By Colin Dabkowski A sublime sense of mischief, mystery and foreboding was on display Saturday night during the Chautauqua Theater Company's pitch- perfect production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The crashing thunder outside the Chautauqua Institution's Bratton Theater only heightened the otherworldly spell cast by Shakespeare's language, delivered with crisp comic clarity by a company made up entirely of the CTC's young conservatory members.

By Ted Hadley Craig Lucas is an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter -- his resume includes "Prelude to a Kiss," works about the AIDS pandemic such as "Longtime Companion" and a Tony nomination for his "subtle libretto" in the Broadway hit "The Light in the Piazza." One of his early plays, 1983's quirky "Reckless," is wild, unpredictable and often stupid.

By Colin Dabkowski As the summer movie season prepares to enter high cotton-candy mode, Western New York theaters have come up with the perfect antidote: pure, unadulterated tragedy. And it couldn't be more welcome.

By Scott Waldman, Erie Times-News, Pa. Jul. 25--CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. -- Stronger hurricanes, melting ice caps and a rising, raging sea.