Bill Cosby sex assault verdict upheld; spokesman lashes out

The disgraced entertainer lost his bid to overturn his sexual assault conviction Tuesday, as an appeals court upheld the verdict in the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.

Boston, MA 12-05-19: Cast members of

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Dolly Parton surprises audiences at Boston Common tree lighting, ‘Smoky Mountain’ musical

Dolly Parton stunned audiences across Boston Thursday night with her surprise appearances at the city’s tree-lighting ceremony and at the performance of her new musical.

FILE - This Nov. 7, 2018 file photo shows James Taylor performing at JONI 75: A Birthday Celebration in Los Angeles. Taylor has a deal with the producer-distributor Audible for the audio-only “Break Shot,” focusing on his early years and end on “the cusp” of his 1970s fame. Scheduled for early 2020, the book features an interview with journalist Bill Flanagan and highlights from his music. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

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James Taylor to release audio memoir in early 2020

Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter James Taylor is creating an audio memoir called “Break Shot” to be released on Audible in early 2020, the company announced Thursday.

MGM signs on with Red Sox for Fenway music hall

The parent company of the Red Sox said the performing arts venue targeted for the corner of Lansdowne and Ipswich streets will be called MGM Music Hall at Fenway.

Latest Theater/Dance headlines

With passion, daring, and sweat, community theaters make the show go on

Community theaters survive by challenging their audiences with works involving complex themes and strengthening their already strong local ties.

Jeneé Osterheldt

We need a ritual to remember black lives like DJ Henry’s. This play gives us one

Aleshea Harris’s “What to Send Up When It Goes Down,” presented by American Repertory Theater and Hibernian Hall, is a ritual to help us reckon with racism and healing in a world that’s hard to breathe in.

Comedy Review

Quite a day for Denis Leary (and friends) at Comics Come Home

Early in the evening, Mayor Marty Walsh appeared onstage to declare Denis Leary Day in Boston.

Dance Review

Black Grace’s ‘Kiona and the Little Bird Suite’ takes flight

The dance troupe’s third Celebrity Series engagement (the last was in 2010) featured four works by founder Neil Ieremia that span the company’s nearly 25-year history.

NAMES

Captain America to the rescue of Concord theatre group

Chris Evans, a Sudbury native, was on hand Saturday for the opening and dedication of a permanent home for Concord Youth Theatre, his childhood theatre company.

Winter arts guide 2019

//c.o0bg.com/rf/image_90x90/Boston/2011-2020/2019/01/24/BostonGlobe.com/Arts/Images/interartsweb-02.jpg Check out the Winter Arts Guide 2019

Upcoming concerts, shows, performances in theater, music, dance, art, and television.

More Theater/Dance headlines

The Ticket: What’s happening in the local arts world

This week’s picks from Globe critics.

17trayf -

Don Aucoin

Taking faith and friendship to the streets in New Rep’s ‘Trayf’

A comedy by Lindsay Joelle follows two young Hasidic men on a journey through the streets of Manhattan in a “mitzvah tank.’’

Boston, Ma., 02 / 03/ 09: Institute of Contemporary Art Museum,exhibit of Shepard Fairey, his first solo museum show with Obama HOPE, 2008 over the artists shoulder.. .( David L. Ryan Globe staff photo ) section : ARTS slug : 06fairey reporter Sebastian Smee 27yearend 27art Library Tag 01032010 Ed-Oped

Milestone mural brings Shepard Fairey back to Providence

The celebrated street artist returns to his artistic birthplace to paint his 100th mural, open an art retrospective, and speak at his alma mater, the Rhode Island School of Design.

Zoo Howl draws costume-clad visitors to Franklin Park Zoo.

It’s almost Halloween: Treat yourself

Pretty much the entire month of October is Halloween around town. Make the most of it.

“The Lion King” company members Michael Reilly (top left) and Ben Lipitz stand near some of the murals left by Broadway touring companies that have come to the Opera House over the past 15 years.

Backstage at the Opera House, the hallways are memory lanes

When touring productions and performers finish up at the theater, they leave some artwork behind.

18spongebob - Beau Bradshaw as Patrick Star, Lorenzo Pugliese as SpongeBob SquarePants, Daria Pilar Redus as Sandy Cheeks and The Company of The SpongeBob Musical (Jeremy Daniel)

Things to Do

The Weekender: SpongeBob sings, Almodóvar returns, and Holzer takes over

The Globe's picks for the best ways to spend your weekend.

18spongebob - The Company of The SpongeBob Musical (Jeremy Daniel)

Stage Review

‘The SpongeBob Musical’ is a sea of joy

The adaptation of popular Nickelodeon series is relentlessly goofy and exuberant.

Critic’s Notebook

In Boston-area theaters, depictions of power and corruption fill the stage

If there is a single theme that has dominated the fall season — in dramas ranging from “King Lear” to “The Prince of Providence” — it is the getting, using, and misusing of power.

With his new show, “All Rise,” Nick Offerman says he says he’s more comfortable calling his act stand-up comedy.

Nick Offerman stands up for ‘All Rise’

In the past, he resisted calling himself a comic, but that’s changed on his new tour.

Jesse Hinson (left) worked on a scene with the cast during a rehearsal of “The Thanksgiving Play” at Lyric Stage on Oct. 11.

At this Thanksgiving, the politically woke get carved

Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse says her satire is drawn from “all of these bizarre, crazy, offensive, strange experiences I encounter as an indigenous person in contemporary society.”

Nora Chipaumire peforms #PUNK.

Blending dance and concert, nora chipaumire’s ‘#PUNK 100% POP *N!&GA’ becomes a live performance album at the ICA

Born in apartheid Rhodesia, the dancer and choreographer says a need to “prove black African humanity” drives all of her work.

October 13, 2019 - Hibernian Hall, Roxbury, MA A run-through of the production of

Stages | Terry Byrne

An affluent black family spills its secrets in ‘Stick Fly’

Lydia R. Diamond’s play gets a staging at Hibernian Hall.

Sarah Silverman speaks onstage during a talk with Andrew Marantz at the 2019 New Yorker Festival on October 12, 2019 in New York City.

Sarah Silverman discusses empathy, mental health, and what’s more important than being funny

The comedian, who was born and raised in New Hampshire, spoke at this year’s New Yorker Festival and appears in documentary “Laughing Matters,” about comics who live with mental illness.

Dance Review

Fernanda Ghi makes tango ‘Black + White’

Though most of the scenarios are basic, Ghi’s company delivers a visually impressive hour of superb dancing at the Virginia Wimberly Theatre.

Robert Walsh in “King Lear,” presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project.

DON AUCOIN

The future looks bleak in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s ‘King Lear’

Robert Walsh stars in Shakespeare’s tragedy of foolhardy choices and family betrayal.

A work from Sophie Calle’s “What Do You See?” at the Gardner Museum.

Globe Magazine

Things to do in Greater Boston this fall and winter

Your seasonal calendar of events, music, theater, and more.

The Ticket: What’s happening in the local arts world

MUSIC

Angelina Jolie is Maleficent in Disney’s MALEFICENT: MISTRESS OF EVIL.

Coming Attractions

Movie openings and special screenings coming soon to Boston

What’s coming up on the local movies scene.

Meryl Streep and Jeffrey Wright in

Things to Do

The Weekender: Global grifters, the other Schumann, and ‘The Lion King’

The Globe’s picks for the best ways to spend your weekend.

Jared Dixon stars as the grown-up Simba in “The Lion King.”

DON AUCOIN

‘The Lion King’ is still a feast for the eyes — and the heart, too

Julie Taymor’s vibrant stagecraft still has the magic touch at Citizens Bank Opera House.

Comedian, actor, and podcaster Marc Maron.

Marc Maron has shed his bitter self for a better self

Success, after all those years of eluding it or mishandling it, has brought a certain “fearlessness,” the comedian, actor, and podcaster says.

Becca A. Lewis and Rachel Cognata in “The Book Club Play.”

DON AUCOIN

In two comedies, a playwright sides with our better selves

“Native Gardens’’ and “The Book Club Play,’’ a pair of upbeat social comedies by Karen Zacarías, are being presented simultaneously at two different Boston-area theaters.

Gregory Ruffer has resigned as chief executive of the Boston Center for the Arts.

Boston Center for the Arts head resigns amid allegations of inappropriate conduct

Gregory Ruffer stepped down following allegations of inappropriate conduct while he worked as a professor at a Florida college years ago, according to the center’s board of directors Sunday.

The Ticket: What’s happening in the local arts world

This week’s picks from Globe critics.

Sakurako Konishi, left, and Masataka Kubota in

Things to Do

The Weekender: GlobeDocs, presidential drama, spooky sounds, and a love supreme

The Globe’s picks for the best ways to spend your weekend.

Boston, MA 10/1/19 Spiro Veloudos (cq) retired from the Lyric Stage Company. He is photographed in the Boston Public Garden. Photo by Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff Topic: 04Spiro Reporter: Don Aucoin

End of an era as Spiro Veloudos steps down at Lyric Stage

The colorful leader who helped solidify midsize companies as a cornerstone of Boston theater decides to focus on directing.

Sabine van Rensburg performs in The 7 Fingers’s production of “Passengers.”

DON AUCOIN

In captivating ‘Passengers,’ this train is bound for glory

Riding the rails and experiencing the virtuosity of The 7 Fingers at the Cutler Majestic Theatre.

Boston actress Kathy St. George knows well the pain and pleasure of playing Judy Garland

The actress has portrayed the singer and movie star in four different shows, including “End of the Rainbow,” the musical drama that inspired the new film “Judy.”

“Native Gardens” castmates (from left) Eduardo Ruiz, Alaina Fragoso, Leigh Strimbeck, and Patrick Shea.

Stages | Terry Byrne

Playwright Karen Zacarías explores the turf of backyards and book clubs

Two Boston area theaters are producing Zacarías’s plays right now.

NOT FOR GETTY. Cambridge, MA., 10/13/17, Abdulkader, left, had not danced the traditional dabke, a Middle Eastern folk dance, in 7 years, but when the Cambridge-based dance company, Selmadance, asked him and the other Syrian men to be part of a performance with Muslim and Jewish dancers, he said yes. The men, left to right, Adbulkader Hayani, Ahmad AlNajjar, Mahmoud AlJasem, and Ahmad AlJelou, cq. rehearse on stage at Green Street Studio Theatre. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff

Cambridge’s Green Street Studios announces it will close due to significant rent increase

The 28-year-old dance nonprofit will cease operations on Oct. 27.

FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2014, file photo, Placido Domingo speaks at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. The cancellation Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019, of Domingo's Metropolitan Opera performance in

Placido Domingo resigns as general director of LA Opera

The opera star stepped down following multiple allegations of sexual harassment reported by the Associated Press.

Rihanna posed for a picture at The Pour House.

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Rihanna visited The Pour House in Boston 3 times over the past 2 days

The pop star apparently loved the Boylston Street pub so much she went not once, not twice, but three times over the past two days, according to management there.

Nicholas Rodriguez (Joe Gillis) and Alice Ripley (Norma Desmond) in “Sunset Boulevard” at North Shore Music Theatre.

Stage Review

A Hollywood cautionary tale loses force in ‘Sunset Boulevard’

Playing faded silent-screen star Norma Desmond in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical at North Shore Music Theatre, Alice Ripley generates intensity but is lacking in tragic grandeur.

02chainsmokers - The Chainsmokers perform at an afterparty at Memoire at Encore Boston Harbor on Friday night. (Erik Lorch)

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After show at TD Garden, the Chainsmokers closed out the night with a set at Memoire

Fans of the Chainsmokers had a chance to see them not once but twice on Friday night.

”Survivor,” one of the many reality shows that have made it to double digits, is now in its 39th season.

MATTHEW GILBERT/YOUR TV GPS

The week in watching: Reality TV gets old, Gary Gulman’s ‘Great Depresh,’ breaking news about a PBS gem

Globe critic Matthew Gilbert’s guide to what’s on television.

Medford, MA - 9/19/2019 - Matt Siegel of Newton talks during the Matty in the Morning radio show in Medford, Mass. on Thursday, Sept. 19. (Nic Antaya for The Boston Globe) Topic: 29Matty

KISS 108’s Matt Siegel isn’t just a morning guy anymore

The radio host’s enduring popularity has reached new heights with a run of 10 sold-out live shows at the Wilbur Theatre.

The Ticket: What’s happening in the local arts world

This week’s picks from Globe critics.

NAMES

Chicopee High chorus to sing with Foreigner at the Big E

Twenty-five lucky students will join the band to close out the annual state fair.

FILE - In this May 24, 2018, file photo, a Boston Dynamics SpotMini robot is walks through a conference room during a robotics summit in Boston. The Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group says it’s in talks with robot-maker Boston Dynamics about using the four-legged Spot robot in its live shows. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

Robots made famous on YouTube could be headed to circus

Animal-like robots that started out as a military-funded research project might be shipped off to the circus instead of the battlefield.

Alex Hurt and Jeremy Webb in “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.”

Stage Review

In a spirited ‘Rosencrantz & Guildenstern’ at the Huntington, doom without the gloom

Peter DuBois directs a splendidly executed production of Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.’’

Renée Zellweger,

Things to Do

The Weekender: ‘Judy’ in the flesh, yetis in the snow, and Jomama in the spotlight

The Globe’s picks for the best ways to spend your weekend.

Edward M. Kennedy Institute

special section

//c.o0bg.com/rf/image_90x90/Boston/2011-2020/2015/03/27/BostonGlobe.com/Magazine/Images/COVERA1-1943-U803467985159TLE--90x90@BostonGlobe.com.jpg The Kennedy Institute opens

Ahead of the opening of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, the Globe Magazine explores the history of the project and Kennedy’s vision for it.

Harvard Art Museums

special section

//c.o0bg.com/rf/image_90x90/Boston/2011-2020/2014/11/02/BostonGlobe.com/Arts/Images/harvardart.jpg Raising the roof at Harvard Art Museums

An in-depth look at the new complex designed by architect Renzo Piano.