The Annual 'Fresh Grass' Festival of Bluegrass Music opens its doors at 5:30 pm, today, at Mass MoCa in North Adams, Massachusetts. It will be a fun filled three day weekend.

Playwright 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?

This is our second article from the San Francisco area and continuation of The Roads of North America. More than 50 photographs accompany this report. The views along the Bay and other discoveries are well worth seeing - no doubt!

Moto Osada’s first opera, Four Nights of Dream, is, like the composer, a cross over between East and West. Osada composed the music and libretto. The flexibility that gave him has yielded a work of exquisite sensibility.

Greenland, the world's largest island, offers majestic mountains, green valleys and picturesque fjords dotted with icebergs along its eastern coast. Towns of Tasiilaq and Kusuluk are home to Inuits, who have a unique way of life mediated by their environment.

Opera San Jose opened its 34th season with a handsome production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s popular opera buffa, Cosi Fan Tutte. A winsome cast of strong singers with fine acting chops yields a highly entertaining outcome.

John Millington Synge, who is best known for his plays Playboy of the Western World and Riders to the Sea, left an unfinished draft of Deirdre of the Sorrows when he died in 1909. The play was finished by William Butler Yeats and Synge’s fiancée, Molly Allgood.

Last night at Bounty Fair, a North Adams restaurant, five candidates were given ten minutes. They are running to serve the final year of former Rep. Gail Cariddi, who passed away while in office. Running unopposed the Republican, Christine Canning, spoke first. Drawing lots she was followed by Stephanie Bosley, Lisa Blackmer, Kevin Towle and John Barrett III.

There are several versions of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” that have been performed. Each production company gets to select the version that suits their audiences the best. Director Havely has chosen the “meta-mix” version for Theatre 29. Audiences will be seeing an all-singing and dancing production. No written dialogue. Director Havely is fortunate in that her cast – all twenty-three singer/dancer/performers – are committed, dedicated, and eager to strut their stuff in this format.

The reason for doing live performances of the Star Wars films goes far beyond their place in popular culture. Each of these films features a magnificent score by John Williams, the Boston-based composer who rose to national prominence with his 1975 score for Jaws.

Out on a Limb explores the creative process and how it engenders a final product. The exhibiting artists employ painting, collage, fiber art, and preliminary drawing to embody how new ideas push change. The exhibition at Eclipse Mill Gallery in North Adams features work by Debi Pendell, Sarah Sutro and Betty Vera. The opening will occur Saturday, September 30, from 6-8pm.

Barring intervention by the Attorney General, at best a long shot, plans to sell 40 works of art with two paintings by Norman Rockwell worth as much as the remaining 38 lots, the fall auctions by Sotheby’s in New York appears to be a done deal .For the second time protestors will picket in front of the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield from 10 am to 2 pmon Saturday, September 9. This past week Sotheby’s announced a presale estimate of “thirty pieces of silver.”

Puccini loved to compose and after the success of La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Tosca he was looking for a new story. He wrote that these three operas already bored him. He had also had trouble with the librettists with whom he’d worked on these operas. Luigi Illica, co-librettist, even suggested that he get another composer to collaborate with him. Instead Puccini found new librettists. La Fanciulla del West is the upshot.

Traveling from the northern fjords near the Arctic Circle by way of Lake Myvatn to the south coast, Iceland offers breathtaking displays of geological wonders. Craters, hot springs, lava fields, roaring waterfalls, geysers glacial rivers and black sand beaches are all within easy reach. Landscapes of beautiful farmlands and cliffs with seabirds are the added bonus.

Happy Birthday Mr. Hockney: Self Portraits and Photographs at Getty Museum in Los Angeles remains on view through November 26. On the occasion of his 80th birthday there are many incentives to evaluate the British born artist who for many years has resided in Santa Monica. Paintings of his pool are among the most admired of his works that range from self portraits to "joiners" or photo collages.

Philip Kam Gotanda’s version of Rashomon serves the original well in its shape and dramatic intensity. Director Michael Socrates Moran has engineered a minimalist look and feel that serves the script well. Ubuntu’s clerestory-like, almost-in-the-round theater, with its wooden framing around the stage, gives the appearance of a primitive cage for blood sports.

There was a brief run, just six performances, of Georgie: My Adventures with George Rose, written and performed by Ed Dixon at Barrington Stage Company. Himself a distinguished character actor, this is a drama about drama, in the telling of a father/ son mentoring relationship with the renowned British born character actor George Rose.

In 2015 Pete Townsend’s long time musical collaborator Rachel Fuller scored the rock opera for orchestra. They were married in February. It was performed to mostly favorable but mixed reviews with the 90-piece Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the 80 members of the London Oriana Choir. This version was performed last night at Tanglewood with Keith Lockhart conducting the Boston Pops. Opera tenor Alfie Boe, Townsend, and British rocker Billy Idol performed the vocals.

In May the world's foremost architect, Frank Gehry, signed on to design The Extreme Model Railroad and Contemporary Architecture Museum in North Adams. It is one of 11 projects being developed by visionary museum director Thomas Krens. There is a daunting sticker price of some $300 miliion for construction anticipated to start as early as June, 2018.

Noni Stapleton is a mesmerizing artist. Her writing gifts launch the characterization of a quartet of characters at 59E59 Theaters. Stapleton plays three humans and a charming, and then not so charming cow. You can't take your eyes off her.

Robert O’Hara’s Barbecue is not a treatise on meat-grilling. It’s a satire that roasts our attitudes about race, class and money. It’s a funny, biting family story with a twisty, turny plot that never stops surprising you.

Making her first Tanglewood appearance in decades the 73-year-old diva, Miss Diana Ross (as she insists on being addressed), had them dancing in the aisles. It was an evening of greatest hits her own as well as covers. With no opening act it proved to be an early evening in Lenox ending before 9 PM.

The play is set in 1941 and to an extent is time-bound. Older patrons and history buffs might better understand some references to Judith Anderson, 'Hellzapoppin', and Teddy Roosevelt's life. More so, a running gag in the script suggests that the menacing Jonathan looks a lot like Boris Karloff. The original Broadway production had a distinct advantage on this point as Karloff was cast as Jonathan.

In every sense it was a cool evening in the Shed as British rock star, Sting, brought his tour in support of the album 57th and 9th to Tanglewood. They have been on the road since last February.

Last summer Astrid and I were residents at the Gloucester Writers Center. Introduced by musician, filmmaker, hipster, Henry Ferrini, we returned for a reading and launch of Gloucester Poems: Nugents of Rockport at Gloucester Writers Center. The poet and boyhood friend, Geoffrey Movius, shared the program.