New York Times

Twelve days after breaking news the New York Times has reported on $25.4 million in Commonwealth funding for the $50 million renovation of the final phase of build out for Mass MoCA. While damning the museum with faint praise the Times drags up an eight year old controversy of a botched installation by Christoph Buchel. The reporter probed far and wide for on and off the record smears of the museum and its critical reputation.

While the play has relevance to today’s veterans dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and sometimes resulting addictions, the material is dated. Too much information has been spread about war, its effects on families and society, to make these characters’ shock seem real.

Companhia Urbana de Dança thrilled the audience last year and this week was equally well received in a return to Jacob's Pillow. The company of eight men and one woman combines the street smarts of break dancing and hip hop moves with the choreography of the classically trained Sonia Destri Lie. The two part program of hour long works contrasted joy and tragedy in a world permiere of "You. We…ALL BLACK" and the uppeat celebration of "Na Pista."

WAM Theatre will present the reading on Sunday, August 17 at 3:00 p.m. at No. Six Depot Roastery and Café, 6 Depot Street in West Stockbridge, MA. Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England is the fourth presentation in the new Fresh Takes play reading series, which offers new and reimagined works that tell women’s stories. The series has proven popular with audiences and the first three readings sold out.

Honoring his many contributions The Mark St. Germain Stage was named for him by Pittsfield's Barrington Stage Company. A number of his best known works- Freud's Last Sessions, Best of Enemies, Dr. Ruth- have premiered for the company of artistic director, Julianne Boyd. This week the latest Dancing Lessons will open. In what has become an annual ritual we met at Dottie's in Pittsfield for breakfast to discuss this new work as well as the challenges of a life in theatre.

Though Longing Lasts Longer had a limited run in June, it is being brought back, to Joe's Pub at the Public Theatre this coming October and November. For the past number decades, Penny Arcade, who worked with Warhol at the tender age of 15, has been taking her act around the world. And wherever she performs people line up to hear what she has to say.

Hubbard Hall Opera Theater presents Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Mozart's Marriage of Figaro with orchestra August 13 through 24. “We are so excited to be able to offer this kind of cultural opportunity to the people who live in this area,” says artistic director, Alix Jones. “The talent is really something you would come across in a metropolitan city, and you get it here, at a most unassuming location, at a fraction of the price!”

Decades ago the sculptor Kahlin Gibran and his wife Jean purchased a shell in Boston's ethnically mixed South End. A meticulous craftsman the home evolved as a museum of his work and collection. Together they wrote a definitive 1974 biography "Kahlil Gibran, His Life and World." Now Jean has published "Love Made Visible: Scenes from a Mostly Happy Marriage" about a complex relationship with her late husband.

When Pop Art dominated the art world and mass-media a group of New York expressionists said no thanks. The primal, raucous, and confrontational approach to painting exhibited by the group’s members kept the emotional impact of Figurative Expressionism alive. However, aesthetic tradition was less important than the moral obligation of depicting the reality that the artists perceived. This put the Rhino Horn artists at odds with many of the mainstream artists that had turned away from expressionism and humanist art.

Dance Theatre of Harlem, led by Artistic Director Virginia Johnson, performs Donald Byrd’s smooth yet power-packed contemporary ballet Contested Space, which features a plethora of solos and duets. past-carry-forward, created for DTH by Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis, conveys the spirit and significance of the Harlem Renaissance.

Popular contemporary company Hubbard Street Dance Chicago returns to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival for the first time since 2010, bringing a sensational mixed-bill program. Directed by Glenn Edgerton, the 18-member company performs the dramatic Mediterranean-inspired Gnawa, choreographed by Nacho Duato, and Jiří Kylián’s vivid Falling Angels, a stark all-female work danced to “Drumming” by contemporary composer Steve Reich.

During our visit to Crystal Springs Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas we met with museum spokesperson Diane Carol. Fending off questions of media controversy regarding aggressive acquisitions she emphasized that the museum is free and serves a region that lacks resources of its quality. As she pointed out since opening in 11/11/11 some 1.3 million visitors have viewed "Kindred Spirits" by Asher B. Durand which formerly hung in the New York Public Library.

After extensive renovation and expansion the Clark Art Institute reopens this summer. Much is being made of how its Tadeo Ando designed low lying horizontal line and large reflecting pool embrace nature and the background rolling mountain range. The paradigm for architecture set into natural surroundings, however, is the Moshe Safdie design for Crystal Bridges in Bentonville, Arkansas. It is nestled into a ravine with a series of pontoon "bridges." The museum which opened on 11/11/11 has some 500,000 annual visitors for its controversial collection of American art.

A bold company with a strong Jacob’s Pillow history including five engagements since 2005, Trey McIntyre Project will make its final appearance as a fulltime dance ensemble June 25-29 in the Ted Shawn Theatre. In addition there are a number of free events as the season commences in Becket

Are our biases and prejudices hard-wired? Four Harvard-connected intellectuals: a doctor, an actress, a psychologist, and a neurobiologist studying the human brain’s response to race all search for love, success, and identity. But it is a complex world. Written with insight tempered by barbed wit, Huntington Playwriting Fellow Lydia R. Diamond (Stick Fly) cleverly speaks to the nature of racism, stereotypes, and sexual mores in the 21st Century. It is provocative, funny but often painfully true.

This review was written for the Amelia Earhart Image and Icon exhibition at International Center for Photography from May 11 – September 9, 2007. Published here for the first time Rubin considers it as one of his best articles.

If you do a Google search the late Bill Cardoso comes up as having coined the term gonzo and dubbing Hunter Thompson's style of writing as Gonzo Journalism. Other than that he is largely forgotten as one of the outrageous characters and original thinkers of his era. Recently I read his out of print book The Maltese Sangweech a collection of magazine pieces. It includes two masterpieces of gonzo journalism "The San Francisco Red Sox" and "Zaire"an account of the Ali vs. Forman rumble in the jungle./

Arriving at Dottie's in Pittsfield for breakfast with Julianne Boyd, artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, several individuals notified me that she was running late. She had been up all night texting with family and friends about the birth of her fourth granddaughter. Eventually she arrived both exhausted and energized to discuss the upcoming 20th season of the company.

Barrington Stage Company announces four new Associate Artists, all of whom are working at Barrington Stage in 2014 – casting director Pat McCorkle, lighting designer Scott Pinkney, scenic designer Brian Prather, and press director Charlie Siedenburg.

In 2011 Marg Helgenberger left the hit TV show CSI after twelve seasons. The show continues with top ratings but she departed to pursue other options including live theater. She has taken a dramatic pay cut to star in Sharr White's The Other Place which opens soon at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. She and director Christopher Innvar met with the media to discuss the most challenging role of her career.

Deborah Voigt has spoken frankly about cutting back on her opera performances. A set of Strauss songs showed how great she could be in that repertoire. A set of American art songs suggest her new direction.

Voigt scaled her huge voice down for the intimacy of the song, but let it soar at the conclusion of a Strauss favorite

The Tony Awards Administration Committee has announced that it will present the 2014 Regional Theatre Award to New York’s Signature Theatre. Each year, the Tony Awards Administration Committee presents a Tony Award to a regional theatre on the recommendation of the American Theatre Critics Association. This is the first time that a New York company has won the regional award which normally recognizes nation theatre.

This week representatives of the Clark Art Institute, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown Theatre Festival and Mass MoCA met with the media to promote plans for a spectacular Northern Berkshires season. The Clark reopens following extensive expansion and renovation. Mass MoCA offers the first full season of its Anselm Kiefer building. Jenny Gersten has planned a blockbuster program for WTF. WCMA plans special events like a Think and Drink series. In high season it may be hard to book a hotel or dine at the best restaurants.

Huntington Theatre Company announces six productions of its 2014-2015 Season plus one additional title. Continuing its 32-year tradition, the Huntington will present world-class productions of new works and classics made current created by the finest local and national talent. The varied lineup includes a Tony Award-winning Broadway comedy, a thrilling new play set in Boston, a new play by a celebrated local writer that riffs on a beloved classic, a revival of a provocative comedy, a classic American drama, and a topical new play directed by Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois, plus the return of visionary director David Cromer (Our Town).