With his highly successful “Vietgone,” playwright Qui Nguyen, told the beginning of his family’s immigrant story, following the fall of Saigon in the Vietnam War.  His equally thoughtful and humorous sequel, “Poor Yella Rednecks,” continues the family’s saga.  Amusingly, he writes himself in as a character in the play and facetiously disavows to the audience that its characters are real.

BMOP continues its extended 25th Anniversary celebrations with a trip to Carnegie Hall. Featuring three works originally commissioned, premiered, and recorded by BMOP, "Play It Again" provides the capstone to the first 25 years of BMOP's mission. Andrew Norman's Play, Lei Liang's A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams, and Lisa Bielawa's In medias res all receive their New York premieres on the historic Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage in Carnegie Hall.

Death of Classical, the brilliant music series conceived and curated by Andrew Ousley, was embedded in a Town Hall celebration of Minimalism.  It was a spiritual lift of a special order, lighting the path to classical music’s future in neon reds and greens. The lush curtains draped at the back of the stage were bathed alternately in greens and blues and purples. 

Pembroke Pines Theatre of the Performing Arts near Ft. Lauderdale has mounted an entertaining and energetic production of "Pippin." The 1972 musical is timely more than 50 years after it premiered on Broadway. PPTOPA's production takes place during the 1960's. Setting the show during that time period makes sense.

Now 82, at long last the Native American artist, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, is the subject of a retrospective at a major New York Museum. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map will be on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art from April 19 to August 13, 202

Aside from their earth tones, this footwear has nothing to do with Frank Lloyd Wright. As a branding strategy, it is an extremely strange choice for a contemporary sports shoe design.

Hoosic River Watershed Association (HooRWA) invites poets and musicians in the Hoosic River Watershed to find inspiration and craft a poem, song, or instrumental piece about and for the Hoosic River and/or its tributaries.

The 2023 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) New Play Award goes to "the ripple, the wave that carried me home." The 2023 M. Elizabeth Osborn Award goes to Madison Fiedler for her play, "Spay." ATCA also presents citations to Suzan-Lori Parks for her play, "Sally & Tom," and Rebecca Gilman for her piece, "Swing State."

Flynn has made hundreds, perhaps thousands of drawings over the last 50 years. Choosing just 50 (really 61) drawings is nearly an impossible task. William Flynn is an artist that spends days drawing. He finds ways to express the beauty in mundane objects; an old baseball mitt, ski boots, a bicycle that was run over and flattened, cars at junkyards, an old arm chair, pop-up books, whirly-gigs.

Live from the Edge by Universes has moments that will reach you emotionally. But the question remains, “What is it?” – Theater? A performance piece? A poetry slam?  They describe themselves as a theater company, but I would describe it as being closer to a performance piece/poetry slam than theater.

Yes, there are some funny moments and some touching ones, but overall, it is hard to become engaged with the characters. Except for Janice, they appear only in short scenes that allow for little depth of character.

The Season opens May 26 with Ken Ludwig's Dear Jack, Dear Louise, with David Gow and Zoya Martin, outdoors in The Roman Garden Theatre.

This exhibition in North Adams ends on May 29 and so we also introduce the Old Stone Mill Center in Adams, MA, on Rt. 8, outside of downtown, direction to S. Adams. Both are worth a visit!

As a painter Jeff Weaver is a man for all seasons. Some of the most engaging works are winter scenes. It’s the Gloucester that tourists never see. He creates meticulous paintings of weathered, storm battered, Gloucester commercial and residential landmarks. The works document vintage images of a working port and fishing community undergoing a change to an economy based on tourism and a glut of generic condos.

 Hosted by MacArthur Genius-Award-winning playwright, director, and performance artist Taylor Mac, BSC’s Gala will transport attendees to the pre-war Berlin Kit Kat Club for an evening of pleasure featuring a cabaret lineup that will include burlesque artist Gypsy Layne Cabaret & Co.

The new comedy "Tracy Jones" is running at the Ft. Lauderdale-area's Island City Stage as the last leg of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. "Tracy Jones," by Stephen Kaplan, is about a lonely woman who throws a party for every other woman in her state also named Tracy Jones. The play highlights loneliness and the human need for connection. .

An example of Department of Play’s approach was recently on display at Northeastern University’s Gallery 360’s exhibition At Play. The collective views its mission as fostering group discovery and involvement in the thoughtful (playful?) envisioning of an evolving urban environment.

Each year at the Ojai Festival in California a different Music Director is given the freedom and the resources to imagine four days of musical brainstorming. Ojai’s signature blend of an enchanted setting and an audience voracious in its appetite for challenge and discovery has inspired a distinguished series of musical innovators—from Pierre Boulez, Aaron Copland, and Igor Stravinsky and Jeremy Denk, Dawn Upshaw and Barbara Hannigan.  John Adams has directed twice. 

The show is based on the novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which was turned into a fine film in 1993 and a more recent film in 2020. The young adult book, as it would now be described, was written in 1911.

A longtime Pillow favorite, Mark Morris Dance Group will bring audiences The Look of Love, an homage to the music of the late Burt Bacharach, which had its world premiere in 2022 and which Fjord Review called “a breath of fresh, brilliant, joyous—and much needed—air.” A towering figure of popular music, Bacharach is known for his soaring melodies and unique orchestrations influenced by jazz, rock, and Brazilian music.

About 2,500 years ago, the Acropolis of Athens was filled with statues of young women, called korai. Raised on high bases, these dedicated offerings created a forest of shimmering marble women honoring the goddess Athena. One of the finest examples of these objects, known as Kore 670, which rarely leaves the Acropolis Museum, has traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), where it is on view through January 8, 2024.

Pablo Picasso was the most famous and influential artist of the 20th Century. The marking of fifty years from his death has created numerous global exhibitions. Critics have waded in with evaluations that acknowledge the work but deplore the man. Simply put it begs the question. Was Pablo Picasso and asshole?

 A charming throwback, or, The High School Musical version,  of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor at Deutsch Oper, Berlin

You may recall the 1981 movie that starred Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn with Jane Fonda playing the daughter. The 1979 play by Ernest Thompson (he also wrote the screenplay) can be sentimental and predictable. But with Naughton and Dillon in the leads, you will be willing to suspend your critical judgment about the play.

L. Frank Baum’s beloved “The Wizard of Oz” has become an American touchstone and introduced a bevy of memes and tropes that define our narrative.  While it is easy to sit back and enjoy it as an entertaining pastime, in its richness, it is also a fable of the American spirit.  Dorothy, despite being young and female, represents the prototypical hero on an odyssey, a quest to find her way home after defeating the odds, aided by trusty sidekicks she has met along the way.  Together, using brains and hearts and courage, they conquer fears and earn their way to becoming what they had aspired to be.