Williamstown Theatre Festival

In the intimate Nikos Stage of the Williamstown Theatre Festival the smash hit The Last Goodbye is the hottest and toughest ticket of the summer. It combines the cult rock of the late Jeff Buckley with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Forget West Side Story. That was then and this is now. This is the best new musical and best Romeo and Juliet I have ever seen. Trust me.

This summer Campbell Scott has anchored a star studded cast in Nicholas Martin's production of Thornton Wilder's classic Our Town. This is his fifth season of participating in the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He has just wrapped shooting the upcoming season of the TV drama series Damages. In an in depth interview Scott discussed wanting to do more writing and directing. As well his productive and challenging life in theatre.

For his final production as artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival Nicholas Martin has put 40 actors on stage including many community members. There is an all star cast starting with the magnificent Campbell Scott as the Stage Manager. Joining him are such WTF regulars as Becky Ann Baker and her husband Dylan Baker, John Rubenstein and Jessica Hecht. An actual Williams Professor, Sam Crane, plays, guess what, a Professor..

It has been a great year for veteran actress Jessica Hecht. In addition to Brighton Beach Memoirs her second Broadway play this season, View from the Bridge, earned her a Tony nomination as Best Actress. She also had a riveting role in an episode of the TV hit The Good Wife. For her 7th season at the Williamstown Theatre Festival she is appearing in Nicholas Martin's all star production of Our Town.

Since its 1995 Parisian premiere Art by Yasmina Reza has been translated into 30 languages and performed all around he world. On Broadway Reza has won Tonys for Art as well as God of Carnage. Art was presented as a staged reading at the Clark in collaboration with Williamstown Theatre Festival several months ago. It is presented at Barrington Stage Company this summer. There will be a free staged reading at Mass MoCA on August 4. We wonder why this play is so universally admired?

A family of Marxist activists is thrown into turmoil when in 1999 it was revealed that its patriarch was among 349 identified through decoded wartime messages to have been collaborators and spies for the Soviet Union. Emma has founded an organization named for her disgraced grandfather. This is the background for the superb play After the Revolution by Amy Herzog in its world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. It is by far the best new play of a rich and diverse Berkshire season.

The much anticipated world premiere of a musical Pool Boy by Nikos Tsakalakos and Janet Allard ended up drowning at Barrington Stage. It is slated for intensive care and an extreme makeover if it hopes to have legs beyond this ambitious, zesty but messy production in Pittsfield. With a lot of work there may yet be life after this D.O.A. debut.

Elizabeth Aspenlieder who won an Elliot Norton Award for Best Solo Performanceâ€"returns this summer for a special , limited run in a freshly re-imagined production directed by Eric Tucker (Women of Will this season , Pinter’s Mirror 2009). Haley Walker. The show that set the Berkshires astir in 2009â€"and nettarismatic heroine of Theresa Rebeck’s Bad Dates , possesses a sharp wit and an unsinkable determination to pursue the promise of new love , even while providing for her daughter.

The 1993 film, based on John Guare's 1990 play Six Degrees of Separtation made a star of Will Smith in the role of the hustler and con artist Paul. Based on the stunning and witty performance of Ato Essandoh we again witness an emerging star in the riveting role. Essandoh, who impersonates the son of Sidney Poitier to gain access to the homes and resources of wealthy New Yorkers, is the invaluable glue that holds together an otherwise uneven production at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Seeing Essandoh as Paul assures potential bragging rights for years to come.

Dylan Baker has been nominated for an Emmy Award as Best Guest Actor in a Drama. He played a charming villain accused of murdering his wife in The Good Wife. The lawyer Alicia Florrick got him off. In the next episode he was arrested for murdering a mistress during kinky sex. He also appeared this year in several episodes of Ugly Betty and on Broadway in God of Carnage. He took a break from rehearsing Our Town, directed by Nicholas Martin, to discuss a career that includes thirteen seasons at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

The father of Samuel J. abandoned him when he was four. His mother adopted Samuel K. who was abandoned by his parents in Cameroon when he was three. They are brothers. Or are they is the theme of a provocative play by Mat Smart having its world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Compared to Sweeney Todd the second production of the season at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield is as different as black and white. Well, more white on white actually. The Tony Award winning play by Yazmina Reza, Art, focuses on the divisive responses of two friends to a collector's acquisition of a minimalist painting. The evening of theater brings out the worst in everyone. To the amused delight of audiences.

Meeting with Nicholas Martin the artistic director for the Williamstown Theatre Festival I assumed this was the last of our seasonal meetings. This is his third and final year of running WTF. But he surprised me by stating that he will be back next year. To direct a play. In an at times intense and emotional interview we discussed his legacy. As well as insights regarding Stephen Sondheim and his impact on musical theatre in America. Martin is directing Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" this summer. It will feature a cast of many of the WTF "Family."

This summer through fall foliage the arts are flourishing in North Adams. Now in its eleventh year Mass MoCA is lending a helping hand to a vital, imaginative and ever more vital arts community. New Mayor Dick Alcombright is working shoulder to shoulder with Joe Thompson of Mass MoCA, MCLA, local galleries, artists and community leaders. Now in its third year there are 35 stops on the Down Street arts map. There's a free trolley to get you around town. Events include a huge Wilco Festival at Mass MoCA, the Eagle Street Beach Party, and River Lights III. A world record sidewalk drawing is in the planning stages. Lots of family fun from now till whenever.

So, what's a nice Jewish, six foot three inch, Lesbian, mother of two doing in the Berkshires? Standup at Williamstown Theatre Festival. Who would believe it? Trying to get enough money for an apartment with two bathrooms so her kids stop like pissing in the sink already. This Jewdy, yeah, she spells it Jewdy, is such a comic. Like the Borscht Belt, only gay. And in Williamstown where the rich goyim live. That's funny.

Sweeney Todd, the masterpiece of the now 80-year-old genius, and Williams grad, Stephen Sondheim, is given a state of the art, Broadway level production at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. With no compromise on artistic integrity this is stunning musical theatre in an intimate setting. We enjoy signifiying, titubating performances and magnificent music up close and personal at a fraction of Broadway ticket prices. This is Berkshire theatre at its finest.

In a bit of musical chairs, Tony award winner Barbara Cook replaces a scheduled appearance by Elaine Stritch at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. The much anticipated concert will occur on August 15. The Stritch appearance has been postponed because she is joining the Broadway cast of Sondheim's A Little Night Music. This season Cook appeared on Broadway in Sondheim on Sondheim.

Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield has launched its season with a sell out, smash hit production of the Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez. There are just a few seats available for the run which ends on June 17. Just when the Main Stage starts the Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd. The hit Whipping Man must give way on Stage Two for a two week run of last year's hit Freud's last Session. The play which premiered with Barrington is having a tuneup prior to opening Off Broadway this summer. Let the games begin.

Producers Tony Ponturo and Fran Kirmser announced that LOMBARDI, a new American play from Academy Award-winning playwright Eric Simonson, directed by Tony Award nominee Thomas Kail, will preview at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, Mass. July 22-28, before moving to the Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway this fall (previews begin September 23, opening night is October 21). Starring Dan Lauria and Judith Light, LOMBARDI is based on the best-selling biography When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss.

After three years Nicholas Martin will step down as the artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival. An alumna of WTF, Jenny Gersten will take over next season. With Martin's program in place this timely appointment will allow for an orderly transition.

The launch of the Fourth of July arts season in the Berkshires will be like an explosion in a fireworks factory. There has never been a greater offering of superb and diverse performances. While three days of James Taylor and Carole King at Tanglewood sold out ages ago there are many other top options. Mass MoCA is going head to head with Tanglewood on Friday night. It has Richie Havens vs. The Pops. Barrington Stage and Williamstown Theatre Festival will duke it out with dueling Sondheim musicals. There is a ton of stuff at Shakespeare & Company including the opening of John Douglas Thompson in Richard III. Jacobs Pillow and Berkshire Theatre Festival are in the mix. We offer a complete rundown.

Celebrating the 8oth Birthday of God, AKA Stephen Sondheim, there are many productions for audiences to chose from. The biography and review, with Sondheim appearing in video clips, Sondheim on Sondheim, has opened on Broadway. It features a lively cast headlining Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams and Tom Wopat. In the Berkshires productions of Sweeney Todd will open at Barrington Stage Company while A Funny Thng Happened on the Way to the Forum will be presented at Williamstown Theatre Company. The dueling musicals open on Fourth of July weekend.

In announcing highlights of the 2010 season the departing artistic director, Nicholas Martin, states that "For my final summer at the theatre I love, I want to produce a series of the kinds of plays I love the most: American classics and new American plays." The season starts with Sondheim's "A Funny Thuing Happened on the Way to the Forum." It is the kind of music that was missing last year. Martin will direct and all star cast of Dylan Baker, Beck Ann Baker and Campbell Scott in the chestnut "Our Town." There will be new works for the Nikos Stage including a one woman play by Judy Gold.

The 2009 Tony Award winning Best Play, by Yasmina Reza has gone through yet another cast change. Jeff Daniels returns in the role for which he was nominated for a Tony. Lucy Liu adds star power to the Marquee. Yet again Dylan Baker demonstrates why he is the best actor you never heard of. Oscar nominee Janet McTeer completes the quartet of embattled parents in the most amusing and entertaining play now on Broadway.

Compared 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.