Lynn Nottage, the first female American playwright to win two Pulitzers, has created the story for MJ, the musical celebrating Michael Jackson.  It has been due on Broadway for a while.  The opening date is now postponed until February.  Previews opened this week. If it stays in previews until the line of tickets dwindles, it will be a financial success.  If it formally opens to reviews, it will succeed despite pederasty accusations.

NFT art is a new way of categorizing digital artworks that enables artists to monetize their creations. A pertinent question: how does valuing a physical artwork compare to valuing a virtual work of art? It turns out that the value of NFTs and crypto art is based on the value of cryptocurrency. NFTs are sold on the basis of Ether or Ethereum. The Ethereum is translated into monetary value. For example, if an NFT sells for 2 Ethereum, that would translate at the moment into about $2,255 dollars. If the speculative value of the Ethereum drops, then so does the value of the artwork.

Inna Faliks is a superb concert pianist, who also heads the piano studies department at the University of California, Los Angeles.  Her recordings are devoted to revealing kindred spirits. Husband and wife, Robert and Clara Schumann, are offered together in The Schumann Project. Their entwined influence is suggested. Her interpretations of Beethoven will be presented as part of a Barge Concert in New York on December 16.

The magic of this play lies in the everyday ordinariness of each character’s lives which frequently tend to echo our own. I might add, when the lights went down there was not a dry eye in the house. Nor was there a heart left untouched.

The play is set two years after Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy have married and settled at his home. The family is arriving to celebrate Christmas.

In Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, playwright Tom Mula tells the familiar tale, but from Jacob Marley's perspective. City Theatre in Miami has mounted an engaging production that runs through Dec. 19. Long-time British Actor Colin McPhillamy plays 18 characters in this minimalist production.

It comes as no surprise that the oldest piano in the world, created in 1720 by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua, is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An earlier instrument was recorded in the inventory of the Medici family in 1700, but the Met’s piano is the oldest to survive today.  It has hammers and dampers, two keyboards, and a range of four octaves, C–c”’ The instrument was on view for concertgoers, who enjoyed a talk by Leon Botstein om the development of the instrument. He focused on Beethoven's response to more notes with a wider dynamic range, The Orchestra Now performed the Emperor Concerto, Shai Wosner at the modern Steinway and Leon Botstein conducting.

As ever in our prayers a universal wish.

Bend but don't break.

“The Sound of Music”, is a show that the whole family can enjoy. It’s based on an inspirational true story of the famous Austrian von Trapp Family Singers and their escape to Switzerland on the eve of Germany’s 1938 Anschluss, and it’s annexing of Austria prior to World War II that will break out one year later.

Jeremy Denk performed “The Old Testament of Keyboard Music,”  Bach’ s Well Tempered Clavier (WTC) , at the 92nd Street Y in New York. The artist selects works to which he can bring new insights. Bach, he sensed, was trapped by the Glenn Gould performances in the mid-20th century. Audiences found the neuroses Gould implanted in Bach suitable for the century’s mood. They also appreciated the humming he added to the piano notes. Other performers flatten the work to sound more like a harpsichord, sewiwgmachine style.

In "The People Downstairs," versatile and prolific South Florida playwright Michael McKeever presents the Anne Frank story from the perspective of the people who hid the 13-year-old girl and others during World War II. Palm Beach Dramaworks (PBD) in West Palm Beach is presenting the world premiere.

There's lots of fun for the whole family on stage in Connecticut. Here's a cheat sheet.

If you like Dickens’ A Christmas Carol performed by shadow puppets with special effects from an overhead projector, Manual Cinema has an adaptation of the holiday classic for you. Its 2020 virtual production of the Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol is available for viewing this year and it’s still quirky and delightful, even though it retains its earlier pandemic theme. (Yes, we’re still in the damnable pandemic or endemic, so enjoy this view of it.)

It may sound like ‘Heresy’ to some of my colleagues, but for me personally, the gifts that resided inside the genius that was Stephen Sondheim was an acquired taste.

Written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon and directed by Ariel Bock, The Wickhams features many familiar characters of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, as well as some new faces: a no-nonsense housekeeper, a spirited new maid, and a love-sick, enterprising footman. The staff is deeply engaged in holiday preparations at Pemberley, the estate of Elizabeth and Darcy.

Alongside the commissions, Works & Process will present performance excerpts and artists discussions of new works prior to their premieres at leading organizations including BAAD!, BAM, Boston Ballet, Federal Hall, Glimmerglass Festival, The Metropolitan Opera, and New York City Ballet. Taking place in the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed Peter B. Lewis Theater at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden has successfully completed the public consultation process for the revitalization of its Sculpture Garden. The Hirshhorn is the only Smithsonian museum directly integrated into the National Mall. The revitalization project will connect the 1.5-acre garden on the National Mall with the 4-acre plaza surrounding the museum, which welcomes 1 million visitors annually.

The Ted Rosenthal Trio with special guest vocalist Karrin Allyson will perform their Wonderland holiday show in a one-time event this Sunday, December 5 in Lenox, Mass. Performing jazz versions of holiday favorites and more, they will be appearing at the Gateways Inn in two shows, at 5 and 7pm.  

Stephen Sondheim was a Class if 1950 graduate of Williams College. Regarded as an icon of American theatre he passed recently at 91. We repost tributes by several members of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA).

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), is unveiling an ambitious transformation in the George D. and Margo Behrakis Wing for Art of the Ancient World: five reimagined galleries for the art of ancient Greece, Rome and the Byzantine Empire that tell new stories about some of the oldest works in the MFA’s collection. A gallery of modern and contemporary works located within the wing explores the reception of ancient art by 20th- and 21st-century artists. The first of the multiyear rotations features the works of the modern master Cy Twombly (1928–2011), an alumnus of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Sharing morning tea with a squirrel come rain or shine for past eighteen months. Then the bobcat prowled about. Evoking fear of losing a friend. Yet nature is what it is.

Theatre Lab, the professional resident company at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, is giving Jennifer Lane's two-hander, "To Fall in Love" its Southeastern premiere production. In the play, an estranged couple turns to a study that scientists claim can help people fall in love in order to save their marriage. The study features 36 questions that each individual asks the other.

It's time for sweating to the oldies. Or is it time for oldies to be sweating. Ok gang, all together now. Get off the couch, Start with a five pound potato sack in each hand.

The painter Vasily Kandinsky belongs in the Guggenheim Museum. The new show titled "Around the Circle" spirals up to the top of Frank Lloyd Wright's monument.