Mahaiwe New Board and Education Programming
Lola Jaffe, Founding President and Chair of The Mahaiwe, Great Barrington, is happy to announce four new members of the Mahaiwe Board of Directors. Just added are Herb Abelow of Mill River, Ward Belcher of Lakeville, Stephen Berenson of Manhattan and South Egremont, and Mary Mott of Stockbridge. “I am proud of the talent and wisdom of those who have joined our other distinguished Board members and greatly appreciate their enthusiasm for the Mahaiwe and its mission.”The Mahaiwe’s Executive Director, Beryl Jolly, announces the creation of a new Education Program to bring students from the tri-state region to the Mahaiwe to experience first-class artistic presentations. Live performances for grades K-12, Met Opera “Live in HD” broadcasts, and classic film screenings will all be part of the arts education programming on the Mahaiwe’s roster. Ann Barrett, formerly the Executive Director of Landmark Volunteers, is the coordinator for this new initiative, which is sponsored by The Lennox Foundation.
“We are really thrilled to launch our Education Program,” noted Jolly, “and we are delighted that Ann Barrett has joined our team. The generous support of the Lennox Foundation is instrumental in creating this opportunity for area students to enjoy live performances and broadcast events inside the historic Mahaiwe Theater. We look forward to welcoming generations of young people through our doors for these experiences”. The education program will launch with a special 10 AM performance on Monday, April 13, 2009 of Stella Luna, based on the story of a young bat by Author Janell Cannon. For more information, phone The Mahaiwe at 413-644-9040, x105.
New Mahaiwe Board Members:
Herb Abelow
Herb Abelow is graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His career on Wall Street spanned 44 years, during which time he was also active in the non-profit and community sector, starting the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and serving on the National Association for Learning Disabled, the Edith Wharton Restoration, and the Lenox Library, among others.
Currently a resident of Mill River with his wife Betsy, Herb is treasurer of the New Marlborough Village Association and the New Marlborough Historical Society, and current chair of the Southern Berkshire Regional School Committee.
Ward Belcher
Ward Belcher was CEO with Benjamin Moore & Company. Since the company’s sale to Warren Buffet in 2000, he has been General Manager of Town Hill Farm, an equestrian boarding and event barn in Lakeville, CT where he lives with his wife Susan.
Stephen Berenson
Stephen Berenson has spent twenty-five years at J.P.Morgan, where he currently is Vice Chairman of Investment Banking. Stephen graduated from MIT in 1982, as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He is married to Louise Barzilay and has five children. The family resides in Manhattan and South Egremont.
Mary Mott
Mary Mott and her husband, Gordon Simmering, moved to Stockbridge in 2008, while retaining a home in Sun Valley, Idaho. In Sun Valley, she has started both a theatre company and a Shakespeare Festival, both still thriving.
Mary's professional background is in the advertising business and spanned 25 years in management in New York and San Francisco. In Sun Valley, Mary wrote a humor column for the local paper and then moved to a talk radio show - the first in Idaho. She is currently working on a memoir about her mountain days and hopes to complete a play on being a woman of "a certain age".
Mahaiwe’s New Education Coordinator
A full time resident of the Berkshires, Ann was most recently the Executive Director of Landmark Volunteers. She has served as a Trustee of Berkshire Health Systems and is currently a Trustee of The Sheffield Land Trust and The Literacy Network of South Berkshire.
