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 Center in Great Barrington. For the third summer in a row, BPL will present staged readings of new work by up-and-coming and established playwrights such as Gina Barnett, Joe Cacaci, Dean Imperial, Kelly Masterson, Tom Minter, Carol Schneider and Anna Zeigler. The actors appearing at Friday's gala (tickets: $35 - $100) include Elizabeth Franz, Dan Lauria, Jay Thomas, Treat Williams as well as two actresses that you often see grocery shopping in Great Barrington: Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under), who studied at Shakespeare & Company and sings with the Berkshire band The Leisure Class, and Emmy Award-winner Kristen Johnston (3rd Rock from the Sun), who owns a house in northwestern Connecticut. RI chatted with Johnston (photographed by Michael Murphree) on her cellphone while she ran errands the other day.
How did you get involved with Berkshire Playwrights Lab?I've known Jim Frangione for a long time through the Atlantic Theater Company—that's my theater company. He's known everyone for years and worked with Mamet and all that. He asked me to participate and—God help me—I said yes. Have you done theater in the Berkshires before?I have. I did a play called Smell of the Kill at the Berkshire Theater Festival. It was amazing and it actually went on to Broadway. [She also performed at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2008 in Theresa Rebeck's The Understudy.] How great for you.But not with me, darling. I passed on it. I didn't think it was a very Broadway show, though it was really great. These three women who all plot in the kitchen to kill their husbands in the next room. It's really funny. So what are you performing at the BPL gala?This amazing play by Dean Imperial called The Woman From 43. It's about this man and a woman on an elevator, and she's just this fantastic character with a faux European accent who is an ice cold bitch and is really funny. I am doing it with this cute actor Chris Stack. How did you choose to buy a country house in northwestern Connecticut?I was dear, dear friends with Natasha Richardson who lived in Millbrook and a very close friend of hers, the actor John Benjamin Hickey—he's one of my best friends in the whole world—was up in Lakeville. I had been going to the Hamptons for years, and I was miserable and hated it. I didn't really know that this was an option. Of course I had been to Stockbridge to do the play, and I loved it up there, but it was just too far from the city. I got to know Natasha. The whole area just blew my mind. There is this part when you are driving on Route 44 if you are coming from the Taconic and you have this amazing vista of church steeples, lakes and mountains—it's the most beautiful thing in the world and the minute I saw it I felt like I was home. I thought I have to live here. I had felt like that only once before when I was in Ireland. Where are you from originally?Wisconsin. I like that there is no pretension here. The less people who know about it the better. I love the mellowness of it, the privacy of it. There are no Chanel stores to be found. How do you spend your time?I'm a freak for antiques. I'm obsessed. I love refinishing and refurbishing, taking something that looks like junk and making it look like it's a piece from Jonathan Adler. I love all that. And I have a pool. I call it The Pool that 3rd Rock Built. And that's it. I have friends up. I love to entertain. I love to cook. I am actually a really good cook, although when people say that it usually means they stink. I really am. Where do you shop for antiques?Along Route 7. There's this place—I guess you would call it a junk shop—that has the greatest things in the world. It's just past the Kmart in Great Barrington. It's called North Main Antiques, and my friend Tommy just moved there from Sheffield. I also love that French store Metropolitain and that French place across the street for sandwiches and food—Bizalion's. They are the greatest people and have the best stuff. I usually go there and grab a sandwich, go to Guido's and get some arugula—they have the best arugula in the world—and I'm good. Any other favorite spots?I also shop at Hunter Bee like crazy. When I walked in there, I was like, this is my house. I have given them things to sell. They still have these French patio chairs of mine and I don't know why no one has bought them. Last year, I decided to clean house and not be a hoarder and got rid of a lot stuff that I wore to awards shows like Michael Kors dresses. That back room has some definite secrets. People should look hard. You might find an amazing Ralph Lauren sundress that was worn to the Tonys. What's your next acting project after Berkshire Playwrights Lab?I am doing a sitcom for NBC with Matthew Broderick. I hope they pick it up. We will find out in a couple of days. Paul Simms wrote it—he's the guy who wrote News Radio—and it takes place out in the Hamptons. It's about a Hamptons newspaper. It's being produced by all the people who did 30 Rock so I am basically the Alec Baldwin part—the villainess, bitchy funny one. Would this be shot on the East Coast?Yes, I would be so ecstatic. I could make money and get to live here, which would be a miracle because that never happens. Berkshire Playwrights Lab GalaMay 21 at 8 p.m. Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Great Barrington, MA Orchestra tickets + post-performance reception: $100 Orchestra seats: $50 Balcony seats: $35
