MAGICAL MUSIC, STROBE LIGHTING and handsome Finnish dancers opened the 2011 SummerScape at Bard College last week.

The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, where much of SummerScape takes place, is tucked into the woods like a dinosaur at rest. As we arrived, its wide glass front, three stories high, welcomed early theatergoers, while across the road others delayed going indoors on a perfect summer evening. They sat at picnic tables or checked out The Parliament of Reality. This permanent outdoor installation, which features a pond and a bridge covered with wire mesh, is the creation of Olafur Eliasson. Read more…

‘As You Like It’/ Shakespeare & Co/ Lenox, MA

TO THE SHAKESPEARE & COMPANY PRODUCTION of “As You Like It” director Tony Simotes adds his own ornaments: a mixture of brilliantly staged bits and over-the-top bits. Over-the-top suggests a lack of trust in Will’s wit, wisdom, etc. To Shakespeare’s ornaments, he also adds an actors-on-uppers physicality and “a concept.”

In the beginning, from Sandra Goldmark’s beautiful blue-gray stage with mottled blue-gray curtain, blue-gray miniature Eiffel Tower and miniature Paris buildings, one gathers (and Tony tells us in the program) that the play will be set in Paris just after the First World War. Read more…

HUDSON – Saturday, June 11, the Hudson Opera House opened its doors to “Warren Street,” an exhibition in which some 33 artists, many with local connections, take as their inspiration Hudson’s main shopping and dining street.

Richard Roth, the exhibition’s curator, said he was inspired by a body of work created by photographer Lynn Davis, who photographed every building on Warren Street in 1994 to document the city’s eclectic mix of architectural styles. From pyramids and other forms of architecture, to icebergs, Ms. Davis, a contemporary and friend of the late Robert Mapplethorpe, tackles large scale subjects with vigor and iconic style. Visitors to “Warren Street,” will get to see her 314-foot-long work in its entirety. Read more…