BerkshireLinks

Dave Read

Berkshire Theatre Festival

Berkshire Theatre Festival

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Berkshire Theatre Festival, one of the oldest professional regional theatres in the United States, was founded in Stockbridge, Mass. in 1928. BTF’s Main Stage was designed and built in 1888 by Stanford White as the Stockbridge Casino (a miles away from the current location). It seats 408, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A Christmas Carol at Pittsfield’s Colonial Theatre

Also in Pittsfield, A Christmas Carol, the Victorian story of Ebeneezer Scrooge by Charles Dickens runs at the Colonial Theatre between Dec. 14 and Dec. 29. The Christmas 2013 schedule at the Colonial begins with Mary Verdi: Christmas at the Colonial on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 followed by 4 performances of The Nutcracker by the Albany Berkshire Ballet Dec. 7 and 8.

Berkshire Theatre Festival contact info:

Berkshire Theatre Festival driving directions:

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Shakespeare and Company

Shakespeare and Company

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Shakespeare and Company was established in 1978 at The Mount in Lenox, Mass., Edith Wharton’s former home, and currently occupies a 30 acre parcel on Kemble St., which it bought for $4.1 million in 2000. In addition to presenting plays and other programs on campus, Shakespeare and Co. runs educational programs throughout the Northeast.

Shakespeare & Co. schedules It’s A Wonderful Life

A perfect show for the holiday season. It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, inspired by Frank Capra’s classic 1946 film starring Donna Reed and James Stewart, is filled with just the right hint of nostalgia, charm and straight-from-the-heart moments. In true old-fashioned radio style, Ware brings audiences this poignant, funny and unique play-within-a-play that will leave you believing in angels! It’s A Wonderful Life runs December 6 through December 29, 2013 at Shakespeare & Co.’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre in Lenox, MA.

Fall Festival of Shakespeare at Shakespeare & Co.

The annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare is nine-week residency program at high schools throughout western Massachusetts and parts of neighboring New York State. Shakespeare & Company directors at each school lead nearly 500 students through a language-based exploration of a Shakespeare play, culminating in full-scale productions performed on Shakespeare & Company’s Tina Packer Playhouse for the public Nov. 21 – 24, 2013.

Shakespeare & Company contact info.

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The Real Inspector Hound at Shakespeare and Co.

Sept. 24, 2010 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall.

The Real Inspector Hound at Shakespeare and Co.Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound, on the schedule at Shakespeare and Co. through November 7, 2010, is on one level full of the suspense, intrigue, and slapstick one associates with a spoof of an Agatha Christie mystery. However, the play is a play within a play, set in a theatre and the two reviewers, sent to view and comment on it, are very much a part of the play itself. Indeed, it is their involvement with what occurs on the stage, complicated with their own self-doubts and angst that brings in an almost Beckett chill underlying the constant roars of laughter that the play evokes.

Everything in the play is in someway double. The set ting is the theatre in which we sit but it is also the vast drawing room of the lonely English house on the moors round which lurk both fog and murder. The reviewers are on the job. So are the actors. But we are in a weird world. A phone on stage may be ringing for a reviewer in the stalls.

The eight actors who thread through this maze of delight are delights in themselves. The zest into which they throw themselves is not only praiseworthy but almost beyond the call of duty. They not only move furniture with alacrity but at times hurl themselves down upon it, or under it or leap over it with such gusto that one feels that perhaps Stoppard should have included in his cast the call for “is there a doctor in the house?”

Director Croy has ssembled a talented and dedicated cast who throw themselves into every moment of the play—even the pauses. And there is a moment when a pause is part of the dialog!

Birdboot (Josh Aaron McCabe) and Moon (Enrico Spada) are both critics, though Spada is a much more uptight one, second string for his establishment. Birdboot is delightfully extravert and overbearing—until he finds himself involved in the plot and participating in the wildest card game ever staged. Moon’s insecurity pulls him, bow-tie and all,onto the stage and into the brooding side of the plot which among other things, involves the power (or lack of it) for the critic himself.

Of the manor’s inhabitants, my favorite had the fewest lines but the most hilarious gait. Meg O’Connor as Mrs Drudge, the help, and how she did help, poor thing…dusting away, hearing on the radio the dire news, dusting away, blindly adding sugar to the tea. She was perfect down to her sturdy, unshapely ankles.

Dana Harrison as Lady Cynthia swept about the manor in her slender beauty. The manor was her domain and she ruled it, with vigor and seductiveness. Men melted at her kisses. As well they might Despite her fragile beauty and great seductiveness, she moved furniture with swirling agility and leapt perilously over it at will.

Alexandra Lincoln, second female lead and not as femme fatale as Lady C, did get to have the lovely moment twice of bounding thru the French doors, center back with the lovely “tennis anyone´ moment. She also threw herself with gusto into the card games which wildly engaged anyone willing or unwilling to play. (She even had a lovely romantic name –-Felicity, though neither lucky in the play in either love or cards.)

Scott Renzoni as the Major Magnus was wheel chair bound until the plot released his scotch plaid, and he could unwind the even ancient plots and undo the past. David Joseph got to die twice as the mysterious stranger, Simon Gascoyne. And graced center stage dramatically.

Inspector Hound (Wolfe Coleman) had one of the lovely lines concerning his brief presence. When suggesting someone call the police and being informed he was the police, he responded, “Lucky I’m here.” Stoppard can do so much with three words!

By the end of the brief ninety minute play, all tangles were quickly unbound (or not). This is a charming play. Go.

Jacob’s Pillow stage gets funded

Jacob's Pillow free programsJacob’s Pillow raised more than $150,000 to save it’s Inside/Out Stage during the 2010 season of dance in the Berkshires. The amount is fifty percent more than the goal. More than one thousand people donated during the Festival and gifts ranged from one dollar bills donated by children too short to see over the top of the donation baskets, to multi-thousand-dollar pledges from private donors. The Inside/Out stage hosts more than 40 free public dance performances each season in the Pillow’s outdoor Marcia and Seymour Simon Performance Space.

“The outpouring of public support we received during this initiative is inspiring, and very moving. We’ve shot past our goal and the donations are still coming in,” comments Ella Baff, Executive Director of Jacob’s Pillow.

“We had members of the community who gave every time they attended a performance, children donated their allowances, tourists and newcomers to dance were inspired to give, alumni of The School at Jacob’s Pillow and our Intern Program contributed online from across the country and around the world, entire families pooled donations together to honor the memory of loved ones with named benches and picnic tables, and countless others.”

Originally built in 1981 to provide additional rehearsal space for The School at Jacob’s Pillow, the Inside/Out stage does not meet today’s construction standards and must be completely rebuilt in order to be in operation next season. A new foundation, steel framing, and complete reconstruction of the stage and dance surface are required. The rebuild also enables improvements in stage size, entrances, a dressing area for the artists, and a musician’s platform. In addition, the seating area will be re-graded and the existing benches re-set for better sightlines. Care is being taken in planning these changes to ensure that the site’s beloved simplicity and natural charm is maintained. Construction is slated to start in the spring and be completed by June 2011.

Inside/Out is a public stage which features free performances by emerging and established dance companies from all over the world and showings by dancers of The School every Wednesday through Saturday during the Festival. This season, the Inside/Out series included performances by hip-hop group Rennie Harris RHAW, contemporary company Yesid Lopez Contemporary Dance, Czech choreographer Dušan Týnek, and many others. The 2010 Inside/Out series attracted more than 17,500 audience members, marking the highest audience numbers in Inside/Out history and exceeding last season’s audiences by 3,000 people.

The Save the Inside/Out Stage initiative to raise $100,000 launched in June and ran throughout the 2010 Festival to the end of August. After each of the 40 free public dance performances offered on the Inside/Out stage, various members of the community, including past performers, faculty of The School at Jacob’s Pillow, local politicians, Pillow Board members, and other community leaders spoke passionately about what the stage and its free performances meant to them, and the urgent need to rebuild it. Audience members responded generously with donations on the spot and via mail, by phone, and online.

The funds raised during the Save the Inside/Out Stage initiative complete a $1.1 million fundraising effort to improve selected amenities and facilities at the Pillow. The reconstruction of the Inside/Out stage is part of a $400,000 Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund matching grant.

Maestro James Levine’s return raises questions

Maestro James Levine conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood.With Maestro James Levine returning to the podium after another long period of recuperation, the welcome back message is being pushed aside by concerns over his crazy schedule, which calls for him to conduct the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston on the same day! Can you imagine Cy Young heading the pitching staffs of both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees?

From the New York Times: “Despite evidence that working too hard in the past has contributed to his health problems, Mr. Levine, 67, is scheduled for a nightmarish week in October. He will lead the Boston orchestra in Mahler’s huge Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) at 8 p.m. on Oct. 7. On Oct. 8, he conducts a 1:30 p.m. repeat concert. Mr. Levine must then be in New York the next day for a 1 p.m. “Rheingold” and back in Boston that evening for another “Resurrection.””

BSO managing director Mark Volpe is quoted in the article as expressing “serious concern” about the Maestro Levine’s double-header, and BSO fans are said to see Levine “as favoring the Met, his longstanding home.”

We can’t see how Levine is at fault here; it reminds us of the Dick Feller song, Makin’ the Best of a Bad Situation, with the refrain:

I guess he’s makin’ the best of a bad situation
Don’t wanta make waves, can’t you see
He’s just makin’ the best of a bad situation
Reckon I’d do the same if it was me

Rather, we wonder if the BSO didn’t err way back in 2001 when Levine was hired to replace Seiji Ozawa – a hiring that required 2 seasons of replacement conductors before Levine would be available in the first place? If the Boston Brahmins cannot buy out Levine’s Met contract, maybe it would be a good idea for them to wade back into the free agent pool and hire a similarly gifted right-hander (or southpaw), and keep him (or her) too busy to moonlight in Gotham?

Pittsfield 3rd.Thursdays

Entertainment throughout Pittsfield, Mass today. Rain or not, 3rd.Thursdays will be rockin’ & rollin’ tonight Sept. 16, 2010! Rain or shine, you’ll have a great time at Pittsfield 3rd.Thursdays!

We’ve moved the outdoor performers in just in case, here’s where you can find them!

(Note that the North Street road closure has been cancelled, so the street will be open to automobiles!)

Square dancers, hula hoops & drum circle moves to the YMCA 292 North St

City Stage moved to 1st Congregational Church, East Street on Park Square
5pm Mary Verdi Band
6pm Gaia Roots
7pm Strike A Chord a capella

Miss B. Haven moves inside Intermodal Center

Palace Park moves inside 141 North St (next to Persnickety Toys & Bisque, Beads & Beyond )
5-5:30pm Caitlin Canty
5:45-6:30pm Darlingside
6:45 pm Wayward Stragglers

Paper Airplane Contest moved to Crowne Plaza, South St entrance!
5-6pm Make your own paper airplane
6-7 Paper airplanes contest

Floyd Patterson Band moves into the Underground Pub