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The 10X10 New Play Festival has become a cornerstone of Pittsfield’s Winter cultural scene, attracting both seasoned theatre lovers and first-time attendees. Tickets are expected to sell quickly, so early booking is encouraged.

Percival  Everett’s James won the National Book Award in 2024.  It is a wonderful read, often humorous in its darkest corners. A deep examination of the origins of fury, in its last chapters we come to understand the results of escalating anger.

One of the elements of understanding the artist Katherine Porter was tracking her many moves and motivations. It’s the kind of personal detail that is left out of the writing of critics and most art historians.

Benny Andrews was one of ten children of Georgia sharecroppers. After serving in the Air Force he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on the GI Bill. He showed regularly in Provincetown where we met. He formed a group to protest the racist Harlem on My Mind at the Met. The group helped initiate but subsequently boycotted an exhibition of black artists at the Whitney Museum. Collage was an element in his figurative expressionist works.

The Prototype Festival produced by Beth Morrison starts the avant-garde music world off from January 9 to 19. One work has been around the city in various forms for a while.  Black Lodge dives into William Burroughs’ life.  Queer, the film starring Daniel Craig, has brought Burroughs mainstream attention.  The film with music by David T. Little, wrestles with movies as canned opera.

Since 1986, this group has revived the music of the most successful girl group of all time. Memorable songs written by the great team of Holland, Dozier, and Holland and sung by this charming group take us back to 1964 and the years following.

It turned out to be an interesting opening on December 21, 2024 at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, Germany. The new play Vatermal, (permanent skin discoloration attributed to his father) transformed from the first novel by Necati Öziris into a play by Hakan Savas Mican, is a sad saga of a young man not getting a chance to live a life of his own.

Long Wharf’s production of She Loves Me (running through Monday, December 30) gets a lot right; unfortunately, its missteps are a significant detraction from the overall success of the show.

In 2023, the last year of her life, and 100th anniversary of surrealism, Katherine Porter sent me a small automatic drawing and a letter. It got lost in the studio's detritus. Recently recovered it offers poignant glimpses into the endgame of her life and work.

Distinguished playwright Marcus Gardley creates an homage to the Black community in Oakland that he grew up in, and particularly to strong women and their contributions. Adeline and Laney are transplants from the South, and their beauty salon is an institution for decades before the women face economic and personal challenges.

In January the Eclipse Mill in North Adams offers Master Class Workshops with Jim Peters and Arnela Mahmutovi?. Also 12 artists may apply to participate in Back to to the Woodshed.  .

Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library, a new play by Jenny Lyn Bader,  takes place in a prison cell in Alexanderplatz, Berlin.  Mrs. Stern is better known today as Hannah Arendt, her birth name.

The striking work of Cape Ann modernist, Umberto Romano, is on view at the annex of the Cape Ann Museum. The artist, curator, and historian, Susan Erony, delivered a lecture on the murals that the artist created during the Depression years of the 1930s. Erony is currently working on a history of the art of Cape Ann.

Now in his 90s, the Italian born Mario Diacono is a revered legend of the Boston art world. He was known for exhibiting single works by renowned artists. These were accompanied by theoretical essays written in Italian and then translated. Few of the works entered Boston collections but found their way to Europe. He has emerged from retirement. To visit the gallery one must 1.open the gold box. 2.click on Faros Directory 3. Enter the name Mario Diacono Gallery 4. Next, click on call 4. Proceed to open the door. 5. Prepare to be amazed.

In the summer of 1984 I started research in Provincetown. Ellen O'Donnell (Rankin) got me started by setting up contacts for interviews. Our interview provides a window into a time when Provincetown was still affordable for artists. In my archive I have a receipt for an inn at $35 a night. Things have changed since then and not for the better. Provincetown is no longer a viable option for young artists

An equity national touring production of the stage musical adaptation of the movie "Some Like it Hot" is touring the country. The tour includes several stops in Florida. It's hard to make out the words that the performers are saying and singing.

Film at Lincoln Center presents a Robert Siodmak retrospective from December 11 to December 19.  Siodmak, according to his 98-year-old brother (with whom he worked),spent his entire life in film studios and on location.  Robert made films in many different genres. Yet he is best known, and not well-enough known, for his contributions to the film noir form.

The modernist Umberto Romano (1906-1982) is the subject of a retrospective, curated by Martha Oaks, at the annex of the Cape Ann museum through December 29, 2024. The main museum is closed for renovation. The exhibition is free to the public in the 12,000 square foot Janet & William Ellery James Center, which was completed in 2020. It includes 2,000 square feet of flexible exhibition and community programming space. 

There is the excitement of the going, the anticipation of arrival, and a purpose to be fulfilled.  There is excitement in the coming back, the thought of sleeping in your own bed, of waking up in familiar surroundings.  Nonetheless, more than 40 hours of travel, flights, train rides, bus rides, and climbs, are daunting at any age.  In my case, that is a few weeks shy of age 75.

The Adams based plein art artist Alvin Oueliet is presenting Ellipticals, a suite of new paintings, at Images Cinema in Williamstown. There will be a reception for the artist on Wednesday, December 11.

Playwright Dominique Morisseau grew up in Detroit.  Her trilogy based on life in the auto town is magnificent. She braves the tough subjects of our times. Her father was born in Haiti and she now eplores her Haitian roots in "Bad Kreyol" produced by the Signature Theater and Manhattan Theatre Club.

A long time Provincetown resident, artist and chef, Alice Brock, has died just days before Thanksgiving. In 2014 we reminisced about the fame game. She returned to the Berkshires to host a dinner at Dream Away Lodge. She described her cuisine as "heavy handed" which may well be a metaphor for her remarkable life.

The Berlin Philharmonic completed a three-day visit to Carnegie Hall in New York. The world’s greatest orchestra and its greatest conductor, Kirill Petrenko, did not disappoint.  The programming combined an anniversary  (the 200th birthday of Anton Bruckner), with fresh visits to favorites like Anton Dvorak’s 7th Symphony and a Violin Concerto by the film composer Erich Korngold.

Designed by the leading Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo, the reimagined Doris Duke Theatre occupies the site of the former studio theater from 1990, destroyed by fire in November 2020.  The new theater aims to become one of the world’s most technologically advanced dance venues, providing a makerspace for artists seeking to integrate artificial intelligence, extended reality, robotics, and immersive platforms into live performance.

A pioneer of Surrealism, Carrington’s work crosses boundaries and mediums, embodying a boundless curiosity and unorthodox spirit that transcends the conventional. Born into a staid upper-middle-class Anglo-Irish family, Carrington would spend her life freeing herself from the gendered strictures imposed upon her.