Barrington Stage Company is launching its Pittsfield season with a commissioned musical Presto Change-O which is having its world premiere on the intimate St. Germain Stage. On many levels this perky production is zesty and magical and that's not just an illusion.

Music of all genres and spirits is overflowing the halls of David Geffen Hall and embracing the citizens of New York. Gustav Holst's The Planets brought amateur astronomers to Lincoln Center's Plaza for a viewing of Jupiter and its moons after we had heard the composer's interpretation. Wow!

The superb Jeremy Irons stars as the brilliant, eccentric, and passionate Cambridge University mathematics professor G. H. Hardy. When Hardy is confronted with the mathematics genius of a young twenty-five year- old completely self-educated Indian student from Madras, named S. Ramanujan (stoically and poignantly played by Dev Patel) Hardy’s faith and passion for his chosen profession is put the test.

For the best chowder in New England head for Gloucester. But steer clear of the downtown and harbor tourist traps. Don't even bother with Rockport. Seek out the fringe lunch places like Charley's and Causeway where the locals belly up. It will take a bit of poking around to find them but it's worth the effort.

James Levine is gloriously winding down his tenure as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera. The man who brought us the full Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera may have aged, but he is blossoming still and the stage of Carnegie Hall is the perfect venue to display his monumental talents.

Can men and women find themselves and satisfaction at the same time? This question has been asked since the beginning to time. Theatre for a New Audience, in their remarkable home, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, features John Douglas Thompson and Maggie Lacey in Ibsen's A Doll's House and Strindberg's The Father, running in repertory.

Founded as the seat of Spain's colonial government in a valley towered over by Volcan de Agua, Antigua is a treasure trove of art and architecture of Colonial Guatemala. Tikal and Yaxha are national parks within a vast tropical jungle with a reserve area of magnificent ruins of ancient cities that pay tribute to the accomplishments of the great Mayan civilization of Central America.

This is the fourth year the Hudson-Berkshire Wine & Food Festival dominates the scene for the Memorial Day weekend. Enjoy the sun and warmth in a local setting with NY and Massachusetts vineyards and distillers products.

Veteran actor Lindsay Ann Crouse left LA several years ago to relocate to Annisquam the summer home of her theatrical family. In a now annual production she has been offered great roles by the local Gloucester Stage now launching its 37th season. She is stunning in the meaty role of an eccentric docent of a seedy British mansion. While entertaining she doesn't stick to the script. The play was written as a vehicle for Dame Maggie Smith by Peter Shaffer who wrote Equus and Amadeus. This play, as you will learn, is the cat's meow.

Unlike in another Sondheim revue, “Side by Side by Sondheim,” has no narrator to link the songs. Rather, a dramatic framework exists in which two couples are attending a cocktail party at an upscale residence. This allows the characters to sing nearly 30 Sondheim songs outside the context for which he composed/or wrote the lyrics.

La Jolla Playhouse has the best track record of any West Coast theatre when it comes to sending their original theatrical productions to Broadway (over 30 of them to date). Their 2008 musical production “Memphis”, written by Joe Di Pietro and directed by Christopher Ashley went on to Broadway winning a 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical. “Hollywood”, again written by Di Pietro, and helmed by Ashley, is looking to pull off a Tony Award-winning ‘Daily Double’ coup.

Jordi Domenech lives in the Priorat region of Spain, close to Barcelona. He is a winemaker, a vermouth salesman, a restaurant owner and a father. He is a very busy man. This is his present day story.

Anthony Weiner may have revealed all on Twitter, but the film about his attempted political comeback as he ran for Mayor of New York in 2013 does not. It is an entertaining film. Weiner is more self-aware than many politicians, but the fact that he thinks he can behave in a style that forced his resignation from Congress apparently did not stop him from continuing that behavior. Politicians are like teenagers. You can warn them, but even after Gary Hart, they think: I am not vulnerable.

Alan Gilbert, Music Director of the New York Philharmonic has an uncanny knack for programming. Extending the ideas of where music does and does not belong in the classic/classical repertoire and how it should be produced. He has brought us semi-staged operas, adventuresome new music and live performance of film scores that were written to be heard live while the film is screened. City Lights, quintessential Chaplin, was accompanied by Chaplin's own score, played by the Philharmonic. The score had been restored and reconstructed by the conductor, Timothy Brock.

Michael Bernardi lost his father, Herschel, when he was not yet two. Still, for much of his life, he has sensed his father’s presence. His father played Tevye on Broadway over three years and 702 performances, beginning in 1965. The younger Bernardi is currently playing Mordcha in the Tony nominated Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof.

Anyone who’s required an organ transplant knows the horrible ordeals of blood tests and waiting lists. But what happens after a successful transplant is complete? Does life revert to normal for the recipient, the donor and their families?

Although just fourteen August de Forest is being given a one woman show at the Butler Institute of American Art’s Mesaros Gallery in Youngstown, Ohio. She is from a family famous for its artists and museum professionals.

Scott Carter is executive producer for HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” and previously produced the first 1100 episodes of Maher’s “Politically Incorrect.” He has written two full-length monologues. Discord premiered in 2014 in Los Angeles at the Geffen Playhouse and the NoHo Arts Center.

Before Pennsylvania’s fortress-like Eastern State Penitentiary was built on the then-outskirts of Philadelphia in the early 1820s, jails had traditionally been dirty, overcrowded rooms where prisoners were subjected to brutal treatment by the guards.

The Tony winning comedy Lend Me a Tenor by Ken Ludwig is being given a lively revival by The Footlight Players in Charleston. The first act takes a lot of exposition with long monologues. Having established the characters and plot lines the second act proved to be a fun packed roller coaster trip.

Honky Art was an attempt to created a movement of art in the late 1960s and 1970s. Little of the work has survived and what remains has been posted here. Decades later Honky Art has an uncanny and timely relevance.

There have been several incarnations of restaurants at 26 Marshall Street opposite the North Adams campus of MASS MoCA. On a Saturday night four foodies visited the recently launched Grazie Italian Ristorante. There were mistakes but overall we plan to return to an affordable Northern Berkshire dining option.

The Clinton Center has shown its ability to attract important development in the area near the center. The Heifer International purchased land adjacent to the Clinton Center for its $13.9 million headquarters. Heifer International is the 2004 recipient of Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian million-dollar prize. The mission of Heifer International is to work with communities worldwide to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth.

During the late 1960s there was such a proliferation of experimental art forms that they were gathered under umbrella terms like Pluralism and Post Modernism. It was a time of radical social and political change. In 1968, while working as a journalist in the underground press I devoted a sketch book to developing the concept of Honky Art. Some related works were used as illustrations for the alternative weekly Avatar. The idea was to conflate the consumerism and humor of Pop art with a more sarcastic social and political edge.

With over 150 guests in attendance, Berkshire Country Day raised over $60,000 to assist in their financial aid program for students.