Marcia Gay Harden reading in Adams to benefit Topia Arts Center

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Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden will visit Adams to raise funds for the town’s new Topia Arts Center. She will be reading Tony Kusher’s (Tony Pulitzer prize-winning author of Angel’s in America) new play called ONLY WE WHO GUARD THE MYSTERY SHALL BE UNHAPPY, a thought provoking play about the Iraqi children. Joining her are actors David Strathairn and Ajay Naidu. About Topia: Topia is the Greek word for landscapes. It represents the wide range of programming we plan to include at the new Performing Arts Center in Adams. Music from around the world, experimental theater works and readings, art exhibits, dance, circus arts, and film will be presented. There will also be workshops in movement, photography, film, cinematography and more. Today we begin with a presentation of a thought provoking play by Tony Kushner, intended as a work in progress. This play is Mr. Kushner’s response to the events following 9-11 which led our country into war in Afghanistan and Iraq. About the artists: Marcia Gay Harden. One of film, theatre and television’s uniquely original talents, the versatile Marcia Gay Harden was once again nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award© for her performance as Celeste Boyle in the critically-acclaimed film by Clint Eastwood. Harden won the Academy Award© in 2001 for her stunning portrayal of Lee Krasner opposite Ed Harris in the feature film Pollock. Harden won the New York Film Critics Award for best supporting actress and she received the Spirit of Sundance Award for her richly layered work in The Spitfire Grill. Her film credits include: Miller’s Crossing, Late for Dinner, Used People, Space Cowboys, Meet Joe Black, Flubber, Desperate Measures, Safe Passage, Crush, The First Wives’ Club, and Gaudi Afternoon. TV credits include: King of Texas, The Education of Max Bickford, Small Vices, Guilty Hearts. and Sinatra. Harden was featured on Broadway in Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America, which earned her a Tony nomination, a Drama Desk Award and a Theater World Award. She also starred in David Rabe’s Those the River Keeps, in the NY Public Theatre’s production of The Seagull directed by Mike Nichols and the New York Shakespeare Festival premiere production of Sam Shephard’s Simpatico. In addition to the Oscar that year, Harden won the New York Film Critics Award for best supporting actress and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. The actress graduated from the University of Texas with a B.A. in Theater and went on to earn an MFA from the graduate theatre program at New York University. Harden will next be seen in Dylan Kidd’s P.S. opposite Laura Linney. This Newmarket film will release in New York and Los Angeles in October, with a national roll-out in November. Harden also recently wrapped production on the independent film “American Gun” and has currently been shooting a pilot for Showtime entitled Hate. Earlier this year she starred in the Fox comedy Welcome to Mooseport. A seasoned actor on and off Broadway, on the big screen, and on television, David Strathairn attended Williams College before launching a successful acting career. Strathairn has appeared in many of his Williams College classmate John Sayles’ features, including his own and Sayles’ directorial debut THE RETURN OF SECAUCUS SEVEN. Other Sayles features for which Strathairn has starred include LIMBO, MATEWAN, BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET, EIGHT MEN OUT, CITY OF HOPE, and PASSION FISH. Continuing to work with Hollywood’s top directors, some of Strathairn’s film credits include Mike Nichols’s SILKWOOD, Stephen Gyllenhaal’s LOSING ISAIAH, Sydney Pollack’s THE FIRM, Tim Robbins’s BOB ROBERTS, Penny Marshall’s A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, Taylor Hackford’s DOLORES CLAIBOURNE and Curtis Hanson’s LA CONFIDENTIAL. Also working with Hollywood’s hottest talent, he has starred opposite Meryl Streep in THE RIVER WILD, with Richard Dreyfuss in LOST IN YONKERS, with Jessica Lange in LOSING ISAIAH, with Ray Liotta and Jamie Lee Curtis in DOMINICK AND EUGENE, with Sean Penn and Christopher Walken in AT CLOSE RANGE, with Debra Winger in A DANGEROUS WOMAN, with Ashley Judd and Oliver Platt in SIMON BIRCH, and with Sigourney Weaver and Julianne Moore in A MAP OF THE WORLD. David has appeared in the features BLUE CAR, which was purchased by Miramax from the 2002 Sundance festival, and HARRISON’S FLOWERS, opposite Andie Macdowell. His extensive stage work includes a lead performance in Vaclav Havel’s “Temptation” at Joseph Papp Public Theatre as well as “Einstein and The Polar Bear,” “The Three Sisters” with Billy Crudup and Marcia Gay Harden, and “Dance of Death” with Sir Ian McKellan and Helen Mirren. Television credits include the HBO features “In The Gloaming” and “The James Brady Story,” “The American Clock” for TNT, “Lathe of Heaven” for A&E, which was directed by Philip Haas, and the CBS miniseries “Day One.” David also had a recurring arc on “The Sopranos”, and was a regular on the television series “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” and David Milch’s series “Big Apple.” Strathairn recently wrapped an independent project entitled CHERRY DOCS. Born in 1972, Ajay Naidu was raised in the Chicago area by immigrant parents who came to the U.S. in 1964. Ajay's parents instilled a deep connection to their homeland in him and as a result Ajay has traveled back to India almost every year since he was 7. At the age of 11, Ajay auditioned for an open call and was cast in the role of Maria Conchita Alonso's son alongside Michael Keaton in the feature "Touch and Go" (1985). This led to several starring TV appearances and two other starring film roles in "Where the River Runs Black" (1985) and "Vice Versa" (1988) by the time he was 14. During high school, Ajay began training heavily in theatre and by graduation Ajay would work extensively in Chicago-area productions. In 1994, after studying at an arts program at Columbia College, he would be accepted to the American Repertory Theatre Institute (ART) for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. After completing his degree, Naidu landed leading roles in "Romeo and Juliet" in Denver and the title role in "Everyman" at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre in 1996. Richard Linklater then tapped the actor to portray the Pakistani owner of a convenience store in "subUrbia" (1997), which in turn led to a long string of roles in independent as well as Hollywood features. His performance in "SubUrbia,", as a young Pakistani store owner and engineering student who is harassed by a white teenager, won him a nomination for an IFP Independent Spirit Award. Naidu has played a variety of characters in his film career spanning 20 years. In roles as varied as those of comically disgruntled software engineer to perfume expert to South Asian gang member. For his performance as a series regular on the hit show Lateline, Ajay was invited to the Whitehouse to meet President Bill Clinton. In 2001 he was seen playing a wrongly accused terrorist on NBC's West Wing which was billed as their most watched episode to date. His performance in the cult hit Office Space has turned him into a household name. With well over two dozen films to his credit it is evident that Ajay is well at home in the highest dramatic roles as well as the most comedic. Benefit for Topia Arts Center Plunkett Auditorium at 7pm on February 17th 14 Commercial Street, Adams Tickets $15 general admission, and $75 (Limited $75 Premium Seating includes a reception with Ms. Harden and the actors after the performance at Café Topia) For information and tickets call (413) 743-9600 or visit www.TopiaArts.org
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Pittsfield Community Development OKs Airport Project, Cannabis Amendment

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Community Development Board has supported plans for a new hangar at the airport and a change to the cannabis ordinance.

Lyon Aviation, located in the Pittsfield Municipal Airport, plans to remove an existing "T" style hangar and replace it with a new, 22,000-square-foot hangar.  The existing one is said to be small and in poor condition while the new build will accommodate a variety of plane sizes including a larger passenger jet.

"There's no traffic impacts, there's no utilities to speak of," Robert Fournier of SK Design Group explained.

"I'll say that we did review this at length with the airport commission in the city council and this is the way we were instructed to proceed was filing this site plan review and special permit application."

The application states that the need for additional hangar space is "well documented" by Lyon, Airport Manager Daniel Shearer, and the airport's 2020 master plan. The plan predicts that 15 additional hangar spaces will be needed by 2039 and this project can accommodate up to 10 smaller planes or a single large aircraft.

Lyon Aviation was founded in 1982 as a fix-based operator that provided fuel, maintenance, hangar services, charter, and flight instruction.

This is not the only project at the Tamarack Road airport, as the City Council recently approved a $300,000 borrowing for the construction of a new taxi lane. This will cover the costs of an engineering phase and will be reduced by federal and state grant monies that have been awarded to the airport.

The local share required is $15,000, with 95 percent covered by the Federal Aviation Administration and the state Department of Transportation's Aeronautics division.

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