Since its debut at the Humana Festival in 2015 The Roommate by Jen Silverman has been widely produced. It has the advantage of being an intimate two-hander. But it is being given a lavish production and marquee players at Williamstown Theatre Festival. With Jane Kaczmarek (Robyn), S. Epatha Merkerson (Sharon) selling tickets in the Berkshires is this a production that may be headed to New York? Significantly Silverman was in town tweaking the script.

Last night rocker Boz Scaggs launched the 2017 popular artists series at Tanglewood. It was a soggy evening in Lenox with some hearty souls huddled under umbrellas on the lawn. The former lead singer of the Steve Miller Band performed a stunning and soulful set of old and new material including highlights with superhits "Lowdown" and "Lido Shuffle." Former Steely Dan pianist and vocalist, Michael McDonald, opened with a 90 minute set.

Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield has a reputation for mounting an annual blockbuster revival of a vintage musical. It also has an an agenda to present message plays that inspire and inform audiences. In the era of Trump Barrington is presenting Ragtime which seemingly conflates the mandates for entertainment and education. It results in a long evening top heavy with big ideas, multiple characters and confusing subplots.

With the rise of so many platforms of communication in today's world, are we really hearing one another? Children of a Lesser God focuses on truly listening and communicating in the world of the deaf. It portrays a love story between a hearing man and a woman who neither hears nor speaks. Their communication and connection are powerful to see in stellar performances by the lead actors, Joshua Jackson and Lauren Ridloff. The play runs to July 22 at Berkshire Theatre Group in Stockbridge, Mass.

Wilco headlined the fifth Solid Sound festival, a sell out, at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. The band played for two evenings and Jeff tweedy returned on Sunday to play with his son, Spencer, and special friends of the band.

Truly, Ah, Wilderness! and Long Day’s Journey Into Night are companion pieces in many ways, including being set (most likely) in the same house in New London, Connecticut—now known as Monte Cristo Cottage. It's where the O’Neill family spent its summers when actor father James O’Neill took time off from nationwide tours with his production of The Count of Monte Cristo.

What a pleasure it is to see good new plays well-produced. The EnsembleTheatre has done this year after year for 36 seasons and they don't go stale.

For what has evolved into an annual Tanglewood visit the Mark Morris Dance Group presented Lou 100: In Honor of the Divine Mr. Harrison. There were four sections the first of which dated to 1993. The fourth, Numerator, for six male dancers is having its world premiere. The four pieces are set to music by Lou Harrison, a deceased friend and associate of the choreographer, marking the hundredth year since his birth.

Playwright Rhea Leman, a native New Yorker, has lived and worked in Denmark since 1981. Her work concentrates on serious subjects treated in humorous or satiric ways. Her opera, The Rosenbergs, was chosen as best opera of 2015 and her play Gorilla, about the global financial crisis, gained her a nomination for best playwright of 2013.

San Francisco is for lovers as our correspondents Traveling Sandy Katz and her husband Gerry rediscovered. After an absence of decades they were thrilled to be back at the City by the Bay. If you visit now some fifty years after The Summer of Love be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

Building new audiences can be natural if you can get young people to sing, prepare them for concert performance and invite their families to attend. Francisco Nunes, the composer and conductor, does this with his Young People's Choir. They were joined by like groups from other cities to perform music created for them. The evening was a smash hit.

Victor Cordell is a new contributor who will cover theatre and opera in the San Francisco and Bay area. We met at he conference of American Theatre Critics Association in San Francisco. He reviews playwright Kimber Lee's brownsville song (b-side for tray) by Shotgun Players at Ashby Stage in Berkeley, through July 9.

Island City Stage hits practically all the right notes in world premiere production of The Goldberg Variations. The South Florida-based playwright and theater artist Stuart Meltzer's structure uses musical masterworks to illustrate variations in life situations. Humor, pathos and unpredictability are a potent combination in this comic-drama/

Christ Church is a vibrant coastal city rebuilding itself following a major earthquake devastation of six years ago. Contemporary architecture is on the rise, while historic treasures are being restored. Wellington, the capital city, is an urban wonderland with a thriving movie industry, world-class museums, outdoor cafes, an attractive waterfront, and beautiful botanical gardens.

Coming to the American Ballet Theatre’s production of Onegin from a music and opera background, and a literary one as well, the advantages of dance are immediately apparent. This telling of the Onegin story is moving and beautiful to behold.

The early music world comes to Boston every two years for the BEMF. This year its centerpiece opera was Andre Campra's "Le Carnaval de Venise," an opera-ballet, in its American premiere. It also reprised a hilarious pair of intermezzi, one of them the popular "La serva padrona," by Giovanni Pergolesi and Handel's Roman period oratorio "La Resurrezione." A good time was had by all.

OperaRox, a passionate and persuasive group that is promoting new compositions for the human voice, presented the final program in the New York Opera Fest 2017. Clearly this is not the last word for opera.

Kenneth Cole has created a huge space for events, gatherings, parties, and yes, operas. Located far west in Mid Manhattan, On Site Opera chose it for their American premier production of Darius Milhaud's The Guilty Mother.

ATCA held its annual conference in San Francisco. Shakespeare is alive in well among Bay Area theater companies. The "City By the Bay" and environs offers an array of theatrical productions, from new works to the classics

The Shanghai Quartet is an internationally acclaimed chamber group which bridges the sensibilities of East and West. Focusing in their program on folk music, you could close your eyes and sometimes imagine Ferde Grofé and Aaron Copland. Bach crops up as a reference.

Million Dollar Quartet is based on a true story of a rare event - the coming together in one studio of four rock 'n' roll legends: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Set on December 4, 1956, at Sun Records in Memphis, It was a night to remember for all rock n' roll fans!

The Irish playwright, Conor McPherson, challenges us to think about how we would react if the world turned upside down, and no longer functioned. How would we survive?

Joan Baez led the Four Voices to a packed house at their final concert tour stop at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts. The four women serenaded the audience for two plus hours on a beautiful spring evening.

There was a long day of meetings at Marin Theatre Company. The executives of American Theatre Critics Association were hosted for dinner on a houseboat in Sausalito. Then it was back to the theatre for an evening performance of the Matthew Lopez dark comedy The Legend of Georgia McBride.

Alan Gilbert gave his final New York concerts as music director of the New York Philharmonic this week, leading the annual Concerts in the Parks series in four boroughs. Wednesday's concert on the Great Lawn of Central Park was blessed with magnificent weather: clear skies and 80 degrees. Perfect.