To launch Sareah Slifer Swft's Movement Art Gloucester MA (MAGMA) there were popup performances as well as card triks by her adolescent son Seamus. It was a fun way to christen a great space for dance and the performing arts.

If you missed the movingly sweet indie film “Brigsby Bear,” you are not alone. My theater cancelled their scheduled weekend showings after a negligible audience for its opening Friday, though they did allow it a 4:00 p.m. showing the following Monday and Wednesday afternoons before sending it on its way.

If there are antidotes to Charlottesville, one may be “Step,” the new documentary from Amanda Lipitz that won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Inspirational Filmmaking at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2017 AFI Docs festival. The film tells the remarkable story of the step team at the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (BLSYW). The school opened its doors to sixth graders in 2009. In the spring of 2016, its inaugural class was preparing to graduate.

Neil Simon's one-liners are a refreshing change-of-pace to unsettling plays in the era of Trump. Actors nail comic timing in Broward Stage Door Theater's production of The Sunshine Boys. Director and cast don't forget the pathos in the Neil Simon's play

Forty years ago playwright Israel Horovitz was a founder of Gloucester stage which has produced many of his 70 plus plays. Many have Gloucester settings but the latest Out of the Mouths of Babes is a part of a Parisian trilogy with one more to go. It was produced last summer at Cherry Lane in Manhattan. It is having its New England premiere in Gloucester and debuts in London this fall.

It's one of the greatest love stories of the operatic canon. It's a sharp commentary on American imperialism and the uncaring treatment of "natives" by white people. It's both. It's brilliant. It's Butterfly.

I’ll let you in on my recipe for the best pasta sauce ever. Roasting the tomatoes adds a certain nutty, burnt richness to the sauce.

Iceland is a destination for both the culture and nature enthusiast. Although Reykjavik is a small capital city, its cultural offerings are as varied as those of any major European capital. Snaefellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland is dotted with charming coastal villages and a feast of natural wonders. Snaefelsjokull, a glacier capped 700,000-year-old volcano, looms large over the western end of the peninsula.

Separated by almost three hundred the years, the full productions of Dell’Arte’s annual festival both looked at how two worlds mix and match in Calisto and The Cunning Vixen. Both productions were at once delightful and moving.

Opera is a form comprised of many elements. Seldom are all of them addressed successfully. Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble succeeds in producing intriguing and complex theater with attention to every detail. How do they do it, opera after opera, concert after concert?

On a recent trip to Languedoc, the wines from the first evenings samplings of AOC Pezenas stood out as quality driven wines. In fact, one out of every ten wines sold worldwide is from Languedoc.

Audiences choose the order of the plays in annual "Shorts" festival. Actors bring comic energy to roles in production of popular theatrical event. Relevance not hard to spot in largely-escapist shows

San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre has the honor of mounting the World Premiere of Ken Ludwig’s newest comedy/farce “Robin Hood”, deftly directed by longtime stage and TV veteran Jessica Stone.

Ivan Fischer, the great Hungarian conductor, returns to Mozart's original version of Don Giovanni. Putting on a production from the Don's point of view, everything is a body. Furniture, peasants, chorus all are wearing white body suits and often strike arresting poses. This concept invites us to listen more closely to the terrific Budapest Festival Orchestra and the singers.

Opening the first half of the annual Film Night at Tanglewood Andris Nelsons shared conducting duties with 85-year-old John Williams. Nelson's was a surprise guest trumpet soloist in the score of Lincoln by Williams. It was a sold out evening on a perfect summer night in Lenox. It is always a thrill to hear him conduct the iconic scores that have earned him a record 50 Academy Awards nominctions.

Machinal, a new production of a neglected 1928 play by Sophie Treadwell at the Greenhouse Theater Center, is stunning in its balletic staging and the nuanced performance of Heather Crisler, playing the Young Woman.

Mostly Mozart programs with intent. While the most obvious connections between a program including Prokovief's 1st Symphony, Mozart's 25th and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto may be their bridge positions between musical periods, the Classical, Romantic and Neoclassical, more than a ladder rung binds these pieces. Exuberant turns of phrase, often taken at a tear, provide their texture. Violinist Gil Shaham uses his consummate pyrotechnics on behalf of the music.

Trisha Brown was a founder of Judson Dance Theatre and was an influence on following generations of dancers exploring post modernism and pure movement. Dhe died in March at 80. This week the company has performed at Jacob's Pillow Dance with works tom 1980 to 2009.

This is another chapter from Gloucester Poems: Nugents of Rockport. It will be launched with a reading on Wednesday, August 23, at Gloucester Writers Center, 126 East Main Street, Gloucester, 01930. The event, paired with Annisquam poet, Geoffrey Movius, is free and will start at 7:30 PM. Mom graduated from Middlesex College of Medicine and Surgery during the Great Depression. After WWII its founder, Dr. John Hall Smith, sold the Waltham property which was launched as Brandeis University. I graduated from Brandeis in the class of 1963.

The trials and tribulations of the great Romantic composers have always fascinated the classical music-loving public. From the extramarital wanderings of Richard Wagner to Frederic Chopin's stormy relationship with the lady novelist George Sand, it has provided fodder for intermission conversation over coffee and small overpriced sandwiches. Arguably, the most famous triangle relationship was between three composers: Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann (née Wieck) and Johannes Brahms.

The Anderson Brothers, consummate musicians, make the case for Gershwin's popularity by citing his access to the new media, radio. The songs themselves are enough to convince us. Joined by Molly Ryan, who has a perfectly beautiful voice, the fabled composer entrances.

A man for all seasons, Jerry Martin, the Berkshire artist/ illustrator has passed. With quirky Mr. Natural looks and mannerisms he was a pithy and complex character and friend. He was a lively presence in the Alice’s Restaurant gang that hung out at the church in Stockbridge and communal holiday gatherings. In the summer we skinny dipped in the secluded Green River on his spacious property. Benno Friedman remembers our much loved friend. He passed this week at 91

“Hamlet” once again graces the Lowell Davies Outdoor Festival stage as part of the Old Globe’s Summer Shakespeare Festival. The ‘melancholy Dane’ and his travails is crisply directed by the Old Globe’s Erna Finci Viterbi artistic director Barry Edelstein, who caps off another winning season of plays and musicals selected and produced under his stewardship.

In southern France, close to the Mediterranean Sea lies a region that specializes in wines made for seafood. That wine is Picpoul de Pinet and is perfect for oysters, mussels, clams and the gamut of seafood that inhabits the earth.

As a matter of public record we have examined the Federal tax information Form 990 disclosures of the Berkshire Museum from 2011 to 2015. They do not appear to create a profile of a cultural institution in dire straits. The museum is going forward with last ditch plans to sell 40 works of art. It is possible that there has been a dramatic downturn in the past two years? A Berkshire Eagle editorial asked “Why deny access to the museum's profit/loss statements for the past two years?" Based on reports for the prior five years we have questions for the museum, its director, Van Shields, and the board of trustees.