The Mount

Come for lunch, stay for tea. Measure for Measure is brilliantly played by the Apprentice Company as part of the Lunchtime Theatre, and more than a snack, it is the main course.

Tina Packer, after 32 years as Founding Dirctor of the Lenox based, Shakespeare & Company has stepped down. It was planned that Tony Simotes, now in his first season as Artistic Director, would be handed the reins of debt free company with a $10 million new facility including a second stage, The Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, and the start on an endowment. Then the economy fell off a cliff.

In recent years the Berkshires has emerged as a major theatre community. With four professional companies and eight stages it's becoming a force in American theatre. And behind the scenes there is another show going on as well. Read all about it.

Until its move to the Lenox campus Shakespeare & Company for many years presented its productions at the historic home of writer Edith Wharton The Mount in Lenox. From August 20-23 The Wharton Salon in partnership with The Mount will stage her comedy Xingu adapted from a short story by Dennis Krausnick.

Tony Simotes co-founded Shakespeare & Company with Tina Packer and other dedicated artists in 1978. Packer has led the noted company for thirty years as Artistic Director, and now he will take the helm. Packer will continue to guide the company's long term growth, which includes building a reproduction of the Elizabethan-era Rose Theatre in Lenox.

With $4 a gallon gas and a sinking economy 2008 was a challenge for arts and tourism in the Berkshires. But our contibutors covered not only the Berkshires but arts and culture in New York, Boston, London, New Orleans and Shanghai. We reflect on some of the highlights.

There are 60 artists, familiar and not, in the exhibition "Beyond the Canon: Small Scale American Abstraction 1945 to 1965" at the Robert Miller Gallery in New York. The Smithsonian American Art Museum has organized "Modern Masters: American Abstration at Midcentury" which is now on view at Florida International University through March 1,2009. It will tour six museums through 2012.

The Mount was the home of the writer Edith Wharton. It was built in the Berkshire Mountains to escape what she referred to as an overstuffed and suffocating life in New York and Newport, RI. It's where she wrote some of her classic books like "The House of Mirth," where she hosted distinguished friends like Henry James, and where she put into practice her sophisticated ideas of home d�cor and garden design. It is a special place created by a special American artist. It is currently in need of creative help.

Part Two of our report on saving money while enjoying the Berkshire's many performing arts attractions. Theater, music and dance are available at a discount, sometimes even Free!

For the past 30 years Tina Packard has brought Shakespeare to the Berkshires. Now Shakespeare & Company is gradually building out the campus it has moved to and is working toward year round programming. Tickets go on sale in January for a season that will be launched on Memorial Day Weekend. Let the games begin.