For a small play, on a small stage, in a relatively small theatre of 335 seats, with a ticket price one third that of Broadway, and 20 actors singing and dancing their hearts out, all backed by a 14 piece orchestra, a rarity both On and Off Broadway, Once Upon A Matress, is the best bang for your buck in the city.

Our Boston correspondent Mark Favermann grew up in the south and attended Washington and Lee. In his community Jews were definitely a minority. So his Christmas experience was quite different from that of friends and classmates.

“The Christians” revolve around a charismatic and highly successful Pastor Paul (an absolutely mesmerizing Andrew Garman) of a Christian congregation who suddenly announces during his Sunday homily that he has had a change of heart concerning the Bible’s representation of the place known as “Hell”. In fact, he claims there is no such place.

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) has been awarded a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that will allow the museum to expand and strengthen its Native American Fellowship program.

Visual art is evolving in wonderful technical directions. Boston Cyberarts is continuing to foster this development. A Fall 2015 exhibition showcased a whole group of artists working not only visually but auditorially. Hearing and seeing was believing.

A hidden jewel in a wooded residential neighborhood of Amherst, MA, the Theodore Baird House By Frank Lloyd Wright is an early Usonian style residence built in 1939 for an Amherst College professor and his wife. It is a unique example of the flamboyant master architect's craft. It is an architectural icon by an architectual legend.

Israel, the Promised land of the Bible, is today a modern, thriving, bustling and vibrant country. In today’s Israel, cities, towns, villages, fertile farms, green forests, sophisticated industries and well-developed commercial enterprises have replaced barren hillsides, swamps and desert wilderness.

Music at The Colonial Theatre includes, legendary reggae band, The Wailers (part of the 10X10 Upstreet Arts Festival); Grammy Award-winning pop/rock singer, songwriter, musician, Richard Marx; Grammy Award-winning Walking In Memphis singer, Marc Cohn and “the godfather of British blues,” John Mayall.

Evgeny Kissin dares us to share his adventurous take on life, music and poetry. At Carnegie Hall in an evening of Jewish music and poetry, he was full of passion and mournful joy.

Hey kids get out your calendars. The 2016 season is beginning to shape up. OK James Taylor is returning to Tanglewood over the Fourth of July. But the season will be old by then. The fun starts at MASS MoCA on Saturday, June 11 with The National. That's almost as wicked cool as Wilco. Then Surf's Up on June 19. It's a day gig so no curfew when Brian Wilson presents his iconic Pet Sounds in its entirety. Multivalent trumpet ace Chris Botti slips into Ozawa Hall, where we have seen him before, on June 24. By front loading the season in such a manner July will seem like so over man.

In matters poetic Stephen Rifkin is my mentor/ tormentor. In "Penelope" about the faithful wife of Odysseus I compared her to that slut Helen of Troy. He posted a similarity to his "Helen on the Beach" which I promptly read but failed to see the connection. I raised this issue during our weekly Monday night Chinese. He sent this further commentary which I suggested we post. Now you dear reader can be a part of the dialogue.

Highlights of Jacob's Pillow Festival 2016 include a world premiere engagement created by tap dance powerhouses Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Derick K. Grant, and Jason Samuels Smith; former New York City Ballet principal dancer Wendy Whelan and choreographer Brian Brooks in an evening of new duets and solos, accompanied by eminent string quartet Brooklyn Rider; rare U.S. appearances by France-based Compagnie Hervé KOUBI and Korea-based contemporary ensemble Bereishit Dance Company; the explosive Che Malambo of Argentina; and the return of the beloved Seattle-based company Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Saint Blasien is a lovely 750-year-old town deep in the valley of the Alb River. Unlike the large cities in Germany; Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt and Stuttgart the Weilnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) in Saint Blasien is small with only local artisans displaying their works.

MASS MoCA has many highlights in its schedule for exhibitions and performances. Start to mark our calendars particularly for the June 11 exclusive performance of The National which is sure to sell out in a flash.

The National will be in North Adams on Saturday, June 11, at 8pm, in its only Northeast headline show in all of 2016. The concert benefits MASS MoCA and Hawthorne Valley Association, in Ghent, New York. The Ohio-raised, Brooklyn-based band, which consists of vocalist Matt Berninger, plus two pairs of brothers: Aaron Dessner (guitar, bass, piano) and Bryce Dessner (guitar), and Scott Devendorf (bass, guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums), have landed on every “best of” list in print.

The boys always gather at Christmas time to be with their widowed father where all get to ham it up, tease one another and play the games of their youth as a way of diverting the boredom of the three day holiday. California's Kirk Douglas Theatre premieres a play by the New Yorker Young Jean Lee.

From April 30 to June 12, 2016 at Theatre for a New Audience Arin Arbus will direct John Douglas Thompson in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” and August Strindberg’s “The Father.” They will be presented in repertory. Previously he performed as Judge Brack in Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler at the New York Theatre Workshop directed by Ivo von Hove but this will be his first role in a Strindberg play.

You would never know that symphony orchestras had problems reaching a younger audience. Geffen Hall in New York was packed with young people eager to listen and offer their opinions on characters, stories and their expression in music. Theodore Wiprud, the NY Phil's Vice President for Education, was master of ceremonies. Peter, the Wolf, Babar and Celeste and the impish Till Eulenspiegel were a delight.

The critical essay "Gonzo Shine" was written by Robert Henriquez on the occasion of the publication of Total Gonzo Poems by Charles Giuliano. He was also essayist for the first book Shards of a Life. Here Henriquez further explores the development and sources for gonzo poetry. These ideas germinated through an ongoing dialogue as the work developed and morphed into a signature style.

A bustling metropolis within easy reach of the Atlantic rain forest, Curitiba is an urban planner's dream with wide avenues, ample green space, and unique modern architecture. The cobblestoned historic center, along with the typical ethnic neighborhoods enhance the city's charm.

Kyoto is one of the most beautiful cities in Japan and center for the appreciation of its ancient Samurai culture.

Why has Dangerous Liaisons been translated onto the stage and into three movies, including films by Milos Forman and Roger Vadim? Because it's the stuff of which great art can be made. Playing the game of life (and money) is something Wall Street understands well. We can benefit from watching it spin out. But there are no metaphors in the luurious period costumes. The opera by Conrad Susa with text by Philip Littell is an enticing guide.

The Barbara Lee Collection of Art by Women, established at the ICA in 2014, represents three decades of collecting by Lee and brings together painting, sculpture, photography, and videography by iconic modern and contemporary women artists.

Handel lovers were in heaven this Thanksgiving. Local reigning early music superstar, soprano Amanda Forsythe set the First Church in Cambridge on fire with her vocal pyrotechnics, while across the river, the BEMF assembled a number of her colleagues to repeat its delightul "Acis and Galatea." What more could you want?

Tom Krens joined the Guggenheim Foundation in 1988 when museums were attempting to transform to business models. Now, for North Adams he is developing Global Contemporary Art Museum. In a new paradigm it is being privately funded as a for profit institution. With reverse momentum he is establishing a business on the model of a fine arts museum.