Barrington Stage Company

Once again, Pittsfield-based Barrington Stage Company (BSC) was the big winner of the evening with their productions of Next to Normal, La Cage Aux Folles, Primary Trust, and Boeing, Boeing taking home many top prizes. The Mac-Haydn Theatre, in Chatham, NY, tied with BSC artists in the categories of Outstanding Choreography and Outstanding Direction of a Musical, and with artists from the Berkshire Theatre Festival for Outstanding Sound Design.

Early on in his role as artistic director, Alan Paul, saw Primary Trust at its off Broadway premiere. He booked it for Barrington before it won a Pulitzer Prize. The production at Barrington Stage couldn’t be more timely. Not surprisingly this deliciously intimate drama is well on its way to a sold out run.

Barrington Stage Company will present a staged reading of The Magdalene, a new play by Associate Artist Mark St. Germain, on Sunday September 1 at 3:00pm at the St. Germain Stage at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center

Inspired by a newspaper article, Forgiveness is set in Minnesota where prisoners are allowed to plead their case in front of the Governor, in a bid to be returned to society. In this interactive production, audiences help determine who is worthy of forgiveness.

Now retired Julianne Boyd returns to Barrington Stage Company to direct the comedy/ farce Boeing Boeing. She has selected a dream team of BSC frequent flyers, Christopher Innvar as the  scheming bachelor, Bernard, the nubile Mark H. Dold a visiting long lost friend Robert, and Debra Jo Rupp, a comedic national treasure as Bernard’s maid, Berthe.

A Tender Thing, by Ben Power, explores an interesting premise. What if the star-crossed lovers had survived? He assembled the text by reordering and conflating excerpts of Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night and a number of sonnets. Hence Elizabethan language has been conveyed in a contemporary context.

For over-the-top camp hilarity and flat out fun nothing tops the outrageous musical, La Cage aux Folles, which is getting a swing for the rafters production at Barrington Stage Company through July 6. This is likely to be a boffo summer smash with a too-brief run.

As part of its 30th Anniversary Celebration, Barrington Stage Company announces Tony Award-winner Bernadette Peters in Concert on Tuesday, August 27 at 8:00 p.m. on the Boyd-Quinson Stage (30 Union Street). 

With a book by Harvey Fierstein (Broadway: Kinky Boots, Torch Song Trilogy) and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman (Broadway: Hello, Dolly!, Mame), La Cage aux Folles is based on the play by Jean Poirot that also inspired the 1978 French film of the same name and its American remake, The Birdcage, starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

Comedy reigns this summer in the Berkshires! Barrington Stage Company (BSC) is pleased to announce that it will be the new home of the Berkshire Comedy Festival, produced by the Long Island Comedy Festival in partnership with BSC. The company will also present special preview performances of Alison Larkin: Grief...A Comedy, written and performed by Berkshire resident, writer, and comedian Alison Larkin, prior to its UK premiere and world tour this summer.

Barrington Stage Company  will celebrate its 30th  anniversary season with two major musical revivals, a world premiere play, two regional premiere plays and a raucous comedy featuring three of BSC’s most beloved associate artists.

During the dead of winter yet again, for the thirteenth time, we embraced 10x10 New Play Festival at Barrington Stage Company. At least for a matinee we woke from hibernation to embrace the treat of arts in the Berkshires.

Barrington Stage Company’s Black Voices Matter Program is proud to present “Black History: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future” on Monday, February 26 at 6:00pm at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center (36 Linden St.)  

The 10X10 Upstreet Arts Festival is a winter arts festival located in Pittsfield’s Upstreet Cultural District in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, organized by the City of Pittsfield and Barrington Stage Company. Presenting short new plays during the dead of winter.  

BSC will produce the Tony Award-winning musical La Cage aux Folles, and the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Next to Normal, which will be directed by Alan Paul, in a co-production with Round House Theatre, Bethesda, MD.

Several categories saw ties this year, including the top honors for Outstanding Musical Production and . Barrington Stage Company’s production of Cabaret and the Sharon Playhouse production of Something Rotten shared the musical award. Shakespeare & Company’s production of August Wilson’s Fences shared the top play production honors with Bridge Street Theatre’s East of Berlin.

The play, English, by Iranian-American playwright Sanaz Toossi, was selected by freshman artistic director, Alan Paul, well before it won the Pulitzer Prize in May. Because of the original actress was unavailable she has stepped in to portray Elham. Thereby, the Barrington Stage production, directed by Knud Adams, is a double triumph. The play is complex, topical and timely while her acting proves to be utterly charming.

By popular demand Barrington Stage Company brings back a world premiere by Mark St Germain on the stage that bears his name. The Happiest Man on Earth is a one-man show based on the holocaust memoir The Happiest Man on Earth published by Eddie Jaku when he was one hundred years old. It is profoundly performed by Kenneth Tigar.

Absorbing, insightful, fun and hilarious are dumbfounding but accurate terms to describe the William Finn and James Lapine musical A New Brain being revised at Barrington Stage Company. It's a musical about neurosurgery.

Julianne Boyd, the founding artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, retired last year. Unburdened by administrative responsibilities, she has been lured back to direct a dark, moody masterpiece, Faith Healer by Brian Friel (1929-2015) the greatest Irish playwright of his Generation. For this triumphant return she cherry picked a dream team trio of Christopher Innvar (Frank), the faith healer, Gretchen Eglof his long abused wife Grace, and Mark Dold as the whimsical roadie Teddy.

In his first season as artistic director Alan Paul has selected the 1995 play by Pearl Cleage. Set during the Harlem Renaissance its a good but not great play given a flawed production directed by Candis C. Jones for Barrington Stage Company.

Barrington Stage Company, as part of its Black Voices Matter initiative, is sponsoring the 3rd annual “Celebration of Black Voices” community festival.  For 2023, “Celebration of Black Voices” will take place over 4 days - from Thursday, August 10 through Sunday, August 13 on Pittsfield’s West Side.  The festival will feature six free events celebrating the local Black community through artistic engagement.

Straw hat is old hat. Summer once meant shows performed in actual barns by talented and young kids. Or tours led by well-known movie and TV stars whose popularity had diminished. Not anymore.

In a co production with Chautauqua Theater Company, Barrington Stage Company is presenting a world premiere tiny father by Mike Lew and directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel. There is another production scheduled for Geffen Hall in Los Angeles.

With his first production, Cabaret, Alan Paul, the artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, has set a new benchmark for musical theatre in the Berkshires. Given the unchecked rise of fascism in America the musical which focuses on the beginnings of Nazi Germany could not be more powerful and relevant. This is a scorching production which will blow you away. Barrington's version of the iconic musical clicks on all cylinders,