Seventh inning balloon ceremony at Koshien Stadium.

In a last gasp of summer freedom, I traveled to New York this past weekend to fill a long-recognized gap in my theatregoing experience by seeing Porgy & Bess. Like much of the rest of my summer, the trip had a theatrical element. What surprised me was that the following lyrics from the show’s standard Summertime (first performed in 1935) managed to describe perfectly my summer of 2012:

If “education” is supposed to be hard to swallow, then Mark Shugoll and his ArtSpeak! program have found the proverbial spoonful of sugar! More than 500 students, parents, and audience members attended the most recent session held at...

Lea Michele in Round House Theatre’s 2005 production of The Diary of Anne Frank. Photo by Stan Barouh

Forty-five years after I went to my first show (a revival of Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Merman at Lincoln Center), including 24 years as a resident in the Washington area, I am still compelled to attend as much theatre as possibl....