Some California Chardonnays are often too buttery and oaky for the palate. A little oak is good and not overpowering, as is the case with this brilliant bottle of Sonoma Coast Chardonnay.

Ballroom features the music of Billy Goldenberg, with a libretto by Jerome Kass, and the lyrics by multiple Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy award-winning songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman, under the direction of Ron Celona. It’s the boldest and most audacious production in CVREP history.

Manahatta, now at the Yale Rep through Saturday, Feb. 15, offers a great deal to think about. It is getting its east coast premiere, having had its initial production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2018. Playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle, an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is a lawyer, writer and activist.

The Williamstown Theatre Festival launches with Streetcar Named Desire starring Audra McDonald on June 30. The season will feature five world premieres.

The 2020 season of Shakespere and Company starts on May 21 with Lifespan of a Fact by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell. The small stage production features Annette Miller. King Lear opens at the Tina Packer Playhouse on June 28. Berkies Award winner, director Regge Life returns to anchor the season with Harold Pinter's Betrayal on September 18.

Pipeline by Dominique Morisseau opened at Lincoln Center Theater in July of 2017. Since it premiered, the play, a multi-faceted look at the 'pipeline' young black men travel from high school to prison, has had more performances across the US than any other play. It is easy to understand why. This powerful presentation of the role of parents, teachers, security guards and administration in this all too familiar path, the play provides rich opportunities for actors.

I highly recommend this fast-moving, smart and funny play by U.K. playwright Beth Steel. If you’re not familiar with the early 1980s global economic recession and the Latin American debt crisis, you might want to read up on it before seeing the play.

When you think of Spain and its wineries, you think about butterflies. Well think again, as you read about El Regajal Winery and winemaker Danny Garcia-Pita. It is a remarkable combination.

Groundhog Day is a meaty, moving and humorous story on stage. A shining Slow Burn Theatre Company/Broward Center for the Performing Arts co-production runs through Feb. 16. An ingenious, symbolic set design are among the strong production values. A talented cast shines in this convincing, vivacious production. The stage musical is based on the 1993 film starring Bill Murray as Phil Connors.

The structure of Tiny Beautiful Things is comprised of unrelated letters requesting counsel, followed by Sugar’s responses, so the incoming letters lack a narrative arc. However, the themes of human dignity, self-worth, redemption, forgiveness, and especially love, course throughout, resulting in emotional connectedness.

Jordan Hall in Boston was the setting for a concert version of Arnold Rosner’s The Chronicle of Nine. His only opera for full orchestra is having its world premiere. Gil Rose, recent Grammy winner for best recorded opera, finds treasures in the archives and brings them to our attention. We are fortunate indeed.

The King of the Delta Blues, Robert Johnson, died in relative obscurity on August 16, 1938. Fifty years later he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when it was founded in 1986. In 1961 Columbia released King of the Delta Blues Players with Volume Two in 1970. The Complete Recordings a two-disc set, released on August 28, 1990, contains almost everything Johnson recorded, with all 29 recordings, and 12 alternate takes.

Despite 7,000 attending her funeral, Bessie Smith lay in an unmarked grave for many years, as her ultimately estranged husband pocketed funds donated for her headstone. That was remedied in 1970 with a gift from one Janis Joplin.

The Wick Theatre presents a powerhouse production of Evita. Triple-threat performers and Behind-the Scenes crew shine. The production runs through Feb. 23 in Boca Raton.

My Name Is Lucy Barton written by Elizabeth Stout and published to a chorus of Hosannas in 2016, is now a one-woman, 2-character play, running through February 29 at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on Broadway. Adapted from the book by Rona Munro and directed by Richard Eyre, Lucy Barton stars Laura Linney.

The old rock trope says that punk music is “three chords and the truth.” That holds true for the fact-based story about a kid punk band from Evanston in the 1980s, which just opened in a world premiere by House Theatre. Verböten is the name of the play and the band.

Credit Lindsay-Abaire for building a comedy not just around women, but older women whose motivations are not limited to the sole objective of doting on grandkids. He makes his female protagonists full-bore individuals with zesty personalities who are willing to fight tooth-and-nail for what they want.

Taking Steps offers its own unique spatial conceit, one with considerable charm but that takes a little getting used to. The action occurs on three floors of the dilapidated Victorian house, but those three floors share the same stage space

Playwrights rarely write sequels. That's the twist of Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House – Part 2 . This ersatz Ibsen next chapter has been widely produced from Broadway to regional theatre. Here Cordell reviews a California production.

For the past three years the Berkshire International Club has celebrated Chinese New Year. On a Sunday afternoon sixty members enjoyed a banquet at Panda House.

Timon of Athens gets a brilliant characterization by Kathryn Hunter at Theatre for a New Audience. This huge character is played by a diminutive woman who holds us in her thrall every moment she is on stage. In the first part of the play, Timon enjoys her wealth, mindlessly giving her ‘friends’ whatever they want. Her Steward tries to tell her that if she keeps gifting at this pace, she will soon be penniless. Distinctive characters move across the stage, intriguing us.

WHEN: Not if, but when all our lives come to an end. - Here we are searching for personal meaning and memories via a monumental sculpture exhibition that expresses obliquely life and death issues of today and since Millennia.

Gerry Bergstein is on the short list of leading Boston artists of his generation. Taking a leap on every level his monumental paintings will be show during February with a bonus day at Gallery Naga. Hood Museum director, John Stomberg, will provide an overview on the theme of Body Politic.

Sheepdog, by Kevin Artigue, Shattered Globe Theatre’s new production, crisply directed by Wardell Julius Clark, will have you holding your breath as details of the incident spool out over 90 minutes.

Although the playwright’s intent and narrative often lack clarity, the dialog is clever and the situations amusing. In the hands of a fine ensemble of actors, Custom Made Theatre offers a very funny and provocative production of How to Transcend a Happy Marriage.