Shakespeare & Company: "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and "Women of Will"

Josh Aaron McCabe and Alexandra Lincoln in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Photos by Kevin Sprague.
There's activity aplenty in South County as Shakespeare & Company lights its marquee for two events in February. Both are must-see performances.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses
The first is the much anticipated Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton and adapted from the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos which opens this week. It is directed by Tina Packer and presented at the intimate Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre from through March 21, 2010.

Love is the ultimate weapon! This wickedly entertaining story of love, sex and betrayal is as sumptuously guilt-inducing as a decadent chocolate you just can't resist. Depicting the devious schemes of French aristocrats on the cusp of the Revolution.

Elizabeth Aspenlieder
Packer directs Elizabeth Aspenlieder, who won the coveted Elliot Norton Award for her tour de force performance in Bad Dates last winter, and Josh Aaron McCabe, most recently seen last fall as Sherlock Holmes (and a host of other characters, both male and female) in the runaway hit The Hound of the Baskervilles. Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) was ahead of its time as a novel in 1782 and it still may be ahead of its time today.

Women of Will
Tina Packer and Nigel Gore.
On February 28, in the Bernstein Theatre, there will be a sneak peek of Women of Will. A true tour de force of performance, discussion, and just a bit of crowd participation, this pla, written by Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer, and directed by Eric Tucker is the much-anticipated, masterful summation of Tina Packer's 40-odd years of deep investigation into all things Shakespeare. Performing with Packer is Nigel Gore.

After years of work, refinement, and workshop performances, Tina is making the world premiere of Women of Will at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, England this March. For one night only, our audience will get a sneak peek of this remarkable survey here in Lenox—before Tina takes it across the pond.

How did Shakespeare's view of women and the feminine impulse change throughout his career? And what can his 400-year-old insights teach us today about our own lives, as we each figure out for ourselves what it means to be alive?

My colleague Chales Giuliano does a nice advance take on Women of Will and its place in the Shakespeare & Company repertoire. Berkshire Fine Arts

For ticket and specific performance information, visit www.shakespeare.org

Shakespeare & Company is located at 70 Kemble Street in Lenox, MA.
Box office: 413-637-3353
Main office: 413-637-1199

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.

Olympia Dukakis On Stage at Shakespeare & Company

Shakespeare & Company welcomes back Academy Award-winning actress Olympia Dukakis for a special benefit performance of William Coe Bigelow’s moving drama Leap Year. You can read the story behind this reunion in my revealing interview in Berkshire Fine Arts. This one-time event lights up the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre on Monday, August 31 at 7:00pm, followed by a reception with the cast. Artistic Director Tony Simotes directs. Leap Year kicks off S&Co.'s 15th annual Studio Festival of Plays, which hits full stride with seven staged readings of new works at the Bernstein Theatre on Monday, September 7.

Leap Year tells the story of a thirtysomething couple, Rob and Lisa Montgomery, whose second child is born with Down’s Syndrome. The first act takes place in a duplex apartment in Los Angeles, starting the day their son is born, on February 29th, 1988—as the couple, their friends, and family struggle to come to terms with the painful event and the difficult choices they suddenly face. The second act transpires five leap years later, on February 29th, 2008, in the same duplex apartment, when the decisions the Montgomerys have made with regard to their son’s upbringing play out in stark terms. This captivating drama goes straight to the gut; at its center are questions about personal responsibility, parenting, a personal sense of God, and finally, the redemptive quality of love and forgiveness.

The cast also features Berkshire Theatre Festival favorite David Adkins and S&Co. artists Elizabeth Aspenlieder (appearing in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at S&Co. this winter), Jules Findlay, Corinna May (currently appearing in Twelfth Night), Tom O’Keefe (currently appearing in Measure For Measure), Miriam Hyman (currently appearing in The Dreamer Examines His Pillow), Josh Aaron McCabe (appearing in The Hound of the Baskervilles this fall), Diana Prusha, Ryan Winkles (currently appearing in Twelfth Night), Rose Zoltick-Jick, and Simotes.

Olympia Dukakis, to appear at Shakespeare & Company
Reflecting on her return to Lenox, Dukakus said:

"I'm delighted to be working again at Shakespeare & Company, especially under the direction of the extraordinary Tony Simotes, my old friend and one-time student. This is a place where we can explore the deep resonances of Shakespeare's work, as well as the most thought-provoking voices of our own day. There is no better place to bring William Bigelow's exciting new play—and to be helping Shakespeare & Company achieve a Kresge Foundation incentive grant makes it all the more special."

Tony Simotes, Artistic Director of Shakespeare & Comapany
Dukakis’ roots with the S&Co. family reach back to the 1970’s, when she was an acting teacher for founding Company members Simotes, Dennis Krausnick and Kevin G. Coleman at New York University. In 1998, her groundbreaking The Lear Project (later expanded into Queen Lear), directed by Krausnick and featuring Dukakis as Lear and Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer as the Fool, sold out its run at S&Co. She has since co-adapted The Other Side of The Island, based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Ticket prices for Leap Year range from $30 to $50, and are available at www.shakespeare.org or from the Box Office, which can be reached at (413) 637-3353. Proceeds will benefit Shakespeare & Company’s ongoing $10 million Capital Campaign and its push to receive an $800,000 incentive grant from The Kresge Foundation. S&Co. has already raised over $8 million toward its total, funds which have gone to the construction of the new Production and Performing Arts Center and Elayne P. Bernstein Theater, plus other much-needed infrastructure improvements and the creation of a small reserve fund. Earlier this year, S&Co. announced receipt of a highly competitive incentive grant from The Kresge Foundation, based on one key condition: once the Company raises an additional $1.2 million in its broad, community-wide appeal, The Kresge Foundation will contribute a stunning $800,000 to successfully complete the Capital Campaign.

The Kresge campaign has gained momentum all summer as patrons, friends and neighbors have come together to support S&Co. and its programming, which has become so interwoven into the community over the Company’s 32 years of groundbreaking performance, transformative education programs, and world class actor training.

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

Measure for Measure at Lunchtime at Shakespeare & Company

(l to r) Ross Bennett Hurwitz and Tom O'Keefe; Poornima Kirby; Nathan Wolfe Coleman. Danny Kurtz photos.
Lunchtime Shakespeare is being revived. It's an old tradition from Shakespeare & Company's days at The Mount; a midday combo of a substantial boxed lunch and a frothy bite of The Bard. Measure for Measure, is a tilt-o-wheel ride of political hypocrisy and ethical dilemmas, is brought to life on the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre stage by the energetic and talented troupe of young actors who are in S&Co.’s Performance Internship Program. Associate Director of Training Dave Demke directs.

First performed in 1604 and listed among Shakespeare’s comedies, Measure for Measure is as timely and relevant today as the latest disgraced politician or tabloid scandal. This lively but clear-headed play is a masterful mosaic of comedy and tragedy, intellectual debate and heart-felt passion. A searing indictment of corrupt politicians and moral hypocrisy, it is a play about balance—or rather, the consequences of imbalance when a powerful officeholder strictly enforces the nation’s morality laws, while hypocritically ignoring them in private practice. (Sound familiar?) Measure for Measure is a play that falls somewhere between comedy and tragedy, with grave issues of moral consequence interspersed with the exploits of characters like Lucio (a flamboyant gentleman), Pompey (a bawdy barkeep), and Mistress Overdone (the proprietress of a brothel).

“The thing I’ve been fascinated with is the way the play will swing from tragedy to comedy, literally within a scene. That swing of highs and lows is what I’m finding very compelling, as it has to do with forward motion. Once the train leaves the station, you can’t turn it around and you can’t stop it, ” Demke says, before choosing an alternative metaphor. “It’s something of a rollercoaster ride.”

Gabriel Portuondo and Tom O'Keefe
In Measure for Measure, a benevolent Duke has left Vienna temporarily in the hands of the harsh—and hypocritical—Angelo. Angelo rules by the letter of the law, even when it seems justice would be best served by a looser interpretation. Isabella, a young nun, learns that her brother Claudio has received a death sentence for out-of-wedlock practices, Angelo makes an indecent proposal to her, promising to save her brother’s life if she complies. The original “bed trick” is performed, to fool Angelo into thinking his bargain was accepted, while a “head trick” falsely convinces him Claudio is dead. Meanwhile, The Duke has not left Vienna but in fact has remained behind, in disguise, to witness Angelo’s rule. Will The Duke restore order to this tangle of illicit relationships, willful confusion, and misrule in the name of “law and order”?

Measure for Measure plays from July 10 to September 5, with all curtain times at 12:45pm. Tickets run $14 to $18 for Previews, and $16 to $24 performances on or after July 18. Patrons are invited to purchase specially prepared lunches and enjoy them on the terrace overlooking the Dottie and Stephen Weber Wetlands Garden or in the comfortable Bernstein Theatre Lobby. Boxed lunches (tuna salad, turkey, or veggie sandwich; apple; cookie; bottled water) should be ordered in advance from the Box Office for $7. Lunches are provided by S&Co.’s resident chef, Peter Mathis of Bountiful Harvest Catering in Pittsfield (413-281-7345). Lunches are available for pick-up in the Bernstein Lobby at noon.

The Bernstein is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. For a complete listing of productions and schedules, to inquire about the 40% Berkshire Resident Discount, Youth Rush tickets, or other discounts, or to receive a brochure, you can call the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or visit www.shakespeare.org.

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.

"Bad Dates" Travels to Merrimack Repertory Theatre for a Month

Elizabeth Aspenlieder in the original production at Shakespeare & Company. Kevin Sprague photos, courtesy Shakespeare & Company.

Watch out Lowell - the play may revolve around all her bad dates, but this delightful show is an evening out that will make the boys laugh as much as the girls. They may even catch a few clues! Elizabeth Aspenlieder is about to move in on the Merrimack scene, and she is telling all. Her one woman show, Bad Dates has warmed up the Berkshire's normally frigid winter theatre scene with sell out performances for two months. At yesterday's press conference announcing the 2009-10 season for Shakespeare & Company everyone was delighted to learn that her triumphant one-woman show was getting a run of its own within driving distance of Boston. Now you can see what all the excitement has been about.

The hilariious Theresa Reebock play has its final Lenox performance on March 8, and then Aspenlieder moves to the Merrimack Repertory Theatre from March 19 to April 12 to recreate the role. You can also read a review in Berkshire Fine Arts.

Merrimack Rep's blurb describes it this way:

A hilarious and touching comedy. A single mother with a teenage daughter, a screamingly stressful job, and a collection of 600 pairs of shoes, Haley Walker tries to find love in the big city. Relive her rotten romances as Tibetan Buddhists and even the Romanian mob get in the way of her finding “Mr. Right.” Her story is a love and fashion odyssey that has had audiences across the country rolling in the aisles!

"Do you think this pair matches?"

For the actress the only question remaining is which shoes to take.

Key Info: Merrimack Repertory Theatre has online ticket ordering and is centrally located at the convergence of Routes 3, 93 and 495 in the heart of historic downtown Lowell. If you live in the Boston area, you are probably less than 30 minutes away from what people say is “the best kept secret of the Merrimack Valley.” Merrimack Rep is professional theatre at affordable prices and without the hassle of traffic and parking. For more information you can call them at 978-654-4678.