A.R.T.

Woody Guthrie transformed folk music into a vehicle for social protest and evoked the restless spirit of the Dust Bowl and Depression Era generation. By using his own words and songs, Woody Sez brings this musical and cultural icon to passionate life. The various songs and characters transport the audience through Guthrie's life. Sometimes moving, poetic, and tragic, the production features many now classic Woody tunes. How can we not be touched by "This Land is Your Land" and "Bound for Glory" ?

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) production Woody Sez, a musical tapestry of the American folk hero’s life and songs, is to be simulcast live — the first live outdoor simulcast of a theater production outside of New York. The simulcast will be presented in collaboration with Harvard University and the American Repertory at The Plaza next to the Science Center on the Harvard campus, on Thursday, May 17th.

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), under the Artistic Direction of Diane Paulus, announces the 2012/13 subscription season, which includes the previously announced world premiere of Marie Antoinette and a bold new staging of Pippin.

In the spirit of composer/balladeer Woody Guthrie, as the nation celebrates the 100th anniversary of his birth, the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is hosting post-show hootenannies after select performances led by cast members and other local artists. The audience is invited to bring their own instruments and join in a free-form musical celebration in the Loeb Drama Center’s West Lobby and Patio, following selected performances.

Numerous unique events in Boston this week. Maestro Bernard Haitink leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s warm and ever-popular Pastoral Symphony. Handel and Hayden presents the memorable Mozart Coronation. The Celebrity Series showcases at Jordan Hall: Emerson String Quartet, Boston Philharmonic Orchestra ends its season with Mahler Triumphant! ArtsEmerson presents Hershey Felder in Maestro: Leonard Bernstein while The Luck of the Irish final weeks continue at the Huntington Theatre. The Institute of Contemporary Art presents the 49th Ann Arbor Film Festival of animation and technical innovation.

Barrington Stage Company (BSC) announces four new Associate Artists. Formed in 2010, the Associate Artists Program’s inaugural honorees were composer/lyricist William Finn, actor/director Christopher Innvar and playwright Mark St. Germain. This year’s new Associate Artists are music director Darren R. Cohen, actors Mark H. Dold and Debra Jo Rupp, and production stage manager Renee Lutz.

Based upon Jung Chang's 20th Century family memoir, A.R.T.'s presentation of Wild Swans is visually stunning but dramatically flat. The drama follows three generations of a family of strong-willed women facing the political and social problems of the Chinese Communist regime the late 1940s through the exploding urbanization after Mao's death. Needing polishing and a better ending, this drama has theatricality and epic proportions that can be built upon.

Annette Miller was recently nominated for a prestigious Carbonell Award, which recognizes excellence in South Florida Theatre. Miller was nominated for her role as Violet Weston in the Actors’ Playhouse production of August: Osage County , the critically-acclaimed play by Tracy Letts, which was the recipient of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

John Douglas Thompson discusses working with Sam Waterson and Bill Irwin this season in King Lear at the Public Theatre in New York. And pending plans for Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh in Chicago at the Goodman Theatre with Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy.

It is that time of year when we look back at the highlights and insights of the past season. Take a deep breath and anticipate what lays ahead for 2012. There is much to remember as well as look forward to.

A day by day calendar of selected cultural events from concerts, musicals, plays, and films in Boston and Cambridge.

When Rocco Landesman, the head of the NEA, suggested that there are too many arts organizations with supply outweighing demand there was a response of outrage in the arts community. Here in the Berkshires it begs the question of sufficient audience and patrons to support four major theatre companies. It also begs the question of the role of critics? Are we just providers of consumer information for ticket buyers?

A.R.T. Artistic Director Diane Paulus received Outstanding Director for her productions of Johnny Baseball, Prometheus Bound, and HAIR, which also received the award for Best Visiting Production. Thomas Derrah received the Outstanding Actor award for his performance in the one-man show R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe, that ran January 15 through February 5 at the Loeb Drama Center.

There will be something old and something new, times two, in the 2011/ 2012 season of the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. Artistic Director Diane Paulus remarked: "Our 2011/12 Season features projects that combine music and storytelling to explore our collective heritage and unique histories. The year will include musical theater inspired by Americana, jazz, folk, and indie-rock, as well as plays with humor and grand expressions of humanity. This will be a season of extraordinary tales, glorious music, creative invention, and community created through shared experience."

The American Repertory Theater welcomes actress Amy Brenneman back onto the Loeb Stage, with her autobiographical show Mouth Wide Open, created with longtime collaborator Sabrina Peck.  The limited run is presented May 24 through 29. Soulful, transcendent, laugh-out-loud funny, Amy Brenneman (Private Practice, Judging Amy, Heat) returns to her theatrical roots in this exuberant theater piece drawn from her own life experience that juxtaposes a hunger for the spiritual with the externalized pressures of celebrity

The Boston Athenaeum is currently exhibiting an exhibition of the elegant but somehow amusingly sinister works of writer/artist Edward Gorey. A deft draftsman of both line and word, Gorey's works are American originals created by an eccentric individual that gave both delight and dread with pen and ink.

The National Medal of Arts is the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the United States Government. Robert Brustein joins the roster of great American artists that includes Andrew Wyeth, John Updike, Wynton Marsalis, Barbra Streisand, Rita Moreno, Dolly Parton, Ray Bradbury, and Twyla Tharp.

An examination of how war affects the mind of a solider, this contemporary interpretation of Sophocles’s tragedy attempts to speak to our times. Considered second only to Achilles in greatness and strength, Greek warrior Ajax struggles under the weight of his deep psychological and physical injuries. Trying to maintain his dignity, identity, and honor in the face of the dynamics of war and its aftermath, this play shows the flaws even among the greatest of heroes. Director Sarah Benson explores the relationships between soldiers and civilians--family and neighbors representing the community as the Greek Chorus. As always, the unique A.R.T. twist is put on the production.

So far Boston is on track for a record winter of snow. But take heart, dear Valentines, Barbara Brilliant had lots of suggestions for how to artfully hunker down until spring. The uplifing Marry Poppins will surely cheer your spirits. There are also performances to enjoy for free.

He was a writer, a philosopher, an architect, an inventor, a philosopher, a mathematician, a futurist, an environmentalist. R. Buckminster Fuller was an American original. This ravishing one man show at the American Repertory Theatre explores the man in a dazzling multimedia performance. The title role is amazingly embodied by A.R.T. veteran actor Thomas Derrah. Inventor of the geodesic dome, Bucky Fuller was a true visionary, and this play provides an expansive look at his life, his concepts, and his beliefs. This wonderful production takes the audience on a Spaceship Earth ride of ideas, emotions, and critical paths. Run, don't walk to see it.

A discussion of Jewish characters in Shakespeare's plays will be presented by ArtsEmerson on January 26. Moderated by scholar, playwright, and A.R.T. Founding Artistic Director Robert Brustein, the panelists will include renowned screen and stage actor F. Murray Abraham, Theatre for a New Audience Artistic Director Jeffrey Horowitz, and Shakespeare & Company Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer.

The US section of the International Association of Art Critics/AICA-USA announces its annual awards to honor artists, curators, museums, galleries and other cultural institutions in recognition of excellence in the conception and realization of exhibitions. The winning projects were nominated and voted on by the 400 active members to honor outstanding exhibitions of the previous season (June 2009-June 2010).

Now that we have slogged through the Holidays there is a lot of new theatre and music to enjoy. This month Huntington Theatre opens Ruined. Over in Cambridge ART focuses on visionary architect R. Buckminster Fuller. Emerson has a range of events at its Majestic and Paramount theatres. We have tips and links for information and tickets.

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) announced today that Artistic Director Diane Paulus, Pulitzer prize-winning writer Suzan-Lori Parks, and two-time Obie winner Diedre Murray have been chosen by the Gershwin Trusts and the Heyward Trust to re-imagine the Gershwins’ seminal American opera Porgy and Bess.

The American Repertory Theatre opens the musical The Blue Flower by Jim and Ruth Bauer at the Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square, Cambriidge. Under the direction of Will Pomerantz it brings to life the German artists of the end of World War I that emerged from devastation and chaos to form the movements of Expressionism and Dada that morphed into Surrealism. The production opens on December 1 with previews and runs through January 8.