Williamstown Theatre Festival

In this segment of an extended dialogue with the playwright he describes a unique relationship with Julianne Boyd, the artistic director of Barrington Stage Company. They have worked together on a number of plays including the hits Freud’s Last Session, which continues its run Off Broadway through October and The Best of Enemies which will return to Barrington Stage from October 5 to 16. It opened to rave reviews and sold out houses in August. From New York Freud travels to Chicago for an open ended engagement

The Civilians is a multi media group based in Brooklyn. They have a unique working process identifying a topic and then undertaking research through recorded and transcribed interviews. For this all too brief and riveting performance at Williamstown Theatre Festival they explored divorce. Surprisingly, it provided a provocative and entertaining evening of theatre. Including encountering the Mom who inspired the play as a neighbor in the audience. It was intriguing to chat with her before and after the performance. Blurring, yet again, the boundary between life and art.

The production of Ten Cents a Dance based on a reworking of Rodgers and Hart by John Doyle is provoking a firestorm of controversy. The musical in which five women sing and play instruments with a male piano player is inspiring praise and scorn from audiences and critics. Everyone emerges from Williamstown Theatre Festival with an opinion. Here are links to positive and negative reviews. Don't miss the chance to wade in on this. See it while you can.

Tony Award winning playwright and director John Doyle, as well as, WTF artistic director Jenny Gersten are in denial that Ten Cents a Dance, a rehash of work by Rodgers and Hart is a "jukebox musical." But if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck? This cut and paste job is being passed off as a "an American premiere." You decide.

Increasingly the marketing and pr strategy of theatre companies has turned to social networking sources like Facebook and Twitter to drown out the negative reviews of established print and on line critics. Today Williamstown Theatre Festival sent out an e mail blast with raves from unattributed sources. The majority of Berkshire theatre critics were less than thrilled by the world premiere of Touch(ed) by Bess Wohl. But, hey, who cares what critics think?

Tony Award-winning actress Blythe Danner will be the featured guest on Judy Carmichael’s “Jazz Inspired” on Saturday, September 3, at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival. Danner will perform with pianist Mike Renzi and bassist Neal Miner. Judy Carmichael’s “Jazz Inspired” will be taped before a live audience at Seiji Ozawa Hall on Saturday, September 3, at 2 pm, and broadcast at a later date on 170 stations in the United States and worldwide.

Touch(ed) by Bess Wohl had its world premiere at Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, Utah, January 8 to 23, 2010. Based on this second production at Williamstown Theatre Festival it is still a work in progress needing an extreme makeover. Don't expect to see this ersatz comedy about mental illness to reach Off Broadway any time soon.

For the past three seasons Nicholas Martin served as artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He returns this summer to direct the classic Oliver Goldsmith comedy She Stoops to Conquer. The current artistic director, Jenny Gersten, went all out in producing a sumptuous production of the 18th century play.

The production of Mark St. Germain's Freud's Last Session set the Barrington Stage record for most performances. It went on to Off Broadway where it has now passed 300 performances and is poised for a national and international tour. Now a new play by St. Germain has set a record for most tickets on the Main Stage for a drama. From July 21 through August 6 there were some 7,000 tickets sold.

The smaller Nikos Stage of the Williamstown Theatre Festival has long been known for presenting new plays many of which went on to runs Off Broadway. In her first season as artistic director, Jenny Gersten has added reworking classics to the Nikos program with mixed results. The season opener Streetcar Named Desire raised critical eyebrows. The second classic A Doll's House is a bomb that has arrived D.O.A. for a run that, ironically sold out on the lure of the potential of one of Ibsen's most enduring plays. Who knew?

As the Beatles song suggests, during a long and fruitful career in theatre, producer/ director, Nicholas Martin has been "Getting by with a little help from my friends." Actors from his well tended Rolodex regularly appear in plays that he produces and directs. Members of his theatrical family are gathered for the comedy She Stoops to Conquer which opens this week at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

When Nicholas Martin, after eight years of running the Huntington Theatre in Boston, took a similar position at Williamstown Theatre Festival the renowned festival was widely viewed as not what it had been. From 2008-2010 that state of the art excellence returned to the Berkshires. Under new artistic director, Jenny Gersten, Martin is directing She Stoops to Conquer surrounded by his theatrical family. During a rare day off we discussed his remarkable life in theatre.

When Rocco Landesman, the head of the NEA, suggested that there are too many arts organizations with supply outweighing demand there was a response of outrage in the arts community. Here in the Berkshires it begs the question of sufficient audience and patrons to support four major theatre companies. It also begs the question of the role of critics? Are we just providers of consumer information for ticket buyers?

Tommy sold out at the Colonial for the VIP opening on Saturday night. The reviews are staggering in, partly because some critics opted for an offer of better seats on Monday night. That doesn't give much time to promote an expensive show with a short run that ends on Saturday. We asked artistic director, Kate Maguire, about that during the opening night party.

If you know someone who knows someone try your best to score tickets to the sold out comedy hit of the Berkshire season. It has taken standup comedian Lewis Black some thirty years to sit down long enough to wrap up One Slight Hitch. It may entail another rewrite to reach Off Broadway but this hilarious production with a terrific cast will keep you in stitches at Wiilliamstown Theatre Festival through July 17.

With a blaze of fireworks to celebrate the Fourth of July, yesterday James Taylor before a capacity 18,000 ended a slam dunk weekend of three concerts in the Shed at Tanglewood. He shared Friday night with John Williams and Pops. Then took a rest on Saturday yielding the stage to Garrison Keillor before a flat our appearances on Sunday and Monday. He also snuck in an "intimate" evening with Friends last Thursday at Ozawa Hall. Having all those folks at Tangelewood provided a fast launch to another fabulous Berkshire season.

Three Hotels by Robin Baitz, which opens the Main Stage season for Williamstown Theatre Festival is a small thing in a really big package. A superb production with magnificent sets has pumped up a slight evening of three monologues by two actors in three acts without intermission. While taking on the mega issues of corporate greed and the genocide of African babies one emerges with ambivalence toward a couple who sold their souls and suffered the consequences.

In her eighth season with Williamstown Theatre Festival Jessica Hecht has taken on one of the most challenging roles of her career. We discussed a life in theatre as well as an interpretation of Streetcar Named Desire that is based entirely on a careful reading of the script. It is quite different from the audience's perceptions based on the classic film with Marlon Brando and Vivian Leigh.

In the Williamstown Theatre Festival's production of Tennessee Williams's 1947 American classic, Jessica Hecht as Blanche, and Sam Rockwell, as Stanley, offer fresh and very different interpretations than the paradigms for the roles set by Elia Kazan's great 1951 film version starring Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. This reinterpretation of an American standard gives an unique twist to the experimental Nikos Stage under new artistic director Jenny Gersten.

This weekend the Wilco Solid Sound Festival will bring upwards of 6,000 rock fans to Mass MoCA. In addition to music this young audience will enjoy a massive exposure to contemporary art. It is just the kind of demographic that promises synergy and future audiences for other North Adams/ Williamstown arts organizations including the Clark Art Institute, Williams College Museum of Art and Williamstown Theatre Festival. It takes strategy, marketing and PR to promote visiting Northern Berkshire County as more than just a day trip.

In 1950, as a little shaver, Mom took me to the original Broadway production of the then five time Tony winning musical Guys and Dolls. Now, decades later, be still dear heart, the production at Barrington Stage evokes a thrilling rush of childhood memories. I was enchanted then and just as ecstatic now. This is the smash hit and sure sell out that launches a fabulous new Berkshire season.

Williamstown Theatre Festival has released the full cast and creative team for Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, which will open the Nikos Stage productions for the 2011 Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF) and will run June 22, 2011 through July 3, 2011, opening June 23, 2011 at 7:30pm.

This week the Williamstown Theatre Festival will start to build the first of seven sets. There is the opening of Streetcar Named Desire on the Nikos Stage opening on June 22. That's just three weeks from now. With tech rehearsals on June 21 and 22 which means the set has to be installed on the 18th and 19th. That's the norm for WTF. But right now a crew of 15 is frantically building the set shops to build the sets. On February 11 the roof collapsed at the Delftree Mill which housed the former props and set workshops.

A Broadway bound production of You Can't Take It With You was initially announced to open the first season with Jenny Gersten as artistic director of the renowned Williamstown Theatre Festival. Recently WTF revealed Plan B. Now it appears that Robin Baitz’s two-person drama Three Hotels will be the leadoff. That is a cast and production cost reduction from 15 actors to two. We link to Larry Murry who has the full story for Berkshire On Stage.

In this final installment of their dialogue Murray and Giuliano discuss cutting edge theatre which is a mainstay of America Repertory Theatre in Cambridge. And why there is nothing like that in the Berkshires. Murray defines an approach as providing information to readers to help in making informed choices. With so much being offered this summer it is less about competition and more about a critical mass of superb theatre.