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.

Waiting for Godot with Nathan Lane, John Goodman, Bill Irwin, John Glover

Be still my heart. Nathan Lane, John Goodman and Bill Irwin star in Roundabout's Waiting for Godot. Photo Joan Marcus.
For many, this is the ultimate cast for Beckett's classic Waiting for Godot. They have given this classic enigma of a play a new lease on life, one we have been awaiting since last summer's incredible Godot at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, MA which featured Randy Harrison as Lucky. In the Roundabout Theatre's version, Lucky is played by John Glover, who we all know from his dual roles in Love, Valour, Compassion (Broadway and the film version) and of course, the series Smallville where he gets to play next to Tom Welling and Michal Rosenbaum.

Nathan Lane as Estragon and John Goodman as Pozzo in this stunning photo by Sara Krulwich of the New York Times.
As we always try to do, we have found a special deal on tickets for our frugal friends, so that you can see this great cast - the incredible Nathan Lane, the incomparable Bill Irwin, the sensational John Goodwin (who blew the critics away) and the always surprising John Glover.

Carrot or radish? Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin. Photo Joan Marcus.
We have also raided the Roundabout Theatre's website and press resources for some pretty stunning pictures of the production which we include here. Who can't resist seeing this classic play in which nothing happens. Twice. If you've been waiting for a great ticket deal wait no longer.

The discount ticket offer is valid through the end of this month only. The regular tickets, priced from $36.50 to $116.50 are available at $24.25 to $79.50 depending on the day of the week and the location at the Studio 54 Theatre, located at 254 W. 54th Street.

John Glover, Bill Irwin, Nathan Lane. and John Goodman in Waiting for Godot. Photo Joan Marcus.
To get this discount, you can call 212-719-1300 and use code WGTKW. Or go to the Roundabout Theatre ticket order page and enter code WGTKW. Limit 8 tickets per order, subject to availability and can not be combined with other discounts. Valid for perforamnces 4/7 to 4/29/09.

P.S. Waiting for Godot has received 5 Outer Critics Circle Award Nominations including Best Play Revival.


"Mr. Godot will not be coming today."

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.

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.

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.