When I first started learning about contemporary art, Pop ruled. There was a wicked humor in Pop that was subversively accessible — taking the imagery of recognizable objects, often consumer products, and liberating them from their “official” meaning. It seemed both radical and fun in an ironic, distancing way.   

Irving Berlin lived for more than a century (1888-1989) and his popular songs have outlasted even that incredible lifetime — including “God Bless America,” “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business” — so the current Covedale Center revue I Love a Piano (a title from another of his well known tunes) has a ready advantage with audiences of a certain age.   

I’ve seen As You Like It many times, but Ed Stern’s final directorial outing for the Playhouse (co-staged with Michael Evan Haney) distills its warmth and goodwill better than any I’ve previously witnessed. Stern has blessed Cincinnati audiences for 20 years, and this production is a wonderful gift of love and joy that will be remembered for years to come.  

There’s no doubt that Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is a show audiences have loved. It had 5,461 performances over 13 years, making it the eighth longest-running show in Broadway history. Based on the animated film with great musical numbers and done right, it’s a surefire crowd-pleaser. That’s pretty much what’s landed onstage at the Aronoff for a two-week run, with a young cast that’s full of enthusiasm.  

The title of Lanford Wilson’s Burn This suggests it will be inflammatory and tempestuous. Knowing that its original New York production starred John Malkovich and Joan Allen might heighten your expectation that a local production by New Edgecliff Theatre (NET) would pin you to the wall. Featuring Nathan Neorr’s energetic performance as the crazed Pale, a man hopped up on grief, drugs and booze (the role Malkovich inhabited in 1987), there’s potential for a riveting production.  

What a long strange trip from Miami University and back it’s been for 1958 graduate Ken Babbs. He returns to Miami, where he graduated in 1958, at 7:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday for two Sixties Extravaganza free public events at the school’s Leonard Theatre in Peabody Hall. On Monday, there’s a screening of the new documentary featuring him — director Alex Gibney’s Magic Trip.  

Astonishing: It’s what Jo March yearns to be, pacing in her attic, spinning gruesome, spectacular tales to take the publishing world by storm. But Louisa May Alcott, the real-life author the fictional Jo grew up to become, made her name not by startling readers but by moving them with a simple story of four New England sisters and their mother making the best of things in bad times.   

This year marks the second anniversary of Cincinnati’s Crafty Supermarket Holiday Show, a gathering of more than 50 local crafters, artists and designers making it easy to find those special gifts for all your holiday shopping.  

As a devotee of the kind of enigmatically mysterious, ambitious conceptual art installations — sometimes minimalist, sometimes abstracted or color-field — that can be called “spiritual,” I’ve made pilgrimages to some pretty unusual places. The rationale behind such art often is that remoteness adds to the intensity of the experience.