A & E

THEATER

1. "The Aunt Ester Cycle"

August Wilson Center. Two-week festival showcasing three August Wilson plays, two panels and a locally produced performance created in collaboration with six women from Pittsburgh's Hill District.

2. '"Legally Blonde"

Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. National tour of this popular, funny and amiable Broadway musical.

3. "Speak American"

City Theatre. This play by Eric Simonson focuses on the emotions, politics, dreams and fears that erupt when some workers at the U.S. Steel mill in Homestead enroll in a class to learn English.

4. "Crime and Punishment"

Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre. Campbell and Columbus' stage adaptation distills Dostoyevsky's mammoth Russian classic into a work for three actors.

5. "Metamorphoses"

Pittsburgh Public Theatre. A stage turned into a watery pool highlights this production of Mary Zimmerman's play that brings to life Ovid's 2,000 year old tales of gods and humans.

6. "Glengarry Glen Ross"

barebones productions. Bingo O'Malley returns to the role of Shelley Levene in a super-charged production of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama.

7. "The Seafarers"

City Theatre. This production of Conor McPherson's chilling drama employs focused directing and detailed, precise acting choices in this tale of a poker game that turns into an occasion of Christmas Eve redemption.

8. "Yerma"

Quantum Theatre. Flamenco dance and music, video and computer-generated graphics and ensemble performances re-creates Federico Garcia Lorca's claustrophobic world of rural Spain inside a former East Liberty bank branch.

9 "Jersey Boys"

PNC Broadway Across America - Pittsburgh. National touring production transforms the songs and story of the tumultuous ups and downs of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons into very personal tales.

10. "Macbeth 3"

Unseam'd Shakespeare Company. Lisa Wolpe adapts Shakespeare's classic into an atmospheric, highly theatrical production filled with smoke, mist and shafts of light with three actors enacting all the essential roles.

-- Alice T. Carter

AC/DC, Jan. 7, Mellon Arena

Bruce Springsteen, May 19, Mellon Arena

Kenny Chesney, June 6 at Heinz Field

Phish, June 18, Post-Gazette Pavilion

Dave Matthews Band, June 19-20, P-G Pavilion

Aerosmith, June 24 at P-G Pavilion

Green Day, July 22, Mellon Arena

Jonas Brothers, July 25, Mellon Arena

Tim McGraw and the Black Eyed Peas, Sept. 10, Point State Park, to open the NFL season

Taylor Swift, Oct. 1 at Mellon Arena

1. Beethoven Seventh Symphony.

Pittsburgh Symphony music director Manfred Honeck and the orchestra are at their inspired best in the Beethoven Symphony Richard Wagner called the "apotheosis of the dance."

2. Symphony Gala

Itzhak Perlman's inimitable personality shines in a violin concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and a short piece by Fritz Kreisler performing with Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony.

3. "The Mendelssohn Project"

The Pacifica Quartet corrects the neglect of Felix Mendelssohn's music for string quartet with heartfelt and stylish performances for Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society.

4. "Falstaff"

Baritone Mark Delavan brings a great voice and insightful interpretation to the title role of Giuseppe Verdi's final masterpiece.

5. "Eugene Onegin"

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's gorgeous but neglected opera is well served by Pittsburgh Opera's very strong cast led by Dwayne Croft and Anna Samuil.

6. "On the Transmigration of Souls" and "'Doctor Atomic' Symphony"

Composer of the year John Adams leads expert Pittsburgh Symphony performances of his "On the Transmigration of Souls," inspired by 9/11, and his powerful reworking of music from his opera "Doctor Atomic."

7. Ravel Piano Trio

Conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier leads the Pittsburgh Symphony in his astonishingly colorful orchestration of one of Maurice Ravel's chamber music masterpieces.

8. Orion String Quartet

New music by Pittsburgh composer Eugene Phillips fits rewardingly between older masterpieces, all played superbly by the Orion Quartet for Pittsburgh Chamber Music Society.

9. "Mediterranean Nights"

Apollo's Fire artistic director Jeannette Sorrell's evocation of an impromptu night time party is an intoxicating mixture of feelings and the sheer joy of making music.

10. "The Book of American Poetry"

Composer Stacy Garrop's smart selection of poems and brilliant musical response to their varied themes and verbal style are performed with powerful impact by the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble.

-- Mark Kanny

1. "Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project"

A seemingly impossible topic, the scale of evil of the Holocaust, is a surprisingly rewarding emotional theatrical experience thanks to Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's presentation of choreographer Stephen Mills' intelligent and sensitive ballet.

2. "The Sleeping Beauty"

Brilliant dancing, lavish costumes and beautiful live orchestral performance make Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's production of "The Sleeping Beauty" a classic account of a classic ballet.

3. "Passion Reflected"

Attack Theatre presents a sensitive examination of circus performers' ego, doubts and the safety of masks made "At a Later Date" the highpoint of a triple bill that also included a dance called "Remainder," which was inspired by the Carnegie Museum's "Life on Mars" Exhibit

4. "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" and "The Rite of Spring"

Marie Chouinard and her dance company offer impressive re-creations of two famous 20th century ballets using inventive and effective original choreography.

5. "American Rhythms"

Incredible stylistic fluency make choreographer Dwight Rhoden's "Step Touch" a breathtaking experience on a Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre program that also featured Matjash Mrozewski's "Straight Life" to music of Bruce Springsteen.

-- Mark Kanny

1. "Past Meets Present: Decorative Arts and Design"

Carnegie Museum of Art. The newly renovated Ailsa Mellon Bruce Galleries display nearly 500 of the Carnegie's finest examples of American and European decorative arts from the past 2 1/2 centuries.

2. "Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand"

Andy Warhol Museum. From his Andre the Giant "Obey" posters to his controversial portrait of President Obama, Shepard Fairey fills the Warhol, as well as the streets of Pittsburgh, with a massive retrospective of his work covering nearly 20 years.

3. "The Gift of Art"

Westmoreland Museum of American Art. In celebration of its golden anniversary, the Westmoreland trots out more than 50 of its finest works, which have been donated over the past 50 years.

4. "Wings of Paradise: Watercolors of Silkmoths by John Cody"

Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. Kansan artist John Cody, 84, brings his passion for portraying the magnificent beauty of silkmoths and their associated plants with both artistry and accuracy to the Hunt with his widely appealing watercolors,.

5. "The Road to Impressionism: Barbizon Landscapes from the Walters Art Museum"

The Frick Art Museum. This stellar exhibit of 32 paintings includes works by all of the major French Barbizon figures -- Theodore Rousseau, Jean-FranAois Millet, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot -- as well as examples by Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley, the Impressionists painters most deeply influenced by them.

-- Kurt Shaw

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