Not to take anything away from the brilliant set and costume designers who create solely for live performance—dance, opera, theater—but it’s always a leap and a lark to see what painters and sculptors do in that big box called a stage. From Pablo Picasso to David Hockney—with Matisse, Gontcharova, Miró, Louise Nevelson, Robert Wilson, and more in-between—this exhibition asks how work for the stage changes or redefines an artist’s approach to his or her own work? —L.J.