Shakespeare & Company welcomes Olympia Dukakis and Campbell Scott

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LENOX, Mass. - Shakespeare & Company Artistic Director Tony Simotes today announced the titles for the popular, 15th annual Studio Festival of Plays—the biggest yet! The annual Festival is a mini-marathon of plays new to the Company running ONE DAY ONLY in Founders’ Theatre on Monday, September 7 beginning at 11:30 am and running through 11pm.

Seven productions featuring Company actors and special guest actors will be presented throughout the day as works-in-progress and staged readings. A special Benefit reading of William Bigelow’s new play, Leap Year, featuring Olympia Dukakis and directed by Simotes, will kick off the Festival series a week early on Monday, August 31st at 7:00pm (separate release to follow). As in the past, members of the media are welcome to attend the Festival but works are not open to review.

Tickets for Festival productions are a $16 suggested donation per show, or a $60 suggested donation for a Festival Pass which gives admittance to all 7 performances. For information call the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or visit the newly redesigned website at www.shakespeare.org.

As part of Shakespeare & Company’s commitment to nurturing new voices in theatre and presenting cutting edge works, the Festival is an annual vehicle for exploring new plays and plays that may receive full productions in a future season. The plays are presented as workshop readings, with varying degrees of staging and production elements.


“The Festival is really an opportunity for us to embrace and generate opportunities for new voices to be heard,” says Simotes. “As well as continuing to nurture collaboration between actors, directors and designers of all backgrounds. By featuring these newer voices we bring vitality and exploration to our theatre and our audience’s perception of language in this new century.”

Over the past fourteen years, the Festival has presented many works that subsequently were given full productions in the Company’s regular season, including Mrs. Klein, Fortune and Misfortune, Laughing Wild, Goodnight Desdemona Good Morning Juliet, The Turn of the Screw, Brief Lives, Betrayal, The Mistress, Wit, Summer, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), A Tanglewood Tale, The Scarlet Letter, Ice Glen, Hamlet, Martha Mitchell Calling, No Background Music, The Goatwoman of Corvis County and last year’s hits of the Festival The Dreamer Examines His Pillow and White People are currently receiving full productions along with 2007 Festival favorite Devil’s Advocate in the new Elayne P. Bernstein theatre.

“I’ve tried to include pieces that embody what these new stories are,” adds Simotes, “that help define and redefine ourselves—much like Shakespeare did during his day, when the world was in the chaos of discovery during the Renaissance. Producing great works with great language will always be the core of our mission”, says Simotes.
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A Boutique Hotel is Bringing Guests a Luxury Stay in Lenox

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff

LENOX, Mass. — A new Inn is bringing a boutique-style stay for visitors and locals to enjoy.

Owners, Sullivan Capital LLC, purchased the property, located on 135 Main Street, in 2024. After a year or renovations, Garden Gables Inn is open for business. 

"Garden Gables started off as one of the many Berkshire cottages, 1790 was the date on that, and it's always operated as an inn," said Hospitality Manager Yvonne Walton. "It's just a great gathering place and relaxation spot for people to come and get the feel of Lenox, and just slow down and enjoy the nature and the surrounding area...get culture and art and see some great concerts. I think it'll be a wonderful place, definitely does more of the upper-scale hospitality." 

Owners Niko Giallouis and Eric Sullivan bought the property from the former owner. Sullivan had his eye on Lenox since attending a wedding almost 10 years ago.

"I came to a wedding in Lenox, probably six or seven years ago. Personally, just kind of fell in love with the area, and I guess that's kind of how it got on my radar. So you know from that perspective, as we got into the hotel business out towards an area, it was a place I was kind of monitoring and waiting for the right property to show up."

After purchasing the two underwent a full renovation, a project that cost around $1.5 million. The building, first built in 1780, required some TLC. Sullivan's wife, Jessica, who owns Jessica Sullivan Design, designed the inn.

Sullivan said they installed a new roof, repainted everything, renovated the bathrooms, installed new floors, a new HVAC system, and new plumbing.

"We really touched everything from the outside...I mean, all the aesthetics and layouts changed a bit," he said. "As I said, put about a million and a half into it. All new furniture, fixtures, everything. The design's completely different. It wasn't a full gut, but it was a heavy, heavy renovation."

The two like to collaborate with local businesses, and they make a point to direct visitors to local restaurants, businesses, and attractions.

"If guests are asking for recommendations, our customer service team, our guest services team, will relay that kind of information. Even if we can call and make a reservation for somebody, happy to do it," he said. "We aren't doing breakfast, but what we do is we have partnerships with a lot of the breakfast places downtown. We actually purchase a gift certificates for each person each day, so that they can use that to go downtown."

Sullivan hopes that guests don't see their inn as just a place to sleep and dump their bags, but make it an experience for anyone who stays.

"We really focus on kind of the experience side of things, so again, we want to give you the best experience you can have here...and we want that not just to be the place you put your bag and go do things. It's important to think of everything," he said.

Sullivan said partnerships are important to their business and are a way to connect with locals.

"The local partnerships, I can't stress that enough, because no matter how much and how great the room is, people are still going to want to go do other things," he said. "So, I think it just benefits everybody if we're all working together and so forth, and supporting the community, being neighborly too, because we are surrounded by residential homes...But we really try to put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, a lot of love into the building, all the details, really care about the senses," Sullivan said.

The Inn's check-in and reservations are completely online. When guests arrive, all they have to do is check in online and receive their code that they will use to enter their room. Sullivan hopes this helps create less stress for guests and gets them to their room as fast as possible, especially after a long trip.

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