Front Page

These were seen by the reviewer on a trip to NYC for the American Theatre Critics Association conference. Each of the four is worth seeing with history and music being common threads. Supported by excerpts of period music, "Spies" tells the true story of a 17th century friar who was charged with preventing what would become the 30 Years War. The dark "Watch" uses operatic form and modern dance to tell a story related to the real-life mass murders in a Charleston church with a black congregation and a Pittsburgh synagogue. "Wholesale" is a heavily adapted revival of the 1962 musical that launched Barbra Streisand's career. "Love" tells the story of former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos in sung-through immersive disco fashion!

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) and Park Avenue Armory are the two New York venues you can count on to deliver. Arin Arbus’ new take on Waiting for Godot is no exception.

Several categories saw ties this year, including the top honors for Outstanding Musical Production and . Barrington Stage Company’s production of Cabaret and the Sharon Playhouse production of Something Rotten shared the musical award. Shakespeare & Company’s production of August Wilson’s Fences shared the top play production honors with Bridge Street Theatre’s East of Berlin.

Private Jones is based on the true story of a young man from a small Welsh town who manages to enlist in the British army during WWI despite a hearing loss.  He may not be able to hear, but he can shoot, becoming a sniper taking out German soldiers from across the trenches.

In 1993, Bradley Pennington, already an accomplished musician and teacher, formed the Boston Bel Canto Opera making it a much-welcomed addition to Greater Boston’s cultural arts community. Its aim — then and now -- is to bring the absolute finest in operatic performances to its audiences.

Kim Noltemy, the Ross Perot President & CEO of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, joined the Dallas Symphony Association (DSA) in January 2018. (She had worked for the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 21 years). One of her first initiatives was a symposium for Women in Classical Music. Noltemy moved fast and the first conference was held in 2019

Marking the fiftieth anniversary of its Manton Research Center, the Clark Art Institute presents the opportunity to see a selection of prints, drawings, and photographs acquired between 1973 and 2023. 50 Years and Forward: Works on Paper Acquisitions opens on December 16, 2023 and is on view through March 10, 2024 in the Clark Center. The exhibition features several recent acquisitions as well as other works never previously shown at the Clark.

The Kronos String Quartet and their collaborators, among them Carnegie Hall which presented this evening, celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of this radical and exciting group.  

A black foundling with a gift for reading the future is raised in a seemingly color-blind community. The people relationships that surround her are sometimes complicated and opaque. And when the niece of the only black man in town arrives, the horizons of the now 18-year old, Bulrusher, expand.

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) announces Selva Aparicio as the winner of the 2023 Burke Prize. Established in 2018, the Museum’s biennial prize honoring excellence in contemporary craft is named for craft collectors Marian and Russell Burke. It awards an unrestricted $50,000 to an artist aged 45 or under working in the United States.

The New Federal Theater is producing a brilliant production of Wesley Brown’s play, Telling Tales Out of School.  A quartet of famous and not-so-famous writers from the Harlem Renaissance, all women, three Black and one white, attend the funeral of Alain Locke. 

Carol K. Brown’s latest work "Someplace Else" consists of watercolor paintings and a series of drawings titled "Modified Husband." This exhibition is a culmination of Brown’s desire for detail, layered with humorous subject matter.

If Jane Austen is a favorite author and you have watched and enjoyed every film and TV production of Pride and Prejudice, you might think the current production at Hartford Stage would be a delight. BUT for many of you, me included, it isn’t.

A stirring production of "I Love a Piano" is playing at Boca Raton's Wick Theatre in South Florida. The production runs through Nov. 12. Triple threat performers and backstage artists shine.

It is disappointing to find the current production of Sunset Boulevard not living up to that standard.

As co-founder (with Ralph Gleason) of the most influential rock and popular culture magazine of its era, Jann S. Wenner is anointed and had the platform to make Zeus-like Olympian statements. But pure ego consumes his assumption that his short list of “friends” represents “the greatest rock stars and cultural icons of our time.” The seven that he crowned in his book The Masters are all white, straight and male.

In this family-oriented opera, Japan has endured an environmental catastrophe that isolates it from the rest of the world. Children are more feeble than the aged. Despite his prognosis, the young Mumei is optimistic and gives cheer to his great-grandfather Yoshiro.

Berkshires Jazz, Inc. brings the legendary Django Festival Allstars to the area on Sunday evening. Nov. 12, for an 8pm concert at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center (Barrington Stage’s facility at 36 Linden Street, Pittsfield). It’s the only New England appearance of this remarkable group, who will be en route to their 5-day residency at the annual Django Reinhardt New York Festival at Birdland.

In Connecticut, we have seen Long Wharf Theatre vacate its longtime home in New Haven; with no home, it is presenting what shows it does in a variety of mostly smaller venues.

In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of its Manton Research Center, the Clark Art Institute presents a richly varied selection of British works on paper acquired over the last fifty years. 50 Years and Forward: British Prints and Drawings Acquisitions opens on November 18, 2023 and is on view through February 11, 2024 in the Eugene V. Thaw Gallery, located in the Manton Research Center.

Joyce Di Donato offered three master classes at Carnegie Hall. Di Donato discussed something she learned during that long-ago City Opera performance of "Dead Man Walking." You have to leave space for the listeners to enter the music. This space is created by not answering all the questions the listening ear may have. That is something for all of us to think about – particularly people committed to the long-range success of classical music.

A majority of the works in Mondrian: Foundations are drawn from a gift to the MFA from Maria and Conrad Janis by and through the Janis Living Trust. In addition to 34 paintings, drawings and watercolors by Mondrian—24 of which are on view in the exhibition

The play is set in Iran, covering about 15 years in the lives of five women. It is 1978, as the protests that led to the overthrow of the Shah and the institution of the Islamic Republic of Iran were beginning. It takes through to 1991. (Under the Shah, Iran had been moving toward a more western culture with traditional Islamic clothing for women discouraged and increasing educational and professional opportunities for women.)

The future of classical musical performance in America may well be local. One marker of the trend is the Hudson Opera House in Hudson, New York. They are currently producing Handel's Rondelinda.

There is new a theater in town, have you noticed? Krymov Lab NYC was started in 2022 by the prominent Russian director in exile Dmitry Krymov, with a residency in LaMama Experimental Theatre Club in East Village.