Dutch oven cooking, popular since colonial times, came to Nevada with the early Mormon settlers of the area and remains a way of life even today. Nevada state parks regularly give demonstrations of how to cook with the short-legged, cast iron vessel with the rimmed lid.

A highlight of the Berkshire season is the annual day long event Tanglewood On Parade culminating in a concert in the Shed. A perennial participant, composer/ conductor John Williams, was unable to travel from his home in LA. His music was heard including a Tanglewood debut of Andris Nelsons as a substitute conductor of the Pops. A good time was had by all.

This play based on Chekhov is a delightful two hours of smart theater that you'll enjoy even if you haven't seen The Seagull more times than you can count. The playbill provides a brief summary of the original, "in case you forgot." Director Jonathan L. Green, who also directed Sideshow's 2014 version, creates a minimalist production that uses original and contemporary pop music and breaks the fourth wall at will to talk with the audience.

The blockbuster summer exhibition, through September 13, is testing the limits of the recently renovated and expanded Clark Art Institute to handle maximum visitation even mid week. Only a few of the 50 works in the exhibition Van Gogh and Nature will be readily familiar to visitors. Many of the works on view, gathered from major collections, rarely travel to special exhibitions such as this. The curators have provided an intimate view of his daily practice and meticulous study of nature.

American realist painter Edward Hopper is known to have painted in Gloucester on five separate occasions during the summer months in the years 1912, 1923, 1924, 1926 and 1928. His earliest visit in 1912 was made in the company of fellow artist Leon Kroll. The Cape Ann Museum will present a guided walking tour of select Gloucester houses made famous by American realist painter Edward Hopper on Friday, August 7 at 10:00 a.m.

Jessica Conzo, market manager for Downtown Pittsfield's Farmers Market, hosted the second annual 'Blue Moon Roof Top' celebration on Friday night, July 31st, on top of the Greystone Building, located at 446 North Street. The event was a sell-out.

Ethel Smyth is the only female composer whose work has been produced by the Metropolitan Opera. An admirer of Wagner, Berlioz and Brahms, she in turn was admired by Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Thomas Beecham and Virginia Woolf. The Wreckers is her best known opera and Leon Botstein, ever on the alert for deserving but underexposed works, presented it in concert form in 2007. Now he gives us the full treatment at Bard.

This is the 10th WTF season for Michael Friedman, and 6th for Daniel Goldstein. They have created the world premiere of a musical Unknown Soldier which is one of the bright and promising productions this summer in Williamstown. The project was initiated through a commission from former artistic director Nicholas Martin. It has been brought to fruition by Mandy Greenfield .

The week of August 2nd to 6thh is one of the most exciting weeks at Tanglewood,located in Lenox, Massachusetts. If you are a fan of conductor Andris Nelsons and Yo-Yo Ma, this is your week of enjoyment.

The winner of the European Museum of the Year Award in 2008, the KUMU soars as the youthful face of independent Estonia. The museum's state-of-the-art galleries display selections from its 58,000-piece collection of Estonian art from the 18th century to the 1990s, including works from the Soviet era. The KUMU is a compelling destination in Tallinn, Estonia's charming capital.

Catherine Hinman, the Museum’s Director of Public Affairs and Publications, said “A highlight of a visit [to the Morse Museum] is always the Byzantine-Romanesque chapel interior Tiffany designed for exhibition at the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago, which literally brought fair-goers to their knees in 1893 and continues to mesmerize our visitors today.”

Taibi Magar, in her directorial debut at Shakespeare & Company, takes audiences on a wild ride through the city of Ephesus, where two sets of identical twins who were separated at birth, collide. What ensues is hilarious, due to the acting skills of the cast and Magar's vision of bringing a modern day spin to Shakespeare's shortest comedy. The result is 90 minutes of rollicking fun.

The renowned playwright John Guare was in Pittsfield recently for the first days of rehearsal of his play His Girl Friday. It is being directed by Julianne Boyd for Barrington Stage Company. He and others in the production met with the media for a lively give and take.

Blantyre means elgance, old world charm and to most of us, perceived, high prices. Think again. Lunch with wine and sunset views with a glass or bottle of Port and a cheese plate won't set you back as much as you would expect.

Ed Mumm the owner of Dig This said, “Originally I thought only men would be into this. As soon as we opened our doors for business, it became very obvious that I was wrong. Half of our clients are woman who apparently have also craved the opportunity to play in bulldozers and excavators. I think it is very empowering for them and is fantastic therapy to take control of a 20 ton piece of machinery and tear up some earth and what ever else is in their way.”

No food is consumed by audience members in Feast, although by the end of the production, I was thinking fondly of a plate of lamb biryani with pappadums or perhaps some chicken mole.

The play tells the story of the demonstration by mostly black textile mill workers in Greensboro to protest the Ku Klux Klan. The march was publicized as taking place on November 3, 1979, and the marchers had obtained a police permit. It resulted in five deaths.

The Trustees of Naumkeag host the yearly Garden Party for an enthusiastic crowd of local and out-of-town well wishers. Bellinis , hors d'oeuvres and sweets entertained the crowds appetite on this glorious, sunny afternoon in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

"The long forgotten and warm word 'locomotive' awoke in my mind - breathing vapor clouds, hoarse, smelling of coal smoke, even in wet weather." The passionate romance of two engines began here and takes an improbable journey as Ermon reminds his wife Ramona that you never say no when someone is in trouble. This is grown up puppetry from a great Georgian artist.

Blantyre in our backyard, is only minutes from Tanglewood and the arts of the Berkshires. Rooms are beautiful and wine and gourmet food is affordable.

The North Coast Repertory Theatre production of “Side By Side By Sondheim”, does Mr. Sondheim proud! That enormous canon is selectively and lovingly brought to life by four gifted and talented singer/actors in a 90 minute free flowing tribute to his genius under the inspired direction of North Coast artistic director David Ellenstein.

Todd Almond’s new rock musical “Girlfriend” with music and lyrics by Matthew Sweet is a vanguard production that addresses the issues of understanding, acceptance, as well as the hopes and dreams of two gay teenage boys who discover one another in rural Nebraska in the summer of 1993.

Paul Natkin told an attentive audience about shooting Bruce Springsteen in Minneapolis on his Born in the USA tour for a Newsweek cover. That shoot was described in a story about Natkin in the Chicago Sun-Times. "That's when my family believed I was a real photographer," he said. That publicity also led to five years as the staff photographer for the Oprah Winfrey Show.

As I inscribed in my book for him Arnie Reisman was my first and best editor starting with the Brandeis Justice and then Boston After Dark. I have enjoyed reading his first book of verse Clara Bow Died for Our Sins.

When the director, Yukio Ninagawa, was a small boy he was struck by the dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History. In Murikama's book, Ninagawa found the perfect use for dioramas in theatre. Ninagama writes that this tale has intimate detail in scenes as well as dynamic narrative scale. On stage, the 'dioramas' move fluidly between scenes, which are enacted in one frame, but surrounded often by others.