"Assassins" at the Berkshire Theatre Festival

12:00AM / Thursday, July 31, 2003Print Story | Email Story

Rarely has a cast of actors slipped into the skin of a more desperate and menacing group of characters than those in the Berkshire Theatre Festival's production of Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins" at the Unicorn Theatre running August 6-29. The villains include John Wilkes Booth (Abraham Lincoln), Charles Guiteau (James Garfield), Leon Czolgosz (William McKinley), Guiseppe Angara (Franklin D. Roosevelt), Lynette Alice "Squeaky" Fromme (Gerald Ford), Sara Jan Kahn Moore (Gerald Ford), John Hinckley (Ronald Reagan) and Lee Harvey Oswald (John F. Kennedy). Assassins -book by John Weidman-premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on December 18, 1990. The play opened to a sold-out run of 73 performances, but did not transfer to a larger house. The United States was on the verge of the Persian-Gulf War, and a musical about murdering the country's leader wasn't exactly in line with the rush of patriotism. In fact, it was not until the war ended and the soundtrack was released that Assassins truly began to receive critical acclaim. ASSASSINS Director Timothy Douglas returns to the BTF after directing last summer's Insurrection: Holding History. For Douglas, Sondheim's rogues are as much a product of their American cultures as are the leaders they targeted. Born in 1937, Playwright Stephen Sondheim is the winner of seven Grammy Awards, seven Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award. His work has been featured in countless musical revues, revivals and in several feature films. Mr. Sondheim's work as a lyricist includes: West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), Do I Hear a Waltz (1965) and Candide (1974). His musical and lyrical work includes: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Company (1971), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), The Frogs (1974), Sweeney Todd (1979), Merrily We Roll Along (1980), Sunday in the Park with George (1984) and Into the Woods (1987). Sondheim also collaborated with John Weidman, who wrote the book for Assassins, in 1976 on Pacific Overtures and with George Furth on the play The Doctor is Out in 1995. His awards include the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, and numerous Drama Critics Circle Awards. Mr. Sondheim was the president of the Dramatists Guild from 1973 to 1981. Director Timothy Douglas serves as the Associate Director for Actors Theatre of Louisville where he has staged A.M. Sunday, ART, Crimes of the Heart, Fit For Feet, Jitney, The Lively Lad and The Piano Lesson. His regional credits include Blues For An Alabama Sky The Crucible, Jitney and A Lesson Before Dying at Syracuse Stage, In the Blood at the Guthrie Theater, BOCON! at the Mark Taper Forum (Director in Residence 1994-'97), The Game of Love and Chance at San Jose Rep, Shakespeare's R&J, Sorrows and Rejoicings and A Raisin in the Sun at Pittsburgh's City Theatre, Portia Coughlin and The Cripple of Inishmaan at Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre (Associate Artist), Valley Song at Berkeley Rep, Mules at Downstage (New Zealand), as well as projects for the New York Shakespeare Festival, Denver Center Theatre Company, ACT, Magic Theatre, ASK Theatre Projects, the Folger Shakespeare Library, Toi Whakaari (New Zealand) and the O'Neill National Playwright's Center. He has been the recipient of an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation fellowship, as well as a participant in the NEA/TCG program for directors during which time he served as Resident Director at New Dramatists. Junghyun Georgia Lee is providing both the scenic and costume design. Some of her recent works include: costume designs for Somewhere Someplace Else (Clubbed Thumb); Omnium Gatherum (Naked Angels); Siegfried's Nerve (set and costume, Target Margin Theater); Cheap Sunglasses (McCarter Theater); Heaven (Yale Repertory Theater). Currently Georgia is designing costumes for the Off-Broadway production of Omnium Gatherum. Lighting designer Thom Weaver's New York credits include: Heat Lightning, Harlem Duet, 3 O'clock in Brooklyn, That Damn Dykstra, The Transparency of Val, Rough Draft, Strangerhorse, Chen Shi-Zheng's Ghost Lovers, The Marriage of Figaro, , Kandinsky: Sounds, An Intimate Evening with Frank Wildhorn and Friends, The Normal Heart, A New Brain and The Country Wife. He received Entertainment Design Magazine's 2002 Tyro Talent for Lighting Design Award. The cast of ASSASSINS includes the following cast members previously seen in BTF's Unicorn production of Tommy: Michael Baker (John Wilkes Booth), Joe Jung (Balladeer and Lee Harvey Oswald); and Aric Martin (Charles Guiteau). Also appearing in ASSASSINS are Jill Michael (Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme); Jonathan Kay (Giuseppe Zangara); Eric Loscheider (John Hinckley); Kasey Mahaffy (Samuel Byck); Andrew Michael Neiman (Leon Czolgosz); and Megan Ofsowitz (Sara Jane Moore). Jill Michael and Joe Jung were also seen earlier this season in American Primitive. The ASSASSINS ensemble will feature the following 2003 BTF apprentices: Henry P. Cyr, University of Connecticut; Sarah Kauffman, Southwest Missouri State University; Brad Kilgore, University of Connecticut; Michael McComiskey, University of Connecticut; Lessie B. Tyson, Worcester State College; and Meg Wieder, University of Connecticut. ASSASSINS runs in the BTF's Unicorn Theatre August 6 - 29 (press opening August 7). Evening performances Monday through Saturday at 8 PM. Matinees on August 16 and August 23 at 2 PM. All tickets general admission $35. Tickets are available by calling the BTF box office at 413.298.5576. For further information and/or to purchase tickets online, visit the BTF website at www.berkshiretheatre.org.

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Pittsfield Says Goodbye to Wahconah Park Grandstand

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
07:45AM / Sunday, April 12, 2026

Mayor Peter Marchetti and 'Banjo Joe' Ryan lead a chorus of 'Take Me Out to the Ball Game' with a nod to the Pittsfield Suns.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Dozens of people bid farewell to the Wahconah Park grandstand on Saturday with a round of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," hot dogs, and stories about the ballpark.

"Sometimes you felt like you were at Fenway Park, but mostly it just felt like home," Parks Commissioner Clifford Nilan said.

"How lucky the players were to be playing in this park, and how lucky we were to be able to watch."

Wahconah Park's 75-year-old grandstand was deemed unsafe in 2022, and planners have determined that starting from square one is the best option; a $15 million rebuild is on the table. Demolition is expected to begin soon, and the city planned the "Farewell to the Grandstand" event to celebrate its past and look forward to the future.

The old grandstand also had to be redrafted when estimates for construction came in at more than $200,000. It would be built at about half the length of the wooden structure it replaced for a sum of $115,000.

"In the early 1900s, Wahconah Park went from concept on paper to construction. The grandstand was built between the 1949 and 1950 seasons. It was designed to seat about 2,000 fans. A few decades later, in 2005, Wahconah Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"That longevity matters because it connects today's games, school events, and community gatherings to more than a century of shared memories."

Marchetti and "Banjo Joe" Ryan led a verse of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," adding "Root, root, root for the Suns, if they don't win it's a shame." Pittsfield and its longtime summer collegiate baseball team, the Pittsfield Suns, have signed a negotiating rights agreement, solidifying that the two will work together when the historic ballpark is renovated.

Artifacts of the ballpark were displayed in cases outside of the grandstand for the event, along with banners depicting the park's history and a roped-off area for community members to see the structure one last time.

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