Berkshire Spring into Summer Preview 2008

We will have to wait a bit longer until the Boston Symphony begins its concerts on July 5th with James Levine conducting the much anticipated Berlioz The Trojans.

Nevertheless, Tanglewood itself opens for the season on June 26 and 27 with the Mark Morris Dance Group with the Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows and Orchestra. There will be the world premiere of a new work by the brilliant choreographer, with costumes by Susan Ruddie. The music includes works by Barber,  Schubert and Brahms.

Garrison Keillor and his popular radio program will make their annual broadcast from Tanglewood with the Stockbridge Bowl filling in for Lake Wobegone on June 28th at 5:45. His  program and broadcast are very popular locally.

The BSO Chamber Players are the first chairs of the regular orchestra and they will present a diverse program of works by Harbison, Mozart and Dvorak for various quintet ensembles.

Ticket Buying Tips: You can purchase a Lawn Pass Book of 11 tickets at a discount before June 25th. These are good for BSO and Pops Concerts only (not popular artists, Jazz, TMC or Tanglewood on Parade events.) Please note that when we last checked, the James Taylor concerts were sold out.

Many parts of the country count themselves lucky if they have one professional theater company to see and enjoy, and we are blessed with four of exceptional merit. In looking at the extensive choice of shows to see, it is clear that this is the most exciting summer for theater that the Berkshires has ever enjoyed. And while these are my top choices, there are many other companies in and just a bit beyond the Berkshires doing quality work. Please use our Arts Links feature at the top of the page to see them all.

This Pulitzer Prize and Tony winning play by Doug Wright tells the true story of East German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. She eluded persecution by both the Nazis and the Soviets through a rare combination of guile and deceit. 

This is a multi-layered tale which is theatrical, historical and gender bending. We plan to cover the Barrington production with a triptych of reviews by Charles Giuliano, Astrid Hiemer and myself. Each will focus on a different aspect of the time, the place and the person.

I Am My Own Wife will also debut the company's new second stage at 36 Linden Street. in the VFW Hall,  just a couple of blocks from their main stage in Pittsfield.

A month long celebration welcomes the homecoming of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, William  Finn's delightfully successful musical as it returns to their new home on Union Street in Pittsfield. This musical was created, workshopped and developed by BSC in the company's former Great Barrington location where it was first given life in 2004. From there it moved to Broadway where it took two Tony Awards.

It relates the tale of six young spellers who learn that winning isn't everything, and that losing doesn't necessarily make you a loser.  If you would like to help honor William Finn and welcome the production home, be sure to mark June 21 on your calendar and call the company at (413) 499-5446 x110 to join the celebration.

BSC's innovative and successful Musical Theatre Lab also swings into action in June. Last summer's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick will receive a full production.  It relates the story of a writer who once left a series of astonishing sketches at a publisher's office promising to return the next day to further explain them. Inspired by Chris Van Allsburg's book, it offers a possible explanation. In the process, it takes the audience on a wild ride through wonder, fear and the imagination.

Performed at BSC's Second Stage located at 36 Linden Street, in the VFW Hall.

The season began at Shakespeare & Company with a marvelous Bash to celebrate the 444th birthday of the Bard. Director Tina Packer reminded me once again of how and why a writer of the sixteenth century can still mean so much to those of us who are living in the twenty-first.

The Ladies Man by Charles Morey, freely translated and adapted from Georges Feydeau's Tailleur Pour Dames and directed by Kevin Coleman. It reunites actors Elizabeth Aspenlieder and Jonathan Croy from last summer's hit Rough Crossing, along with set designer Carl Sprague and costume Designer Govane Lohbauer.

Morey borrows from The Ladies' Dressmaker, Feydeau's first big hit (though rarely performed in English), and the most-performed Feydeau piece, A Flea in Her Ear, which will also be done in the Berkshires later this season by the Williamstown Festival.

The story revolves around a physician who surreptitiously returns home one morning (through the parlor window), hoping his overnight absence has gone unnoticed by his much younger wife. The story of just where he spent the night—and why—propels this rollicking farce, as Monsieur Molineux scampers to avoid a too-persistent suitor and her muscle-bound husband.  There is also a pestering patient oblivious both to his own speech impediment and the fact that he's not welcome, and most of all, there is the fearsome wrath of the mother-in-law.

"This play is a farce, and that means doors," Director Coleman says. "Any farce requires a series of doors, to enable unexpected coincidences and undesired rendez-vous. But it's also about the complicated maze of high society and expectations these characters have to weave through to find happiness. I think all of us know that sometimes your best plans can get slammed right in your face."

This play demonstrates that the essence of great farce is a tightly constructed story that maintains scrupulous fidelity to its own internal logic—however twisted it may be. In the midst of all the slamming doors and a parade of unfortunate coincidences, at the heart of this play is a (mostly) honest husband who is just too embarrassed to explain to his pretty wife why he insists on separate bedrooms. It adds up to a feast of language and wordplay. if you like a good hearty laugh, this is the ticket.

Founder, Artistic Director, Actress, and all 'round Renaissance Woman Tina Packer is going to direct this Shakespearian delight, and I can hardly wait. She laughingly calls it an almost adult comedy.

One of Shakespeare's "festive" works, written soon after Othello, it's the topsy-turvy tale of an orphan bride in a self-brokered marriage who can't get her husband to take her love—or her virginity. As all girls know, losing virginity is as important as keeping it. But no fear; "Girls just wanna have fun," and Helena is a girl with a plan.

Part fairy tale, part cautionary fable and wholly poking fun at the parts of both genders, All's Well That Ends Well asks us to suspend disbelief and visit a world when medicine was magic and the power of love conquered all.

It is one of Shakespeare's simplest stories, written for entertainment and fun. Yet it rings true with the foolishness and chemistry of young love, the sadness and foibles of age, and the bumps taken on the way to self-awareness.

The curtain rises in Stockbridge on May 25 with a production of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker in the intimate Unicorn Theatre.

The Caretaker is an enigmatic and sinister comedy about the struggle for power as only a Nobel Prize winning playwright can craft. Here the rickety relationship of two brothers, Aaron and Mick, is turned upside down when Davies, a homeless man enters their lives. A  peek into the manipulative minds of three insecure men, it is the best kind of a play, one than can gnaw at you for many weeks afterwards.

Director Eric Hill comments: "I'm excited to examine the dramatic tension and mystery of Pinter – always a study in trying to get behind the words and underlying causes of the relationships."

The BTF  Main Stage comes alive on June 23 with George Bernard Shaw's 1894 comedy Candida. Directed by Anders Cato and featuring David Schramm, this delightful classic was first performed 80 years ago during the Berkshire Playhouse's inaugural season.

Time has not dimmed either the fun nor the lessons to be learned when a dashing young poet comes between a socially progressive minister and his charismatic wife. Though the play revolves around a classic romantic triangle, the questions it raises about love, fidelity and the imagination of the artist are as relevant today as they were then.

I first visited this legendary company 30 years ago when I spent the Summer at Tanglewood as the BSO's Assistant Promotion Manager. I escaped to the theater when I could, and have loved this amazing company in Stockbridge ever since.

The comedy classic Beyond Therapy by Christopher Durang shows how a series of chance meetings through a personal ad provides two New Yorkers with a multitude of topics for their therapy sessions. The lines between doctor and patient get hilariously blurred.

Directed by Alex Timbers and with Kate Burton, Tony winner Katie Finneran and with tv and film stars Tom Cavanagh (Ed and Scrubs)  and Darrell Hammond (SNL) as well as WTF favorite Matt McGrath and exciting newcomer Bryce Pinkham fresh from BC and Yale.

This wacky play delivers a water-splashing, show-tune humming look at the idiosyncrasies of the heart. On the Nikos Stage.

The Atheist by Ronan Noone and directed by Festival Artistic Associate Justin Waldman. It stars Campbell Scott in what may well be a one man tour-de-force. Scott plays Augustine Early, a journalist who will do anything to get his next front page story. When shady political dealings whet his appetite for success, the consequences could be much more than he anticipated, deferring his quest to catch a pitch-perfect headline. Nikos Stage.

Nicholas Martin is the new Artistic Director of the festival, and it is this Main Stage production of the much loved musical comedy She Loves Me that will be his initial production. It is currently running at Boston's Huntington Thatre Company which is his current home.

I am a fan of the former actor, since his earliest theatre experience closely mirrors mine:

You may be familiar with She Loves Me, as it was the basis for the popular Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie, You've Got Mail, but you've never seen it like this before. Two unlikely sweethearts, Georg (Brooks Ashmanskas, Tony Nominee, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me) and Amalia (Kate Baldwin – Wonderful Town, Thoroughly Modern Millie), work together during the day, but are unaware they are writing love letters to each other anonymously at night.

Complete with the requisite quirky co-workers who surround them (Troy Britton-Johnson - The Drowsy Chaperone, Latessa – Tony Award, Hairspray, Stone – Grease!, The Odd Couple), She Loves Me blends a quixotic mix of wit and romanticism, timelessly invoking the old-world glamour of days gone by.