Lynn Nottage’s brilliant play Intimate Apparel has been incubating as an opera since 2007 when Ricky Ian Gordon was commissioned to write the music by the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater. Nottage speaks of development meetings with Peter Gelb of the Met and Andre Bishop of LTC,  each tugging for their own interests.

The Biblically- inspired adage suggests that “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” and the same could be said of idle minds.  With time to spare, mischief finds Miranda Rose Hall’s central character in this compact, 70 minute, two-hander. 

Armature is a searing and disturbing new play receiving a commendable world premiere production at Island City Stage near Ft. Lauderdale. The production runs through Feb. 27.

Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum offered a preview of a world premiere opera developed by Washington National Opera. Written in Stone will be staged at the Kennedy Center from March 5 to March 25. It will be a must-see production.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), presents the portraits of former President Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama by artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, respectively, as part of The Obama Portraits Tour organized by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

The Huntington announces Heidi Schreck’s Tony Award nominated play and Pulitzer Prize finalist What the Constitution Means to Me, a Broadway hit that is now on its national tour. The production runs from February 22 to March 20, 2022 at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre.  

An 8th- 9th Century Bodhisattva sculpture, looted from The Devisthan Kundalpur Temple in Kurkihar, Bihar, India, has been recovered in Italy by Art Recovery International following a decades-long search.

Shakespeare & Company has announced tickets are on sale now for the three Classic productions of its 45th Season: Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure, and An Iliad, an adaptation of Homer’s epic poem by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare.  

The Mountaintop features fine performances. It is the type of show that audience members will like, feeling as though they saw something meaningful. I am part of the group that thinks this is a very flawed play that often takes the easy way out.

For Black History Month, Broadway has opened its arms and stages.  Skeleton Crew, by an honored Black playwright, makes no mention of race. The cast is all Black. The characters are all Black. The city of Detroit, where the play takes place, has been felled by race riots and a hardhit economy. 

Slow Burn Theatre Company has mounted a radiant production of Once On This Island. The musical is a calypso-flavored re-telling of The Little Mermaid. The production runs through Feb. 20 in Broward Center for the Performing Arts' Amaturo Theater.

Julia Garner's Ruth in the series Ozark could not be more different that Anna in the Shonda Rhimes series Inventing Anna. At 27, with one Emmy under her belt, she's on the prowl for more. Currently I am bingeing her shows on Netflix.

Close Encounters with Music presents the Berkshire debut of Van Cliburn medalist Yekwon Suwoo. The pianist will appear at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington March 20 with acclaimed violinist Daniel Phillips, violist Daniel Panner, and cellist and artistic director Yehuda Hanani. 

The Huntington’s Board of Trustees and Advisors, announced today the appointment of acclaimed stage director, producer, and community builder Loretta Greco as The Huntington’s next Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director. She will be the first woman in the role and the fourth artistic leader in The Huntington’s 40-year history.

Playwright Terrence McNally’s paean to Maria Callas is less a dramatic narrative than a platform for a virtuoso performance by an actress capable of displaying La Davina’s charisma and self-absorption. Sonoma Arts Live offers an absolutely delightful rendering of this chamber play. 

Lope deVega is not simply setting us up for a good laugh. The play takes a sharp look at the meaning of the ideal woman. What attributes are truly important? Is there room in marriage for the intellectually driven woman? Is there room for the woman who cannot enhance her husband's social standing? Is economic security the real motive for our emotional commitments?

Chapeau! An amazing undertaking has drawn to a close in Berlin, Germany.  Amid still active Covid-19, Marietta Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, the heads of the film festival Berlinale, brought about the 72nd international film festival in real time.

Leyma Lopez discusses her work with Berkshire Fine Arts

Michel Van der Aa's music theatre works.  This is a miracle, because he deploys many instruments, not only a libretto, often based on wild imaginings, yet sensibly based on a very simple story. In Upload, we are in the revere of the last act of Walkerie. Now a father is defying his daughter, not the reverse. The Park Avenue Armory mounts a compelling case fot his work.

Since its 1897 founding, the Boston Marathon has regularly transformed in its appearance, its demographics, and its meaning.  As its 126th running on April 18 nears, The Lotvin Family Gallery examines how the marathon’s changes have been reflected in the pages of another Boston institution, The Boston Globe, now celebrating its 150th year of publication.

The Hours is the highly anticipated new work by Kevin Puts. Renee Fleming, Kelli O'Hara, and Joyce Di Donato will star.

Dishwasher Dreams looks through the lens of two generations of an immigrant family. Written and performed by Alaudin Ullah, it is filled with humor but also sharp observations. Ullah was a ground-breaker as one of the first East Asian standup comedians who gained wide appeal.

Unionized staff at the Whitney Museum of American Art will be outside in front of the Museum for tomorrow evening’s VIP opening of the 2022 Whitney Biennial, handing out leaflets with information about union negotiations. The Union, consisting of almost two hundred professional, facilities and visitor services workers has been negotiating for several months for a first contract.

The building of wall drawings at MASS MoCA has become a pilgrimage site for Sol LeWitt one of the foremost artists of his generation. They are on semi-permanent display with a contract for 25 years. For a more limited time, through June 11, there is the opportunity to experience the work on a more personal and intimate manner with Strict Beauty: Sol LeWitt Prints at the Williams College Museum of Art.

Leave it to Leon Botstein, America’s great educator, to bring Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige to Carnegie Hall, where is premiered in 1943 as a fundraiser for the Russian war effort, (The world turns.) Eleanor Roosevelt, Marion Anderson and Langston Hughes were in attendance that evening. Now Botstein conducting is cool.  He often listens and taps his foot, slightly swaying to the improvisatory sections of works performed