SCENE AROUND: Shades of the Past

The wind isn’t the only thing whispering in Stockbridge, Mass., this summer: ghosts of the town’s past are resurrected in the 5th Annual Shades of Stockbridge porch-side performance series to benefit the Historical Room at the Stockbridge Library. Six neighborhoods—near the Railroad Station, Main Street, Prospect Hill, Yale Hill, Interlaken, and Glendale—alight with gossip and news from the 1800s as costumed actors presentlively, non-scripted accounts of the lives of prominent local characters including Cyrus West Field, a financier who led the Atlantic Telegraph Company; Abigail Sergeant, wife of early Stockbridge missionary John Sergeant; and American sculptor Henry Augustus Lukeman, who studied under Daniel Chester French. Not only do the actors talk it up on area porches, but they dress it up in authentic period garb—a haunting worthy of a bygone summer afternoon. [JULY 2010]

THE GOODS

Shady Porches: 5th Annual Shades of Stockbridge
Jul 31 at 1-4
Tickets available at the Stockbridge Library
46 Main St.
Stockbridge, Mass.
413.298.5501