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Blythe Danner was interviewed earlier this week at the Williams Inn by iBerkshires features writer Phyllis McGuire.

Danner Returns To Williamstown Theatre Festival

By Phyllis McGuireSpecial to iBerkshires
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Actor/director Bob Balaban is directing Blythe Danner in the world premiere of Lucy Boyle's 'The Blue Deep' on the Nikos Stage beginning June 27.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — "Places everyone" is a familiar call to theater artists. Yet, no matter how often they hear the call, it stirs emotions in actors and directors.

The multitalented Bob Balaban is an actor, author, director and producer but, he said, when he hears the call "Places!' "It's like I never did anything before. It's frightening and fun!"

For Blythe Danner, that call always induces an adrenaline rush and, with her return to the Williamstown Theatre Fesival after a dozen years, a flood of memories.

"Your whole life starts to spit back at you," she said. "My daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) was 2 and I was pregnant with my son, Jake, when I was doing 'Ring Around the Moon' in 1975 with Frank Langella. The director said I wasn't as lively as usual," she said, playfully running her hand over an imaginary big belly.   

Langella, she said, could attest to Jake's letting it be known he was a power to be dealt with. "[During a performance] we were locked in a kiss and my son hauled off and kicked him," said Danner. " 'What was that?' Frank asked.'"  From then on, Langella tried to stay a safe distance from her.

Danner and Balaban, who is directing her in "The Blue Deep" on the Nikos Stage, were at the Williams Inn on Tuesday to discuss the opening productions for the Williamstown Theatre Festival's 2012 season. With them were Tyne Daley and David Hyde Pierce, who is directing a reconception of the "Importance of Being Earnest" on the Main Stage.

The festival's artistic director Jenny Gersten made it clear that she is pleased with this season's program and the return of veteran performer Danner

"We're opening with a new play, that is so wonderful," Gersten said. "And it's a great gift to have Blythe back."

It was an opportunity, she said for Danner to be on the Nikos Stage, named after longtime artistic director Nikos Psacharopoulos who died in 1989. "Blythe did so many (productions) with Nikos in the past," said Gersten.

The award-winning actor first appeared at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1974 and became a regular over the next 25 years and later a member of its board. She last walked the boards in "Tonight at Eight Thirty" a dozen years ago.

"I had been back to Williamstown only to visit and for the reading," said Danner, who participated in a sold-out reading of "The Blue Deep" last summer as part of WTF's Friday at 3 series.

Now, Danner is enthused about playing the role of the mother in Lucy Boyle's new play. Making its world premiere at WTF, "The Deep Blue" is "a wonderfully fresh look at a  painful subject  — death and love," said Blythe. "Conflicts that can arise as a result of the death of a father. It's a deep exploration of what happens when the (anchor) in the family is gone. It's a touching, sad, humorous story."
 
The widow of producer and director Bruce Paltrow, who died in 2002, Danner relates to the loss of a mate.

"It never goes away," she said of the void in the surviving spouse's life. "But one goes on." Then she mentioned that there is a saying that goes, "Over time, the sharp edge of grief begins to dull."

Danner said Williamstown has a place in her heart. "For years, we came here every summer  — it's a great place to escape from Los Angeles." She hesitated when asked where she lives now and then sighed. "I go back and forth from West Coast to East Coast."

A two-time Emmy and Tony winner, Danner has played roles on television, on stage, and in film. 

If her wish as a youngster had been granted, she might never have embraced acting. "When I was a schoolgirl, I wanted to be a nurse," she said. "But I was not good in math and could not stand the sight of blood."  


She, therefore, rethought her vision of a nursing career.

She created a new dream while attending The George School in Bucks County, Pa. 

"I had a wonderful drama teacher," she said. Her parents also influenced her to turn to acting as she was quite impressed when they did shows for the PTA, and sang in the shows. Danner and her daughter, Gwyneth, have appeared together in WTF productions of "The Sweet Bye and Bye," "The Seagull" and "Picnic."
 
Balaban said the first play he saw at WTF was "The Sea Gull" in 1974 when Danner played the part of Nina, a role her daughter reprised in the festival's 1994 production.  

Tony Award and four-time Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce (best-known to television fans as Niles on "Frasier.") said Gersten has allowed him to give the characters in "The Importance of Being Earnest" a New York gangster voice, but he added that he has not deviated from author Oscar Wilde's original words.
 
Daly starred in Hyde's directorial debut, "It Shoulda Been You," at the George Street playhouse in New Jersey in 2011. They said it was fun and they are back for more. 
 
Playing the role of Lady Bracknell in "The Importance of Being Earnest, is Daly's first experience as a member of a WTF production. She, however, has visited Williamstown a number of time. "Now, I am staying on [Williams] campus. We share a kitchen and a bathroom," she said of her theater roommates in the dormitory.
 
Daly, also Tony Award and Emmy winner, was born into a creative family. Her parents, James Daly and Hope Newell were actors.

"They would not let me be a kid-actor," Daly recalled. But, when she was about 15, her parents allowed her to do summer stock, and her acting career began.

An unusual production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" will be presented at the Main Stage of the '62  Center for Theatre and Dance on the Williams College campus. The production runs from June 26 to July 14.

"The Blue Deep" runs on the Nikos Stage at the '62 Center from June 27 to July 8.
 
Danner said she's able to keep her characters fresh even time after time.

"Digging deeper, it never feels stale," she said. "Even the last night, I give it my all."

Tyne Daly

The principals in the season-openers for the Williamstown Theatre Festival's 58th season. David Hyde Pierce
 
More photos: guillottephotography.zenfolio.com/



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Williamstown Select Board Awards ARPA Funds to Remedy Hall

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Select Board on Monday allocated $20,000 in COVID-19-era relief funds to help a non-profit born of the pandemic era that seeks to provide relief to residents in need.
 
On a unanimous vote, the board voted to grant the American Rescue Plan Act money to support Remedy Hall, a resource center that provides "basic life necessities" and emotional support to "individuals and families experiencing great hardship."
 
The board of the non-profit approached the Select Board with a request for $12,000 in ARPA Funds to help cover some of the relief agency's startup costs, including the purchase of a vehicle to pick up donations and deliver items to clients, storage rental space and insurance.
 
The board estimates that the cost of operating Remedy Hall in its second year — including some one-time expenses — at just north of $31,500. But as board members explained on Monday night, some sources of funding are not available to Remedy Hall now but will be in the future.
 
"With the [Williamstown] Community Chest, you have to be in existence four or five years before you can qualify for funding," Carolyn Greene told the Select Board. "The same goes for state agencies that would typically be the ones to fund social service agencies.
 
"ARPA made sense because [Remedy Hall] is very much post-COVID in terms of the needs of the town becoming more evident."
 
In a seven-page letter to the town requesting the funds, the Remedy Hall board wrote that, "need is ubiquitous and we are unveiling that truth daily."
 
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