The jester Rigoletto's life is dedicated to the care and safety of his daughter, Gilda. When she is kidnapped and compromised by his employer, the Duke of Mantua, he plans revenge but is also cursed by the father of another victim of the Duke's lechery. His plans backfire catastrophically. The glorious opera receives a powerful treatment.

The playwright points out that sanitation people often feel “invisible” to the people whose garbage they pick up. In the same way, both Marlowe and Danny feel they have become invisible.

The composer and librettist both grew up in Argentina during Juan Peron's return to power and his third wife Isabel's ascension to the presidency on his death. Employing magical realism, the ghost of Evita, Juan's second wife beloved by the people, looms over Isabel, who fails to capture a similar relationship, despite the machinations of her advisor, Ministro. Lush neo-romantic music and Argentina's dramatic political events in the last half of the 20th century drive this beautifully produced rendition.

Christopher Demos-Brown's suspenseful play, "The Cancellation of Lauren Fein" is experiencing a riveting world premiere production at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach. The production runs through Feb. 25. Demand for tickets was high, so Palm Beach Dramaworks extended the production of the timely and layered play by a few performances.

The musical is based on the teleplay by JP Miller and the Warner Brothers film, all with the same name. The 1958 Playhouse 90 production starred Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie. The 1962 film starred Jack Lemon and Lee Remick.

The Boston Pops’ 138th season opens on May 10 and 11 with one of the great entertainers of our time, Harry Connick Jr., singing American Songbook classics. Returning to the Pops for the first time since 2001, Connick performs in what will be the 35th anniversary year of the release of the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack that earned him his first Grammy Award and went multi-platinum. He joins Maestro Lockhart, who is in his 29th year leading the Pops, making him its second longest-serving conductor since the Pops was founded in 1885, after Arthur Fiedler. 

Most people know the story of Tevye, the milkman, as 'Fiddler on the Roof.' What started in the1960's as a sensational Broadway musical by Jerome Robbins, has kept all of its allure. 'Anatevka,' here named after the location of the action, is still the wonderful same.

Running approximately 65 minutes without intermission, I Love You So Much I Could Die isn’t just theater, it’s an experience. The fact that I found it disturbing is a compliment to the playwright because she made me feel something, even though that something was emotionally unsettling. As Edward Albee said: “if the theater must bring us only what we can comfortably relate to, let us stop going entirely and sit in our rooms and contemplate our paunchy middles.”  

During our epic road trip to and from Florida we sniffed out barbecue. By default, we enjoyed many Mexican restaurants. In a hamlet off 1-95 we enjoyed authentic North Carolina grub at Stormin Norman's Barbecue.

Barrington Stage Company’s Black Voices Matter Program is proud to present “Black History: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future” on Monday, February 26 at 6:00pm at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center (36 Linden St.)  

Berkshires Jazz got a jump on the centennial phenomenon last April, presenting the remarkable pianist Ted Rosenthal with the equally remarkable advanced strings ensemble from Kids 4 Harmony.  

Harry Bartnick is a realist painter whose modernist aesthetic is deeply rooted in traditions of classicism. He refreshes and refines his vision through annual visits to Europe particularly the ruins of Italy. In recent years that has evolved into aerial depictions of nature ravaged by industrial and residential development. While framed as environmental commentary the works have an uncanny beauty that evoke a range of responses. Following a template, the artist has launched a website for his extensive and unique oeuvre.

Since 1975 Raindancer Steak House in West Palm Beach has been serving the Florida clan of the rich and elegant. With a fabulous vintage jazz soundtrack we enjoyed exquisite fine dining. The more so as we arrived in time for the Early Bird special menu.

With great sorrow, the Boston Symphony Orchestra announces the death of its beloved Music Director Laureate, Seiji Ozawa. The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s longest-serving conductor, holding the title of Music Director for 29 years (1973–2002), Maestro Ozawa died February 6, 2024, in Tokyo. He was 88 years old.

Simona’s Search is worth seeing, even if you finally conclude that it needs improvement. Less monologue would help, as would having someone point out that Simona’s conclusions may be wrong. The only person who does that, her thesis director, is so blatantly sexist and demeaning that the audience immediately discounts that position.

A month of dining on the road has its ups and downs. Mostly when turning off for the night there is a range of chains. Now and then we got lucky with diners, drive-ins and dives.

Prayer for the French Republic is thought-provoking, but last season’s  Leopoldstadt, which addresses many of the same themes, is a better work.  

A Vietnamese soup shop verges on closure when it "wins a grant" from a mysterious company that offers to pay to implement a new marketing strategy to revive the business. A consultant's program includes an unlikely and unseemly advertising campaign, but it works. Or does it?

Barrie Kosky, former director at the Komische Oper, Berlin, directed Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's last opera "Der Goldene Hahn" (The Golden Cockerel) at the Schiller Theater, the temporary house of the Komische Oper during its renovation.

The Dahls raised their children in the "Christian way," and Christmas homecoming celebrated by food and song is a great family tradition. But as adults the four offspring have deviated from the parents' hopes - among them a lesbian, a pathological believer, a recovering addict, and a lost sheep. When singing together, they seem the idyllic family, but when the music stops, the fractures appear. Despite the holiday setting, this is not a Christmas play.

The young Suzanne Valadon was the favorite model and lover of Renoir. She learned much in his studio and for some 40 years pursued her own work. One of which is a gem which we encountered at Norton Gallery in Palm Beach.

Doomed by progeria, a condition that ages the carrier at 4 1/2 times the normal rate, Kimberly turns 16. Her chronological age corresponds to age 72 given this condition, meaning that she probably has little time left in her life. Nonetheless, she attends to daily activities like any other school kid. But her working class parents are loose cannons, and a grifter aunt who insinuates herself into the household develops a get-rich-quick scheme that is anything but normal.

Opening night of Jean-Paul Sartre's "Die Schmutzigen Hände" (Dirty Hands) on January 26th, 2024 at the famed Berliner Ensemble in Berlin, Germany was sold out.

Pembroke Pines Theatre of the Performing Arts mounted a comical and believable production of Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park." The production ran through Jan. 28. "Barefoot in the Park" takes place in New York City during the 1960s.

Foraging through the belongings of their recently deceased mother, two middle-aged, somewhat estranged sisters learn more about their birth father and stepfather from a trove of letters and other documents. They also learn more about each other as they clash and bond over historical events that they either did not share or had seen from different perspectives.