On opening night, everyone in the theater – from old, expected attendees to first-time youngsters – seemed involved and excited throughout. We are looking at a neighborhood — a single block of New York’s Washington Heights – and we simultaneously observe separate families, shops, households.

Under the canopy formed by the dome of the Drill Hall in the Park Avenue Armory, Michel Van der Aa’s brilliant chamber opera, Blank Out, unfolds. In this gargantuan space, we seemed small and so did elements of the opera.

Award-winning playwright Amy Herzog comes to the New York Theatre Workshop with "Mary Jane." Carrie Coon creates an unforgettable figure in the title role.

If you are asked what’s the most exciting character you can think of and answer is 'dinosaurs', it’s just a short leap to the creation of an opera about them if you want a audience that says opera, next, then make an opera about dinosaurs. On Site Opera has done just this.

Boca Raton's Evening Star Productions is giving David Mamet's Oleanna a riveting production Thd company's staging is marked by tension, great acting. The bully isn't the professor.

Jaap Van Sweden, the music director designate of the New York Philharmonic has swept the city up in his magic. Katia & Marielle Labèque performed a Philip Glass duo piano concerto under his baton. They have often performed Glass. The acoustics of Geffen Hall caused problems in this piece and the Mahler that followed. Yet the new conductor made clear his chemistry with his orchestra and the audience.

Well honed actors aside, Prince Of Broadway is saturated with top-of-the-line technical talent, from his co-director and choreographer Susan Stroman, to Jason Robert Brown’s, new songs, arrangements, orchestration and music supervision, Beowulf Boritt’s scenic and production design, William Ivey Long’s Costumes, and Howell Binkley’s lighting, all multiple Tony Winners, give their all.

The best reason to see The Rembrandt by Jessica Dickey is the cast, sensitively directed by Hallie Gordon. Two of Steppenwolf’s and Chicago’s finest actors—Francis Guinan and John Mahoney—perform as museum guard, painter and poet

“In the Next Room” explores change, and how technology brings it about. In addition to the impact revealed by use of a newly developed personal appliance, it touches on the profound macro consequences of the coming of electricity.

The Legend of Pink also surfaces important social issues outside the transgender realm. One is communication style by blacks who are socialized in mostly black communities.

For its fall foliage production Shakespeare & Company have produced a corker. Regge Life has directed four masters of the company in Yasmina Reza's 2009 Tony wnner God of Carnage. The all star ensemble includes S&Co. veterans Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Allyn Burrows, Jonathan Croy and Kristin Wold. Saving the best for last it is the most hilarious comedy of the Berkshire season.

The changing of the guard at any major symphony orchestra is a long and complicated challenge. For the New York Philharmonic, who are in the process of installing the Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden as its new music director, that took another turn on Tueday night. Van Zweden is not quite "here" yet. He will start his first official season with the orchestra in 2018.

Belgian director Ivo van Hove’s visionary production retains virtually all Arthur Miller’s language but places it in a simplified setting that resembles a cage or fighting ring. The bare stage is surrounded on three sides by benches, with a single door at the rear. Miller’s narrator, local lawyer Alfieri (Ezra Knight) is omnipresent and adds poetic transitions to the action. The play is set in Red Hook, Brooklyn, near the docks.

The New York Philharmonic throws open its doors with a concert they are dubbing the Gala of 106 All-Stars. The program is unusual and heavy for an opening night: Gustav Mahler's burly five-movement Symphony No. 5. The real star of the show will be on the podium: Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden who is one year away from beginning his tenure as the orchestra's newest Music Director.

Dan McCormick has taken a Stradivarius left in a cab and told the story of a changing neighborhood in the East Village and values that do not endure. A thank you concert won’t cut the mustard as thanks in this section of town. What will?

Inaugurating your season with a festival is setting the entertainment bar a notch higher. One after another as this festival week unfolds, dramas of high intensity, great variety set in unusual locations proceed to both jar and move. It is a mind-blowing experience.

Sondra Radvanovsky is a sublime dramatic singing artist. She has never performed in Philadelphia, and a packed Perlman Theater greeted her arrival. She did not disappoint. Dressed in a smashing deep blue strapless gown and bedecked in juicy rhinestones she sang her heart out. She explained that she was going to show us who she was..

There would be no Star Wars without the music of John Williams. On Friday night, the composer's stirring opening music sent hairs standing on end as the New York Philharmonic gave its second performance of the complete orchestral score of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Their task: accompanying George Lucas' 1997 remastered "Special Edition" of the beloved 1977 science fiction classic.

Based on an extensive Berkshire Eagle background check of Van Shields, and a failed attempt to create a radical new museum in South Carolina, it appears that he arrived in Pittsfield, a month after being fired, with an agenda. Funding plans that failed there entail selling 40 treasures of the Berkshire Museum. Through intensive study of non profit reports filed with the charity desk of the Attorney General, Thomas White, with knowledge of these matters, has sent us bullet points. They shed light on the "dire straits" forcing the museum to decimate its legacy to rebuild for the future.

Years of work between the Philadelphia community and Opera Philadelphia were realized in a Hip-opera by Daniel Bernard Roumain and Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Bill T. Jones, a maker, came in for the finishing touches.

Opera Philadelphia is the 'it' opera company in the United States. No one has been more successful in developing new opera, honing talent and developing audiences. The festival displays many facets of their work.

This production that delves into molestation is a worthy realization of Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize winning and otherwise highly decorated play, How I Learned to Drive. The story of Li’l Bit unfolds in a non-linear, but clearly demarcated fashion, from the character’s eleventh year until she is 35.

For the first time in three decades there is an open race for Mayor of North Adams. On Tuesday, September 19, there will be a primary vote for Mayor. Five names will be on the ballot for Mayor- Tom Bernard, Rachel Branch, Robert Martelle, Robert Moulton Jr. and Peter Oleskiewicz. Of these Oleskiewicz has withdrawn from the race. Bernard was invited to the Eclipse Mill to speak with artists and members of the community.

The Metropolitan Museum uses it galleries and collections to present events. The Shanghai Opera's production of Farewell My Concubine, based on a 3rd century BC story, fit perfectly in the Chinese Courtyard modelled on the Ming Dynasty Garden of the Master of the Fishing Nets.

North Coast Repertory Theatre (NCRT) artistic director David Ellenstein’s selection of “The Last of the Red Hot Lovers”, is a definite winner in kicking off its 36th season. It’s one of Simon’s best comedies. Deftly directed by Christopher Williams, the four person cast takes to this play like ducks to water.