Another diva season wraps on the main stage of Williamstown Theatre Festival through August 18. A new translation of Henrick Ibsen’s Ghosts by Paul Walsh features Uma Thurman as Mrs. Helene Alving. In 2018 there were mixed reviews for her Broadway debut in Parisian Woman. It was a Beau Willimon rewrite of an 1888 play by Henri Becque.

While easy on the eyes Moulin Rouge! The Musical a pastiche of some 70 songs slogs along at two and a half hours. It is a mongrel cut and paste of other and better material. If you liked the movie than this one's for you.

Irish Repertory Theatre Presents the award-winning Little Gem by Elaine Murphy. This piece about three Irish women won the Fishamble New Writing Award in 2008 and the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award in 2009. The density of her language and the poignant humor of her vision captivates.

Last night, attending the world premiere of Before the Meeting by Adam Bock at Williamstown Thatre Festival, felt like an historic occasion in contemporary American theatre. This new play will surely make the rounds of regional theatres after a likely New York run. The success of future productions will entail finding a greal actress like Deidre O'Connell to perform the soon to be classic monlogue of Gail a recovering alcoholic.

It was our first visit and participation at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. During the four days we experienced eight performances. The Festival attracts thousands of visitors every other year. It was a complex production, where a series of buses would transport audiences to a many theater and auditoriums all over two towns. The Marriott Hotel in downtown Winston served as the focal point and it was buzzing!

Yang Liping has created a dance drama in such startling colors and designs that the audience is swept into the single Ancient Pipa melody of the same title. The tapping of swords, soldiers cries and horses whinnying and snorting are all suggested as the song portrays the end battle of the war for control of China in 205 B.C. The armies of the Chu and the Han face off in dance. Blood has never been so beautifully suggested, as a mass of red feathers fly through the air, some streaking the bodies of soldiers.

Juke box musicals with butkis for plots have become the norm. Kudos to Barrington Stage for its world premiere Fall Springs which actually has a compelling book. But fracking, the musical, oh my goodness! While it has entertaining moments this creation by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and Niko Tsakalakos is a whacky long shot. It's more than just a town that sinks in the sludge.

Bill Riley wears a number of hats. He is showing this month at Real Eyes the top notch gallery he runs in Adams. Mass, Now retired his day gig for many years was as a scene painter for the Metrpolitan Opera. Recently he has been free lancing for the hit Amazon comedy series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. He has the skill set to be a master forger to create works and sets in any medium or style. Many of these technical skills are applied to the works in the exhibition Interrupted Landscapes.

With the exception of a little light relief in the wedding preparation, Jenufa is tense and emotionally charged from beginning to end. Janácek endows his lead characters with complexity and with demanding vocals. In keeping with the tone of the action, much of the vocalization is harsh, yet particularly in the orchestra, appealing passages emerge. Overall, the score fulfills many demands with great success.

Many operas have suffered a rocky road to recognition and appreciation, The Pearl Fishers, among them. Yet when one considers its virtues, it is hard to understand why. Santa Fe Opera presented a rare and much appreciated production.

New City Players' dark and creepy Macbeth taps into the zeitgeist. This production in South Florida isn't perfect, but features admirable acting and vivid, foreboding sound effects. Ft. Lauderdale-based company's mounting runs through Sept. 1 in that city's downtown. For the most part, darkness shrouds the extremely intimate playing space, which offers a visceral theatrical experience.

The Erich Maria Remarque novel All Quiet on the Western Front is a literary masterpiece. Perhaps yuu have read it or seen the classic 1930 film. One likely comes to this stunning stage production with many preconceptions. This galvanic production at Red Tape Theatre more than adequately meets out expectations.

In an age of sweeping movement toward gender equity, Danish composer Poul Ruders has surprisingly drawn on a Grimm fairytale as a source for female heroics and female enabling. The result is a fable for adults – a taut and riveting opera, yet one that begs for more. Santa Fe Opera’s world premiere of The Thirteenth Child offers stunning production values that enhance the score and yield an engaging musical drama.

Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, always venturesome, presented an evening in which three female composers were featured Franz Liszt had said that in Pauline Viardot the world had finally found a woman composer of genius. Her short opera Cendrillon was performed in full.

It was a soulful night of nostalgia at Tanglewood. The Spinners went on at 7 and cooked. We needed the heat on a cool wet night. In ever sense they warmed up the audience for Gladys Knight. There was a long intermission before she went on at ten of nine and by 10:25 after some 20 songs we made our way home.

Where can you see the story of a barely-sentient being that promises everyone whatever they want but ends up eating them alive? No! Not on the nightly news- It’s The Lyric Stage Company of Boston’s revival of “Little Shop of Horrors” which is being staged through October 6 at 140 Clarendon Street in Boston’s Back Bay.

The intersection of the world of grand opera and musical confection rarely occurs. An exception to that rule would be Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus. Maestro Michael Morgan maintains brisk pace throughout the musical sections, resulting in a spirited rendering of the score.

Pinter tells this story with a twist – the play begins two years after the affair has ended, and ends as the affair is beginning.

Constellation by Emma O'Halloran was inspired by images of hands in the first cave drawings. Turns out that most of these were women's hands, and they looked like constellations, which was O'Halloran's jumping off point. Naomi Louisa O'Connell drew their pictures in riveting song.

Lackey is a master at bringing philosophy out of the dusty corners of academia and putting them on a very passion filled center stage. As with his previous works produced at Theater for a New City Daylight Precision (2014) and Arendt/ Heidegger; a love story (2018) Ludwig and Bertie is a victory for smart theater.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.