Arts

Arts

Susan Orlean Discovers That It's A Small World After All

Susan Orlean, the esteemed New Yorker staff writer, never expected that a publisher would approach her about turning her 1996 "Shouts & Murmurs" piece called "Shiftless Little Loafers" into a sweet children's book retitled Lazy Little Loafers. "I was surprised," she says

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Arts

Bravo! Berkshire Opera's "Figaro" at The Colonial

My highly-cultured friend, the Mozart Maven, is a regular at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center so I hesitated asking her to drive an hour to Pittsfield to see the Berkshire Opera's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (which has two more performances on August

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Arts

"In Formations" Kicks up Dust in Ancram

Last week, they played for free before a crowd of passersby and random on-lookers at a little-known venue in lower Manhattan and, for their trouble, got a rave revue in the New York Times; tomorrow, they open at the Veterans Memorial Ball Field in Ancram, then later do a follow-up

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Arts

Two Documentaries for Grown-ups

Is it our imagination or do the programs at our cultural institutions get more sophisticated come September, once the vacationing families have cleared out, and the kids have gone back to school?  This Saturday night, for example, two markedly grown-up documentaries, A Visit with Colette and Always Yes, Caresse will

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Arts

Review: "See Rock City" at Barrington Stage is Worth A Detour

If you're the type of person who worries about the future of American musical theater in the age of Disney on Broadway. hie yourself to Pittsfield where Barrington Stage Company's Musical Theater Lab is staging a thoroughly modern and all-American musical called See Rock City &

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Arts

If It's Tuesday, This Must be Tyringham

It's easy to take our region's rich history for granted, because 18th century houses and 19th century churches are daily sightings for most of us. But how often do we stop to explore the interior architecture of that house of worship we've driven by

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Arts

Review: "Waiting for Godot" at Berkshire Theatre Festival

There's a reason why certain plays--the ones you read in high school and college--are part of the theatrical canon: They are timeless dramas that explore universal truths or ponder eternal questions about human nature. By any standard, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is one of the

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Arts

Review: "Of Thee I Sing" at Bard

If friends call you this weekend and offer you their extra ticket to Of Thee I Sing, which has been sold out for weeks, say, "Yes!" The only disappointing thing about this revival of the 1931 Gershwins' musical comedy at Bard Summerscape is the brevity of its

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Arts

New Marlborough's Music & More

Even as hoards of the music enthusiasts descend on Tanglewood, elsewhere, in a quieter corner of Berkshire County, another series of concerts thrives.  Over the past 17 years, pianist Harold Lewin, with his series Music & More, has made the historic Meeting House in New Marlborough a favorite destination for

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Arts

Theatre: Why Noël Now?

Is it coincidence or harmonic convergence that  Barrington Stage Company and Berkshire Theatre Festival are both ending their main stage seasons with plays by Noël Coward, the most urbane of playwrights? According to the theater companies' artistic directors, it was the availability of key players that led them to

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Arts

Alonzo King's LINES Ballet Astonishes at Jacob's Pillow

Memo to organizers of Barack Obama's inauguration: Book Alonzo King's LINES Ballet. On Wednesday night at Jacob's Pillow, the San Francisco-based troupe opened a five-day run with two epic pieces Migration: The hierarchical migration of birds and mammals and Rasa, which is set to

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Arts

"The Violet Hour" Gets a Radiant Production at Barrington Stage Company

When Richard Greenberg's play The Violet Hour opened on Broadway at the newly refurbished Biltmore Theater in 2003, New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote that it was an "example of the funk that descends when bad casting happens to good plays." Now, Barrington Stage has

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