'Three Days of Rain' Opens June 9 at Oldcastle

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BENNINGTON, Vt. — The 2007 Oldcastle Theatre Company season continues with Richard Greenberg's Pulitzer-nominated drama "Three Days of Rain," directed by Oldcastle's Producing Artistic Director Eric Peterson, opening June 8 at the Bennington Center for the Arts.

Tickets are buy one, get one free for the matinee performance on Saturday, June 9.

Three actors play two generations of characters in two families in this thoughtful, thought-provoking, and unexpectedly romantic family story that The New York Times called "elegant." 

In the first act, set in 1995, Walker Janeway (Gil Brady) and his sister Nan (Sophia Garder) meet their childhood friend Pip (Avery Clarke) to divide the estate of their late fathers, who were partners in a successful architecture firm. As they go through the contents of the Manhattan loft that holds the firm's effects, the three try to piece together their fathers' lives and how their families intertwined decades ago.

In the second act Brady plays Walker and Nan's father, Ned, Garder plays Lina, and Clark plays Pip's father, Theo, as we see the families interacting in the same loft a generation earlier in the 1960s during three days of rain that were pivotal in their combined histories.

Originally commissioned and produced in 1997 by the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Costa Mesa, Calif., where many of Greenberg's plays have had their world premieres, "Three Days of Rain" opened in New York City later that year at the Manhattan Theatre Club. Last year it received a much-hyped Broadway production with Julia Roberts as Nan/Lina.

The cast of "Three Days of Rain" features a long-time Oldcastle actress returning to the company and two actors making their Oldcastle debuts. Sophia Garder most recently appeared in the OTC production of "Mornings at Seven" in 2005. Her other Oldcastle appearances include the premieres of "American Revolution" and "Panache." Gil Brady's television appearances include "Law & Order: Special Victims' Unit," and "All My Children." He appeared in the Foothills Theatre production of "The Full Monty" in Worcester and in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Syracuse Stage. Avery Clark recently appeared in "Journey's End" at the Alley Theatre in Houston and "The Heidi Chronicles" with the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. His New York appearances include "The Lion in Winter."

Kenneth Mooney has designed the sets and lighting for this production, and Patricia Brundage has designed the costumes. Sound design is by Nick Garder. Oldcastle's 36th anniversary season continues with Ernest Thompson's "On Golden Pond," running July 13-29, and then New York longest-running musical The Fantasticks playing Aug. 17-Sept. 2.

A fall production of Lee Blessing's "A Body of Water" will be presented Sept. 21-Oct. 7, followed by Tom Mula's "Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol" as a holiday treat from Dec. 13-16.

When you call for tickets, be sure to ask about a FlexPass which buys you five seats to use as you choose at a 20 percent discount over regular box office prices! Three Days of Rain runs June 8-24 at the Bennington Center for the Arts at the intersection of Route 9 and Gypsy Lane. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, with 2 p.m. matinees on Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tickets are $32 for adults and $12 for students, and group rates are available. Call the box office at 802-447-0564 or visit www.oldcastletheatreco.org for more information.

 

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Williams Grads Told: Be Kind to 'What Is Strange Within You'

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — After describing herself as neither a speech writer nor a public speaker, Williams College Commencement speaker Cécile McLorin Salvant said that she watched "millions" of similar addresses when figuring out what she would say to the school's Class of 2026.
 
"I watched Valerie Jarrett's commencement speech from last year here at Williams, and it was so incredibly inspiring," Salvant said. "It was great, but, after watching, I felt like I had even less I wanted to say.
 
"And then I thought: What if I just showed up here as myself? I have spent so much of my life looking at what other people are doing and trying to fit myself into that, but I don't really fit. And I know you don't really fit, and, actually, I've been most rewarded when I remembered that and when I've honored that."
 
Salvant said that graduation day is a good time for the graduates to think about what drives them and trust themselves to find a path.
 
"We're so often looking at what everyone else is doing, distracting ourselves from our own desires and our own idiosyncrasies, and the result is that we get a little more mean, a little less understanding of others, a little more stingy, a little less kind," Salvant said. "So what I'm advocating for, ultimately, is a kindness that goes both ways. That kindness toward yourself, toward what is strange within you, is that same kindness with which you can meet the people in the world around you, and you can keep giving that kindness both ways, even when you think you have none left to give."
 
And, with that, the three-time Grammy winner and MacArthur fellow told the crowd that she was going to be true to her self, launching into a stirring a cappella rendition of West Side Story's "Somewhere," composed by longtime Tanglewood fixture Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Williams alum Stephen Sondheim.
 
Salvant was one of a handful speakers who took a turn at the podium at the school's 237th Commencement Exercises.
 
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