Randy Harrison sings The Who's "Tommy" in new Berkshire Theatre Festival production

As the season announcement of the newly merged Colonial Theatre-Berkshire Theatre Festival began, the schedule of events was handed out to reporters, most of whom were seeing it for the first time. When Kate Maguire opened the floor to questions, the first show to draw questions was the complex and wildly popular rock opera Tommy by Peter Townshend and The Who. Undertaking a rock opera in the Berkshires is rare, especially this one. The Who’s Tommy was first released as a concept album in 1969, and then given the full Broadway treatment in 1993. It toured the country for a decade afterwards.

In 2011 the Berkshires will be one of the few places in the world where it can be seen in a fully staged production from the Berkshire Theatre Festival on the stage of the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, MA. Previews begin July 7, with the opening set for July 9 and the final performance on July 16.

There is more about the Berkshire Theatre Festival 2011 season, plus news, previews and interviews at our main site, Berkshire on Stage. You can also find Berkshire on Stage at Facebook, or our Twitter name is BerkshireStages.


Actor James Barry seen here in "Bloody, Bloody, Andrew Jackson."
Tommy is a powerful totem from an earlier age, its music and message still able to reduce an audience to tears, or make them cringe during its unfolding, and then raise the crowd to their feet with cheers as it ends.But the cheers and tears do not come automatically. Eric Hill who will direct the Berkshire Theatre Festival production has signed on for what could be his greatest challenge ever. Even with a long history of complex undertakings behind him, Hill has his work cut out for him. Tommy is as much about the music as it is the story. And it never stops moving. This is one musical that has to be done “right” to work, with split second timing, relentless energy…so difficult in fact that few theatre companies have undertaken it in recent years. It’s real risky.

Tommy not only requires perfection in its musical elements (to gloss over them is to risk disaster), but the acting can not take a back seat for even one moment. For that, much of the weight falls on the person who plays the title role, and the actors who play his younger self. Finally the production itself is Dickensonian in its scope, for this is one sweeping, epic tale. Those who were born after its earlier incarnations have quite a theatrical tsunami to look forward to.

The casting is exciting. It includes both Randy Harrison who will play Tommy, and James Barry as Captain Walker. James Barry is fresh from the cast of Bloody, Bloody, Andrew Jackson, and has been seen in The Caretaker and The Einstein Project at the Berkshire Theatre Festival.

About Randy Harrison

When the casting was announced,, perhaps the most excited person was the irrepressible Randy Harrison, who said: “I’m very excited to finally sing on a Berkshire stage, and thrilled and honored to be a part of the first Berkshire Theatre Festival production in the gorgeous Colonial Theater.” And being the consummate professional he is, we have no doubt that he is already committing the music and book to memory.


Randy Harrison
While Berkshire audiences know Harrison for his acting abilities in BTF shows like Equus, Waiting for Godot and One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest, he has earned his stripes in musicals as well. He played in Wicked on Broadway, and has extensive musical theatre experience in regional theatre, most notably playing Andy Warhol in Pop! at Yale Rep in 2009.

“Since I’ve started working in the Berkshires and in western Massachusetts, I feel re-connected to the New England area. It’s always felt like home to me. I still have some family there. My aunt is there. But now I think of it like a summer home, which is kind of nice.” – Randy Harrison

Harrison played the youngest member of the cast in the Showtime series Queer as Folk which is still in syndication worldwide. It brought him to the attention of millions of television viewers and could have typecast him as a heartthrob, but after the series finished, he returned to his first love, the stage, and continued to perfect his craft. On the sunny side of 30, Harrison still can play young, and that combined with his deep experience means that we could be in for a Tommy that will sear its music and characters on our memories. You have to see and feel his character for the show to work.

At the moment, Harrison is preparing to open in a new play off Broadway. The Red Bull Theater’s “In the Raw” workshop of Margaret, A Tyger’s Heart, which explores the role of the French Queen throughout Shakespeare’s history plays, begins tomorrow, Feb. 25. Michael Sexton directs the work, which is adapted from Shakespeare’s Richard III and Henry VI. Performances are just this weekend at the Theatre at St. Clement’s.


Jenn Harris (l) and Randy Harrison in Jack Ferver's "Swan".
From March 10-12, the actor and his friends will have a little fun at PS 122 as they undertake their spoof of the film Black Swan, complete with unhinged ballerinas, lurid hallucinations, tons of makeup and stage blood with Harrison playing the mad mother, with Jack Ferver as Lily, the hot new bad ballet girl in town. The cast will also include Christian Coulson and Matthew Wilkas. It promises to be catnip for lovers of camp and spoofery. It is a production of the infamous dancer Jack Ferver and his QWAN (Quality Without a Name) Company. “It is going to be insane,” Ferver said modestly.

Harrison maintains a busy schedule in his home base of New York, but uses the Berkshires as his summer retreat, thanks to the Berkshire Theatre Festival.

”I want to do Shakespeare. I want to do Chekov. I want to do Beckett. I did Waiting for Godot in the Berkshires. I think it was just a really, really good production. It was a wonderful director, and a wonderful company and people really responded to what we did. I love the play. I love Beckett. I like what I do now.

But I’ll also do a musical every three or four years. I miss singing after a while, so I’m always happy when the time comes and I’m like, ”I think I want to do a musical.” And also, there are more jobs in musicals and they pay better. [Laughs.] So it’s good when you want to do one.” – Randy Harrison

About Tommy’s Creation


Tommy becomes a Pinball Wizard.
In 1968, Pete Townshend told Rolling Stone he was working on a rock opera about a deaf, dumb, and blind boy. Townshend had rejected psychedelic drugs and discovered mysticism, and wanted to represent different states of consciousness through the story and music. It was only after rock journalist Nic Cohn gave an early version a cool reception that Townshend, knowing Cohn to be a pinball fan, made Tommy a Pinball Wizard. But the plot is much darker than anything you can experience at the local arcade, and varies among the many incarnations of The Who’s eponymous 1969 album. It was played live at Woodstock, and appeared as a ballet, a symphonic recording, a movie, an all-star stage performance, and, in 1993, a Broadway musical.

The original rock opera, The Who’s Tommy is at once a show-stopping rock concert and a cautionary tale of the power and perils of celebrity. We witness Tommy Walker from his birth, through the shocking episodes of his childhood that render him deaf, mute and blind, as he conquers the world with his stardom, and finally after the crowds have turned on him. Featuring legendary songs by the Who, including “Pinball Wizard,” “See Me, Feel Me” and “Tommy, Can You Hear Me?” this promises to be the event of the summer in the Berkshires.

Schedule and Ticketing

Previews are July 7 and 8 with opening night July 9. It plays until July 16 with tickets priced at $49, 40 and 20. Performances are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday-Saturday at 8pm, Wednesday at 7pm, Thursday and Saturday at 2pm. Subscriptions now, otherwise single tickets for all events go on sale March 14 to the general public. For BTF productions (including Tommy) contact the BTF Box Office at (413) 298-5576 or visit www.berkshiretheatre.org to purchase.

Fewer Jukebox Musicals and More Plays About Sports, Please

George Merrick and Shannon Lewis
in a publicity photo for Damn Yankees at Boston's North Shore Music Theatre in 2006.

Thank goodness for Damn Yankees. It's probably the best sports musical ever written, and for those of us in the Northeast, we will be able to enjoy it again August 5-21 at the Weston, VT Playhouse.

(For a rundown on the Berkshire's Summer of 2010 Schedules, visit Berkshire on Stage which lists all the major companies.)

I first saw it in its original Broadway outing back in the late fifties, and have never stopped loving it. "You've Gotta Have Heart" and "Whatever Lola Wants" are so eminently hummable while "Steam Heat" can be a great dance number.

Instead, lately it seems the jukebox musicals are becoming the new form for musicals, from Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys to Rock of Ages and American Idiot, that last one recycling a Green Day 2004 album. Now, there is no question that the music in question is good, even great, but the underpinnings, the book, the plot, the depth is pretty shallow. In Damn Yankees we have the issue of selling one's soul to the Devil while in Mamma Mia! we have a pastiche.

Here in the Berkshires we have the additional curse of the "tribute" shows, including one which I attended that supposedly saluted ABBA. In the middle of the show they scrapped ABBA and started playing anti-Disco music which clearly showed they hated playing ABBA in the first place. It was insulting to those who paid to enjoy the songs of the Swedish pop group. The venues who book these scandalous second rate shows are shortchanging their audiences and endangering their "brand" by diluting it with pap.

Audiences love these pop music revues, and there is no shortage of ticket buyers, so what is a commercial producer to do?

The lack of substance in musicals has always been a problem. But would you swap Sweet Charity for say, Footloose?

Sucker Punch at London's Royal Court Theatre

Sports musicals are rare, and plays about the subject are few and far between. Here we can count our blessings that Kate Maguire (Artistic Director of the Berkshire Theatre Festival) is a fan, a BIG fan of baseball. WIthout her, we would never have gotten to see the nostalgic and impressive Red Remembers last fall.

But isn't it about time someone did a credible job on Take Me Out, also about baseball players? Roy Williams new play about boxing, Sucker Punch is also intriguing. In the UK there are lots of plays about rugby, cricket and their version of football, but where is the American basketball or football tale to keep audiences riveted to the stage.

Dave Garrison as Red Barber in the Berkshire Theatre Festival play, Red Remembers.
Don't think there aren't sports fans in the audience, and theatre lovers at the stadium cheering on the local team. Audiences cross over all the time. Indeed I contend that a someone at the baseball stadium is more likely to buy a ticket to a stage show than some television viewer watching Survivor.

The world is divided into those who sit at home and those that go out. People who are always out and about will eventually discover local theatre and music. The couch potatoes only leave the nest to scoop up more junk at WalMart.

To expand audiences for the arts, it is possible that sports could be a better magnet to draw new people in than the jukebox.

William and Margaret Gibson Remembered at Shakespeare & Company

Playwright William Gibson honored.
From Jeremy Goodwin comes news that friends and fans of the late playwright, novelist and poet William Gibson, and psychotherapist and author Margaret Gibson, gathered yesterday to remember them. There was an intimate celebration of the Gibsons’ lives at Shakespeare & Company’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, co-produced by S&Co. and the Berkshire Theatre Festival. A group of artists long associated with both S&Co. and BTF gathered to perform scenes from Mr. Gibson’s plays, as well as to read from Mrs. Gibson’s writings.

Tina Packer and Dennis Krausnick
Tina Packer, S&Co.’s Founding Artistic Director, recalled meeting the Gibsons shortly after founding S&Co., and described Mrs. Gibson’s impact as an early member of S&Co.’s Board of Trustees. Kate Maguire, BTF’s Artistic Director, shared stories about Mr. Gibson’s time as BTF’s Artistic Director, and his deep and long-running working relationship with the festival.

Berkshire Theatre Festival Artistic Director Kate Maguire
Maguire and Packer were joined by fellow actors Jonathan Epstein, Eric Hill, Dennis Krausnick (S&Co. Director of Training), and Annette Miller. Miller opened the program with a performance of a scene from Gibson’s Golda’s Balcony. This was followed by reminiscences about the Gibsons and readings from Mr. Gibson’s Jonah’s Dream, American Primitive, A Cry of Players, and The Miracle Worker. Eric Tucker directed the program and read aloud from Mrs. Gibson’s work. After the hour-long program, the invited crowd of about fifty adjourned for a reception, slideshow, and further discussion about their old friends.

Jonathan Epstein
According to Broadway World, Gibson's most famous play is The Miracle Worker (1959), the story of Helen Keller's childhood education, which won him the Tony Award for Best Play. His other works include Dinny and the Witches (1948, revised 1961), in which a jazz musician incurs the wrath of three Shakespearean witches by blowing a riff which stops time; the Tony Award-nominated Two for the Seesaw (1958), a recounting of which production appeared the following year in Gibson's nonfiction book The Seesaw Log; the book for the musical version of Clifford Odets's Golden Boy (1964), which earned him yet another Tony nomination; A Mass for the Dead (1968), an autobiographical family chronicle; A Cry of Players (1968), a speculative account of the life of young William Shakespeare; Goodly Creatures (1980), about Puritan dissident Anne Hutchinson; Monday After the Miracle (1982), a continuation of the Keller story; and Golda (1977), a work about the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, which in its revised version Golda's Balcony (2003) set a record as the longest-running one-woman play in Broadway history on January 2, 2005.

Eric Tucker and Eric Hill
In 1954 he published a novel, The Cobweb, set at a psychiatric hospital resembling the Menninger Clinic. In 1955, the novel was adapted as a movie by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Gibson married Margaret Brenman-Gibson, a psychotherapist and biographer of Odets, in 1940. She died in 2004.

A Delightful Peter Pan at Berkshire Theatre Festival

Miranda Hope Shea and Victoria Aldam in Peter Pan.
Berkshire Theatre Festival continues its family programming season with Peter Pan, a musical based on the play by Sir James M. Barrie. The show, which is directed by E. Gray Simons III and Travis Daly, opened on the BTF Main Stage on September 4th.

While not open for formal review, I have to pass along my personal recommendation, having seen it. The production is a real crowd pleaser, well rehearsed and utterly charming. How so many children can appear on stage in the blink of an eye and then flow off again is truly amazing.

This popular children’s story follows the tale of Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, and the Darling children as they journey through Neverland, all the while evading the evil Captain Hook. This is the fourth year of BTF’s community-wide theatre productions. Children from all thirteen school districts are represented in the program.

Ralph Petillo as Captain Hook and the Pirate Chorus in Peter Pan.
Peter Pan runs on the Main Stage until September 13, Friday through Saturday at 7:30pm, Saturday and Sunday at 2:00pm. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Box Office at (413) 298-5576 or online. Proceeds benefit the BTF PLAYS!, Berkshire Theatre Festival's Year- Round Education Program.

The cast features over 150 actors composed entirely from the Berkshire County community. Miranda Hope Shea will be playing the title role, opposite Victoria Aldam, who will be playing Wendy. Miranda returns to the BTF Main Stage following her successful debut in Oliver! She has been in the previous BTF productions of A Christmas Carol and was seen most recently as young Edward Einstein in The Einstein Project on the Main Stage. She is joined by her sister Fiona Shea, who is making her BTF debut in the role of Jane Darling. Victoria Flower returns to BTF in the role of Slightly, one of the Lost Boys. She has been in all of the community productions BTF has done and has been seen in A Christmas Carol and Coastal Disturbances.

Mr. and Mrs. Darling are being portrayed by Ralph Petillo and Kathy Jo Grover, both of whom are returning to the BTF stage. Petillo will also being playing the part of Hook for this production. Petillo played the part of Fagin in the BTF production of Oliver! and most recently finished directing the successful BTF Unicorn production of Candide. Grover was also seen in last year’s production of Oliver! as the Undertaker’s Wife. Rider, Tyler, and Cooper Stanton are making a family return to the BTF stage. They have previously been seen in a variety of shows including Coastal Disturbances, Waiting for Godot, and A Christmas Carol.

The Lost Boys in Peter Pan.
This year’s production of Peter Pan also features a number of returning designers and artistic staff members. Carlton Maaia II is the musical director for the show and has worked on all the BTF community shows including Oliver! and The Wizard of Oz. He also worked as musical director for the BTF Unicorn production of I Do! I Do!

Rachel Plaine is returning as the choreographer for the show. She just finished a year as a BTF Artist-In-Residence, working with local schools in the BTF PLAYS! program and was the choreographer for Oliver! Keating Helfrich, who is currently the BTF Costume Shop Supervisor, is the costume designer for the show. She worked previously as costume designer for Oliver!


New to the BTF community productions are Chesapeake Westveer and Jaime Davidson, working as scenic designer and lighting designer, respectively. Chesapeake Westveer is also the BTF Props Master and recently completed the scenic design for Faith Healer. Jaime Davidson is the PR and Marketing Director for BTF and also did the lighting design for Candide.

Berkshire Theaters Collaborate on Discount Tickets

For those on a budget there are many ways to save on theater tickets. You can volunteer to be an usher, or man the snack stand in exchange for free admission. You can check out the availability of half price tickets at any of four locations of the Berkshire Half Tix Program.

And now, the four major companies have launched a scheme where you can get $10 off a ticket purchase for their main stage productions.

Othello stars the brilliant John Douglas Thompson at Shakespare & Company until September 6. Kevin Sprague Photo.
Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Shakespeare & Company, and Williamstown Theatre Festival are excited to announce a collaborative effort to provide more affordable theater opportunities for residents of and visitors to Berkshire County. While all four theaters currently have a variety of ticket options designed to make performances more affordable—from special discounts for County residents to rush tickets—the foursome saw an opportunity to collaborate as a group in an effort to provide even greater accessibility.

Prisoner of Second Avenue at Berkshire Theatre Festival until August 8
For the 2009 summer season, the four theaters are launching a ticket stub discount program to kick off the collaboration. All four theaters will offer discounted tickets to provide greater accessibility to theatre goers and to encourage patrons to attend productions at multiple venues. Patrons simply purchase a full price main stage ticket at any participating organization and retain their ticket stub. They may then turn in that ticket stub at any participating organization’s box office within two weeks of the performance date noted on the stub to receive $10 off the purchase of a full-price main stage ticket at that participating organization. That second stub may then be used within two weeks of its performance date to receive $10 off the purchase of yet another full-price main stage ticket at another participating theatre. The offer is valid for all main stage events at the four theaters, with the exception of one-time special events. Tickets may be purchased over the phone or in-person at each theater’s box office.

Jeremy Bobb (l) and Charles Shaughnessy (r) keep audiences on the edge of their seats in Sleuth playing Barrington Stage until August 1. Kevin Sprague Photo.
The four theaters were a natural fit for a collaborative effort—all four are producing theaters with full summer seasons of ongoing programming, and each provides educational and training programs. Additionally, all four theaters have similar ticket prices, making a joint ticket offer, such as the ticket stub discount, an easy program to implement.

True West with Paul Sparks (l) and Nate Corddry (r) at Williamstown Theatre Festival until July 26. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
The ticket stub discount program is just the first initiative of the collaboration, with plans for future initiatives already underway. The group intends to not only provide increased opportunities for patrons to see theater at an affordable price, but to work together to create greater visibility for the outstanding theater produced here in the Berkshires. The ticket stub discount program will launch on Monday, July 13th and will run through September 5 (noting that WTF season ends on August 23, and BSC and BTF’s seasons end on August 29).
Box Offices:

Barrington Stage Company: (413) 236-8888; www.barringtonstageco.org

Berkshire Theatre Festival: (413) 298-5576; www.berkshiretheatre.org

Shakespeare & Company: (413) 637-3353; www.shakespeare.org

Williamstown Theatre Festival: (413) 597-3400; www.wtfestival.org

Intense "Faith Healer" Opens 2009 Berkshire Theatre Festival

Actor Colin Lane in rehearsal at BTF.
Resist the impulse to pass on Faith Healer, just go! Sure, the thought of three actors, each on stage for extended soliloquies, sounds like a pretty chancy way to spend an evening at the theatre, but you just have to trust the playwright. Read all about the show in this full review at Berkshire Fine Arts.

Every word, every phrase, every movement is calculated to reach inside you and make you feel alive, to care for these characters, a preacher-healer, his wife (or is she his mistress?) and his manager. An unlikely trio of pals, but in the end, they are each others lives. Frank Hardy, the preacher, is a showman at heart, full of jocularity and bravado that is but a front for his feelings of humiliation and loss. His wife, Grace, lurches between resentment and wonder, and the manager tells the truth about the pair. Or does he? In the end, the play is more than a sum of its players, it stays with you. And resonates.

Ralph Fiennes undertook Faith Healer on Broadway a few years ago, and won many doubters over to the brilliance of Brian Friel's simple play.



Donal McCann, arguably Ireland's greatest actor, also took on Faith Healer, with extraordinary results.



The Berkshire Theatre Festival production is directed by Eric Hill with David Adkins, Colin Lane (making his BTF debut) and Keira Naughton. It plays at the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, MA through June 20th. Box Office 413.298.5576
Online Berkshire Theatre Festival

Shakespeare's 445th Birthday to be Celebrated April 23rd

Birthday Bashes for the Bard. (Birthday photo by Larry Murray)

Just a week to go before William Shakespeare is turning the big 445, and theatre companies around the world mark the date with parties and celebrations for the best known writer in the English world. We wrote earlier about the bash at Berkshire Theatre Festival but of course, Shakespeare & Company is also throwing a birthday bash worthy of the occasion. Their Will 445 Bash will rock the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, along with its lobby and terrace, on April 23 from 7pm to midnight.

Their invitation warns us:

This being Shakespeare & Company, a swordfight is not out of the question. Guests must leave daggers, poisons and treachery at the door. (Mild knavery is permitted.)

Popular favorites Berkshire Bateria will provide the soundtrack for much dancing and merriment. There will be delicious food and birthday cake for all, plus a cash bar. Music is also provided by cast members of last year’s lively production of All’s Well That Ends Well, and partygoers are welcome to bring their own instruments for an end-of-night jam. Lots of surprises await, including tastes of Shakespeare and an advance preview of some of the exciting new plays coming in the 2009-2010 season.

A roster of tremendous raffle prizes includes tickets to see U2 perform at Giants Stadium followed by a stay at the Four Seasons in New York City, two days of rest and regeneration at Kripalu, an in-Berkshire getaway including tickets to Shakespeare & Company’s fall production of Hound of the Baskervilles or winter production of Les Liasons Dangereuses.

Tickets are $20 ($12 for 18 and under) and available at the door or in advance by contacting the Box Office at (413) 637-3353, boxoffice@shakespeare.org, or www.shakespeare.org.

Berkshire Theatre Festival Honors Richie DuPont

Poster for the Richie DuPont Event May 9.

Berkshire Theatre Festival audiences and staff still remember Richie Dupont, a young actor who was killed in a house fire at age 24. The young actor was at the beginning of his career. At the BTF he played one of the horses in Equus with Randy Harrison who played Alan Strang in that play, his first BTF appearance. We will never know what his full potential might have been. Ritchie worked as a double on the films "Herbie Fully Loaded" and "National Lampoon’s Lost Reality II."

Each year, a special event is held in his memory to enable other promising actors a chance to learn the business of stagecraft.

Richie in Equus: (front row) Tara Franklin, Randy Harrison and Richie DuPont; back row Joe Jung and Ryan O'Shaughnessy in Berkshire Theatre Festival's Main Stage production of Equus. Photo by Kevin Sprague.

To that end, BTF PLAYS!, the year-round educational program for Berkshire Theatre Festival, will be hosting the 4th annual Richie DuPont Award Benefit on May 9th at 8 p.m. at Firefly in Lenox, MA. The benefit will feature live entertainment by Berkshire favorites, the Tony Lee Thomas Band, light hors d’ouevres, door prizes and a silent auction. All proceeds will benefit the Richie duPont Award, which provides tuition assistance for children to attend BTF PLAYS! summer acting camps on the BTF campus.

This year’s silent auction features a “A Night at the Theatre” package including overnight accommodations for two and a complimentary breakfast at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, MA along with tickets to a BTF Main Stage Production; tickets to see The Roundabout Theatre Company’s current production of Waiting for Godot on Broadway, starring Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin; gift certificates to IS183, Plaine’s BikeSkiSnowboard, Route 7 Grill, and Berkshire Bike and Blade; Kayak rental from the Arcadian Shop; and many, many more items donated by local businesses. The event is sponsored this year by Maureen Stanton, Laura Shack of Firefly, and Your Color Connection.

Tickets for the event are $15 in advance and $20 at the door the night of the event. For advance tickets or more information on the event, please contact BTF at (413) 298-5536 ext. 13.

Epstein and Berkshire Theatre Festival to Celebrate Shakespeare's 445th Birthday

Berkshire Theatre Festival Artistic Director Kate Maguire announced that Jonathan Epstein will perform a piece titled Love in the Afternoon – Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Story Behind Them at Berkshire Theatre Festival’s Unicorn Theatre on Sunday April 26th at 2:00 pm in honor of William Shakespeare’s 445th birthday. Epstein’s one-man show explores Shakespeare’s passionate relationships and work through an in-depth look at his sonnets.

Describing the event, Maguire said “Epstein will engage the audience, working through the identities, histories, and complicated relationship of The Dark Lady and The Young Man, while providing background on Shakespeare and the Elizabethan world. This isn’t your typical one-man performance; it is truly an actor’s look at Shakespeare’s life and writings - a performance of history by an accomplished actor.”
BTF Actor Jonathan Epsein
Epstein has many Shakespearean credentials on his resume. He was a principal actor, teacher and director with Shakespeare & Company, where his roles included Benedick, Puck, Bottom, Dogberry, Feste, Richard III, Iago, Macbeth, Lear, and scores of others. He is the host of Boston's Annual Sonnet Marathon and is much in demand as a guest lecturer on Shakespeare and the Sonnets at universities and theatre companies across the country.

Epstein most recently appeared at BTF as Davies in last season’s The Caretaker. Earlier he was Randall McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Frank in Educating Rita, Salieri in Amadeus, and David Hare in Via Dolorosa. He is a master teacher of the BTF Apprentice Company. Additionally, he has performed on and Off-Broadway, in London's West End as Goethe's Faust, and in dozens of regional theatres. Epstein has been awarded Boston’s Eliot Norton Award for Outstanding Actor twice.

Epstein is currently performing the role of Max Kellerman in the Pre-Broadway National Tour of Dirty Dancing, now in Boston, moving to LA in May.

Epstein's single performance of Love in the Afternoon – Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the Story Behind Them is slated for BTF's Unicorn Theatre on April 26th 2009 at 2:00pm. The performance will be followed by a discussion with Mr. Epstein, and a post-show reception. Tickets are $50 and available by calling the Berkshire Theatre Festival Box Office at 413-298-5576.

Randy Harrison Returning to Berkshire Theatre Festival for "Ghosts"

Randy Harrison, who will play Oswald in Ghosts August 11-29, 2009, is seen here in the 2007 Berkshire Theatre Festival production of Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Kevin Sprague photo.

The Berkshire Theatre Festival just announced their principal casting for Summer 2009, and perhaps the most exciting news is the reunion of actor Randy Harrison with Director Anders Cato and Dramaturg James Leverett. Together they will present a brand new interpretation of one of the towering classics of live theatre, Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts. It will run from August 11-29, 2009 on their main stage in Stockbridge, MA.

This play is so controversial that mass arrests were made on its opening night 120+ years ago. Then it was considered too controversial to perform for decades and gathered dust, or was performed in sanitized versions that betrayed its original outrage at the hypocrisy of family values, then and now.

Anders Cato, who is of Swedish descent, will direct Ibsen's Ghosts.

The plot: Ghosts is a transfixing family drama and a bold attack on fake “family values” that outraged audiences of the late 1800s—and this story of a mother’s love, a father’s sins and a son’s terrible inheritance has only become more powerful with the passing of time. In the course of one day at the Alving’s estate on the fjords of Norway, a respectable family’s history, carefully maintained by the widowed Mrs. Alving, unravels before our eyes into deception and despair.

The late Mr. Alving, revered by the community as a model father and husband, was actually an incorrigible drunken philanderer, and despite his wife’s every effort to protect her son from his influence and shield their family from criticism, the sins of Mr. Alving come home to roost in a chilling series of revelations that chip away at the very foundations of “decent society.”
Randy Harrison as Tom Wingfield in the Guthrie production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. Directed by Joe Dowling. Part of the Guthrie Theater 2007 season in Minneapolis. Photo by T. Charles Erickson

As good as he was in Queer as Folk, his many years with that series caused some to typecast him. But Harrison has enormous depth and dedication to his craft, and his on-stage appearances are the best way to appreciate it. His work both with the Berkshire Theatre Festival and elsewhere is daring and adventurous.

In the past four summers in Stockbridge, MA, artistic director Kate Maguire has teamed him with Director Anders Cato and a host of gifted actors to reinterpret and reinvent classic roles in works that often have become musty. This team does not disappoint, they blow away the accumulated dust and bring back the shock and awe that first excited audiences though the use of new translations, fresh approaches and timely updates.
In 2007 Randy Harrison and Director Anders Cato brought fresh life to the classic George Bernard Shaw play, Mrs. Warrens Profession. Kevin Sprague Photo.

Harrison and Cato first employed this fresh approach in the BTF 2007 Mrs. Warren's Profession which was written a century ago by the great George Bernard Shaw. Then, last season, they tackled the near-sacred Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, though this play was only five decades old. One local critic almost had a heart attack at the changes he encountered in their version. Most everyone I know simply loved it and it was a critical success.

Though the rest of the cast has yet to be announced, Ghosts promises to be the most exciting production in the Berkshires for Summer 2009. One of the things that can be depended on is that Randy will take a totally new approach to his role as Oswald the son in Ghosts, as he does for everything he performs. As he commented in my interview with him last summer, "There's so much academic stuff, so much to study and think about it, and I just tried to scrape it all away and start fresh."

Another photo from the Guthrie Theatre Production of Glass Menagerie. T. Charles Erickson picture.

As an actor, Harrison recognizes that choices have to be made when interpreting a role: "It is many layers and it is just simply what it is. You follow the script, and the audience will project what is a personal meaning for them, now they will see it. The problem is that while it is all of those things, you can only pick one to play."

As the actual production nears, perhaps I will be able to chat with Harrison again about his preparations for this part. I know the interview we did last year helped many fans and theatre-goers better appreciate his role in Waiting for Godot.

Kids Can See A Christmas Carol Free at Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, MA

A large cast makes A Christmas Carol at the Berkshire Theatre Festival a delight to watch. Kevin Sprague Photo.

Closer to home, the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, MA just announced that they are matching the Disney "Kids Go Free" program with their own promotion for A Christmas Carol.

Charles Dickens' classic tale has never been more vibrant or more joyous than in this year's incarnation at the Unicorn Theatre. And, from now through December 22 you can receive a Free children's ticket for each adult ticket purchased. This means that youngsters can see this annual holiday event for free!

This offer is only available by calling the Berkshire Theatre Festical ticket office at (413) 298-5536 ext 33. Do call ASAP as these tickets are limited. BTF's Unicorn Theatre only has about a hundred seats and everyone is close to the stage. What a great way to see this production up close and personal.

The ghost of Christmas Future at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Kevin Sprague Photo.

This glorious production runs through December 30, but the offer is only for shows between now and the 22nd.

Half Price Tickets in Berkshires, MA

There are four half price ticket buying locations in the Berkshires


Even in our lightly populated Berkshires, there is so much going on that we have developed three half-price ticketing operations which have offerings ranging from Tanglewood, Jacob's Pillow and Barrington Stage Company to Shakespeare and Company and the Berkshire and Williamstown Theatre Festivals.. The four locations are in Pittsfield, Great Barrington, Adams and Chatham, NY.

This past summer I detailed its operation and hours for Berkshire Fine Arts. You can read it here: Half Price Tickets in the Berkshires article

What the hell is Kate Maguire doing down in Stockbridge?

Kate Maguire
Photo by Kevin Sprague


Do you realize how lucky you are if you live in the Berkshires? Kate Maguire, artistic director of the Berkshire Theatre Festival is taking more theatrical risks than most summer theatre impresarios. Two recent productions are especially worthy. If you can get to Stockbridge this week, by all means do. Her current offerings are brilliant, historic and worth your time and attention. Kate's hand is not evident in the program credits - she did not direct or act in either show - but rather benind the scenes, through her planning, daring and problem solving.

One of these days we are going to read that she has been lured away by the Manhattan Theatre Club, the Guthrie or Steppenwolf. Let's hope it is just for a project and that the Berkshire Theatre Festival will continue to have first dibs on her.

"Waiting for Godot" Breaks the Rules, Upsets the Critics, Delights Audiences

The signs of her success are abundant: mixed, even volatile opinions on BTF's current iteration of Waiting for Godot which is directed by Anders Cato in a fresh, new way, blowing away the dust and upsetting more than one drama professor in the process. Imagine, Godot as comedy, as vaudeville, and being played for laughs? "Heresy," the purists scream, so sure are they that their dour, existentialist meanings of this work are the only righteous interpretation of the play. Never mind that Beckett broke all the rules 50 years ago, and wrote a play that was so different that it took the geniuses decades to figure out what it all meant. Perhaps they could not accept the evidence that was staring them in the face. Bert Lahr was cast in the first production. Bert Lahr, you know, The Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz, one of the greatest comic actors of all time! Jeez.Randy Harrison in Berkshire Theatre Festival's Unicorn Theatre production of Waiting for Godot. Photo by Kevin Sprague.

Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment, Cato and his wonderful cast (David Adkins, Stephen DeRosa, Randy Harrison, David Schramm and Cooper Stanton) spent extra weeks developing the new interpretation. Happily I found it one in which Beckett's minimalist approach to theatre was minimalized still further. Gone were the ponderous pauses which made many previous incarnations seem like a leaden high mass. I say if the script says "pause," count two beats and move on, don't make me wait for six or ten seconds between lines. And don't forget that the title of the play actually translates as "While Waiting for Godot" and that puts my focus on how cleverly Didi and Gogo manage to pass the time. I have never laughed so hard at a performance of Godot with all of those clever bits, nor been touched so deeply by their frustration.

If Adkins and DeRosa were great tramps, Schramm's Pozzo was earthshaking. But best of all was Randy Harrison as Lucky. Harrison's reading of Lucky's speech was simply the most heart stopping theatrical experience I have had in more than 50 years of play-going. Totally original, totally unexpected in its ferocity, and beyond compare. Revolutionary, even.

How such a transformative play could be reduced to the status of a sacrosanct theatrical relic by critics is beyond me. Beckett himself was still fiddling with it 30 years after it opened, so its premature embalming is inexcusable. Godot is still alive. Alive, I tell you! So thanks to Maguire for nurturing the grant, assembling the brilliant cast and director, it is a production that will live long in memory.

As Beckett himself remarked: "I'm no intellectual. All I am is feeling." Amen, Sam.

Waiting for Godot runs until August 23, time to still see it...if there are tickets left. (Box office: 413-298-5576.)

Noël Coward in Two Keys

The second play that broke some rules is actually two one act plays done at the same time: Noël Coward in Two Keys. to appreciate what Maguire and director Vivian Matalon have done you have to listen more carefully than usual. The dialog is crisp and clear, in perfectly understandable English - American English, I guess you could call it. While an equally delightful production of a Coward work, Private Lives, is underway at Barrington Stage Company, the two are as different as night and day. The Barrington version goes to great lengths to get the English accents just so, and in the process makes it somewhat more difficult for Americans to follow the dialog.Mia Dillon and Maureen Anderman in Berkshire Theatre Festival’s 2008 Main Stage production of Noël Coward in Two Keys. Photo by Kevin Sprague.

The clarity of the dialog when spoken normally ehances the audience's ability to enjoy the cleverness that Coward embedded everywhere in the dialog. So thank you Kate for finding Vivian Matalon, who directed the original Broadway version of these plays almost fifty years ago with Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy in the main roles. The casting of Maureen Anderman, Casey Biggs, and Mia Dillon in the main roles worked like a charm. All attention was focused on the play as it unfolded. The end result is that for a short time those of us in the Berkshires can see Coward at his peak (Private Lives) and at the end of his remarkable career (Two Keys). In a real way, it was the beginning and end of an era. Stonewall and the rise of gay liberation rendered the discrete, nuanced beads of humor that Coward dropped like pearls obsolete. In your face, up-front, direct bitchy humor soon became the trademark of gay writers ie Boys in the Band, and, yes, even Who's Aftraid of Virginia Wolf, which this play was a late minute substitute for. Make no mistake Virginia Wolf was a gay play with straight characters.

For reviews of these plays and my interview with Randy Harrison about Waiting for Godot and Samuel Beckett, check out Berkshire Fine Arts. Other interesting reviews are those by Gail Burns, at Gail Sez and Peter Bergman at Berkshire Bright Focus.

Randy Harrison is Lucky. And so am I.

Randy Harrison

It's been a busy week for this writer. In addition to an enlightening conversation I had with Williamstown Theatre Director John Rando about A Flea in Her Ear, (see item below) I also had a chance to talk with Randy Harrison about his role as Lucky in Waiting for Godot. It will be presented on the Unicorn Theatre stage at the Berkshire Theatre Festival from July 29 to August 23.

Randy's skills on stage are substantial and growing each year. For those who admired his performance on Showtime's popular Queer as Folk series, it has been a revelation. For Harrison is more than just the character Justin which he played back then. He is a man of a thousand roles, each one as unique and challenging as any actor could ask for.

In Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Harrison takes on a theatrical role that is difficult and daring, that of Lucky, the servant, or "slave" of Pozzo. Not as big a role as the tramps Didi or Gogo, but absolutely as challenging. The full interview I had with Harrison is published over at Berkshire Fine Arts, and also includes some analysis of Beckett and Godot. And if you have not yet subscribed over there for their email alerts, it's an easy way to keep up with my adventures, too.

Randy Harrison interview

More Thoughts About Godot

Admit it, there are quite a few of us waiting for Godot, the play, to open at the Berkshire Theatre Festival - so that we can get our Beckett "fix", our mental escape into the theatre of the absurd.

For the person who sees Waiting for Godot for the first time, our passion for this play is as mysterious as the play itself. Most first time audience members content themselves with the physical comedy, the play on words, and leave wondering what all the fuss was about.

But that is where the addiction to Godot, and all things Beckett begins. Innocently. With a simple recollection of unexplained nonsense. I got bitten, bad, by the Beckett bug many years ago, and my malaise grows worse, the mysteries even more unfathomable than on first viewing. Like his character Lucky, I too am doomed to carry this baggage and noose around my neck for the rest of my life.

I too was young once, and entertaining, and now I speak what appears to be gibberish, at least when I discuss Godot. So many of my friends do not get it, lucky souls.

The text of Lucky’s speech is strange. Imagine taking all the great works of Western thought, putting them through a paper shredder, and then pasting them back together as best you can.

What you end up with is a total deconstruction and desecration of the basis of philosophy and the logic of science. Since I sometimes wrestle with the limitations of writing complex thoughts in simple language, it is liberating, even hilarious.


At the end of the interview I was able to snap a few quick photos of Randy. Here is another.

Randy Harrison contemplates an answer.

The Power of Pinter at Berkshire Theatre Festival

James Barry as Mick (l) and Jonathan Epstein as Davies in The Caretaker opening the Berkshire Theatre Festival season.

When I walked into the Berkshire Theatre Festival's Unicorn Theatre last Sunday afternoon, I gave up the glorious Berkshire sunshine and lush carpet of green for the grey and dingy squalor of a London flat. In creating the set for their season opener, The Caretaker, scenic designer Jonathan Wentz has done such a convincing job of hopeless chaos, I wanted to escape back to the flowers of Spring, and the hope of renewal that was just beyond the theater walls.

Pinter is hard. If you take his work seriously, you have to surrender your own comfort level and exchange places with his sodden characters who have so little to live for. As the press release states so cooly:

Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker is an enigmatic and sinister comedy about the struggle for power. The fragile relationship of two brothers, Aston and Mick, is turned upside down when Davies, a homeless man, enters their lives. Since its premiere in 1960, this play has been recognized as a landmark in 20th century drama.

Director Eric Hill comments: “I’m excited to examine the dramatic tension and mystery of Pinter – always a study in trying to get behind the words and underlying causes of the relationships.”

I think this play was a triumph as I wrote in my review in Berkshire Fine Arts, but it is also depressing. Honest examination of the human condition is rarely upliftiing, at least in Pinterland.

Larry Murray's review of "The Caretaker" in Berkshire Fine Arts

Just don't see it on a glorious spring day, save it for a cloudy or rainy one. Pinter is brilliant, this production is absorbing, but it is also deeply affecting.