Now dead for centuries amazingly a lot of people are pissed off about Shakespeare. The actor uttering "Et tu Brute" in a controversial NY production strongly evokes our American Caesar, The Donald. This was a context for a meeting of American Theatre Critics Association for a panel and performance at Cal Shakes.

The tight and compelling two-hander The Roommate by Jen Silverman premiered at the Humana Festival a couple of years ago. While attending an ATCA theatre conference we enjoyed a superb production at the San Francisco Playhouse. It is also scheduled for the Main Stage of the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

The spirit of the boozing and boisterous rocker is vibrantly on stage at American Conservatory Theatre in An Evening with Janis Joplin. In an incarnation by Kacee Clanton the blues rock belter from Port Arthur, Texas is back where it all started during the flower power hippie era of sweet and wild San Francisco. The touring company of the Broadway musical is playing to packed houses.

LoftOpera is committed to bringing opera to new, young audiences in welcoming performances which can be greeted with joy by both the artists and the audience. Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, one of the world's most beloved musical settings of a 13th century Christian poem, was actualized in a Brooklyn warehouse. The audience was moved and entranced.

The end of a ten city tour is the great stage at Tanglewood. On June 17th, this tour of women's voices fills the air for the last night of their tour on the beautiful grounds in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Composer Péter Eötvös took a monumental American work, Angels in America, and abstracted its spirit as an opera for the ages. Hallucinatory and death-directed, the opera version mixes spoken and played note language to convey both the anguish and rage of the victims of AIDS.

The Bennington Center for the Arts, in collaboration with Summer Sonatina International Piano Camp, will be offering a diverse and exciting five-week Friday night concert series from June 23rd to July 21.

When it comes to the exit of Alan Gilbert from the post of Music Director after only eight years, the New York Philharmonic has put on its bravest face. This week’s season-ending series of concerts, (promoted as “A Concert for Unity”) have featured starry opening acts for America’s oldest orchestra.

What's it like to create a child when sex doesn't do the job? Stripped of privacy, subjected to injection of semen into a hamster, and fending off an alcoholic parent are just part of the challenge. A hilarious treatment by talented playwright Lisa Loomer leaves us laughing and crying at once.

No math knowledge is needed to relate to Proof's many relevant themes. Actors are at the top of their game in South Florida theater company's production. The Pulitzer prize-winning play opens New City Players 2017 season.

Woody Sez was mounted at the American Repertory Theatre in 2012. Now the brilliant actor/singer/writer David Lutken has expanded the show by an action-packed thirty-five minutes,and deepened his take on this iconic folk singer, who speaks clearly to our times. The Irish Repertory production is spot on throughout.

Playwright Jeanne Sakata, a successful actor herself, premiered Hold These Truths in 2007 at East West Players in Los Angeles. It made its off-Broadway debut in 2012 with the Epic Theatre Ensemble, and has since been performed at numerous regional theatres including Portland Center Stage, the Guthrie Theater, Seattle’s ACT Theatre, and locally by Coachella Valley Rep in Palm Springs.

The current North Coast Repertory Theatre revival production of “The Spitfire Grill”, a musical dramedy written by James Valcq and Fred Alley with music by Valcq and lyrics by Alley, is a shining example of the power some ‘outsiders’ can bring to the table or to a community if just given a chance.

Drag queens are a hoot in GableStage's engaging production of The Legend of Georgia McBride. The energy is palpable in South Florida theater company's production of Matthew Lopez play. The Legend of Georgia McBride will whisk you away from worries for 90 hilarious minutes.

Joined by 100 pairs of hands from th Radio Drama Network, the Ensemble Studio Theatre presents the 36th Marathon of One Act plays. New playwrights are featured and each had a special touch as the series unfolded.

It must be fun for the talented Met Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen to stretch its opera boundaries. From an early Mahler piece, once integrated into the First Symphony, to support of the dazzling Christian Tetzlaff and the quiet lullabies for children sung by Anna Sofie von Otter, the orchestra sang.

Takashi Murakami is best known for his work related to Japanese anime and manga, as well as his sweeps into commercial and pop art and collaborations with artists such as Kanye West and Pharrell Williams. During last week’s press preview, he was articulate in discussing his work and his inspirations with curator Michael Darling (although the artist occasionally needed help from his translator).

Jane Hudson is known to the Berkshire arts community as the other half of the rock duo, Jeff and Jane, as well as for tending shop at various incarnations of Hudson's Antiques. On Sunday, June 17 from 3:30 to 5:30 PM., an exhibition of her abstract works on paper will open at Hudson Art, 112 Water Street in Williamstown.

The evening belonged to Mr. Gilbert, whose taut command of this orchestra over such a long and contiguous work reminded New Yorkers that his departure at the end of this season will be a terrible loss indeed.

In the heart of Noho, the Sheen Center has become a hot venue for new music performed by consummate artists. Gregg Kallor premiered a Quintet honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is perhaps the best orchestra now playing in New York. Because they have listened to singers for so long, they have a built in lyricism which it tops with superb musicianship. Under the baton of Esa Pekka Salonen and enhanced by the acoustics of Carnegie Hall, the orchestra made a big impact with Schumann and Mahler.

Milford Sound with scenic fjords, national parks with spectacular mountain views and cascading waterfalls, and Dart River with thrilling jet-boat rides are the rewards of South Island. Traveling west across the Southern Alps, the rewards continue with the snow-capped Mount Cook region, Fox and San Josef Glaciers, a craggy coastline with "Pancake Rocks", and the artists' haven town of Hokitika.

This summer the Clark Art Institute features four special exhibitions Picasso Encounters, an exhibition of prints with a few key paintings, as well as Orchestrating Elegance; Alma Tadema and the Marquand Music Room and two focused on prints and paintings by Helen Frankenthaler. The museum launched its expansion with a spate of blockbusters but is now moving into a new era with less hoopla under its reserved and scholarly French-born director Olivier Meslay.

Campra's "Le Carnaval de Venise" sets the theme, but the weeklong festival ranges far and wide, from Mexico to Germany to Rome, Florence as well as Venice. Pergolesi's "La serva padrona"will feature local favorite Amanda Forsythe, and the BEMF orchestra will play Handel's "La Resurrezione." Something for everyone - everyone who loves early music that is.

The exhibition: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of 'Centerbeam,' A Performative Sculpture by CAVS, can be seen at ZKM, Karlsruhe/Germany, until October 1st. The museum is also presenting in an adjacent gallery Aldo Tambellini’s, 'Black Matters.' He was one of the 21 artists, who participated in the spectacular, collaborative and participatory outdoor sculpture.