“Imagination is more important than knowledge,†reads an Einstein poster in the art building. The students at Berkshire Country Day Secondary School (BCD2S) are set to prove, in a group effort, that they have both. On March 8 and 9, the school will present its second theater production on the Winthrop campus. The 45 freshmen and sophomores, and three juniors that make up Berkshire Country Day’s first class have all had some part in the play. They have acted, designed sets and costumes, choreographed, sung, filmed, designed posters and ads and tickets and press releases, stage managed, cued lights, or assisted the director — and they have all read the play, or are reading it, in English classes.
Last Thursday, actors reviewed lines and rehearsed scenes in their 1 p.m. class. Rosalind in the guise of a shepherd boy taunts Orlando, who loves her. Jaques, a sardonic lord, tells his Duke that he envies the fool, and the Duke rebuffs him. “Should I be mean?†the Duke asked Director John Hadden. (The Duke, like Jaques, is played by a woman.)
“You don’t have to be,†Hadden said; “a kind critic is much harder than a mean one.â€
He and Jaques discussed the tension in Jaques’ desire to insult the world and yet be listened to gently: “and I will through and through/ cleanse the foul body of the infected world/ If they will patiently receive my medicine.†Hadden tells the actor he can see her delight in playing the part, and her freedom in it; now, he would like to see what happens when that character gets hurt.
Hadden linked several scenes between different characters with a running commentary on timing and rhythm. Orlando cried, “My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.†Hadden urged Rosalind to cut him off without a pause when she lashed back, “Break an hour’s promise in love!â€
Hadden was a founding member of Shakespeare and Company. Some of his actors at BCD2S have no experience, and none have a great deal. His actors are learning stuff most actors just have in their bones automatically, he said. “It’s tedious to sit through a Shakespeare play unless it moves ... you don’t get the logic until you hear it in one swoop. It’s like ringing bells.†He spends some time each day doing something completely different with his kids. Last Wednesday, they sat in a circle and talked about their most dreaded moments in the play. The talk gave rise to anecdotes about acting and actors’ lives, he said. The day before, he took them through a voice progression that he spent four years learning. He had an hour and a quarter to teach it. By rights, he said, they should be doing that voice progression daily. This is probably the least time he has ever spent on a production, with one of the youngest casts.
“Mr. Hadden makes everything come alive,†Roland Morris, who plays the hero Orlando. He has acted at Steiner a little, but never under a teacher’s direction. “We create what we want to have,†he said.
He began rehearsing the play during class time in November, shortly after the fall theater production, Animalia. This was an original work, an anthology of Animal theater and literature from Poe to Kafka, that the students helped to direct. Hadden said he has spent a parabolic progression of time spent on As You Like It. Until winter sports were over, he had only his eight hours of class time a week with the students. Now he has afternoons and weekends as well.
The kids working with film, public relations and set design have been able to work mostly during class time, Hadden said. Film is more and more reachable as an art form now, he added; the tools are easier to find and use. David Hasham and Adam Bard, who are doing the filming, will put in most of their hours editing the film as a school project, after their spring break.
They have been filming since the first run-through. Adrienne Cosel, the assistant head of school and head of the English department, is advising them. She put an order in for Macintosh film editing software last Thursday, in fact. She has recently gotten a grant to pay for the equipment, and is scouting the computer editing software market. She was a film editor in a prior life, she explained. She will have to learn the new technology herself in order to teach the students. She hopes they will be showing the documentary later this year.
In the music department, she adds, the 15-girl singing group Cantabile is working on 15th and 16th century songs.
Hadden said his kids are beginning to get tired and susceptible to colds. “The amount of information they’re trying to digest is phenomenal,†he said. “You can’t take it too seriously. The main purpose is for them to get that Shakespeare lived in two worlds.†Shakespeare is meat for the scholar and stage. And on stage, ideas become visceral experiences. Hadden suggests an example. Simon, who plays Touchstone the fool, realized that Touchstone was a lot like him, and Touchstone’s role in the play was something like the role Simon had made for himself in school. Playing Touchstone gave him a place to make fun of himself and to look at his role more deeply, Hadden said.
He has three kids as assistant directors for the play, and others stage managing and managing props — a bale of hay, a wagon, a croquet set. Carolyn Peterson saw Animalia and volunteered to stage manage As You Like It on the strength of it. She has been helping the actors recently to memorize their lines, pronounce the Elizabethan language and get into their characters. It takes more than straight memorization to keep the audience involved. And the theater is large. The actors need to understand, she explained, that each movement in their faces has to be exaggerated. She hasn’t done plays since sixth grade, she said. “Mr. Hadden is an amazing person to work with,†and he is good at getting people enthusiastic. Learning stage managing from scratch for this play was overwhelming at first, but everything is slowing down now as the production unfolds, she said. It is becoming fun, doing the final touch-ups.
Thursday, the show was in tech rehearsals. Hadden pointed out the lighting board, sitting mid-audience. It will move into the booth above, at show time. The stage manager and lighting and sound technicians have been learning, mostly from scratch, how to set up cues and arrange actors on stage. Maya Robbins-Zust of the Robbins-Zust Marionettes works with the lighting technicians. “Maya’s a real grind type of person,†said Travis Poole, who runs lights. “She knows exactly what she’s doing. It’s exciting.†He would rather be acting, he said, though he does not know much about it. Lights are “work, but a lot of fun; you’re not being called on. You’re more in charge of everybody else. When you’re setting cues, you’re directing actors, setting up what the show’ll look like.†It is a lot of responsibility as well, he said, more than he had as a stage hand in the last show: “like big dogs; everybody moves around at your will.â€
Local professionals Arthur Oliver, Susan Dibble and Corrinna May from Shakespeare and Company have given workshops in costuming, choreography and fight choreography. May choreographed a wrestling scene for the play. Oliver sketched costume ideas with his actors. The camera filmed all these workshops, Hadden said.
The cast took a field trip to Shakespeare and Company’s costume barn, “a riotous place,†Cosel said. They learned to do “pulling,†she said: they conceived their characters’ costumes and pulled from the racks whatever fit their ideas.
Students designed the set and painted the flats for it in art class. A trio of ladders backs what will be one central obelisk. It will wear different flats throughout the show: a tree, a column, a tree with a face. “So it gets more and more numinous,†said Hadden. A Tanglewood physical plant truck already stacked with cord wood, cherry and elm moved the panels to the theater Thursday afternoon. With the obelisk and a few props, the actors create their scenes on the bare boards stage.
The Winthrop campus theater is “a wonderful early ’70s beast,†Cosel said, and the school is still fixing it up. For this production, it got fitted with three new curtains.
On the administrative front, students also worked on graphic design and public relations. BCD2S offers a graphics design course. This semester, graphic design students brainstormed and designed the playbill and poster for the play. They began with a line from the play that Hadden suggested: “And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything,†explained Johanna Blair, a student in the class. They took pictures of trees and of a student with a candy heart on her tongue. Kevin Sprague from Studio 2 helped them to play with images in Adobe PhotoShop® and Quark®. They made the tickets from sky and trees, and helped write the official press release. They have hung up posters, and paced and set 500 more to others to post.
Cosel said they have also designed a newspaper ad for the show.
This is a marathon, Hadden said; it tests everyone. He had originally planned to do Romeo and Juliet, he said. “There’s such conflict between kids and adults in that play.†He thought of getting adults involved. “Romeo and Juliet has a reputation that belies what it really is, a twisted tragedy full of forthright sexuality — not at all the beautiful, romantic, frilly Zepherelli production.†Hadden cites the frequently misread line, Wherefore art thou Romeo: People often hear it as, “Where are you, Romeo?†It in fact reads, Why are you Romeo, a Montague and my enemy?
But the Berkshire Country Day students had already read and studied Romeo and Juliet. They seemingly wanted a different challenge. Seth Madison said they petitioned to put on a different play. Madison plays Adam, an old servant guy. “An underlying theme in the play is the destruction of the traditional chain of being, the pre-Renaissance way society worked,†Madison said; Adam is a servant who ends up being cared for by his master. He supplies some comic relief as well — Madison is portraying him with a Yiddish accent. Madison was assistant stage manager in Animalia. Mr. Hadden has been great, he said, but it is a lot to take in.
Hadden gave the students nine plays to choose from, and charted the pros and cons of each. As You Like It is a difficult, sophisticated play, he said, but he found he could cut it fairly successfully, and can rehearse it in chunks.
Madison said As You Like It is fun, funny, sort of a classic — it is a lighthearted play, he said, not nearly as depressing as Romeo and Juliet.
Hadden said he would like to see kids writing plays. “A big reason to do Shakespeare is to learn from the best.†That way, the classical playwright and the experimenting student can influence each other.
Hadden also gives credit to the Shakespeare and Company Fall Festival in the local high schools. “The program has momentum behind it. ... It’s a standard bearer for anyone who teaches high school drama.†He lives in the Berkshires because he decided to take four years from his vagabond actor’s life and put his son through high school, he said. His son chose the Berkshires because of the Shakespeare and Company Fall Festival. “It’s great for building audiences and community. You get a mayor and a gas station guy who were on stage together years ago ... working long hard hours.†He recognizes his present cast’s long hours: “I know they find it really challenging ... I’m never satisfied ... but we like each other quite well.†They get something out of his high expectations, he said. He was grateful for “the unflagging support of administration, teachers, parents: there is no sense that this play is an extracurricular activity.â€
The morning after the show, the entire school will hop a flight to Europe. They will split into two groups: one bound for Lyons and side trips into Paris, the other to Spain. They will live with local families, in an exchange program, for the first two weeks of their three-week break.
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Berkshire County Homes Celebrating Holiday Cheer
By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
There's holiday cheer throughout the Berkshires this winter.
Many homeowners are showing their holiday spirit by decorating their houses. We asked for submissions so those in the community can check out these fanciful lights and decor when they're out.
We asked the homeowners questions on their decorations and why they like to light up their houses.
In Great Barrington, Matt Pevzner has decorated his house with many lights and even has a Facebook page dedicated to making sure others can see the holiday joy.
Located at 93 Brush Hill Road, there's more than 61,000 lights strewn across the yard decorating trees and reindeer and even a polar bear.
The Pevzner family started decorating in September by testing their hundreds of boxes of lights. He builds all of his own decorations like the star 10-foot star that shines done from 80-feet up, 10 10-foot trees, nine 5-foot trees, and even the sleigh, and more that he also uses a lift to make sure are perfect each year.
"I always decorated but I went big during COVID. I felt that people needed something positive and to bring joy and happiness to everyone," he wrote. "I strive to bring as much joy and happiness as I can during the holidays. I love it when I get a message about how much people enjoy it. I've received cards thanking me how much they enjoyed it and made them smile. That means a lot."
Pevzner starts thinking about next year's display immediately after they take it down after New Year's. He gets his ideas by asking on his Facebook page for people's favorite decorations. The Pevzner family encourages you to take a drive and see their decorations, which are lighted every night from 5 to 10.
In North Adams, the Wilson family decorates their house with fun inflatables and even a big Santa waving to those who pass by.
The Wilsons start decorating before Thanksgiving and started decorating once their daughter was born and have grown their decorations each year as she has grown. They love to decorate as they used to drive around to look at decorations when they were younger and hope to spread the same joy.
"I have always loved driving around looking at Christmas lights and decorations. It's incredible what people can achieve these days with their displays," they wrote.
The Wilsons' invite you to come and look at their display at 432 Church St. that's lit from 4:30 to 10:30 every night, though if it's really windy, the inflatables might not be up as the weather will be too harsh.
In Pittsfield, Travis and Shannon Dozier decorated their house for the first time this Christmas as they recently purchased their home on Faucett Lane. The two started decorating in November, and hope to bring joy to the community.
"If we put a smile on one child's face driving by, then our mission was accomplished," they said.
Many homeowners are showing their holiday spirit by decorating their houses. We asked for submissions so those in the community can check out these fanciful lights and decor when they're out.
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