LENOX - Shakespeare and Company has received a $5,000 grant from Berkshire Bank Foundation to support the company’s 19th annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare.
Considered the crown jewel of Shakespeare and Company’s Education Program, the nine-week residency program puts company artists in schools across the region, bringing Shakespeare to more than 500 students. Ten high schools in Berkshire County, Pioneer Valley and eastern New York participate in the festival, which concludes with a four-day marathon of plays performed by students at company’s Founders’ Theatre. Through this annual event, students get to experience firsthand the vibrancy and relevance present in Shakespeare’s work. Visit www.shakespeare.org for information on the 2007 festival. The marathon of performances runs Nov. 15 to 18 and is open to the public.
Berkshire Bank and the Berkshire Bank Foundation have supported Shakespeare and Company since 1993, with most of the donations earmarked for the education department.
"It is our good friends in the community like Berkshire Bank Foundation who make it possible for us to do what we do. We are extremely grateful to the Berkshire Bank Foundation for its generous support over the years of this important program,†said Kevin G. Coleman, director of education.
Coleman is currently on his second trip this month to Colchester, England, where he is working with the Mercury Theatre Company to help it expand its education programming based on Shakespeare and Company models.
"There’s no other program like this anywhere. No program so ambitious, so important to the parents, participating schools, or so valued by the students. We are grateful that business and community leaders continue to step forward to make this possible, as an investment in our schools and students," Coleman says.
The Fall Festival touches countless thousands of students through their direct participation and also their peers, teachers and family through the public performances that cap the program. Shakespeare and Company has created one of the most extensive arts-in-education programs in North America, and it continues to be a leader in arts-in-education programming across the country. Headed by Coleman, the festival sends teams of trained company artists and production staff into area high schools to direct and work with students in Grades 6 through 12. The result is 10, 90-minute student productions of different Shakespeare plays that are performed first at area schools and then at Founders’ Theatre.
Specifically designed as a celebration rather than a competition, the festival has become a local institution. It is one of the few interscholastic performance projects in the country that brings together hundreds of students to celebrate language, human nature and youthful achievement through Shakespeare’s plays.
"Berkshire Bank Foundation is pleased to continue its ongoing support of the Fall Festival of Shakespeare," said Peter Lafayette, president of Berkshire Bank and Berkshire Bank Foundation. "This well-regarded program gives hundreds of high school students a unique artistic and educational experience unduplicated anywhere. It enhances the education these students are receiving in their schools, broadens their horizons and instills new pride and self-confidence. We hope the program continues for years to come."
Shakespeare & Company offers a wide range of education programs designed to give elementary and secondary school students an active, imaginative, and engaging experience of Shakespeare’s plays.
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Lanesborough Town Election Sees Expanded Select Board
By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Select Board will now have five people serving with the addition of two more board members elected on Tuesday.
Juli Baker, Jeffery Walters and incumbent Michael Murphy took the three seats up for election in a five-way race, winning a three-year, two-year and one-year seat respectively based on the number of votes received. Out of the running were Scott Graves and Christian Halley.
Out of the more than 2,600 registered voters, 328 cast ballots Tuesday in the annual town election, or about a 12 percent turnout.
The current board consists of Chair Deborah Maynard, Jason Breault, and Murphy. The new board was voted to have five members back in 2024 at the annual town meeting after resident Kristen Tool filed a citizens petition to expand it. The home-rule petition was sent to the Legislature and was approved late last year.
Murphy was running for a third term. He said he is not done with his work on the board and wants to see more projects done like the mall. He was voted back on with 168 votes for a one-year term.
"I feel like I've put in a good six years, but I do feel like there's a couple things that I'd like to see through that are still, you know, somewhere either on the front burner or the back burner," he said. "I'll talk about the mall, I'd love to play a role in seeing how that plays out. What's moved to the back burner after being on the front burner for a couple years is the need for a new police station. I still believe there's a need for that."
He is proud to be a part of the board that will expand its members and to have helped the town have a better atmosphere and attitude toward its residents.
"My proudest accomplishment is getting a better home for our Police Department, one that they need very well," Murphy said. "Some of the things that surprised me a little bit, but that I think I had an impact on, is improving the atmosphere within the Town Hall building. I think that's the best way to put it. There was a time, and I heard from many, many people in the community when I ran that I was surprised to hear how they didn't feel welcomed, they didn't feel comfortable, and I think that that attitude and that atmosphere has changed, and I've had something to do that."
Baker won the three-year term with 258 votes. Baker has been in Lanesborough since 2021 and has been participating on the Finance Committee, which she will now leave to be on the Select Board.
She ran because she felt she could help with her experience on many other boards and her ability to be a leader and see both sides of every story.
"I've had a lot of input into other groups like the planning board and the zoning board, and a lot of the issues that have been happening in town, and I feel like I have a very level head about very contentious issues, I look at all sides of every issue and cut through the emotions and get to the bottom of what the issue is and what's best for Lanesborough," she said.
Key issues she plans to address include managing tax increases that she has done with the finance board, addressing the short-term rental bylaw, and resolving the stalemate over the mall property to find the best way to get real value from the property.
Walters took the two-year term with 215 votes. Walters has been a resident for 26 years and owns Snap-On Tools dealership. He said he looks forward to working with the board and says one of the key issues he has heard is the taxes and wants to help maintain the residents taxes. He said he has been talking about running for about eight years and the bigger board helped push him to put his name on the ballot.
"I said I would like to run for a selectman. We're going to a five person select board, so I thought it'd be a good time. Being a small business owner, I feel I have something to contribute to add to the people that we have already in the Select Board," he said.
Graves said he wanted to be on the board to help others in the community feel welcome as he did not when he first came.
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