So, what makes “Annie” so popular? Where to start? Set during the Great Depression and opening in an orphanage with conditions straight out of a Charles Dickens novel doesn’t seem a likely starting point.

While manager of the Boston Tea Party Steve Nelson booked, first the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page, then later the Jeff Beck band for four nights. Beck was touring with Rod Stewart, Ron Wood and Mick Waller. (Editor: I saw that lineup at the Newport Jazz Festival.) On the cusp of superstardom Beck broke up the band. Rod went solo and Ron eventually joined the Rolling Stones.

"Time Alone" is a moving and intense play about two prisoners. Boca Stage is presenting a riveting production of Alessandro Camon's play. The production runs through Jan. 22.

The Rose Art Museum names Arghavan Khosravi (b. 1984) the 2023 Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence. Since 2002, the Perlmutter Residency has been part of the Rose Art Museum’s longstanding tradition of promoting emerging artists of extraordinary talent whose work addresses contemporary issues of vital urgency.

MASS MoCA has promoted veteran curator Denise Markonish to become its new Chief Curator, the first in MASS MoCA’s nearly 25-year history. Markonish joined MASS MoCA in 2007.

Julianne Boyd says, “I am thrilled to be directing Faith Healer, Brian Friel’s hauntingly beautiful play that has been on my short list for years – and I am excited to be reunited with three tremendously talented actors and BSC Associate Artists, Christopher Innvar, Mark Dold and Gretchen Egolf.”

Victoria Bond will conduct at the UN on January 27. The event can be live streamed. She will then travel to Stockton, California for a tribute to Ray Charles .

A fine cast delivers with lesser material in Broadway in Lauderhill's opening season production of "The Full Monty." The Full Monty is charming and amusing in places, but a musical mess in others. The production runs through Jan. 29 at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center.

David Lang is not surprisingly a highly educated, impish composer. We can’t take him at face value. Or perhaps we can. Discussing his new opera, presented as part of the Prototype Festival, he said that although he had first been intrigued by Ryunosuke Akutagawa's short stories at age 16, he knows nothing about Japanee culture. Yet he is Japanese.

This spring, theater companies around Wisconsin are launching World Premiere Wisconsin, a statewide festival celebrating new plays and musicals that has been years in the making.  We have 52 participating theaters along with festival partner Ten Chimneys. Quite the undertaking as we look to put new plays back at the center of our work post-pandemic.  

A strong equity national touring production of "Turner: The Tina Turner Musical" is playing in Ft. Lauderdale through Jan. 29. This jukebox musical focuses on the life of a legendary performer. Triple threat performers shine in the production.

Berkshire fans will recall seeing Crosby Stills and Nash at Tanglewood, September 2, 2010. Crosby known for a crash and burn lifestyle, as well as an angelic voice that made gorgeous harmonies, has died at 81. I first heard him with the Byrds at Soundblast '66 at Yankee Stadium.

Look for this production to come to Broadway and finally redeem the show. Merrily We Roll Along isn’t a great musical, but in reality, it is more interesting than many of the long-running “hits.”

All of us have had that restaurant experience in which we thought the food would never come. In this case, the cause is not a lost order or long prep time or overtaxed restaurant staff. It is willful delay by the server from hell.

The Clark Art Institute continues its art in public spaces program in 2023 with a year-long installation presenting the work of contemporary artist Elizabeth Atterbury (b. 1982, West Palm Beach, Florida; lives and works in Portland, Maine). Elizabeth Atterbury: Oracle Bones is a free exhibition on view in the Clark Center’s lower level and in the reading room of  the Manton Research Center through January 21, 2024.

Opera’s legendary femme fatale returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago with Bizet’s Carmen — March 11 – April 7, 2023 — starring J’Nai Bridges, a leading interpreter of the famous title role and a singer with deep Chicago roots.

In the hands of some, a sandwich may be a most humble joining of Wonder Bread with a plain and prosaic filler of any sort. In another, it can be a sublime assemblage of aspiration and dreams. Such is the aesthetic divide between most of the truckers who patronize Clyde’s Sandwich Shop in Reading, PA, and the unseen kitchen staff who fill their orders. The Berkeley Rep production exceeds every standard the script demands.

The realist painter Alfred Leslie had a major impact on the Boston Art World. In 1976 he had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts. He also commuted to teach at the Boston University School of Fine Arts.

Anyone who says they never got caught telling a fib is probably telling a fib.  But what is worse is covering the tracks of the first lie with another, and then another, until the wheels finally come off.  Often, the result is loss of respect from others, compounded by loss of self-respect.  If there is a road back, it is an arduous one.

Theatre Lab in Boca Raton is producing a fine world premiere of "Last Night in Inwood" byu Alix Sobler. The production runs through Feb. 12. Theatre Lab, Florida Atlantic University's resident professional theater company, is dedicated solely to new work.

The playwright Christine Quintana makes an interesting point about communication in the program of Hartford Stage’s production of Espejos:Clean. She says, “Every interaction we have with one another is an act of translation.”

In one smashing performance, Opera Philadelphia presented two Credos, statements of belief by composers who lived and worked at about the same time, in strikingly different circumstances. Carl Orff survived the Nazi regime in Germany by not protesting. Margaret Bonds grew up in a thriving Chicago art community.

What a performance of La Cage Aux Folles at the Komische Oper, Berlin!! This musical with music by Jerry Herman and a book by Harvey Fierstein has seen many international interpretations since it opened in 1983 at the Palace Theatre in New York.

HallSpace presents paintings by Adriana G. Prat, an academically-trained scientist with a Ph.D. in Biophysics. Adriana’s curiosity for the natural world stemmed in her country of birth, Argentina. In Topographical Visions, Prat shares her awareness of the environmental crisis.

"The Science of Leaving Omaha" is a layered play about the power of words and the desire to matter and be acknowledged. The play's world premiere production is running through Feb. 19 at Palm Beach Dramaworks in South Florida. Carter W. Lewis, a playwright who has won several national playwrighting awards, penned the play.