Berkshire Theatre Festival and Berkshire Bank set the stage

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Berkshire Theatre Festival Executive's production of "The Miracle Worker" will receive a $20,000 sponsorship boost from Berkshire Bank, with $5,000 specifically allotted to complimentary tickets for low income families, according to BTF Executive Director Kate Maguire. The 2004 production of Stockbridge resident William Gibson's masterpiece, which runs on the Main Stage July 27-August 14, is, according to Maguire, the best example to date of the BTF's successful ongoing mission to create an interdependent relationship between itself and the community it serves. It is also, she continues, an example of how for-profit and not-for-profit institutions can work together in an effort to create what the New England Foundation for the Arts and many other culture-based organizations now refer to as a viable Creative Economy. "The essence of theatre," Maguire says, "should be to enhance peoples' lives. Certainly, when regional theatre merges into a strong relationship with its community, it becomes increasingly more capable of improving the well-being, creative energy and economic health of both. Call it luck, commitment, serendipity, hard work or an indefinable stew of all four, but in the end what we will have accomplished this summer with this production is a long held theatrical vision of the role theatre can play in peoples' lives." Maguire placed her vision for theatre-in-the-community firmly on the BTF's front burner when she stepped up to the position of producing director in 1998. Since then, she has generated an energy and commitment to the education program - BTF PLAYS! -that has propelled it into the curriculum of nine Berkshire County Schools, and introduced in access of 70,000 school age children to the experience of live theatre. Under Maguire, the festival's two theatres - the Main Stage and the Unicorn -- have increased occupancy by 35 percent, the BTF Summer Performance Training Program has climbed to one of the top apprentice training courses in the country, the festival's company of actors, designers and directors has grown significantly, and ticket revenues broke the seemingly impenetrable $1 million mark at the end of its 75th anniversary season last summer. But it is with "The Miracle Worker," that Maguire's vision of an ideal synergy between theatre and community came to fruition. Indeed, with the BTF already offering ½ price tickets to Berkshire families for the majority of MIRACLE WORKER performances, the Berkshire Bank's sponsorship, insuring that financially challenged families will be able to attend the play for free, is the final piece in a project that has evolved sometimes purposefully, sometimes unknowingly, even magically, over nearly 40 years. When Justina Trova, a 25-year-old Pittsfield High School graduate and a BTF artist-in-residence since 2002, steps onto the stage as Helen Keller on July 27, the audience will include playwright William Gibson, Trova's father, Spencer, a psychiatric nurse at BMC, an actor and the owner of Main Street Stage in North Adams, Trova's mentor Ralph Hammann, director of the PHS Drama Department, and dozens of Berkshire County residents who are, in many cases, attending a theatrical performance for the first time in their lives thanks to the generosity of Berkshire Bank. "Synergy!" says Maguire. Follow the path: In 1967, long before Justina was born, her father Spencer was a BTF apprentice who appeared on the Main Stage with Beatrice Straight in Streetcar Named Desire. A couple of years later, at a playwrights' workshop for local writers sponsored by the BTF, Spencer met William Gibson, who was the festival's executive director at the time. Gibson was pleased with Spencer Trova's acting skills and in 1974 after writing a passion play, The Body and the Wheel, to be produced for the community at Cranwell School's Pierce Chapel, the playwright called him up and asked if he'd assume the role of Jesus. Trova agreed, the production became an Easter staple and eventually daughter Justina landed a minor role in the chorus. Spencer Trova eventually bought the Main Street Stage in North Adams, and by the time he produced Gibson's Butterfinger's Angel in December 2001, Justina had graduated from PHS with four years of Hammann's drama training under her belt, attended Marymount College in NYC where she studied acting and appeared under Hammann's direction in the BTF/PHS co-production of Trojan Women at the festival's Unicorn Theatre the previous July. Though her BTF performance, duly noted by Maguire, led to a position as an artist-in-residence in the festival's BTF PLAYS! program, Justina carved out the time from her busy schedule to assume the role of the Archangel Gabriel in Butterfinger's Angel, and was delighted when William Gibson signed her program on opening night. Over the next two years Justina Trova continued teaching for BTF PLAYS! and, in addition to performing in two productions for young audiences - Mystery Sideshow and Just So Stories, she was cast in supporting roles in the Unicorn Theatre's production of Truman Capote's Holiday Memories, and in the Main Stage 2003 production of Peter Pan. Maguire had never doubted Trova's extraordinary natural acting talent. She didn't need Bill Gibson or Ralph Hammann or Spencer Trova to tell her what she'd known all along -- Justina was her Helen Keller. The line that connects the dots from Spencer Trova to William Gibson to Justina to Ralph Hammann to PHS and to the members of the Berkshire community who will take advantage of Berkshire Bank's gift has wound through four decades of encounters, and yet they all emanate from one central force - the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Maguire smiles, "The satisfaction is knowing that we've done the job theatre has always been meant to do - we've brought the forces of culture, community and economics together in one unified moment. Clearly, you can point to this production as a perfect symbol of the Creative Economy at work - and by the way, that segment of the New England economy is growing by almost 10 percent annually - but I would also like to think it wouldn't have happened without its own fair share of magic.
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Lanesborough Fifth-Graders Win Snowplow Name Contest

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — One of the snowplows for Highway District 1 has a new name: "The Blizzard Boss."
 
The name comes from teacher Gina Wagner's fifth-grade class at Lanesborough Elementary School. 
 
The state Department of Transportation announced the winners of the fourth annual "Name A Snowplow" contest on Monday. 
 
The department received entries from public elementary and middle school classrooms across the commonwealth to name the 12 MassDOT snowplows that will be in service during the 2025/2026 winter season. 
 
The purpose of the contest is to celebrate the snow and ice season and to recognize the hard work and dedication shown by public works employees and contractors during winter operations. 
 
"Thank you to all of the students who participated. Your creativity allows us to highlight to all, the importance of the work performed by our workforce," said  interim MassDOT Secretary Phil Eng.  
 
"Our workforce takes pride as they clear snow and ice, keeping our roads safe during adverse weather events for all that need to travel. ?To our contest winners and participants, know that you have added some fun to the serious take of operating plows. ?I'm proud of the skill and dedication from our crews and thank the public of the shared responsibility to slow down, give plows space and put safety first every time there is a winter weather event."
 
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