This week enjoy attending several dance performances and a dance-film discussion and note a singular performance seen last week.

Comedian Paul Reiser brings his signature comedy to the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, Mass., tonight at 8pm. Reiser is widely celebrated for his roles in Stranger Things and The Kominsky Method, for which he received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor.

“Once”, a bittersweet romantic musical, is an ideal way to close out Maggie Mancinelli- Cahill’s 30-year tenure as the company’s Producing-Artistic Director.

The Friend, which features potent performances by Naomi Watts and Bill Murray, hit theater screens this spring and now can be streamed. The plot focuses on Murray’s character, Walter, a successful New York City-based writer, who left his beloved great dane behind when he chose to commit suicide.

Shake It Up: A Shakespeare Cabaret, a mash-up of modern music and Shakespearean verse, is presented by Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., today through Sunday. Allyn Burrows, director and co-creator of Shake It Up, says “Shakespeare and rock ‘n’ roll have been part of the fabric and lifeblood of popular culture for a long time. Mashing them together yielded fun and fascinating results.”

There’s an old saying that claims, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” That seems wise, but such a simple statement can be complex. Park Playhouse is the theater company beginning a four week run of “Oklahoma” in Albany’s Washington Park. It’s first performance is Tuesday.

Tap visionary Michelle Dorrance and dancer-choreographer Ephrat Asherie join forces for The Center Will Not Hold, a lively celebration of street, club, and vernacular dances, inaugurating the summer season in the Ted Shawn Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow in Becket, Mass., today through Sunday.

The only problem with the Opera Saratoga season is that it’s too short. In only two weeks the company is offering only our productions of “La Vie Parisienne,” five productions of “She Loves Me,” and two offerings of the experimental work “A Mass For Women’s Bathrooms.”

So many writers are putting the emphasis on action or circumstances. What they fail to provide audiences with are proper introductions to their characters. The most successful shows-- whether on stage, films, TV shows, take the time to create interesting, riveting personalities.

This is officially the first weekend of summer and the summer theater companies are flourishing.