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America's only two encyclopedic museums, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art were both founded in 1870. The Met is larger with an endowment of $3 billion compared to $608 million for the MFA. In aspects of the collection- Asiatic, classical Greek and Roman, Old Kingdom Egypt and Nubia, American art to 1900, prints, drawings and photography, it is second to none. In the area of European painting and French impressionism and post impressionism it ranks with other American museums. Other than the Lane Collection of American modernism the MFA is weak in 20th and 21st century art. It ceased to collect Boston artists when they were dominantly Jewish by the 1930s.

“Così Fan Tutte” was the last of three collaborations by perhaps the strongest composition team in opera history.  Composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte had previously written “Le Nozze di Figaro” and “Don Giovanni.”  Acknowledging the significance of this unplanned trilogy, San Francisco Opera is presenting them all over a three-season period. 

Palm Beach Dramaworks in South Florida will present the world premiere production of Michael McKeever's new historical drama, The People Downstairs. The play explores the challenges faced by the folks who hid Anne Frank's family during World War II as the Nazis attempted to round up European Jews.The People Downstairs runs from Dec. 3 to Dec. 19 at Palm Beach Dramaworks' playing space in West Palm Beach.  

During the wild and crazy days of WBCN, which is now celebrated with a movie and book, Al Perry functioned as the adult in the room. As station manager he kept the lid on. Respected and loved by those who knew and worked with him Al passed on November 6.

The Public Theater presents Cullud Wattah, a timely social protest drama written by Erika Dickerson-Despenza and directed by Candis C. Jones Profound contradictions are dramatized and shown throughout the drama. Adam Rigg (scenic design) creates a cozy furnished home of a working class African-American family surrounded by a macabre curtain of plastic bottles of dirty water.

Middletown: The Ride of Your Life! is a touching and humorous tale of friendship, life's joys, and difficulties. Actors' Playhouse and GFour Productions is presenting the comedy-drama through Dec. 12. The play reminds us how we missed in-person human interaction and connection during the pandemic.

Keenan Scott, playwright, objected to the widespread notion that black men don’t express themselves. In his play, Thoughts of a Colored Man, they do. Our conventional notions of black silence are shattered by a rich rhetorical tradition of the group that Eldridge Cleaver called the most challenged in American society. In some ways not much has changed since Cleaver made that statement over a half century ago. Black men have an expiration date that expires before everyone elses'.

The Public Theater Presents Cullud Wattah, a timely social protest drama written by Erika Dickerson-Despenza and directed by Candis C. Jones Adam Rigg (scenic design) creates a set full of profound contradictions. They weave through the drama on every level. A cozy furnished home of a working class African-American family is surrounded by a macabre curtain of plastic bottles of dirty water.

Ft. Lauderdale-based New City Players presents Duncan Macmillan's drama, Lungs, in an uneven production running through Nov. 28. In Macmillan's play, a couple are trying to decide whether to have a baby in a world plagued by many problems. Lungs, which runs less than two hours with no intermission, speaks to a new generation of folks for whom uncertainty has become the norm.

The Bay Area is blessed with many great performing artists, and Sam Jackson (for the sake of clarity – she!) and William Thomas Hodgson (he) are among the finest.  Jackson portrays both females, and Hodgson both males.  And both actors are scintillating.

The Band’s Visit is almost a chamber musical; limited cast, no big dance numbers, no flashy sets or projections. It tells a simple story, but one that slowly creeps up on you and, if you let it, packs an emotional wallop. It’s based on a 2007 Israeli film that won critical acclaim and success.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), opens a suite of seven newly renovated galleries that explore the rich visual culture of the Dutch Republic and Flanders during this time, bringing together nearly 100 paintings by the greatest masters—including Rembrandt van Rijn, Peter Paul Rubens, Gerrit Dou, Frans Hals and Anthony van Dyck—in addition to works on paper and decorative arts such as silver and Delft ceramics.

On Saturday, Nov. 20, at 41 Park St. Adams there will be an  Open Studio / Open House from 2-6pm. It features the artist Alvin Ouellet and Lynda's Antique Clothing Loft.

Playwright Lisa Ramirez draws on Jean d’Arc’s motive force as the basis for examining the will of young women to effect change in today’s frightening world.  Her vehicle is a riveting, uber-energetic, often chaotic and confrontational clash of five young people one fateful night.  “sAiNt jOaN” grabs the attention by the throat and throttles it for 60 exciting and exhausting minutes.  

Madama Butterfly inspires a deep look at its historical context through a contemporary lens. Internal and public discussions are part of the project dubbed The Butterfly Process by Boston Lyric Opera.

The funniest complication is that Mrs. Warren has steadfastly refused to reveal who is Vivie’s father; so there is the possibility that it could be Sir George or even the Rev. Samuel, who wasn’t always a man of the cloth.

In revealing the existence of the Bob Dylan Archive to the public in 2016, Ben Sisario wrote in The New York Times, "It is clear that the archives are deeper and more vast than even most Dylan experts could imagine, promising untold insight into the songwriter's work." The three-story façade of the Bob Dylan Center will face downtown Tulsa's hugely popular public gathering space, Guthrie Green, and will depict a rare 1965 image of Dylan, donated to the center by renowned photographer Jerry Schatzberg.  

The big winners of the Berkies were A Crossing: A Dance Musical, presented by Barrington Stage Company, which won the Sally and Robert Sugarman Award for a World Premier of a New Work as well as many acting and design awards, and Nina Simone: Four Women, presented by the Berkshire Theatre Group. 

Rarely has an esteemed opera endured the ignominy of its birth as “Dido and Aeneas.”  Although its composer, Henry Purcell, would reign as the preeminent producer of serious British music from his death in 1695 until the 20th century, his only pure opera borrowed slavishly from a crypto-opera, John Blow’s “Venus and Adonis,” that has not even remained in the canon.

Commissioned by Opera Parallèle as part of their Hands-On-Opera program, a series of operas for youth, “Harriet’s Spirit,” is performed appropriately at the Bayview Opera House, which operates as the hub of the San Francisco African American Arts and Culture District.  The production energizes and provides a beacon of hope for the communities that its story represents.

Remarkably, Museum of Fine Arts Boston , 1870 to 2020, by Charles Giuliano is only the second comprehensive history of the MFA. Much has transpired since the centennial publication some fifty years ago. Over those decades the author interviewed directors, curators, trustees and administrators. The museum's great collections as well as issues of elitist exclusion, racism and anti Semitism are conveyed in their own words. The Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements have impacted all of America's cultural institutions. Giuliano will discuss the book at the Williams Faculty Club on Friday, November 19 at 7 PM.

GableStage in Southeast Florida is opening its season with Arthur Miller's "The Price." New Producing Artistic Director Bari Newport is directing it, based on late Producing Artistic Director Joe Adler's notes. This production of "The Price" marked Adler's last directorial effort at GableStage, where he spent 20 years as Producing Artistic Director. GableStage has dedicated this production to Adler.

I saw college productions—and I read Hamlet in a memorable Shakespeare course at one of my alma maters, Harvard on the Rocks—the two-year University of Illinois in Chicago at Navy Pier. (Later it became a four-year university and moved to its current campus.) The first Hamlet production that I remember vividly was during the 1963 opening season of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

Hue & Cry: French Printmaking and the Debate over Colors presents a wide array of French color prints from the Clark’s works-on-paper collection, by artists including Pierre Bonnard, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Jules Chéret, Maurice Denis, Camille Pissarro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Édouard Vuillard.

Our panel discussion will consider ways in which the practice of Indigenous curation enacts sovereignty. We will address the various challenges of doing Indigenous curation within and, at times, against art institutions. Our discussion will take into account the difficulties of collaborating across various differences—cultural, disciplinary, educational, etc.—that are specific to exhibiting Indigenous arts.