People
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Artists Gather at Deerfield Inn
Annual Event for Pioneer Valley Community
By: - Mar 24th, 2010It started as a series of dinners in the homes of the artist, Jane Lund, and curator/ appraiser, E. Linda Poras. The annual gathering initially moved to the Lord Jeffrey Inn in Amherst. For the past two years it has been convened at the Deerfield Inn. Recently we joined some 60 others in the Pioneer Valley arts community of Western Mass. We also got to explore the fascinating history of the village and its Colonial era architecture.
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North Adams Winterfest
Nathaniel Stern at Greylock Arts
By: - Feb 28th, 2010With fresh snow on the ground there was the right ambiance for the annual Winterfest in North Adams. Artists carved ice sculptures and there was a chowder contest with local restaurants. Later we moved on to Greylock Arts in Adams where the artist Nathaniel Stern was busy installing.
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Julianne Boyd of Barrington Stage Company
Discussing the Upcoming Season in Pittsfield
By: - Feb 24th, 2010Compared to other Berkshire theatre companies it seems that Barrington Stage plays it safe in running the hits. This season opening with Sweeney Todd. But Julianne Boyd in a recent interview responded that it just smart business in a tough economy. She takes pride in developing six productions that have moved on to New York. She is also excited by the cultural renaissance and economic development in Pittsfield.
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Berkshire Museum Armed and Dangerous
Locked and Loaded With Stuart Chase
By: - Feb 18th, 2010Back in the day the Berkshire Museum, the oldest in the region, collected everything from soup to nuts. The museum's director, Stuart Chase, is challenged to find projects drawn from a vast collection of 30,000 objects. The interactive exhibitions are fun for families and instructive for 13,000 annual visiting students.
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Tina Packer on Women of Will
Shakespeare & Company Five Part Series
By: - Feb 15th, 2010William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote 38 plays and 154 sonnets. Starting 15 years ago, Tina Paker has been creating a cycle of five compilations which she calls Women of Will. There will be a preview on February 28. From the end of May through the fall she and Nigel Gore will perform the five parts at Shakespeare & Company. It is an undertaking of epic depth and historic importance.
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Joe Finnegan WTF's Suit With Passion
First Season with Williamstown Theatre Festival
By: - Feb 07th, 2010Joe Finnegan, a former Wall Street floor trader, who evokes the heart-throb, Don, in TV's Mad Men, moved his family four years ago to Williamstown. He hooked up with boyhood friend Steve Lawson to become President of his Williamstown Film Festival. We talked with Finnegan about gearing up for his first season as General Manager of the prestigious but challenged Williamstown Theatre Festival.
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Haiti Plunge Benefit Concert Jan. 30
Williamstown JavaJive
By: - Jan 25th, 2010Saturday January 30 at 7pm JavaJive hosts the "All Together Now" Haiti Benefit Concert and Dance Party at Mount Greylock Regional High School. This is an all-ages concert, with dancing encouraged, featuring local performers, young and old, professional and amateur, coming together as a community to support our brothers and sisters in Haiti.
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Delusion: Laurie Anderson Talks with Joe Thompson at Mass MoCA
Vancouver Winter Olympics Then Williams Feb. 27
By: - Jan 21st, 2010Performance artist, musician and composer, Laurie Anderson, has been in residence at Mass MoCA working on Delusion a new work commissioned for the Vancouver Winter Olympics. She will return to the Berkshires performing February 27 at the 62 Center of Williams College.
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Helen Molesworth ICA's New Chief Curator
Leaves Harvard to Join the ICA in February
By: - Jan 13th, 2010In the art world equivalent of musical chairs Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art has snatched its new chief curator, Helen Molesworth, from Harvard. Not long ago the ICA lost a young curator, Jen Mergel, to the MFA. What next in these musical chairs with an empty seat at Harvard which has put on indefinite hold its plans for a new modern/ contemporary museum.
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Patrick Sky: A Preserver of Irish Tradition?
The Fall and Rise of the Uilleann Pipes Tradition
By: - Jan 05th, 2010Patrick Sky was a prominent protest singer during the 60's. His caustic wit, outspoken views and willingness to test the boundaries of good taste added to his reputation as angry young man, malcontent and practical joker. His musicianship and intuitive sense of traditional forms made him a natural as a producer of recordings by artists such as Mississippi John Hurt, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Paul Geremia as well as the many other artists he recorded for his Green Linnet label.. Underlying his career was a sensitivity and a passion for causes, political and artistic. So when he embraced Irish traditional music…
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Inigo Manglano-Ovalle at Mass MoCA
People Who Live in Glass Houses
By: - Dec 09th, 2009While on a tight deadline to complete the installation of "Gravity Is a Force to Be Reckoned With" in the vast Building Five at Mass MoCA Inigo Manglano-Ovalle took a break to discuss his work. He will simultaneously show "Juggernaut" at the Williams College Museum of Art. A Williams alumnus class of '83 in 2005 he received the college's Bicentennial Medal.
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NY's National Arts Club
Titubating with the Smart Set
By: - Dec 06th, 2009It is always a treat and a part of our visits to NY to have dinner in the Iiffany designed National Arts Club next to bucolic Grammery Park. It is fully booked during the Holidays when after dining we danced the night away to the old timey music of a dixieland band.
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Patricia Racette Dialogue at the Morgan Library
Celebrating Puccini's 150th birthday
By: - Dec 04th, 2009Patricia Racette shared insights into operatic performance and Puccini at the Morgan Library. The lecture on "Adventures in Italian Opera" was co-sponsored by the Morgan and the Casa Italiana of New York University. The evening's moderator was opera and Italian culture aficionado, Fred Plotkin.
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Figurative Expressionist Irving Kriesberg
Rembering the Artist
By: - Nov 27th, 2009Seminal New York Figurative Expressionist Irving Kriesberg passed away at the age of 90 at home in Manhattan. Irving started painting during the wave of Abstract Expressionism but never strayed from using the figure. A tribute to a great artist and friend.
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David Omar White - A Remem-bromance
Recalling Artist/ Illustrator and White Rabbit
By: - Nov 14th, 2009The Boston artist/ illustrator David Omar White (1927-2009) died on June 26. He is fondly recalled by David Wilson, the publisher/ editor of Avatar, Broadside/Free Press, from their many collaborations during the turmoil of the underground press in the 1960s. Wilson started the White Rabbit comic strip which Omar took over. It later appeared in the Cambridge Phoenix, The Real Paper, and the Boston Globe. His last gallery affiliation was with Boston's former Genovese Sullivan Gallery.Though confined to a wheel chair he created and exhibited until the end.
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The Fantasticks, the Methuselah of Musicals at Barrington Stage Company
BFA Interviews its Creator, Tom Jones
By: - Oct 05th, 2009The Fantasticks tells an age-old tale of a boy, a girl, two fathers, and a wall. Its stage is a wooden platform, its scenery a tattered cardboard moon. Using only these bare essentials, it has become the most performed musical in history. Its creator Tom Jones tells us why.
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John Barrett Intends to Remain Mayor of North Adams
Tough Questions, Revealing Answers
By: - Sep 19th, 2009John Barrett, the "Dean of Massachusetts Mayors" is fighting to see his vision for North Adams fulfilled. In this, his 14th run for Mayor, he faces off against challenger Richard Alcombright. We asked him about the race and his hopes for the city he loves.
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John Douglas Thompson as The Emperor Jones
Rave New York Times Review at Irish Repertory Theatre
By: - Sep 03rd, 2009This summer John Douglas Thompson thrilled audiences at Shakespeare & Company as the lead in "Othello." He also worked with two other actors in a riveting production of John Patrick Shanley's "The Dreamer Examines His Pillow." This fall he moves to New York's Irish Repertory Theatre in Eugene O'Neill's rarely produced, 1920 play, "The Emperor Jones." NY Times calls production "magical."
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Olympia Dukakis Returns to Shakespeare & Company
Talking With a Titan of the Theater
By: - Aug 29th, 2009At the age of 78, Olympia Dukakis could easily retire having earned the title of legendary actress and a mantle full of Oscars, Obies, Gabbys and Golden Globes. Instead the busiest actor of her generation makes a surprising decision - to return to Shakespeare & Company and work with her old friend and favorite student, Tony Simotes.
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Tina Packer: Part Two
Edith Wharton's The Mount and Beyond
By: - Aug 25th, 2009There were books strewn about in the libarary, ice on the floors and broken shutters when Tina Packer and Shakespeare & Company moved into Edith Wharton's The Mount 32 years ago. There was an increasingly contentious relationship with Edith Wharton Restoration Inc. In 2000 S&Co purchased and moved to its current Lenox campus.
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Tina Packer's 32 Years of Shakespeare & Company
Why She's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
By: - Aug 23rd, 2009In June, Tina Packer turned over the day to day operation of Shakespeare & Company to the new Artistic Director, Tony Simotes. Recently she discussed 32 years at S&Co. as well as plans this fall to perform at the Publick Theatre in Boston and the Mercury Theatre Company in Great Britain. She will return to S&Co. next season as its Designated Hitter.
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Will LeBow Reflects on 32 Years of Theatre
Seventeen of Them at American Repertory Theatre
By: - Aug 13th, 2009The veteran actor Will LeBow performs as a piano playing ghost in the world premiere of the Melinda Lopez play "Caroline In Jersey" at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. We met to discuss the past 32 years in theatre with the last 17 years in the company of the American Repertory Theatre.
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Randy Harrison Interview: Ibsen's Ghosts at Berkshire Theatre Festival
The Actor Talks About Renewing a Classic
By: - Aug 05th, 2009When Randy Harrison takes on a classic role like Oswald in Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts, old plays become new again. He insists that he is but one small part of a BTF creative team that has reunited to overhaul this vintage play. But when this actor is involved, we know it could become the most talked about play of Summer 2009. We ask Harrison just what's going on inside that closed rehearsal studio.
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Lea Thompson and Matt McGrath to Debut Caroline in Jersey
Another World Premiere for Williamstown Theatre Festival
By: - Aug 02nd, 2009There is a hive of activity surrounding Williamstown Theatre Festival's premiere of Caroline in Jersey, and a lot of the buzz surrounds actors Lea Thompson and Matt McGrath, and the return of Laika, the Russian Canine Cosmonaut. This new play sounds so strange that those involved won't reveal much about it. But dig we must, and they threw us a bone or two.
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Justin Waldman at Williamstown Theatre Festival
Directs Play by Noah Haidle
By: - Jul 25th, 2009Last summer Justin Waldman directed the one man play 'The Atheist" which ran Off Broadway from September through January after two weeks at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He sat with us to discuss "What Is the Sound of Thunder?" by Noah Haidle which he has directed in its world premiere at WTF.
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