LENOX, Mass. — A visit to the Rose Footprint Theatre at Shakespeare & Company is a highlight of our summer. The comedy staged annually in the tented theater is always entertaining, interactive and very kid-friendly.

This year's "The Servant of Two Masters" is all of those, but it wasn't as funny as previous Rose shows. It also has the misfortune of being up against "The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)," which is playing in the Tina Packer Playhouse and is the funniest thing I have seen a very long time. (Read the Mom Review here.)

So while I was entertained, I did not laugh as much as maybe I would have liked.

The play is

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williamstown Theatre Festival is not necessarily known to be as community-minded as some of the year-round theater companies in the Berkshires. But they do stage a piece of free theater every year, and this year's offering was "Robin Hood," performed in the Poker Flats area of Williams College. On a lovely and cool opening night, Noelle and I went to see the play.

I'm not a theater critic, and this column is not meant to be a theater review. It is meant to give families information on whether particular plays would interest their children. However, with this play, I'm finding

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If laughter is the best medicine, I most certainly was drugged Friday night by the time I left the premier of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox.

As for Noelle ... well she laughed a lot, too, but I'm not sure she always knew exactly what she was laughing at.

"The Complete Works" features three actors attempting to perform all of Shakespeare’s plays in less than two hours. A feverish version of "Romeo and Juliet" kicks off the evening, and a rousing rendition of "Hamlet" concludes it. The other 35 plays were sandwiched in between in entertaining, amusing and culturally

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I've never seen two-dozen young children sit so quietly for 45 minutes.

That's one takeaway from the magical show "Bleu!" that Noelle and I went to see at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, where it is playing for this weekend only.

"Bleu!" is presented by the Italian theater company Compagnia TPO, whose website bills itself as "interactive theater for children." At the opening show on Wednesday, July 2, it was indeed theater in that it clearly told a story. But unlike the theatrical stories most children are used to hearing, this one was told through music and movement, not words.

"Bleu!" narrates the meeting of two

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