Berkshire Theatre Festival announces 2005 season

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Rachel Leslie starred in a 2004 BTF production of "Blues for an Alabama Sky"
STOCKBRIDGE–The Berkshire Theatre Festival's 77th season on stage in Stockbridge includes two musicals and a new play with music, SOUVENIR, bound for Broadway in the fall, executive director Kate Maguire announced this week. The Main Stage season opens on June 21st with SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM, a musical compilation of husbands and housewives, geishas and strippers, stewardesses, ingénues and chorus girls, all masterfully linked together in a stunning series of hits by musical theatre’s most brilliant contemporary composer, Stephen Sondheim. With a focus on the sophistication, wit, insight and power that lie at the heart of these memorable songs from many of his landmark shows, including Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, West Side Story and Gypsy, Sondheim has created a musical that is quite simply the best of the best. Gary M. English (American Primitive ’03, The Miracle Worker ’04), the artistic director of Connecticut Repertory Theatre, returns to the BTF to direct this favorite by Sondheim. His CRT directing credits include Sweeney Todd, Candide, Wings, Our Country’s Good, West Side Story, Jesus Christ Superstar, A Little Night Music, Carousel, Man of La Mancha (which received the Connecticut Critics’ Circle Award for the Outstanding Production of a Musical for the 1997-98 season), Iphigenia, and most recently A Cry Of Players. EQUUS, Peter Shaffer’s brilliant psychological study about a seemingly normal young man who has inexplicably blinded six horses, and the psychiatrist who struggles to discover what drove him to commit such a heinous act, is next up on the Main Stage. Alan Strang’s life seems routine; he’s an obedient son and a conscientious stable boy, and yet one night, for some mysterious reason he destroys the very animals he loves. Scott Schwartz (The Foreigner ’02, Enter Laughing ’03, Eugene’s Home ’04) directs. Schwartz’ Broadway credits include The Foreigner, Golda’s Balcony and Jane Eyre which he co-directed with John Caird. Off-Broadway he won the Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for Best Off-Broadway Musical for Bat BoyThe Musical. Other Off-Broadway credits include Miss Julie (Cherry Lane), No Way To Treat A Lady (York Theatre), Golda’s Balcony and Franz Kafka’s The Castle (both at Manhattan Ensemble Theatre). When David Mamet’s play AMERICAN BUFFALO opened in 1975, audiences reeled. Ripped from America’s raw underbelly, ripe with obscenities and rage, the story of three friends in a world of low lifes, the play changed the landscape of American theatre. The third Main Stage production, the play introduces three hopeless grifters – Donny, the ignorant owner of a junk store, Bobby, a spaced out drug addict, and Teach, a dangerous bully – who are planning to lift a collection of rare coins, but when you’re dumb, angry and paranoid, something is bound to go wrong. AMERICAN BUFFALO which won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 1976 for Best American play, will be directed by Anders Cato (Miss Julie ’02, Talley’s Folly ’03, Heartbreak House and The Misanthrope ’04). Cato’s other directing credits include When the World Was Green at (ART and Moscow Art Theatre), Blood Orange (Cherry Lane), A Dream Play (Westbeth Theater), The War in Heaven (La Jolla Playhouse), All My Sons, Tango Palace and In Berlin (all three at 7 Stages) and at the Theater In The Square: Gross Indecency, The Lynching of Leo Frank and Dirty Blonde. SOUVENIR, A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins, by Stephen Temperley (H.M.S. Pinafore ’01) comes to the BTF Main Stage after a brilliant run with The York Theatre Company’s Theatre at Saint Peter’s in NYC. In 1932 when Florence, a tone deaf spinster with deep pockets and an appalling lack of talent met Cosme McMoon, an equally hapless pianist, stardom had eluded them both. But over the next dozen years, their bizarre musical partnership earned them an extraordinary cultish fame, and their awkward pairing evolved into a friendship as full of light and warmth as the spotlight they shared, culminating in a sold out performance at Carnegie Hall. Vivian Matalon (Quartet ’02) directs this bittersweet comedy with music, and its star, Tony-Award winning actress Judy Kaye. Two-time Tony Award winner Matalon (The Tap Dance Kid, 1980, and Morning’s at Seven, 1984) has numerous Broadway credits including The Corn is Green, The American Clock, Brigadoon, P.S. Your Cat is Dead!, Noel Coward in Two Keys and After the Rain. The BTF’s Unicorn Theatre is opening with I DO, I DO (book and lyrics by Tom Jones, Music by Harvey Schmidt), an endearing story of a life framed by the musical highs and lows of a marriage made in roller coaster heaven. Nominated for seven Tony’s I DO, I DO is the classic American musical full of love, laughter and the inevitable sadness of a life well lived, in a marriage that, like most, is as unpredictable as tomorrow’s weather. Sarah Gurfield, an SDCF Observership Award winner, is making her directorial debut at the BTF with I DO! I DO! She recently directed A Streetcar Named Desire and Bat Boy The Musical (Seacoast Repertory Theatre), the new dark comedy, Many ‘Cides (NYC’s Prospect Theatre Company), Dracula and Meshuggah-Nuns (Surflight Theatre), My Fair Lady and The Rainmaker (NYC’s Actors’ Comedy Club), The End of You (Penneyseal Productions), Prelude to a Kiss (Boomerang Theatre), Cockfighters (Oberon Theatre), and the Aussie hit He Died With a Felafel in His Hand (Hair of the Dog). Gurfield served as the Assistant Director on the Roundabout’s recent Broadway revival of Twentieth Century, starring Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche (dir. Walter Bobbie). Additional credits include: The Grave White Way, Los Angeles; Liberty Smith, NAMT; Cabin Pressure, American Globe Theatre; Death on the Mississippi, Step Lively Productions; Presumed Retarded, Temerity Theatre. August Strindberg’s THE FATHER, directed by Anders Cato (see bio above) is the second production in the Unicorn season. The playwright’s innate distrust and fear of women is nowhere more evident than in this play, a psychologically riveting drama about marriage, obsession and insanity that recaptures the passion and grandeur of the Greeks. Captain Adolf may be retired from the wars, but no battle he has ever fought is as threatening as the Victorian contest of wills between him and his vicious, manipulative and deadly self-righteous wife Laura. A nightmarish precursor to Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Strindberg’s THE FATHER is an earlier, revelatory look at marriage and the endlessly fascinating, relentlessly brutal battle between the sexes. Actor Eric Hill, who adapted and directed last season’s production Hermann Hesse’s SIDDHARTHA, as well as numerous other Main Stage and Unicorn productions, including Camelot, My Fair Lady, Moby Dick Rehearsed, A Dream Play and The Einstein Project will assume the role of Captain Adolf. Hill’s BTF acting credits include Dimetos and Atlantis. The Unicorn Theatre is an ideal venue for Ron Hutchinson’s suspenseful police thriller RAT IN THE SKULL. Secrets fester in a British interrogation cell where two enemies separated by a hatred sharpened through the centuries and honed by relentless violence and misunderstanding, face off against one another in a deadly game of truth and consequences. But there are more than the usual Irish “troubles” simmering between the IRA terrorist and his tormentor, a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who seems driven by a different set of devils entirely. Playwright Hutchinson’s suspenseful thriller explores with a rare compassion and dark humor what happens when the blind ideals of patriotism and the ruthless politics of faith collide behind a locked door in an enemy state. Dennis Garnhum who directed Atlantis in 2004 directs RAT IN THE SKULL. Garnhum has directed at Canada’s Stratford Festival (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and two plays by Timothy Findley, Shadows and The Trials of Ezra Pound for the past three seasons and at the Shaw Festival (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Still Life, S.S.Tenacity) for six seasons. For the Manitoba Theatre Centre he directed To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men, Closer and Three Tall Women. Jonathan Epstein, who has been a member of Shakespeare & Co. for the last two decades, will be making his BTF debut in RAT IN THE SKULL. Berkshire audiences will remember Epstein for the many roles he’s performed at Shakespeare & Co., his most recent in the 2003 production of King Lear. The Unicorn Theatre season concludes with a Franco American collaboration of a contemporary French play. The title will be announced in late February. “I have so enjoyed working with our great company of directors in planning this season,” says BTF Executive Director Kate Maguire. “We are always mindful of the quality of production, but this season I think, more than any in my memory, reflects the diversity we seek on both our stages. Audiences will hopefully enjoy the range of presentation from I DO, I DO to AMERICAN BUFFALO because at the Berkshire Theatre Festival, we are equally interested in revealing the profundities to be discovered in great work as we are in sharing a really good time with everyone.” In keeping with Maguire’s ongoing commitment to enhancing BTF’s patrons’ theatre going experience in 2005, she has scheduled additional postscripts for THE FATHER, RAT IN THE SKULL and the contemporary French play to be announced later this month. In addition to the many benefits already received by its subscribers, the BTF will also be sending each subscriber an enrichment packet comprised of historical pieces, critiques, biographies and other dramaturgical material designed to expand patron’s understanding of each of the season’s productions. Interested single ticket buyers can also receive enrichment packets for a small handling charge. Please note, with the exception of Souvenir, Berkshire Theatre Festival Main Stage productions will have four preview performances at 8 pm on the first Tuesday and Wednesday and at 2 pm and 8pm on the first Thursday of each run. Press and Opening nights are Fridays at 8 pm. Souvenir will have previews on Aug. 17 and 18 at 2 pm and 8 pm. Main Stage performances are at 8 pm Monday through Saturday nights with matinees at 2 pm on Thursdays and Saturdays. Tickets range in price from $36 to $70. Opening night prices include a cast party. The Berkshire Theatre Festival’s Main Stage opens on June 21 with the first of four previews of Side By Side by Sondheim. Previews are at 8 pm on June 21 and 22 and at 2pm and 8 pm on June 23; Opening and Press night; June 24; Postscript June 27; Closing night July 9. Equus previews on July 12 and 13 at 8 pm and on July 14 at 2 pm and 8pm; Opening and Press night July 15; Postscript July 18; Closing July 23. American Buffalo previews on July 26 and 27 at 8 pm, and July 28 at 2 pm and 8pm; Opening and Press Night July 29; Postscript Aug. 1; Closing Aug. 13. Souvenir previews on Aug. 17 and 18 at 2 pm and 8 pm; Opening and Press night Aug. 19; Postscript is Aug. 22, Closing Sept. 3. Press photos available, call or email Eileen Pierce. The Unicorn Theatre previews with I DO! I DO! May 26 and May 27 at 8 pm; Opening and Press night May 28; Postcript June 20; Closing night June 25. The Father previews June 29; Opening and Press night June 30; Postscript July 4 and July 13; Closing July 16. The Rat in the Skull previews July 20; Opening and Press night July 21; Postscripts July 25 and Aug. 3; Matinees at 2 pm on July 30 and August 6; Closes Aug. 6. The Franco American connection previews Aug. 10; Opening and Press night Aug. 11; Postscript Aug. 15, 24, 31; Matinees at 2 pm on Aug. 13, 20 and 27. Closes Sept. 2. Prices range from $ 27 to $37. Students with proper ID receive 50% discount for all Main Stage and Unicorn productions with the exception of Opening and Saturday night performances. Group Rates available for 25 or more on both stages. Should you wish to review all or any of the 2005 BTF productions, please email or call Eileen Pierce at least two weeks prior to Opening/Press night of each production, or send a complete schedule prior to the season, if available. High resolution, easily downloadable Production Photos for each show will be available on our website, www.berkshiretheatre.org, on the afternoon of the Opening. Should you need a CD of production shots, contact the marketing office when reserving your seats. BERKSHIRE THEATRE FESTIVAL 2005 AT A GLANCE THE MAIN STAGE SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; Music by Jule Styne, Leonard Bernstein, Mary Rodgers, Richard Rodgers; Continuity by Ned Sherrin Directed by Gary M. English Previews: 6/21 & 6/22 at 8 pm; 6/23 at 2 pm and 8 pm Opens: 6/24 Post Script: 6/27 Closes: 7/9 Husbands and housewives, geishas and strippers, stewardesses, ingénues and chorus girls are masterfully linked together in a stunning series of hits by musical theatre’s most brilliant composer, Stephen Sondheim. In tossing aside plot, and focusing instead on the sophistication, wit, insight and power that lie at the heart of these memorable songs from landmark Sondheim shows – Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Anyone Can Whistle, West Side Story, Gypsy – the play’s narrator, pianists and singers reveal the artistry behind what is nothing less than an American Musical Revolution. Recommended for children 8 years & older. EQUUS Written By Peter Shaffer, Directed by Scott Schwartz Previews: 7/12 & 7/13 at 8 pm; 7/14 at 2 pm & 8 pm Opens: July 15 Post Script: 7/18 Closes: 7/23 Alan Strang seems a normal enough young man, a good student and an obedient son who loves horses. Then, one night, for some mysterious reason, he blinds six of them.. What drove him to commit such a heinous act? His life seems routine, his parents loving, his pursuits harmless. And yet, Alan Strang has been committed to a mental hospital, an unresponsive patient who answers questions by singing ditties from television commercials, and is awakened each night by terrible nightmares. Only Psychiatrist Martin Dysart, who is himself caught in the no man’s land between darkness and light, seems able to grasp the answer to Alan’s shocking, psychological puzzle. Nudity/Adult Themes. Not recommended for children. AMERICAN BUFFALO Written By David Mamet, Directed by Anders Cato Previews: 7/26 & 7/27 at 8 pm; 7/28 at 2 pm and 8 pm Opens: 7/29 Post Script: 8/1 Closes: 8/13 When David Mamet’s play American Buffalo opened in 1975, audiences reeled. Ripped from America’s raw underbelly, ripe with obscenities, the story of three friends in a world of low lifes, American Buffalo changed the landscape of American drama. Mamet’s raging, hopeless characters –Donny, the ignorant owner of a junk store, Bobby, a spaced out drug addict, and Teacher, a dangerous bully – are hoping to lift valuable coins from a local dealer, but when you’re dumb, angry and paranoid, something is bound to go wrong. American Buffalo, which won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award in 1976 for Best American play, may be a grim portrait of society’s disenfranchised, but scratch the surface, and you may be surprised at the human connection. Adult Themes/Strong Language. Not recommended for children. SOUVENIR, A Fantasia on the life of Florence Foster Jenkins A Play with Music by Stephen Temperley Directed by Vivian Matalon With Judy Kaye Previews: 8/17 & 8/18 at 2 pm and 8 pm. Opens: 8/19 at 8 pm Postscript: 8/22 Closes: 9/3 In 1932, when Florence, a tone deaf spinster with deep pockets and an appalling lack of talent, met Cosme McMoon, an equally hapless pianist, stardom had eluded them both. But over the next two decades their bizarre musical partnership earned them an extraordinary cultish fame, and their awkward pairing evolved into a friendship as full of light and warmth as the spotlight they shared, culminating in a sold out performance at Carnegie Hall. Fresh from Off-Broadway where the bittersweet comedy with music and its star, Tony Award winning actress Judy Kaye, received rave reviews, SOUVENIR arrives at the BTF prior to its Broadway run. Recommended for children 8 and older. MAIN STAGE PERFORMANCES ARE MONDAY THRU SATURDAY EVENINGS AT 8 PM AND MATINEES ON THURSDAYS AND SATURDAYS AT 2 PM. PRICES $36-70. GROUP RATES AVAILABLE, CALL EILEEN PIERCE AT 413-298-5536 Ext. 14 OPENING NIGHTS ARE ALSO PRESS NIGHTS. THE UNICORN THEATRE ‘05 I DO! I DO! Book and Lyrics by Tom Jones Music by Harvey Schmidt Directed by Sarah Gurfield Previews: 5/26 Opens: 5/27 Postscript: 6/20 Closes: 6/25 An endearing story of a life framed by the musical highs and lows of a marriage made in roller coaster heaven. Nominated for seven Tony’s I Do! I Do! is the classic American musical full of love, laughter and the inevitable sadness of a life well lived, in a marriage that, like most, is as unpredictable as tomorrow’s weather. Recommended for children 8 and older. THE FATHER By August Strindberg, Directed by Anders Cato, With Eric Hill Previews: 6/29 Opens: 6/30 Postscripts: 7/14 & 7/13 at 8 pm Closes: 7/16 Strindberg’s deep distrust and fear of women is nowhere more evident than in his play The Father, a psychologically riveting drama about marriage, obsession and insanity that recaptures the passion and grandeur of Greek tragedy. Captain Adolf may be retired from the wars, but no battle he has ever fought is as threatening as the Victorian contest of wills between he and his vicious, manipulative, deadly self-righteous wife Laura. Their struggle has spiraled out of control, compromise is unthinkable, only one of them will survive. A nightmarish precursor to Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Strindberg’s The Father is an earlier, revelatory look at marriage and the endlessly fascinating, relentlessly brutal battle between the sexes. Adult themes. Not recommended for children. Rat in the Skull By Ron Hutchinson, Directed by Dennis Garnhum Previews: 7/20 Opens: 7/21 Post Scripts: 7/25 & 8/3 Matinees: 7/30 & 8/6 at 2 pm Closes 8/6 Secrets fester in a British interrogation cell where two enemies separated by a hatred sharpened through the centuries and honed by relentless violence and misunderstanding, face off against one another in a deadly game of truth and consequences. There are more than the usual Irish “troubles” simmering between the captured IRA terrorist and his tormentor, a member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who seems driven by a different set of devils entirely. Playwright Ron Hutchinson’s suspenseful thriller explores with a rare compassion and dark humor what happens when the blind ideals of patriotism and the ruthless politics of faith collide behind a locked door in an enemy state. Adult themes/strong language. Not recommended for children. The Franco American Connection An Evening of French Contemporary Theatre Play Title to be Announced Previews: 8/10 Opens: 8/11 Post Scripts: 8/15, 8/24, 8/31 Matinees: 8/13,8/20,8/27 at 2pm Closes: 9/2 UNICORN PERFORMANCES ARE MONDAY THRU SATURDAY EVENINGS AT 8 PM, WITH SPECIAL MATINEES AS LISTED ABOVE. PRICES RANGE FROM $27-37. GROUP RATES AVAILABLE FOR 25 OR MORE., 413-298-5536. Ext. 14, OPENING NIGHTS ARE ALSO PRESS NIGHTS
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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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