Legendary actor brings Quentin Crisp's Diaries to life

12:00AM / Tuesday, August 30, 2005Print Story | Email Story

Acclaimed British actor and three-time Obie award winner Bette Bourne portrays the eccentric, observant, and humorous Quentin Crisp

GREAT BARRINGTON - Direct from London, Resident Alien makes the first stop on its U.S. tour at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Friday, September 23, and Saturday, September 24 at 8PM. Acclaimed British actor and three-time Obie award winner Bette Bourne portrays the eccentric, observant, and humorous Quentin Crisp in a performance based upon interviews and Crispâ€™s own diary entries. Set in Crispâ€™s famously filthy one-room New York apartment at the Chelsea Hotel, Resident Alien is a moving monologue delivered by Crisp as he waits for lunch guests. 91-year old Crisp has an opinion on everything â€“ style, homosexuality, marriage, loneliness, the Internet, and Princess Diana â€“ and he muses upon such subjects with cutting wit and playful language, making him one of New Yorkâ€™s most infamous resident aliens. Famous for portraying women onstage, Bette Bourne seamlessly slips into the male character of Crisp, whose flamboyant personality made him a queer legend on both sides of the Atlantic. Both Bourne and Crisp played Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wildeâ€™s The Importance of Being Earnest. Bourne was a personal friend of Crispâ€™s, and his performance as Crisp has been widely acclaimed internationally. Tim Fountain, writer and director of Resident Alien, obtained exclusive access to Crispâ€™s diaries for the script and has also produced a biography and a documentary on Crispâ€™s outrageously peculiar life. Crisp died in 1999, just before the showâ€™s opening, while he was performing his own one man show, An Evening with Quentin Crisp. Resident Alien has been performed around the globe, premiering in London and traveling to sold-out shows in New York, Australia, Edinburgh, Boston, and Seattle. Tickets are $20/$30/$40. For more information, please call the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Box Office at 413.528.0100 or visit www.mahaiwe.org. About the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Built in 1905 and designated as a project of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, The Mahaiwe is one of the oldest surviving theaters in the country. With a rich history as both a vaudeville theater and a cinema house, an ongoing restoration has transformed the venue into a year-round center of cultural performance. The Mahaiwe is located at 14 Castle Street in Great Barrington.

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North Adams Officials to Revote School Committee Members

Staff reports06:31PM / Friday, October 09, 2026

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — City and school officials will meet a second time to vote in two new members of the School Committee.

The joint convention of the City Council and School Committee will be held on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the City Hall conference room and via Zoom.

Damon Grimes and Paul Moriarty were jointly elected on Monday to fill two seats vacated by resignation. They were two of four candidates standing for election.

Mayor Jennifer Macksey, chair of the School Committee, said she had received in inquiry about the votes, which were done by secret ballot.

"I have been advised that voting by ballot was not permissible in this circumstance," she said, after consulting the School Committee's attorney Adam Dupere and city solicitor KP Law.

To ensure the validity of the votes and conduct of the election, the joint convention will reconvene and formally confirm the selection of Grimes and Moriarty.

"I apologize for the inconvenience of having to reconvene," the mayor said in a statement. "My intention in using a ballot was to address concerns raised following our previous convention, when some members expressed discomfort with publicly voting for or against individual candidates.

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