New York Times

Marketing into the Hollywood style and also Broadway musicals, Peter Gelb may have happened upon a solution to developing a new opera audience. Maybe.

Barrington Stage Company was founded in 1995. In 2005, with seed money from the city, the company moved from rented facilities in Sheffield to a permanent home in Pittsfield. Three years later it transformed rented space in the nearby V.F.W. Post as a Second Stage. Now that building has been gifted and Renamed Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center. With no additional debt beyond renovation BSC has now completed its Pittsfield campus.

Beyond King Tut and Cleopatra most folks know little or nothing about the thirty dynasties and 3000 years of Ancient Egyptian Art. The Met's special exhibition The Dawn of Egyptian Art provides a tantalizing encounter with the esoteric era prior to and during the founding dynasties.

Herb Gart had a hand in the careers of many entertainment icons including Bill Cosby, Janis Ian, The Youngbloods, Charlie Daniels, Don McLean and Ed Begly, Jr. Here he chats about how it all started.

The explosive family drama OTHER DESERT CITIES, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play CLYBOURNE PARK, and the Tony Award-winning musical IN THE HEIGHTS are among the five acclaimed shows that SpeakEasy Stage will present in its 2012-2013 Season, the company’s Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault announced today.

The cabaret beckons at Ozawa Hall Saturday, June 2, 6 pm as Close Encounters With Music ushers in the summer season in the Berkshires. In a performance that evokes the twenties of the last century—a time exemplified by Art Deco, Prohibition, the loosening of social restraints, Jazz, the Charleston and flappers—“Roaring Twenties” offers a panorama of composers and styles that defined and shaped the era: Gershwin, Kurt Weill, Alexander Zemlinsky, Hanns Eisler, Cole Porter, Poulenc, Schoenberg, and Erwin Schulhoff provide a bi-continental glimpse into a decade that still looms colorful, mythical and seductive in cultural history.

After a weeklong residency, writer, director, and actor Ain Gordon will present his new contemporary theatre piece Not What Happened on Saturday, April 28, at 8 PM in MASS MoCA'S Hunter Center, as part of MASS MoCA's series of work-in-progress showings. Gordon's work, which The New York Times calls "smart" and characterized by "genuine emotion", investigates the notion of place as it relates to forgotten histories.

Nicky Silver's play THE LYONS -- a critical and popular success when it debuted last fall at Vineyard Theatre -- transfers to Broadway's Cort Theatre (138 W. 48 St.) with its entire original cast intact, including the Tony Award-winning stars Linda Lavin and Dick Latessa, along with Michael Esper, Kate Jennings Grant, Brenda Pressley and Gregory Wooddell. The Vineyard Theatre production of THE LYONS will be presented on Broadway by producer Kathleen K. Johnson. Mark Brokaw directs.

Berkshire Theatre Group announces programming for Summer 2012. BTG’s Summer of 2012 boasts a full assortment of theatrical productions, concerts, comedy, Friday Series play readings, Musical Mondays, Made in the Berkshires and more.

Claude Gosselin has been the artistic director for La Biennale de Montreal. His recent projects have focused on new and digital media attracting a younger audience. As an authority on contemporary Canadian art he is skeptical about the survey of 65 Canadian artists planned for Mass MoCA this summer. He also sees paradigm shifts for museums scrambling to attract declining audiences for the visual arts.

This summer Mass MoCA will present a survey of 65 Canadian artists curated by Denise Markonish. Recently we spoke at length with the leading Canadian curator Claude Gosselin who has organized major thematic exhibitions combining Canadian and international artists since 1985. His 2011 La Biennale de Montréal may have been his last. He plans to continue Centre international d'art contemporain de Montréal (CIAC) with a refocused program.

Helping artists to fabricate and install new works entails trust, commitment and risk taking. All of those elements went terribly wrong in a project with the artist Christoph Buchel. Ever escalating demands resulted in legal action that brought Mass MoCA to a standstill. Eventually a judge found in favor of the museum. It is painful even now to revisit the incident from which Joe Thompson and the museum have moved on.

New York City Ballet (NYCB) will bring a dazzling, diverse repertory of 16 stunning ballets from its unparalleled repertory to its summer stage at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) July 10 - 21, including the July 14 World Premiere of a new ballet by NYCB dancer Justin Peck at the annual Ballet Gala. Other major highlights include the Saratoga premieres of new ballets by Christopher Wheeldon and Benjamin Millepied; Peter Martins’ dramatic, full-length production of Romeo + Juliet; Balanchine classics including Firebird, Symphony in C and Kammermusik No. 2 and first-ever Saratoga performances of Peter Martins’ The Waltz Project and Wheeldon’s DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse.

Too much TV turns your brain to mush and causes cancer. Which is what I love about it. This week we saw the first episode of Smash. It was awesome. But I just don't understand Luck on HBO. Something about horse races. So, if you like TV as much as I do here's an update.

The evening begins at 7 p.m. with a reception in the Beard House’s charming Greenhouse Gallery as guests enjoy an assortment of hors d’oeuvres. A seated tasting menu begins around 8 p.m. The James Beard House is located at 167 West 12th Street. The price is $130 per person for James Beard Foundation members and $170 per person for the general public.

The Cartographer's Conundrum is a major multi-disciplinary installation By New York-based artist Sanford Biggers. This new work is inspired by the Houston, Texas based artist, scholar and Afro-futurist John Biggers (1924-2001). A cousin of his subject, Sanford Biggers' goal is to both study and expand the emerging genre of Afro-futurism, which engages science-fiction, cosmology and technology to create a new folklore of the African Diaspora.

We may be years away from the installation of a new Music Director at the BSO, but Nelsons presence at an important event, made me wonder.

Huntington Theatre Company announces that its 2012-2013 Season will include MacArthur “Genius” David Cromer’s groundbreaking new production of Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning American classic Our Town December 7, 2012 – January 13, 2013. Cromer will direct and play the Stage Manager, a role he previously performed in Chicago and Off Broadway productions.

This summer at Shakespeare & Company John Douglas Thompson will premiere a one man play Satchmo at the Waldorf written by the Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout. Thompson is in the early stages of research on the life and music of the legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong.

Jacob’s Pillow Dance and MASS MoCA will co-present leading Australian contemporary dance company Chunky Move in Connected. Based in Melbourne, the company brings “blasts of choreographic excitement” (Jack Anderson, New York Times) to its performances.

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.

Starting around Thanksgiving, filmmakers and studios start showing there wares for consideration of major recognition and box office rewards. Some years there are just a few notable movies. For some reason, this 2011 holiday season there are many. Looking at some of the major cinema presentations, there is something for everyone and probably a lot more than was expected. These few holiday weeks collectively have been like a film festival of good movies.

Happy Hanukah. This is the last week of 2011, a heavy year by many accounts. Boston will have several exciting events with first night please check http://www.firstnight.org. The American Repertory Theater showcases two productions The Snow Queen and Three Pianos. The Museum of Fine Arts presents two films on the art of cooking:Three Stars and the famous restaurant El Bulli: Cooking in Progress. Happy New Year 2012....

January 2012 will kick off the momentous 80th Anniversary of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, a National Historic Landmark, National Medal of Arts honoree, and America’s longest-running international dance festival. Founded in 1933 by modern dance pioneer Ted Shawn as a retreat for his company of Men Dancers, Jacob’s Pillow has been a mecca of dance for eight decades.

James Aponovich is regarded as among the foremost American realist painters. He is in the midst of a conceptual project to finish a painting a week for a year. It was the subject of a broadcast on Chronicle this past week. In May the entire series of 52 paintings will be shown at Clark Gallery in Lincoln, Mass. This was an occasion to catch up with a superb artist and old friend.