Barrington Stage Company

Barrington Stage Company (BSC),announced today two of its 2015 Boyd-Quinson Mainstage productions – Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers and Man of La Mancha.

In 2011 James Brochu appeared at Barrington Stage in the one man show Zero Hour. He has returned with another show that he has written and stars in Character Man. The great Mostel is but one of a plethora of great actors featured in a rich and colorful evening of songs and anecdotes from a life in theatre.

From the first of May through the end of August we posted 86 theatre articles by a diverse staff of contributors. This overview is limited to the four major Berkshire companies: Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Group, Shakespeare & Company, and Williamstown Theatre Group. Our summary is based on reviewing most but not all of the 2014 Berkshire Summer Season.

Dancing Lessons is the ninth play and eighth world permiere by Mark St. Germain at Barrington Stage Company. As a signifier of their long standing relationship the new play is directed by Julianne Boyd the founder of the company. In recent years his plays have gone on to successful tours of regional companies. Starring the astonishing John Cariani with a stunning dancing partner in Paige Davis this play has the potential to be on the road for years.

Honoring his many contributions The Mark St. Germain Stage was named for him by Pittsfield's Barrington Stage Company. A number of his best known works- Freud's Last Sessions, Best of Enemies, Dr. Ruth- have premiered for the company of artistic director, Julianne Boyd. This week the latest Dancing Lessons will open. In what has become an annual ritual we met at Dottie's in Pittsfield for breakfast to discuss this new work as well as the challenges of a life in theatre.

Set in Cuba during the last gasp of the Batista regime a new musical for Barrington Stage company is a complicated balancing act between Jewish history and mythology and Cuba's Santaria tradition during the Revolution. The Golem of Havana mixes musical mataphors between Eurpoean Klezmer and Cuban Salsa

As a member of the top secret team of 10,000 at Bletchley Park Alan Turning was key to the effort to Breaking the Code of the German enigma apparatus. With endless daily permutations it was used to send orders to the maurading U Boat fleets decimating allied shipping. In the role of a lifetime Mark H. Dold has totally inhabited the persona of the complex and tormented individual whom Churchill credited with shortening and ending the war. Time Magazine named Turing among the 100 Most Important People of the 20th century. At Barrington Stage until August 2.

If you closed your eyes for the drive up to the Green Music Center in Rohnert Park, California, and then opened them when you arrived at Weill Hall, you might think you were at Tanglewood. This hall is modeled after Ozawa Hall in Lenox. Judy Collins, regal and still going strong at 75, packed the Sonoma Music Center.

Una Giornata Particolare was a 1977 Italian movie which earned two Academy Award nominations. It has been adapted for the stage as Working on a Special Day in a performance acted and directed by the Mexican couple of Ana Graham and Antonio Vega. The charming and absorbing one act play inventively explores the boundaries between illusion and theatrical reality.

Kiss Me Kate was Cole Porter's biggest hit and the only one of his shows to run for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway. In 1949, it won the first Tony Award presented for Best Musical. It is being given a stunning revival at Barrington Stage Company in a lavish production celebrating its 20th anniversary. With all of that iconic music and stunning choreography this is a fabulous way to launch the season in the Berkshires.

At mid career Emmy winner Marg Helgenberger is making the transition from TV to stage in the Berkshires. She is galvanic in Sharr White's complex and riveting The Other Place at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. She would like to take this hit production back home to LA.

Exhausted from an allnighter of becoming a grandmother for the fourth time Julianne Boyd was as high octane as usual. She has an all consuming, combustive approach for building and sustaining Barrington Stage Company though its first twenty years. That growth and success has come from a commitment to a balanced program pf popular musicals and risk taking productions of dramas that address serious social and political themes.

Arriving at Dottie's in Pittsfield for breakfast with Julianne Boyd, artistic director of Barrington Stage Company, several individuals notified me that she was running late. She had been up all night texting with family and friends about the birth of her fourth granddaughter. Eventually she arrived both exhausted and energized to discuss the upcoming 20th season of the company.

Barrington Stage Company announces four new Associate Artists, all of whom are working at Barrington Stage in 2014 – casting director Pat McCorkle, lighting designer Scott Pinkney, scenic designer Brian Prather, and press director Charlie Siedenburg.

In 2011 Marg Helgenberger left the hit TV show CSI after twelve seasons. The show continues with top ratings but she departed to pursue other options including live theater. She has taken a dramatic pay cut to star in Sharr White's The Other Place which opens soon at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. She and director Christopher Innvar met with the media to discuss the most challenging role of her career.

Barrington Stage Company (BSC), announces Emmy Award-winner and Golden Globe nominee Marg Helgenberger will star in the Berkshire premiere of Sharr White’s The Other Place, kicking off BSC’s 20th Anniversary Season, from May 21 through June 14 on the St. Germain Stage, directed by BSC Associate Artist Christopher Innvar.

Barrington Stage Company (BSC), has announced the creative team for the company’s 20th Anniversary Season opener – Kiss Me, Kate, to be presented June 11 through July 12 on the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage (30 Union Street). Joe Calarco and Lorin Latarro will direct and choreograph Kiss Me, Kate, which features music and lyrics by Cole Porter and book by Sam and Bella Spewack. BSC Associate Artists Darren R. Cohen will music direct and Renee Lutz returns for her 20th season opener as production stage manager.

Mark St. Germain is developing a two person play Dancing Lessons to premiere this summer at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. It entails a brilliant professor with Aspberger's a form of Autism. He seeks dancing lessons from a resident in his New York apartment building leading to a poignant and humorous relationship. There will be a Q&A following a reading at MCLA on March 8.

For the first time Shakespeare & Company in partnership with Long Wharf is sending a production to New York. Satchmo at the Waldorf, starring John Douglas Thompson, a member of the S&Co theatrical family, appears as Louis Armstrong in the first play written by Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout.

No it ain't Mardi Gras in New Orleans but Pittsfield is giving it a shot. Shake off the funk with the annual city wide Ten by Ten Festival. There's lots to do so bundle up and break out of the cabin.

Now in its 20th year Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass has earned a reputation as one of the nation's finest regional theatre companies. During a recent press conference artistic director, Julianne Boyd, discussed the upcoming season.

Yesterday there was a late afternoon media scramble when a Barrington Stage Company press conference announcing the 2014 season was followed within minutes by an unanticipated release by Williamstown Theatre Festival. It's taken some sorting but we now have an unusually early and clear picture of the summer season. We have a fairly complete clip and save rundown. Berkshire Theatre Group has yet to announce and WTF will soon post its program of the Nikos Stage.

During a bone crunching cold snap the Berkshire theatre media gathered on stage for a lunch and press conference hosted by Julianne Boyd the artistic director of the now twenty-year-old Barrington Stage Company. In addition to discussing the program for the coming season Boyd confirmed that last summer's hit musical On the Town is headed for Broadway with either a summer or fall opening.

Barrington Stage Company (BSC) announces casting and the creative team for its 10×10 New Play Festival, with performances February 13 through March 2, as part of the 2014 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival.

The approach of this WAM production of Émilie La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight by Lauren Gunderson has the twist of "Let us now praise not so famous women and trash men." The guy in this case is no less than Voltaire, her lover and collaborator, portrayed as a clown and misogynist. PC aside this is an enjoyable evening of theatre on the Mark St. Germain Stage in Pittsfield through November 24.