Berkshire Playhouse, Berkshire Theatre Festival | |
 The Red Barn at the Berkshire Theatre Festival | |
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| Address | Stockbridge, Massachusetts United States |
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| Coordinates | 42°16′55″N73°18′04″W / 42.282036°N 73.301226°W |
| Owner | Non-profit Organization |
| Opened | 1928 |
| Website | |
| http://www.berkshiretheatre.org/ | |
The Berkshire Theatre Festival is one of the oldest professional performing arts venues in the Berkshires, celebrating 100 years of theatre in 2028.
The main building of the Berkshire Theatre Festival was originally the Stockbridge Casino, designed by Stanford White and built in 1887. At one point the center of social life in Stockbridge, by 1927 it had fallen into disuse. Mabel Choate, the daughter of one of the casino's founders, purchased the property for $2,000, but wasn't interested in the casino itself (she moved the Mission House to the property). Three prominent Stockbridge residents, sculptor Daniel Chester French, businessman and artist Walter Leighton Clark, and Dr. Austen Fox Riggs, formed a committee called the Three Arts Society to save the casino; Choate sold the building to them for $1 on the condition that it be relocated. [1] French, Clark, and Riggs agreed, and had the structure dismantled and moved to its current location.
After an extensive renovation, the newly christened Berkshire Playhouse opened on June 4, 1928, with a production of "The Cradle Song" with Eva Le Gallienne. Actors who have starred in productions at the Berkshire Playhouse include James Cagney, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Katharine Hepburn, and Buster Keaton. Notable producing directors have included Billy Miles, Joan White, Robert Paine Grose, George Tabori, Arthur Penn, Josephine Abady, Julianne Boyd, Bill Gibson, Richard Dunlap, and Arthur Storch. [2]
In 1967, the Three Arts Society was dissolved and the Berkshire Playhouse was incorporated as a nonprofit organization, the Berkshire Theatre Festival. In 1982, the Berkshire Theatre Festival purchased Beaupré Performing Arts Center's property in Stockbridge, renaming it the Lavan Center for the Performing Arts. [3] The site was used as a dormitory, classroom, and performance space for the organization's apprentices and interns. [3]
In 1993, a formal season of plays was offered in the Unicorn Theatre to meet the growing popularity of the festival. Prior to that, the Unicorn had been in use for years to house various offerings over the course of the season, including a slate of cabaret and workshop productions in 1992. The Unicorn Theatre was completely replaced with a new facility prior to the 1996 summer season; the inaugural production in the new space was "L-Play" by Beth Henley.
In 2010, Berkshire Theatre Festival merged with The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, MA to form Berkshire Theatre Group.
The Berkshire Playhouse facility was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. [4]
Over the past 80 years, the Berkshire Theatre Festival has produced 550 fully staged productions, an eclectic mix of revivals, classics and premieres, embracing fully its role as a true theatrical “Festival.” More than 2,100 actors have worked at the BTF in more than 6,000 performances, including notable actors that have won Emmys, Oscars, and Tonys. Many playwrights at BTF have won Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes.
Buster Keaton
Ethel Barrymore
Thornton Wilder
Calista Flockhart
Christopher Walken in The Rain Maker
Al Pacino in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie (1967)
Dustin Hoffman in Fragments (1966)
Gene Hackman in Fragments (1966)
Karen Allen
Linda Hamilton
Jeffrey Donovan in Toys in the Attic (2000)
Randy Harrison in Equus, Amadeus, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Mrs. Warren's Profession, Waiting for Godot, Ghosts, The Endgame, and The Who's Tommy
Kate Baldwin in A Little Night Music (2014), What the Constitution Means to Me (2023)
Christine Lahti in the world premiere of The Smile of Her (2023)
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent films during the 1920s, in which he performed physical comedy and stunts with a stoic, deadpan expression that became his trademark and earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton's "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929" when he "worked without interruption" as having made him "the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies". In 1996, Entertainment Weekly recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest film director. and in 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.
The Hollywood Revue of 1929, or simply The Hollywood Revue, is a 1929 American pre-Code musical comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was the studio's second feature-length musical, and one of their earliest sound films. Produced by Harry Rapf and Irving Thalberg and directed by Charles Reisner, it features nearly all of MGM's stars in a two-hour revue that includes three segments in Technicolor. The masters of ceremonies are Conrad Nagel and Jack Benny.
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,018 at the 2020 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridge is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum, Naumkeag, a public garden and historic house, the Austen Riggs Center, and Chesterwood, home and studio of sculptor Daniel Chester French.
In American theater, summer stock theater is a theater that presents stage productions only in the summer. The name combines the season with the tradition of staging shows by a resident company, reusing stock scenery and costumes. Summer stock theaters frequently take advantage of seasonal weather by having their productions outdoors, under tents set up temporarily for their use, or in barns.
Intiman Theatre Festival in Seattle, Washington, was founded in 1972 as a resident theatre by Margaret "Megs" Booker, who named it for August Strindberg's Stockholm theater. With a self-declared focus on "a resident acting ensemble, fidelity to the playwright's intentions and a close relationship between actor and audience", the Intiman soon called itself as "Seattle's classic theater". Its debut season in 1972 included Rosmersholm, The Creditors, The Underpants, and Brecht on Brecht. The theater has been host to Tony-nominated Director Bartlett Sher, Tony-nominated actress Celia Keenan-Bolger, and movie actor Tom Skerritt. It was also home to the world premieres of the Tony-winning Broadway musical The Light in the Piazza, Craig Lucas's Singing Forest and Dan Savage's "Miracle!". Lucas also served as the Associate Artistic Director. Intiman won the 2006 Regional Theatre Tony Award.
Jonathan Freeman is an American actor and singer. He is known for voicing Jafar in Disney's Aladdin franchise, as well as the Kingdom Hearts franchise and the 2011 Aladdin musical.
The Mission House is an historic house located at 19 Main Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was built between 1741 and 1742 by a Christian missionary to the local Mahicans. It is a National Historic Landmark, designated in 1968 as a rare surviving example of a colonial mission house. It is now owned and operated as a nonprofit museum by the Trustees of Reservations.
Timothy Clark Choate was an American actor who starred in a number of film and television roles on series such as Dragnet and Babylon 5.
Love Letters is a play by A. R. Gurney that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play centers on two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. Using the epistolary form sometimes found in novels, they sit side by side at tables and read the notes, letters and cards – in which over nearly 50 years, they discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, victories and defeats – that have passed between them throughout their separated lives.
Gretchen Egolf is an American theater, film and television actress.
Jayne Houdyshell is an American actress. Known for her character actor role on stage and screen she has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, two Obie Awards, and a Drama Desk Award.
Walter Leighton Clark (1859–1935) was an American businessman, inventor, and artist based in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and New York City.
The Stockbridge Casino is a historic building at the junction of East Main Street and Yale Hill Road in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Built in 1887, it is a prominent local work of architect Stanford White, and has served as a cultural center in the community since its construction, despite being moved in 1928. Now a part of the grounds of the Berkshire Theatre Festival, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
Vanessa Claire Stewart is an American actress, producer, and writer.
Chaplin: The Musical, formerly titled Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin, is a musical with music and lyrics by Christopher Curtis and book by Curtis and Thomas Meehan. The show is based on the life of Charlie Chaplin. The musical, which started at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2006, debuted at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2010, and then premiered on Broadway in 2012.
Theater in Pittsburgh has existed professionally since the early 1800s and has continued to expand, having emerged as an important cultural force in the city over the past several decades.
The Sacred Fools Theater Company is a Los Angeles–based theatre company and nonprofit organization. Founded in January 1997, it's a member organization of the LA Stage Alliance.
William George Roerich was an American actor. He is particularly associated with the stage, but also played in many films and TV productions. He was also a stage manager and writer. His name is sometimes given as William Roehrick.
Tony Cisek is an American scenic designer.
Beaupré Creative Arts Center was an American summer camp for girls, located in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The camp, which ran from 1955 to 1980, focused mainly on theater, dance, and art. The Beaupré property was sold in 1982 to the Berkshire Theatre Festival.
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