Editor

Parties

Hancock Shaker Village Opens A 50th Anniversary Exhibit

Cultural correspondernt Bess J.M. Hochstein reports from Pittsfield: On the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend, Hancock Shaker Village, which is celebrating its 50th year as a living history museum, opened a new exhibit, True & Honest Before the World, for which 30 celebrity curators such as filmmaker Ken Burns,

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Parties

TriArts Gala at the Salisbury School Boat House

On May 29, TriArts— the hybrid semi-professional theater at the Sharon Playhouse that usually features professional actors in the leading roles with college theater majors in many of the supporting roles—had its annual summer preview and benefit at the stunning Salisbury School Boathouse on the Twin Lakes. Dazzled

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Arts

Review: "The Whipping Man" Wows

Barrington Stage Company Stage 2 through June 17 Why is this play different than all other plays? Certainly, it's the premise. Have you ever before seen a drama about three Jewish men—two of whom happen to be newly freed slaves—who share a house at the end

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Food

AgriCulture: Sex and the Barnyard

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Peter writes: He was displaying already in early April, a brilliant, luminous arc of blue and green, virtually enfolding in his vibrating tail feathers the sole object of his desire—our dainty white pea

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Food

Canapés for Locavores: Seasonal Bruschetta

Now that all sorts of goodies are popping out of the ground in rapid succession, it’s time to lather toasted baguettes with everything local. Go ahead and play with your food. I made these three tasty variations with what was on hand here — sweet radishes and young arugula from

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Style

The Woman Behind Farm Girl Farm

When you meet Laura Meister you begin to understand how Farm Girl Farm got its name. On a recent Monday morning, the 42-year-old filmmaker turned farmer is working in a field of lettuces dressed in a very girly batik skirt and a frilly fuscia camisole.  As a solo

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Community

Our Neighbor Joan Rivers: The RI Interview

Joan Rivers is one of us. When the hardest working woman in show business takes off the rare weekend, she heads to her house in Litchfield County, which was recently featured in The New York Times.  Instead of slowing down at age 76, she is busy performing, working on her

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Community

One Night Only: Jill Clayburgh Channels Gail Sheehy & Ed Herrmann Brings Clay Felker Back to Life

It's a rainy afternoon in early May, and the esteemed actors Edward Herrmann and Jill Clayburgh are running lines on the pulpit of the whitewashed Lakeville United Methodist Church. They are rehearsing a play called Chasing the Tiger by Gail Sheehy, the Vanity Fair contributing editor who is

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Food

AgriCulture: How to Fatten a Goose

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Mark writes: I'm skating onto thin ice here (as befits such a warm May day) by even mentioning a highly controversial product:  foie gras.  I can readily imagine a deep split in

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Parties

Berkshire Playwrights Lab Rocks the Mahaiwe

The Berkshire Playwrights Lab kicked of the summer theater season at its gala at the Mahaiwe on May 21 with an evening of staged readings of seven new one-act plays featuring actors such as Jay Thomas, Dan Lauria, Treat Williams, Elizabeth Franz, Lauren Ambrose and Kristen Johnston.  BPL'

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Community

Berkshire Playwrights Lab: Consider It a Cultural CSA

You could think of buying a ticket to the Berkshire Playwrights Lab benefit on Friday, May 21,  as akin to buying a membership in a CSA: you're paying in advance for a full summer share of free-to-all Wednesday night play readings at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts

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Food

AgriCulture: Separating the Bad Seeds from the Good

Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week Peter writes: Seeds have been very much on my mind of late. Largely, it would seem, because of the hours recently spent in the greenhouse painstakingly inserting them into peat pots and flats of

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