Interprint Awarded Workforce Training Grant

08:32AM / Sunday, October 13, 2024Print Story | Email Story

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Healey-Driscoll Administration awarded $11 million to businesses as part of a strategic investment to retain and upskill talent within Massachusetts' workforce.

Interprint was awarded $163,900 to train 171 workers; 50 additional jobs are expected by 2026.

Awards have been awarded to 125 businesses statewide to date in 2024. The grants, administered and distributed by the Commonwealth Corporation, aim to address business productivity and competitiveness by providing funding to Massachusetts businesses to train current and newly hired employees. Commonwealth Corporation projects more than 6,600 workers will receive skills training in the workplace and grant recipients will add more than 1,400 additional employees in Massachusetts over the next two years.

Awarded grants span eleven different industries including $5.6 million awarded to 67 manufacturing businesses to train 3,139 workers and $2.1 million awarded to 20 businesses in the professional, scientific, and technical services industry with the goal to train 1,255 workers.

Workforce Training Fund Program grants are available for businesses of all sizes, with the greatest use applied by small to medium-sized businesses. The grants provide instruction on a variety of skills, including ESOL, project management, software and IT, and machine set-up and operation. Businesses can apply for two types of grants through the Workforce Training Fund Program: 1) Express Program, which provides fast and flexible access to grant-funded training designed so that small businesses can quickly and easily access funding to address immediate needs; and 2) General Program, which are two-year grants used for large-scale, strategic training projects. During fiscal year 2024 (July 2023 – June 2024), these programs awarded $37.2 million to train more than 27,900 workers from more than 1,600 businesses. Employers receiving these grants plan to add more than 2,800 additional employees in Massachusetts by 2026. These two-year grants are awarded competitively and can range from $10,000 to $250,000.

Grant recipients contribute a matching investment of at least one dollar for each grant-dollar awarded. This announcement includes General Program Training Grants awarded from November 2023 through July 2024.

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Tina Packer, Founder of Shakespeare & Company, Dies at 87

Staff Reports 06:51PM / Saturday, January 10, 2026

LENOX, Mass. — The doyenne of Shakespeare's plays, Tina Packer, died Friday at the age of 87.

Shakespeare & Company, which Packer co-founded in 1978, made the announcement Saturday on its Facebook page.

"It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Tina Packer, Shakespeare & Company's founding artistic director and acclaimed director, actor, writer, and teacher," the company said on its post and in a press release.

Packer, who retired a the theater company's artistic director in 2009, had directed all of Shakespeare's plays, some several times, acted in eight of them, and taught the whole canon at more than 30 colleges, including Harvard. She continued to direct, teach, and advocate for the company until her passing.

At Columbia University, she taught in the master of business administration program for four years, resulting in the publication of "Power Plays: Shakespeare's Lessons in Leadership and Management with Deming Professor John Whitney" for Simon and Schuster. For Scholastic, she wrote "Tales from Shakespeare," a children's book and recipient of the Parent's Gold Medal Award.

Most recently her book "Women of Will" was published by Knopf and she had been performing "Women of Will" with Nigel Gore, in New York, Mexico, England, The Hague, China, and across the United States. She's the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, including the Commonwealth Award.

"Our hearts are heavy with the passing of Tina Packer, a fiery force of nature with an indomitable spirit," said Artistic Director Allyn Burrows. "Tina affected everyone she encountered with her warmth, generosity, wit, and insatiable curiosity. She delighted in people's stories, and reached into their hearts with tender humanity. The world was her stage, and she furthered the Berkshires as a destination for the imagination.

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