Lookingglass's black box theater in the old Water Works on Michigan Avenue in Chicago becomes the interior of a great whale with steel hoops extending from stage rear to the top of the theater.

Alone in Barcelona reading On the Road.

A reunion this summer in the Berkshire church that Ray and Alice made famous. This time though I won't be swinging on the rope. Planning to keep both feet on the ground.

Cracking the code of complex concepts for most people it helps to have a humanizing hook. What is the anecdote and eureka moment that allows us to connect with daunting aesthetics and technologies? It is the sizzle which enhances the flavor of the steak.

The title Shining City is a Bliblical reference that "A town built on a hill cannot be hidden." But there is much that is obscure and repressed in this drama by the Irish playwright Conor McPherson.

Andris Nelsons' name has whirled in the air around Berlin. He succeeded Sir Simon Rattle at Birmingham and it is Rattle who is stepping down in Berlin. Nelsons was a natural choice. The orchestra made its announcement today: Kirill Petrenko is their man. Recently he has triumphed at the Munich Opera where we heard his wonderful Lulu.

The Tanglewood 2015 season opened with Sheryl Crow backed by Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops.

Music salons at Joseph and Christina Rosen's are a treat. Over the course of a season, you can hear up and coming pianists, singers, and contemporary composers. The warhorses of music sound fresh and inviting. Only one of the pleasures of an evening is hearing Joe Rosen perform on the clarinet.

If you have read Walden and think you know Henry David Thoreau guess again. The world premiere Thoreau or Return to Walden written by and starring David Adkins, directed by Eric Hill presents the New England transcendentalist and abolitionist as an eccentric just short of lunacy.

Heisenberg is a dashing new play by the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog, a hit on Broadway. His new play is more complete and satisfying, although its subject might disturb people who need predictability and order. Certainly Mary Louise Parker doesn't, as she loosey-goosey's through her life. Don't be put off by hints of quantum physics in the title. The play is uproarious and the best take on a May-December romance you'll see. It begins with a kiss, passes through the usual, and ends with indeterminacy.

Time was when parents bragged about their kids getting into Ivy League Schools then on to law, medicine or an MBA. Not anymore.

Every two years the Boston Early Music Festival schedules a week of concerts and operas that make Boston the world capital of early music. This year's focus was on Claudio Monteverdi, the first great opera composer. All three of his surviving operas were given stylish productions and featured some of the best singers of early music in the world. Taken from Greek myth and ancient Roman history, the stories resonate with the lives we live today.

During my recent book launch at The Mount my friend private art dealer Jim Jacobs regaled playwright Mark St. Germain with stories of our time together as interns in the Museum of Fine Arts back in the 1960s. At Mark's suggestion this has now inspired a suite of poems gathered as The Basement Tapes. It is my first attempt to create an extended work an idea which previously was suggested by my poet friend and mentor Stephen Rifkin

When the rise of the Third Reich led to closing the Bauhaus in 1933 the architect Walter Gropius and his wife the weaver. artist Anni regrouped in rural North Carolina to establish a small experimental outpost for advanced art and design Black Mountain College. The faculty and students were intended to build their dorms and studios as well as grow their food and raise livestock. Never having a solid endowment the experiment ended in 1957. Gropius went on to Harvard and the rest of the faculty scattered. The impact on post war American arts was indelible. Organized by former curator Helen Molesworth this promises to be one of the most ambitious and informative exhibitions of the fall season. It will be on view in Boston Oct. 10, 2015 to Jan. 24, 2016 and then travel to LA and Columbus, Ohio.

The good news is that the edgy. enticing New Country, due to popular demand, has been extended to June 27 at Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City. It is good enough to see twice. This is the kind of show that comes along every once in awhile. Presented by Fair Trade Productions in association with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and written by Mark Roberts this is a must see production.

When Jeff McCarthy brings down the house with an iconic barnburner The Impossible Dream it is richly evident that the fifty-year-old musical Man of La Mancha still packs a whallop that can blow the socks off of an audience. This Barrington Stage production that launches the Mainstage of Barrington Stage in Pittsfield is the benchmark hit of the still new 2015 Berkshire theatre season. It is doubtful that any actor will match or surpass his performance as the male lead in a musical.

The North American continent does not have military heroines. A 17th century Mexican nun, Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, was censored for her apostatic writings, but never picked up a sword. Without queens and saints, we have struggled into modern times. For comfort when France was challenged, as it often has been in history, the country looks to its patron saint, Joan of Arc, who helped end the Hundred Years War before she was burned at the stake. The New York Philharmonic reminded us of her trials in the ineffably moving composition of Paul Claudel and Arthur Honegger.

During the Pluralism of the 1980s the Italian born artist Francesco Clemente was a part of the neo expressionist movement. Having recently reinvented himself the artist who lives in New York and India had a series of glitzy decoratve tents fabricated by artisans. The artist has painted the interiors with provocative, fluid, naive narratives. This imajor installtion in Mass MoCA's vast Building Five has been paired with the cartoon inspired, theatrical scaled paintings of the populist artist./ musician conceptualist Jim Shaw. The work is obviously fun and accessible but skates on thin ice.

The North Coast Repertory Theatre’s potent production of marriage infidelity and betrayal is full of clever directorial touches, like the timing of Pinteresque pauses and the overall pacing between the excellent ensemble cast of Carla Harting, Jeffrey Frace, and Richard Baird, with Benjamin Cole contributing as a pompous and frustrated European waiter.

On a perfect June evening a booklaunch, my first, on the terrace of Edith Wharton's The Mount in Lenox. Witty exchanges with director Susan Wissler. Reading Gonzo poems from Shards of Life. Elegant gathering with Berkshire friends and neighbors, artists, writers and citizens of the world. Superb food and fine wine. Guests exploring the formal gardens. Signed a ton of books.

Valmor Products’ advertising and packaging is the subject of a funny, provocative and eye-opening exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center. Love for Sale: The Graphic Art of Valmor Products runs until August 2 in the 4th floor north exhibit hall, just across from the not-to-be-missed exhibit of the paintings of Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist.

On June 10, 2015, Alan Gilbert will present Honegger's most famous composition, Joan or Arc at the stake. Modestly, Honegger said he only followed the inspiration of his librettist Paul Claudel. Their collaboration was inspired. Gilbert discussed the dramatic oratorio with Come de Bellescize, the stage director, and Pierre Vallet, who assisted Seiji Ozawa with his production of the oratorio.

“Everybody’s Talkin’” is more of a free-flowing musical tribute than a traditional book musical. There isn’t one line of scripted dialogue spoken by the performers. It’s just the genius of Harry Nilsson who was a poet/philosopher and a reluctant troubadour performer, whose songs lend themselves to the inspired arrangements by Gunderson and the staging by Velasco that propel the show along.

I have known and much appreciated the witty and whimsical artist Raeford Liles since the 1960s. He was represented by the East Hampton Gallery when I worked there. Some years ago the artist returned to Birmingham, Alabama where he grew up. Now in assisted living his family has been working to catalog, archive and preserve decades of his work. From this extensive project has emerged the publication of a series of digital prints from his inspired Greek Pots series.

The Berkshire Film and Media Collaborative (BFMC) has released an economic impact study to examine the effects of a film shoot on the economy of rural communities. The study, “When Movie Making Comes to Town: An Economic Impact Analysis and Strategies for Development” was authored by Rick Feldman of InCommN, LLC, who was one of the developers of IMPLAN, a widely used economic impact analysis software program.