Beth Morrison and National Sawdust host new composers and new works in a competition for the chance to expand a work next year. The Next Generation is here.

Are you looking for wines that are light and perfect for the summer seaso? I have found three that cost under $13 a bottle.

South Florida's Wick Theatre and Costume Museum present an enchanting Brigadoon. The regional production of Lerner and Loewe classic is magical and humorous. Despite sound and timing issues, the actors enchant in mostly strong staging.

Through the Elevated Line is made up of a series of sometimes-bumpy scenes, running about 2.25 hours with one intermission. The direction seems uneven too, with some characters shouting when it doesn’t seem called for. Razi is a sympathetic character despite getting into trouble both at home in Iran and in Chicago. His relationship with his sister is sweet and realistic.

Mia Chung’s other plays include Catch as Catch Can and This Exquisite Corpse. You for Me for You premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London; its first U.S. production was in 2012 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, DC. Chung is a graduate of Brown University with an MFA in playwriting.

"The Threepenny Opera" needs to be done with color and verve if it is to speak to today's audiences. The BLO's production was all too beige. Director James Darrah soft-pedaled the politics at the heart of the work, which left it a corpse with some not-so-pretty songs attached.

Edward Albee, a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner, debuted his highly controversial play “The Goat, Or Who is Sylvia?” on Broadway in 2002. It went on to garner a Tony Award for Best Play, A Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, and was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

“Sister Act” the Musical owes its theatrical existence to the movie “Sister Act”, starring Whoopy Goldberg. Popularity begets popularity. The movie was then turned into a musical written by Alan Menken and Glen Slater, from a libretto by Bill and Cheri Steinkellner, with additional book material by Douglas Carter Beane. The result is a musical Blockbuster which I believe is one of the best musicals ever produced by the Palm Canyon Theatre.

Rostand wrote Cyrano de Bergerac in 1897 in Paris and based his leading character on a French libertine of the same name. He is credited with introducing the word “panache” into English; the word then meant a plume or feather on a helmet or headdress. Cyrano by Boho Theatre continues in Chicago at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont, through April 15

Education is a bold title for a play, but this arresting new play by Brian Dykstra deserves the title. Directed with precise attention to detail and an ability to turn the emotional context on a dime, Margarett Perry captures 21st century public school high school life.

Sarah Ruhl is one of the darlings of contemporary theater. Her work ricochets between grounded and fanciful, with storylines usually a little off-normal, and populated with at least some loopy characters. “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” is one that turns from realistic to fantasy at intermission.

Piano students aged 7 to 16 of all skills levels who live within 100 mile radius of Bennington Vermont are encouraged to apply for this summer scholarship opportunity. Deadline is April 6th.

Alan Pierson of Alarm Will Sound invites us to a salon he conducts with Nadia Sirota. Tonight’s subject would be György Ligeti, the Hungarian composer who many people heard for the first time as they watched Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Dancing Lessons is a surprising packed, yet taut play about the capacity to change. The poignant Mark St. Germain play demonstrates the effect people seemingly with nothing in common can have on each other. This comedy-drama spreads knowledge, awareness about an autism-related disorder without lecturing or using too much jargon. The play had its world premiere at Barrington Stage in the Berkshires.

How do you solve the problem of presenting an opera that forces men and women into the stereotypes of the 18th century to a 21st century audience? If you're director Phelim McDermott, whose dazzling new Cosí fan tutte arrived at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday night, you roll the score in glue, dip it in glitter, and hope for the best.

Al Sharpton wanted to take down the Jefferson Memorial and hasn't yet succeeded. The US military helped Iraquis topple Saddam Hussein's statue. In an engaging and lively student occupation on the campus of the University of Cape Town, seven members of the Baxter Theatre troop take down Cecil B. Rhodes in "The Fall" at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn.

Custom Made’s production of Hooded, by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, sizzles. The cast, led by Jesse Vaughn as Marquis and Tre’Vonne Bell as Tru captivates. Under Lisa Marie Rollins’ excellent direction, all the characters are well developed and their interactions are precise and true

Ken Ludwig stays relatively faithful to the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mystery novel The Hounds of the Baskervilles. Holmes is asked to help protect the newest heir (Sir Henry) to Baskerville Manor and the estate after the previous owner was found dead with a look of terror on his face. The back story includes an early evil ancestor who was killed by a large, ghostly hound dog. Sir Henry has just arrived from Canada and immediately receives a threatening letter. Ludwig has maintained the skeleton of the plot, but has turned it on its ear.

There is no question that the Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin is the big man on the New York classical music scene at the moment. The music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra was in town with his troops on Tuesday night, for his first Carnegie Hall appearance since being appointed the music director of the Metropolitan Opera.

Cincinnati's theaters are exploring race and other timely topics on their stages. American Theatre Critics Association takes in a diverse group of plays at recent regional conference as vibrant live theater scene is sampled by critics

Ballo is striking and the score compels from beginning to end with highly melodious arias, ensembles, and orchestral interludes. What it lacks is any “Top 40” type hits, but it really doesn’t matter because every element thrills without being overly familiar. Yet, highlights do exist, and they are spread widely among the roles.

The Verdi Requiem was James Levine's final performance at the Metropolitan Opera.

The Basque region of northern Spain stands out with its beautiful coastline and unique culture. In addition to being historic towns with notable architecture, the cities of Bilbao, Guernica, San Sebastian and Pamplona boast a vibrant contemporary life flavored with local charm. The network of ancient pilgramage routes, the Camino de Santiago (Way of Saint James) also stretches through this region.

For most of 1968 the then struggling Irish musician and composer, Van Morrison, was on the run from his mobbed up New York manager. Living on Green Street in Cambridge, with local musicians he performed gigs and worked on what became the iconic album Astral Weeks. This is the focus of an enthralling book by Ryan Walsh fleshed out in the context of a meticulously researched account of the vibrant counter culture of that year of living dangerously. Through what evolves as a page turner we learn about Mel Lyman and his Fort Hill Cult, their paper Avatar, founding of WBCN FM as the rock of Boston, the Boston Tea Party, the Bosstown Sound, and Boston After Dark/ Phoenix. Along the way we encounter films, The Boston Strangler and Titicut Follies,as well as LSD gurus Tim Leary and Baba Ram Dass. Long overdue this fiftieth anniversary book sets the record straight.

In case you don’t remember the plot, the mystery begins in Istanbul where in the mid-1920s, a number of passengers board the famed train, the Orient Express, for a trip to England. Surprisingly (it is winter) the first class carriage is full. One of the passengers is the famed Belgium detective Hercule Poirot returning to London from a vacation. The play begins with a brief scene of a little girl being abducted.