Two new live performances in Boston give audiences and moment to look into the past, both to reminisce and to realize how far we have come.
Master Class, Presented by New Repertory Theatre, playing at the Arsenal Center for the Arts through April 21st
This well-crafted production examines a passion for the arts through the biography of Maria Callas, the rampageous opera star. In the twilight of her career, through a series of master classes, Callas reflects on her life, reliving artistic triumphs and painful disappointments.
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, playing at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston through April 27th
A new screwball comedy takes a funny and irreverent look at racial stereotypes in Hollywood. Vera Stark is a headstrong African-American maid and budding actress. She has a tangled relationship with her boss, a white Hollywood starlet desperately grasping to hold on to her career. See what happens when both women land roles in the same Southern epic. Inspired by the life of Theresa Harris, who was Barbara Stanwyck’s companion in Baby Face.
Arts in the News
The Citi Arts Performance Centerand Broadway in Boston have teamed to push for legislation that would provide a tax credit to theater companies in a tax structure modeled after the controversial film tax credit. In short, commercial and non-profit theaters with 500 seats or more would receive a tax credit of up to $3 million for any pre-Broadway show, pre off-Broadway show or national touring production that launches in Massachusetts. But taking its cues from the film tax credit, the legislation limits the annual pay-out to $10 million and provides a sunset clause that ends it after five years if it’s found to not work.
Today the Boston Symphony Orchestra announced Andris Nelsons will become the new music director, 15th director in the organization's 130-year history. At 34 years old, Andris Nelsons is the youngest music director to lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra in over 100 years; he is also the first Latvian-born conductor to take on the post. Nelsons's first appearance with the BSO came in 2011, when he stepped in for James Levine, and last summer Nelsons conducted both the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra as part of Tanglewood's gala 75th-anniversary concert. Hear an interview with the BSO's Managing Director Mark Volpe on WGBH's Classical New England.
