Rural Intelligence (Page 651)

Community

Spencertown Academy Enters the Fifth Decade of its Third Life

There’s a large, warm spot in Clare Verenazi’s heart for the Spencertown Academy Arts Center. “Spencertown Academy was where my husband went to school in the 1940s, and he walked there and home everyday,” says the 78-year-old Chatham resident. “We’d enjoy Christmas pageants and year-

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Arts

Debra Jo Rupp Goes All the Way as Dr. Ruth

Preview performances of Mark St. Germain’s new play, Dr. Ruth, All the Way, get underway on June 19 at Barrington Stage Company. Debra Jo Rupp portrays the inimitable, diminutive Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who captured the attention of Reagan-era television viewers with her grandmotherly looks, chirpy Teutonic accent, and

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Food

Recipe: Goodbye Potatoes, Hello Kohlrabi Fries

Berkshire native Alana Chernila, local politician, mother of two, and author of the new cookbook, The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying & Start Making (Clarkson Potter), dispenses change and cooking ideas at the Great Barrington Farmers' Market. She shares her peak-of-the-season recipes with

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Arts

She Saw Hitler: Cassandra Speaks at Shakespeare & Company

Cassandra Speaks, the one woman show written in the mid 1990s for the actress Tod Randolph (above) by her friend Norman Plotkin about the journalist Dorothy Thompson, manages to accomplish a lot in one entertaining—indeed riveting—fell swoop, and in only about 90 minutes. Thompson, referred to in her

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Parties

Berkshire Playwrights Lab's Annual Celebration of New Works

Bess Hochstein reports from Great Barrington.Berkshire Playwrights Lab mixed things up a bit at the Mahaiwe on Saturday, June 9 during the kick-off to its fifth season; the traditional evening program of new works went multimedia. In place of the expected, gently self-mocking opening number by founders

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Community

Let The Good Times Roll, With Two Types of Horsepower

There are two ways to think about vehicles: as purely functional modes of transportation, or as beautiful, even sensual, means of conveyance that get you from here to there in style. Lucky are those who adhere to the latter sentiment, as this weekend they can enjoy two neighboring events that

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Parties

Illustration Celebrations in Hillsdale and Stockbridge

On Friday, June 8, the opening reception of an exhibit at the Roeliff-Jansen Community Library in Hillsdale of the work of Ancram resident R.O Blechman, animator, illustrator, children's book author, and New Yorker cartoonist, drew a crowd rife with admiring fellow artists and illustrators. The show,

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Community

Mount Lebanon HerbFest Unveils the Secrets of Shaker Swamp

From the Native Americans to the Shakers, from the Tilden Pharmaceutical Company (1824–1960) to today’s alternative-healing practitioners and locavore chefs, the residents of New Lebanon, NY, have benefited for centuries from the town’s greatest natural resource: herbs. "Austerlitz has blueberries, West Stockbridge has zucchinis, and

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Parties

Local Artists in the Spotlight During 7th Annual BIFF

Bess Hochstein reports from Great Barrington.Two locally based, internationally acclaimed artists were the focus of two nights of screenings and celebrations during the Berkshire International Film Festival, and both artists made rare personal appearances to engage with those who had just been given a behind-the-scenes glimpse at

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Parties

Close Encounters With Music's 20th Season Roars to a Close

Fiona Breslin reports from Lenox. Close Encounters With Music closed its 20th season on Saturday, June 2, with a performance at Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall called The Roaring Twenties: Berlin, Paris, and New York. This theme carried over into the evening as CEWM supporters gathered at the Gateways Inn

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Food

AgriCulture: Peaceable Kingdom

AgriCulture bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week, Mark writes: We’re coming into summer’s longest days. In the early evening twilight, I sit alone in a state of blissful exhaustion on the screened porch, quietly enjoying a dinner

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Arts

Art Review: Canadian Club

David Harper's sculpture of a wild boar, "Finding Yourse," is constructed of fine porcelain and covered in soft cowhide at MASS MoCA's vast exhibition,Oh, Canada. Anyone who needs visible proof of the socio-psychological benefits of a free universal health-care system should

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