Great Barrington - Karen Allen will direct the upcoming production of Joan Ackermann’s The Batting Cage at Simon’s Rock College of Bard. The production will take place in the Studio Theater of the Daniel Arts Center from Thursday through Sunday, March 9-12.
Ackermann’s play shows us two estranged sisters staying at an inn in St. Augustine, Florida. They have traveled together to dispose of the ashes of their recently deceased sister, as she had requested. But the ashes are lost in the travel, and the two sisters are left to deal with each other. Complete opposites, they grieve in entirely different ways, each moving from one extreme reaction to the other. The results are poignant.
Karen Allen is teaching in the theater department and directing this production. She has starred in over 30 feature films, in including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Animal House, Starman, Scroodged, the Glass Managerie, and Falling Sky. She has also appeared in numerous stage productions both on and off Broadway, including The Glass Menagerie, Extremitires, The Country Girl, The Miracle Worker, and Speaking in Tongues.
She won a Theater World Award for her work on Broadway portraying Helen Keller in The Monday After the Miracle. She studied acting with Stella Adler, Warren Robertson, and at the Strasberg Institute in New York. She studied voice with Kristen Linklater. Ms. Allen is a member of the Actor's Studio and of the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
She began her work in the theater as a student and company member of the Washington Theater Laboratory in Washington, D.C., an experimental theater company inspired by the work of Polish theater director Jerzy Greotowski. She attended George Washington University and was one of the creators and directors of the theater program at the Washington Project for the Arts, which brought theater companies from around the world to Washington, D.C.
Joan Ackermann, who adapted this play for the different age range of these actors, co-founded Mixed Company, a Great Barrington, Massachusetts-based theatre. In addition to The Batting Cage, Ackerman wrote the play Off the Map (she also wrote the screenplay); Zara Spook and Other Lures (1990 Humana Festival at Actor's Theatre of Louisville); Stanton's Garage (1993 Humana Festival); Don't Ride the Clutch; Bed and Breakfast; Rescuing Greenland; Isabella; A Knight at the Theatre and Back Story.
Ackermann's work has also been produced at the Vineyard Theatre in New York, Circle Rep, the George Street Theatre, Cleveland Playhouse, Shakespeare & Company, The Berkshire Theatre Festival and the Mark Taper Forum. In addition to her stage work, she has written and produced for television. A special contributor to Sports Illustrated for six years, Ackermann freelanced for The Atlantic, Audubon, GQ, New York Magazine, Time, and other periodicals.
The productions will begin each evening at 7:30 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday and Sunday. The play is not suitable for children. Donations will be accepted. For information, call 528-7293.
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Former Harry's Supermarket Under Construction for Restaurant
Late last month, the Conservation Commission greenlit some tree pruning on the property. New windows and a new door can be seen in the front of the building.
"It's a substantial renovation that's currently underway here," Brent White of White Engineering said, speaking on behalf of the applicant and owner, Huajie Zhu.
A fire gutted the longtime Wahconah Street supermarket in 2023, and the following year, Zhu purchased the property for $460,000 two years ago to build a restaurant with hibachi in the existing footprint of the more than 100-year-old building.
White explained that the project has been ongoing for over a year, and the Community Development Board granted the property a waiver to reduce the minimum required number of parking spaces so that additional spaces aren't needed.
He noted that, looking at the site plan, there is very little room to do so. A mirror will be installed near the sharp turn on Bel Air Avenue to alleviate traffic concerns.
Pruning will be done on trees in the southeast corner of the existing paved parking lot, as a number of branches are hanging over. The new owners also intend to patch, sealcoat, and re-stripe the parking lot.
A fire tore through the building less than an hour after the supermarket closed for the day three years ago. An automatic sprinkler system is required for the new use.
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