New York Times

The doorbell rang. I was in bed. It was about 9pm and I was a little hung-over from the birthday party I’d hosted the night before. Who could it be? Wearing nothing but a t-shirt and underwear, I opened the door just enough to see who it was. OMG. It was Iris Love, dressed in her full Scottish clan regalia of plaid tartan kilt, white shirt, knee socks, and jacket with kilt pins and clan badges.

Historians a century from now may decide that this part of the 21st century was a political horror show. So it only makes sense that the real world of racial injustice and our racist history is bleeding over into pop culture. We can now partake of film, video, books and music where these historical themes are blended with horror and heroic stories.

At age 13, Joshua Turchin has accomplished more than many performers do throughout their career. Joshua Turchin is now the youngest cast member, and only child, ever to perform in Forbidden Broadway’s 38-year history. The teen's award-winning musical, The Perfect Fit, is Broadway-bound

Fred Plotkin notes: “I am not a singer or musician, yet my working life has a lot of similarities in that most of my income is derived from appearing in front of audiences in places of public assembly. People buy tickets to what I do so, of course, that means that all of my contracts, all of my speaking engagements, have been canceled until November.”

Broadway star Nick Cordero dies from complications of COVID-19. Cordero, 41, portrayed tough guy characters in musicals. Cordero's wife, Amanda Kloots, chronicled Cordero's condition on Instagram. Kloots and others used the hashtag #WakeUpNick to hope that Cordero would awaken from a long coma while in intensive care.

Opening day at Tanglewood, at 10 AM in July 5, was not what one expected.

Robots are with us, in fact, for the future and in decades of industry and popular culture. Dustin A. Abnet, assistant professor of American studies at Cal State Fullerton, takes us on a serious tour of robots in American industry and culture in his new book, The American Robot: A Cultural History.

When I interviewed Alan Shestack in 1992 he had been MFA director for five years. It was a time of economic downturn and the museum faced an annual deficit of $3 million. We discussed ways in which the museum might meet this challenge including a relationship with a museum in Nagoya, Japan which it helped to launch and program. He spoke adamantly that selling works to cover costs violated the mission and covenant of museums and their donors.

Because of the Raphael Incident, Perry T. Rathbone. was forced out as director of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1970. The board president, George Seybolt, who ousted Rathbone, then passed over acting director, Classical curator, Cornelius Vermeule, to unilaterally appoint a dark horse candidate, Merrill Rueppel. That ended with a curatorial coup from which Asiatic curator, Jan Fontein, emerged as acting director in 1975. He calmed troubled waters and acccomplished much through 1987. From April 1983, this is the first of two transcribed interviews.

The Al Hirschfeld Foundation is proud to announce the first in a series of online exhibitions exploring the work of one of the most iconic artists of the last century. On May 11, the Foundation will open a special exhibition for these times: "SOCIALLY DISTANT THEATER: The Solo Show As Seen By Hirschfeld", a collection of 25 drawings, paintings, collages, and prints documenting a half century of one person shows. This special digital exhibit will be online for six weeks through June 20.

Victoria Bond was born to be a musician. Her grandfather was a composer and conductor. Her father was an operatic bass, and her mother, a concert pianist. She found the piano herself. When her kindergarten teacher scolded her mother for pushing Bond too hard, her mother explained that she was trying to hold her back, but could not.

I look to a painting on my wall by the 17th century Dutch painter, Pieter de Hooch. It is a domestic scene of a mother calmly peeling turnips in a corner while a child enters the threshold carrying a flask and a plate, smiling down at a little dog looking up in anticipation. I am relieved.

Howard Cruse was a pioneering gay cartoonist and Berkshire neighbor. He passed away last year. His legendary Stuck Rubber Baby is having its 25th anniversary edition. The publication will be available this summer.

The 2020 Bang on a Can Marathon will feature more than 40 participating artists, over two dozen solo performances, and four world premieres of newly commissioned works by Dai Wei, Shara Nova, Molly Joyce, and Ken Thomson. Guest composers will be online to introduce their works. The 6-hour live Marathon will be hosted by Bang on a Can Co-Founders and Artistic Directors Michael Gordon, David Lang, and Julia Wolfe.

“This virus might get to tell us what we cannot do but it does not get to dictate what we can do,” Mandy Greenfield said. “The voices of these artists will be heard. Through this alliance with Audible, we keep artists and the generative artistic process centered and steady through this unspeakably difficult moment when public gathering simply isn’t possible"

Most of us are now hunkered down and isolated, inundated by 24/7 news coverage of depressing medical and economic conditions, compounded by failed White House leadership. To lighten our burden, just a bit, here is a list, with thumbnail reviews, of nine excellent documentary films about architecture and design.

Prolific playwright Terrence McNally loses his battle with coronavirus. McNally was an American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee. The prolific writer also won five Tony Awards.

The Williamstown Theatre Festival launches with Streetcar Named Desire starring Audra McDonald on June 30. The season will feature five world premieres.

Barrington Stage Company will present two World Premiere musicals and new productions of a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical classic, a Tony Award-winning musical revue, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. BSC will also perform outdoors for the first time with free performances of one of the company’s World Premiere musicals and featuring the company’s popular Youth Theatre.

American Son is a gripping tragedy about race in America today. Chistopher Demos-Brown's piece is a multi-faceted play in which marital, paternal and racial conflicts collide. A quartet of actors present impressively natural performances. American Son runs through Jan. 26 in Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center.

The conventional wisdom is that everyone is a critic. Which is an insult to those of us who pursue the difficult and complex craft. Why on earth would I give a fig about the year end movie list of former president Obama? I don't dabble in politics or take up brain surgery as a hobby. Having an opinion, and posting on social media, does not make you a critic.

Can there be too much of a good thing? Barrington Stage Company is known for staging classical musicals. But now Ain't Misbehavin has been added to South Pacific. This seems more about the bottomline than balanced programming. The Assembled Parties by Richard Greenberg is the third high season production on the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage. Anna in the Tropics, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Nilo Cruz, will highlight the St. Germain Stage.

Located in the belly of the beast the annual Anerican Theatre Critics Association New York conferences consistently feature superb programming. The best and brightest of American theatre are as accessible as a phone call and cab ride away. This year a day of panels were held for some 60 national members and guests at the new MCC theatre complex. Where else can you encounter a Pulitzer winning playwright interviewed by a fellow Pulitzer Prize winner. The panels. convened from 9 to 5, were varied, provactive and galvanic.

Jazz entrepreneur Fred Taylor has passed at 90. He never retired producing concerts and programming for the Cabot Theatre in Beverly. Not surprisingly his yet to be published autobiography, a collaboration with Richard Vacca, is titled What and Quit Show Business. Taylor booked Boston's Jazz Workshop/ Paul’s Mall from 1963 to 1978. From 1991 to 2017 he booked Scullers Jazz Club and produced the Tanglewood Jazz Festival from 2001 to 2007.

The Swiss dealer, Bruno Bischofberger commissioned a collaboration between Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol as well as Francesco Clemente. The project with Clemente fizzled by thrived with the other two artists. The dealer would purchase between sixty and eighty of their works together. The project wasn't completed but eight works from the series are on view at The School in Kinderhook New York. There are some hundred works by the artists on view, Saturdays, through early September.