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A group of 26 middle-school students with chaperones from the Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy visited the MFA on May 16, 2019. They were on a self-guided visit. Before leaving the Museum, the group filed a complaint with Member and Visitor Services that they were met with racism and verbal abuse from visitors and staff during the visit. In an open letter to the MFA Community its director Matthew Teitelbaum details the museum's response and plan of action.

As an epic memento mori the 64-year-old British pop star has created “Annie Lenox: Now I Let You Go…” A huge mound of earth scattered with her memorabilia will be on view long term at MASS MoCA. The ambitious installation will be of great interest to her global fans.

In 1969 Howie and Dale Levitz moved to the Berkshires when he became head of the photography department at Williams College. After seven years they opened a photo store which had a smaller iteration on Holden Street in North Adams. He was the piano man with a vast command of songs. Howie loved to entertain with tales, anecdotes and jokes. He passed away over the Memorial Day weekend.

The one person, one act play "Hold These Truths" by Jeanne Sakata focuses on the true story of Gordon Hirabayashi. After Pearl Harbor he was among 120,000 Japanese Americans who were relocated to prison camps in the South West. He was charged with the crimes of violating curfew and refusing to report to a detention center. He fought the charges to the Supreme Court. He and two other dissenters lost their cases. Invoking war powers as supreme commander Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9006 was upheld as constitutional. Decades later Hirabayashi, by then a professor of sociology, was cleared of all charges. In 2012 Persident Barach Obama awarded him The Presidential Medal of Honor.

The Orchestra Now (TON) is brave. In taking on two of the seminal composers of modern music, they tackled the presentation of developing ideas about sound as music, to which the 20th century composers have added new dimensions. Some composers took the sounds out of time. Anton Webern often composed suggesting different tempi measure to measure. While Morton Feldman did not go as far as John Cage, inviting musical artists to perform whatever, whenever, he often suspended his work out of time.

Nuyorican Poets Cafe and writer Ishmael Reed present The Haunting Of Lin Manuel Miranda through June 17th. Amid the flurry of enthusiasm for the Broadway show, Hamilton, Reed lays waste to the show's premises and assumptions, without deriding the talent or intentions of the remarkably gifted Miranda or his cast.

On the spot, fully packed and ready to travel, we decided on a car trip to Canadian locations: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara Falls, after we were denied boarding an airplane to Chicago. Our final destination was (not) to be Edinburgh, Scotland and London, England. Here's a cultural overview of our ersatz-trip, which turned out to be just great!

The Waverly Gallery by Kenneth Lonergan conveys how families are torn apart coping with and caring for elders with dementia. In a downward spiral Gladys Green, in another stunning performance by Annette Miller, is struggling to hold on. A small Greenwich Village vanity gallery gives her something to do. In a bold move Shakespeare & Company has launched its season with a slow and demanding drama.

Ink is not just about Rupert Murdoch; it is actually more about Larry Lamb, the man he brought in from a northern England city where he had been editing a paper, to edit The Sun and overtake its rival.

The spirit and poetry of Jack Kerouac and his pal, Neal Cassady, permeate the Steven Dietz play, Mad Beat Hip & Gone, now being staged by Promethean Theatre at the Edge Off Broadway. There’s even a hint of the presence of a poet named Allen.

Verdi was no doubt drawn to the bigger-than-life character of Falstaff. Lecherous and self-indulgent, he is one of the great comic characters from literature. The success of the production rides first on the able shoulders of Richard Zeller, a classic Falstaff. With the aid of costumery, makeup, and wig, he looks the part of the corpulent rogue.

Almost 22 years after it bowed on Broadway, The Lion King still astounds with its astonishing artistry and stunning visuals. A National Equity touring production is making stops throughout the country. A South Florida crowd roared with applause during a recent performance in Miami.

The central character of Kings is Sydney Millsap, the newly elected U.S. Representative from the 24th district of Texas, modeled after the new wave of congresswomen like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

For the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend general admission to MASS MoCA was free. For the launch of it's 20th summer season the museum was mobbed. There were food and drink stands as well as many family oriented activities. For tickets ranging from $100 to $1000 there was a performance by British rock star Annie Lennox. There was also an installation of her memorabelia and legacy which will be on view for the coming months. The museum launched many new temporary exhibitions. There are also long term displays of contemporary masters.

Two weeks of theatre mania, the Theatre Festival, came to an end on May 20. Selected productions from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland could be experienced on several Berlin stages. Serious and timeless human struggles and subjects took center stage.

Tootsie may not be the perfect adaptation of a hit movie, but it is very good and very enjoyable

Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in suburban Miami is mounting a riveting production of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer- and Tony-Award-Winning, scorching drama Doubt: A Parable. The play feels relevant in our divisive world and because the priest abuse scandal still remains fresh in our minds. Four of South Florida's finest stage actors fully inhabit the roles. It never feels like they are "performing." The production runs through June 9.

Working "24/7" over several months the renowned, Williamstown-based artist, Barbara Ernst Prey, created Borrowed Light. The suite of watercolor renderings of interiors is on view in a converted chicken coop of Hancock Shaker Village. It is a part of expanded contemporary programming under the director Jennifer Trainer Thompson. She was a founding member of the MASS MoCA team. They have been neighbors and friends for many years. It was intuitive for them to undertake this remarkable project.

The Young People’s Chorus gave their third annual Vocal Resolutions Concert on May 19th at the Gerald Lynch Theater in New York. This group, founded by Francisco Nunez three decades ago, has reached the pinnacle of professional success. They invited an equally celebrated group, the Shalloway Choir from Newfoundland, to join them this year. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2019, Ellen Reid's world premiere composition for YPC was a highlight of the program.

This year, Green River will host over 30 bands on three stages that will ensure a constant groove and plenty of options for music lovers of every stripe. While many come for a particular artist, many more recall finding new favorites throughout the weekend. So whether you think you are a dyed-in-the-wool Americana, Blues, Cajun, Country, Jazz, or Soul fan, by the end of the weekend, you might just change your (i)tune. Regardless, you are sure to find plenty to like and do.

Ensemble Studio Theatre and Radio Drama Network Present Five one-act plays in the superb annual festival. Five writers, five directors and 16 actors bring us an amusing and thoughtful collage of 21st century dilemmas.

There had been a surge of interest in the Mariposa sisters since Junio Diaz told their story in his Pulitzer Prize winning, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. In a middle-class family, three out of four sisters formed an underground resistance to the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, each in her own way. Minerva studied law and led her group. She could not sit by and leave her children living in a world created by a tyrant.

As “the longest running LGBT theatre anywhere,” Theatre Rhinoceros’s mission is to “enlighten, enrich, and explore . . . aspects of our queer community.” So what connection would prompt Rhino to produce this musical? By convincing the license holder to allow a first – gender switching the key roles – Rhino made it fit.

What makes the Ojai Festival in California unique among festivals? Its Artistic Director continues year after year. Each year a different Music Director is chosen. That person curates the festival as through-performance. You are led by the music on a journey full of surprises and delights.

Palm Beach Dramaworks' production of The House of Blue Leaves is a laugh fest, but lacks enough darkness. A talented cast of well-known South Florida performers excel in their roles. The actors and director convey the play's pathos and nail comic timing .While John Guare's play is a farce, it will surely leave you thinking.