Weekend Cultural Highlights, June 26-30, 2009

By Seth Rogovoy

 

While some count the July Fourth weekend as the official kickoff to the summer cultural season, from the looks of it summer begins in earnest this weekend, with more events than you can shake a stick at – or more than any single person could possibly attend.

 

 

Paris 1890:­ Unlaced, a new one-woman show by Berkshire playwright Juliane Hiam starring Anne Undeland, begins its summer-long run at Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum in Lenox, Mass., on Friday, June 26.

 

The play provides a humorous, slightly risqué, yet poignant glimpse into Parisian society of the Gilded Age. Undeland tackles the challenge of playing five women: a contemporary Gilded Age Museum director; a Parisian courtesan; her benefactress; a very talkative milliner; and a flash-in-the-pan celebrity in the Montmarte nightclub scene. At the heart of the show, which includes farce, much innuendo, and social criticism, is an old-fashioned mystery to be solved.

 

The play runs at Ventfort Hall through Sunday, September 6.

 

Friday’s staging is followed by a reception including a meet and greet with Undeland, director Sarah Taylor, and playwright Juliane Hiam.

 

Performances are Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 7:30; Saturdays at 4; Sundays at 10. Opening night reception tickets are $45; all tickets thereafter are $22 with discounts available for groups of 10 or more. For further information and to purchase tickets call Ventfort Hall at 413-637-3206.

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Guitarist Keller Williams brings his one-man jam-band program to the Mahaiwe on Friday at 8 (Doors open at 7:30 ). Williams pads barefoot from guitar to bass to percussion stations, using looping effects, and enough instruments to stock a strip-mall music store, to layer sound atop sound until the stage swirls with a symphonic composition.

 

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Theater
14 Castle Street, Great Barrington
Tickets $27.00-$32.00/ All Ages Welcome
For more information please contact 413-528-6415 or visit www.mahaiwe.org

 

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On Saturday, at 8, the Sandisfield Arts Center presents, “Victoria and Her Empire: An Evening of Words and Music,” featuring Sandisfield residents Ben Luxon and Simon
Winchester telling the story of the era through its rich romantic and artistic legacy.

 

Tickets are $20 with reservations strongly recommended. Once a Baptist meeting house and orthodox synagogue, the historic Sandisfield Arts Center building is now used year round to present a wide variety of affordable cultural and educational programming. It is located on Hammertown Road and Route 57 in the geographic center of the town.  For directions and more information, visit www.sandisfieldartscenter.org or call (413) 258-4100.

 

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Golda’s Balcony, the hit one-woman portrayal of Golda Meir written by the late William Gibson, returns to Shakespeare & Company as the third and final entry in the summer’s Diva Series. Featuring longtime company actress Annette Miller reprising the award-winning role she created, the play runs through July 3, with one additional performance on September 13.

 

Performances in the evenings run at 8:30 and in the afternoons at 3. Tickets range from $12 to $48. For a complete listing of productions and schedules, to inquire about details of the 40% Berkshire Resident Discount, youth discounts and Rush Tix, or to receive a brochure, visit www.shakespeare.org or call the Box Office at (413) 637-3353.

 

[photo of Annette Miller as Golda Meir

by Kevin Sprague/courtesy Shakespeare

& Company]

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Jacob’s Pillow’s 77th season kicks off this weekend with Mujeres, a flamenco program running through Sunday, June 28.  The program features a variety of dynamic solos and duets, honoring and reinventing the rhythm, passion, and soul of Spanish flamenco., with live music by master vocalists, guitarists, and percussionists.  

 

 

Performance and Ticket Information

Wednesday, June 24 through Saturday, June 27, at 8

Saturday, June 27 and Sunday, June 28, at 2.

 

Tickets are $58 each, with discounts available for subscribers, seniors, students, and children age 16 and under.  $10 Youth Matinée tickets are available Saturday and Sunday.

 

Free Pre-Show Talks with Jacob’s Pillow Scholars-in-Residence are offered at Blake’s Barn 30 minutes before every performance.

 

Thursday, June 25, members of the ensemble will participate in a moderated Post-Show Talk on stage immediately following the performance.

 

Box Office hours: Monday through Saturday, 10am – 6pm, and Sunday 11am – 6pm.

 

To purchase by phone, call the Box Office at 413.243.0745. To order online: www.jacobspillow.org.

Pillow Members receive exclusive benefits.  To become a Member call 413.243.9919 x24.

 

Jacob’s Pillow is located at 358 George Carter Road in Becket, MA, 01223 (10 minutes east on Route 20 from Mass Pike Exit 2).  The Jacob’s Pillow campus and theaters are handicapped-accessible. 

 

 

Free Events at the Pillow this weekend:

Free PillowTalks in Blake’s Barn:

On Saturday, June 27 at 4pm, Stanley Rabinowitz will discuss his translation of provocative and influential writings of Russian critic Akim Volynsky, in Ballet’s Magic Kingdom.  The New York Times Book Review has called Rabinowitz’s recent publication “a fantastic book.”

 

Free Inside/Out performances at 6:30pm:

 

Friday, June 26, Avi Scher & Dancers perform original works by Avichai Scher, the 2005 recipient of The School at Jacob’s Pillow’s Lorna Strassler Award and one of Dance Magazine’s “Top 25 to Watch.”  The company, which includes New York City Ballet principal Sara Mearns, will also perform works choreographed by Emery LeCrone, also an alumna of The School at Jacob’s Pillow. 

 

Saturday, June 27, The School at Jacob’s Pillow’s Ballet Program participants present a new work by award-winning choreographer Viktor Plotnikov, former principal dancer with the Boston Ballet. The presentation marks the end of a two-week intensive professional study under the direction of ballet luminary Anna-Marie Holmes and Ballet West Artistic Director Adam Sklute.

 

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Cult rockers Blonde Redhead perform at MASS MoCA on Saturday, June 27, at 8, outdoors in Courtyard C or in the Hunter Center in case of rain. The group’s sound ranges from the alternative rock tunings of Sonic Youth to the cabaret-inflected melodies and lyrics of Serge Gainsbourg.

Tickets for Blonde Redhead are $25 in advance/ $29 day of show. MASS MoCA members receive a 10% discount.  Tickets are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office located off Marshall Street in North Adams, open from 11 until 5, closed Tuesdays.  Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours or purchased on line at www.massmoca.org.   

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P.D.Q. Bach and Peter Schickele bring their Jekyll and Hyde Tour to Pittsfield’s Colonial Theatre next Tuesday, June 30, at 7:30.

 

The program includes singers performing P.D.Q. Bach classics such as the recently-discovered “Four Next-to-Last Songs” and “Shepherd on the Rocks, With a Twist,” featuring Prof. Schickele playing the tromboon (a cross between a trombone and a bassoon, combining all the disadvantages of both in one easy-to-schlep instrument). Also on the program are excerpts from the Little Notebook for “Piggy” Bach.

 

Tickets for the performance are $65 (preferred seating with pre-show Artist meet & greet), $45 and $35, and can be purchased in person at the Colonial Ticket Office at 111 South Street Monday-Friday 10-5, performance Saturdays 10-2, by calling (413) 997-4444 or online at www.TheColonialTheatre.org

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The Berkshire Playwrights Lab presents a staged reading workshop production of The Old Masters by Sam Marks on Wednesday, July 1, at 8 at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center (14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, Mass.). Admission is free.

 

This new play concerns Ben, an unsatisfied artist-turned-teacher with a pregnant wife and a new house, who receives an unexpected visit from a missing friend’s lover, with a box of paintings in tow, which stirs up old dreams and desires. It is about creativity, growing up, and choosing between the life you have versus the life you’ve always wanted. 

 

Founded in 2006 by theater professionals Joe Cacaci, Bob Jaffe, Jim Frangione, and Matthew Penn, Berkshire Playwrights Lab is dedicated to encouraging, developing, and presenting new plays. Through readings, workshops, and fully-staged productions, the Lab provides emerging and established writers with a professional and creative environment, while offering audiences the unique and provocative opportunity to share in the dramatic evolution of premiere works. For more information about this new organization, see www.berkshireplaywrightslab.org.

 

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The Stimulus Project, an exhibition of one of a kind small objects and jewelry, opens Saturday, June 27, at 6-9, at Sienna Gallery in Lenox, Mass. The opening, which will feature Mission tapas and Berkshire Mtn Distillery infused martinis, presents work by over eighty artists priced under $500. The Stimulus Project runs through August 25. 

 

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One of the hits of the recent Berkshire International Film Festival (and my personal favorite), Summer Hours, at the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington, Mass., this week, is a gorgeous meditation on the legacy of French family and estate life. Harkening back in some ways to Jean Renoir's landmark Rules of the Game, the movie -- starring the fabulous Juliette Binoche in an understated but compelling role -- is epic in scope and asks essential questions: does a family’s legacy lie in a place and in objects, or is it all in memories. What if the memories are flawed and the place and objects are truer to reality? Its scenes of a rambling French country house are alone worth the price of admission.

 

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Two of the Berkshires’ most revered singer-songwriters, JoAnne Redding and Adam Michael Rothberg, are at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Mass., on Friday, June 26, at 8. Rothberg will warm up the crowd with a set of his own songs, and then will join Redding for a full band concert featuring her trademark country-rock.

 

Tickets are $12, $10 for members of the Guthrie Center. Reserve seats by calling 413-528-1955.

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In what has to be one of the most innovative programs of the weekend if not the entire summer, Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass., presents Shaker Shalom: A Celebration of Shared Traditions in Song, Cooking, and Community, a joint fundraising event with proceeds benefiting Hancock Shaker Village’s education and interpretive programs and Congregation Knesset Israel Synagogue, on Sunday, June 28, at 4:30 at Hancock Shaker Village.

 

This event will include a reception, music program, gourmet dinner, and live and silent auctions. The music program will feature performances by Deborah Rentz-Moore, Jeffrey Siegel, and Jonathan Denmark illustrating the intriguing similarities between the Shaker and Jewish music traditions.

 

Former Hancock Shaker Village curator Christian Goodwillie will provide commentary. Dinner follows in the historic Brick Dwelling. Hancock Shaker Village resident chef Michael Roller (former executive chef at the acclaimed luxury resort, Blantyre, in Lenox, Mass.) will prepare the festive dinner, which will include with both fish and vegetarian options. There will be live and silent auctions. Items are available to preview online at www.hancockshakervillage.org prior to the event.

 

Tickets to “Shaker Shalom” are $150, $250, $500, or $1,000, with a range of enticing benefits offered at each ticket level. Tickets may be purchased by calling Hancock Shaker Village at 413.443.0188 or online at www.hancockshakervillage.org.

 

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Barrington Stage Company is extending the world premiere run of Freud's Last Session through July 3 at BSC Stage 2 theatre (36 Linden Street , Pittsfield). Freud’s Last Session will receive an additional five performances - Tuesday, June 30 at 7:30; Wednesday, July 1 at 7:30; Thursday, July 2 at 7:30; and Friday, July 3 at 3 and 7:30. BerkshireLive’s Lesley Ann Beck reviewed the show here.

   

Performances for Freud's Last Session are Tuesday through Friday at 7:30, Saturdays at 4 and 8, Sundays at 7:30 at BSC Stage 2 (36 Linden Street) Pittsfield.

For ticket information, call 413-236-8888.  Tickets are $25 and $30. 

 

As part of its 15th Anniversary Season, BSC will have 15 tickets available for every performance at $15.  Tickets can be purchased ahead at the box office or by calling 413-236-8888.

 

--

Faith Healer continues its run in the Unicorn Theatre at Berkshire Theatre Festival through

July 4. 

 

 

 

Seth Rogovoy is Berkshire Living’s editor-in-chief and award-winning cultural critic.