspondence to develop an arc for his orchestral song cycle. It is a brilliantly achieved work.

A particular period of Irish history has been the focus of several recent remarkable works of art: two books, one an experimental novel, and the other journalistic nonfiction, plus a much-praised Broadway drama. All of them won multiple awards. I’ll also add a 2008 film to this list of artistic works. They all commemorate the years of the Troubles, that period of history of Northern Ireland in which more than 3500 people died or were disappeared.

With more that 20 bookings no company has logged more appearances at Jacob's Pillow. For the first time in five years Mark Morris Dance Group & Music Ensemble is back this week. In recent years it has been the only dance company to be featured a number of times at Tanglewood. Now sliding past middle age, however, the choreographer is challenged to maintain pole position on the cutting edge. It was heartening to see a new piece in a program of vintage works.

Not since A Strange Loop, through July 28th at Playwrights Horizons, have we come across a many faceted gay character like Usher (the extremely talented Larry Owens). He spares no detail, however raw, intimate, personal, scatological and sordid – in the telling of his life.

Mostly Mozart programmers ask the most obvious question at the start. Why a film about Buster Keaton in this festival related to Mozart? Seeing the film, an easy comparison can be made with Papagano, the physical actor/singer in The Magic Flute, which will play in a charming version at Lincoln Center. Yet it is the quality of the work that is truly similar.

Clocking in at three acts and three hours it's a long, tough slog through Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth at Berkshire Theatre Group. Having endured an epic assault on the senses we much appreciated the experience. There is far too much relevance to this grim, Pulitizer Prize winning 1942 play. Then America was facing fascism abroad and now we are confronted by racism and fascism within.

With promises of visas and relocation to the United States the mlitary recruited interpreters in Afghanistan. That promise was reneged on when America started to withdraw and wind down in 2011. The world premiere play Selling Jabul by Sylvia Khoury focuses on the fate of one individual and his family who was left high and dry.

At Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop The Hodgepodge Group and Lucy Powis presents, In the Penal Colony, a new and dynamic re-creation of Kafka's story by writer/director Miranda Haymon. What are the personal responsibilities of those who bear witness to the abuse of power? What is the relationship of the victim to the support of breaking institutional norms? What of the admiration for power, and the adulation of murderous solution?. At what point can we shed the reverence for brutal traditions?

To mark the 500th anniversary of the legendary painter Raphael’s death, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will bring together - for the first time – Raphael’s portrait of papal librarian, Tommaso Inghirami, from its collection and a painting depicting an episode in his life from the Musei Vaticani in Vatican City.

She Shorts is a series of short plays about women, by women.The series was borne out of a collaboration between Miami's City Theatre and Ft. Lauderdale's Thinking Cap Theatre. She Shorts is empowering, funny and thought-provoking. The inaugural series runs through Aug. 4.

On the specal occasion of its annual Gala there was a special treat for partrons and the general audience. The long awaited and much anticipated Verdi’s Requiem Mass was conducted by Andris Nelsons at Tanglewood.

Bass player Ron Carter at 82, still performing around the world – will bring his trio to the Newport Jazz Festival Saturday, August 3rd at Fort Adams. He shared some thoughts about performing, music and musicianship.

April Matthis, as Toni Stone (1921-1996) the first woman to play professional baseball in the Negro League, is knocking it out of the ballpark every night at New York's Laura Pels Theatre through August 11.