Front Page

The works featured are inspired by Andy Moerlein’s fascination with ancient practice of collecting and displaying unusual and often awkward stones. Brought indoors and placed on pedestals, these stones (Scholars Rocks, Viewing Stones) are transformed into icons of personal or imagined journeys. These rocks have influenced philosophers and artists for thousands of years.

Last weekend, SF Opera offered four screenings in the drive-in movie format at Fort Mason.  The filming was the company’s 2009 fine production of Puccini’s brilliant “Tosca.”  A review of the film of a 12-year-old stage production that has completed its drive-in run may seem fatuous. However, it could be of interest to those who might consider viewing a future streaming of the production or buying an electronic copy.

On the fourth Monday of every month, the Copland House brings us Underscored,  zoomed performances from Aaron Copland’s study. Contemporary composers are featured. This must attend musical event is presented in collaboration with the Graduate Center of the City University  of New York. Founder and pianist Michael Boriskin introduced the premiere of John Musto’s Cello Sonata.

In Compensation, the characters experience a profound yearning for family and connection. The world premiere production by Island City Stage, near Ft. Lauderdale, is streaming online through Feb. 28. Compensation is a lean, focused, heartfelt, and sometimes funny piece.

The annual mid winter 10X10 New Play Festival new play festival is back for its tenth year. This time virtual from Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. The plays are generally fun. Ones your don't care for are gone in ten minutes and there are nine more to consider. There are always hits and misses and it's fun to participate and debate.

“This extraordinary collection of images reminds us of photography’s power to preserve and amplify the full emotional range of lived experience. Together, these 48 photographs serve as both memory and documentary evidence of the extremes of war. They are powerful and memorable,” said Matthew Teitelbaum, Ann and Graham Gund Director. “Imagine the journey: passed from the photographer to a fellow prisoner in the Lodz Ghetto, hidden and brought to New York City in a small envelope, passed from one generation to another after a lifetime of care, and now preserved permanently in one of America’s great collections of photography. That, too, is powerful and memorable.”

New Federal Theatre is presenting three classic plays during Black History Month. The troupe has mastered the streaming form, using individual, adjoining screens for the actors and cleverly breaking the 4th wall of streaming, the line that divides one screen from another. Malcolm X and Rev. Martin Luther King can even arm wrestle in this form.

Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables and Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach will pair up to produce a play about Emily Dickinson. The co-production of The Belle of Amherst will stream from April 2-6. A crew will film the production on Palm Beach Dramaworks’ mainstage. No audience members will be present.

The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) announces Glenn Kaino: In The Light of a Shadow from April 3, 2021 through September 4, 2022. Curated by Denise Markonish, the show will take over MASS MoCA’s signature Building 5 galleries, with a series of immersive installations that create a sense of wonder and hope while issuing an urgent call to action. 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is taking a big step toward its future with the appointment of Gail Samuel to succeed Mark Volpe this June, just in time for Tanglewood. 

Bang on a Can announces a dynamic slate of new virtual programming taking place from March through May 2021, all streaming at live.bangonacan.org. All shows are free to watch, but viewers are encouraged to consider purchasing a ticket to help support the performers and commissioned composers.

As the Julian and Eunice Cohen President and CEO of the BSO, Gail Samuel will lead the Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and Tanglewood, and will oversee a robust, rapidly evolving slate of initiatives intended to expand the reach and relevance of orchestral music in the Boston area and beyond.

The work of Benny Andrews (November 13, 1930 – November 10, 2006) is complex, compelling and problematic. The son of Georgia sharecroppers he matured to be a true polymath in the art world. Today he is regarded as a leader in the development of African American art. He was also a part of the movements of figurative expressionism and the Rhino Horn group. This is the third exhibition and an extensive catalogue from Michael Rosenfeld Gallery which represents the estate.

Theater royalty recognizing theater, television and movie royalty was the fantastic vibe when the New Federal Theatre recently celebrated its Golden 50th Anniversary and successfully operating from 1970 to 2020 and of course, it will keep on keepin’ on! It was a celebration fit for a king and it was for a king, Mr. Woodie King Jr., founder of New Federal Theatre and a man I love to call Mr. Theatre.

Without foregoing any production value, and in fact capitalizing on new opportunities, Opera Philadelphia has been leading the field in contemporary productions that attract new audiences. Over the past decade daring experiments have been undertaken, always with careful consideration. A warehouse was the setting for the production of an opera about Andy Warhol (reminiscent of a Factory?). Composers in residence have been encouraged to test the limits of an operatic stage, like Philip Venables’ Denis and Katya, designed as a social media transmission.

Long Distance Affair takes you on a virtual trip across the world to view short plays. Miami's Juggerknot Theatre Company and New York's PopUP Theatrics run the program. Travel to Lagos, Nigeria; Mumbai, India; Mexico City, Mexico; Los Angeles, Calif., Portland, Oregon; and Beirut, Lebanon. The current run of Long Distance Affair continues through Feb. 21.

The marvelous New York Theatre Ballet is offering Sunday conversations on dance in their Between the Acts Series.  Agnes de Mille was featured recently.  Diana Byer, the founder of the troupe, spoke with Anderson Ferrell and Diana Gonzalez-Dudert from the De Mille Working group, Broadway dancer and actor Dirk Lumbard, and NYTB’s Elena Zahlmann. Diana Byer, the company's founder, president, and artistic director, has said: "...Right now ballet is dominated by a very athletic style, and it's important that there's not just one style out there. I'm really committed to keeping this other way of working alive, a way that's more about the meaning of a gesture, the feeling of the music, or a story.'

The jazz pianist, Chick Corea, has died at 79 not long after the diagnosis of a rare cancer. His impact and influence was enormous with a career that included almost 90 albums for which he was awarded 23 Grammys as well as three Latin Grammys. He grew up in Chelsea a blue collar Boston neighborhood. We last heard him in the Berkshires at Tanglewood in 2016.

Blue Heron Gallery Online, a virtual online art gallery, will be presenting the art of Boston artist Peter McGrath beginning at noon on Friday, February 12, 2021.  The show, appearing on www.blueherongallery.online, will feature both sculptures and paintings, and present the artist in photographs and his Artist Statement. The artist is the brother of North Adams gallerist, Michael McGrath.

Five new short musicals will mark their world premieres virtually. The shows came out of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's "15-Minute Musical Challenge." The Cleveland-area's Beck Center for the Arts, in collaboration with the Baldwin Wallace University Music Theatre Program, will present the shows.

Wave Theory Records has released the original soundtrack from legendary filmmaker Robert Altman’s 1977 cult avant-garde film 3 Women, starring Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek. The strikingly dissonant score was written by American composer Gerald Busby,

Throughout his career, Carl Chiarenza (American, b. 1935) has demonstrated that photographs can provide much more than just documentary evidence. Rather than create straightforward records of the cast-off materials that appear before his camera, Chiarenza photographically transforms them into new and provocative images.

The Chinese New Year is Friday, February 12, the Year of The Ox.  To those who celebrate, Xinnian Kuaile.

The Garden Theatre in Winter Garden, near Orlando, is presenting A Class Act, based on the life of A Chorus Line lyricist Edward Kleban. The touching and funny production runs through Feb. 7. You must wear a mask and practice social distancing in order to attend.

One of the largest, and most comprehensive, collections of 20th-century Mexican art takes over the Albuquerque Museum beginning February 6th.Consisting of more than 150 works— paintings, drawings, photographs, woodcuts, sculpture and publications. This blockbuster exhibition highlights the identity of Mexico in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution.