Arts

Arts

"These Days: Elegies for Modern Times" Opening at MASS MoCA

These days I seem to think about How all the changes came about my way And I wonder if I'll see another highway           —Jackson Browne These Days: Elegies for Modern Times, the new exhibit opening on April 4 at MASS MoCA, gets its name from a Jackson Browne

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Arts

A Native Son Returns to the 4th Annual Kent Film Festival

Ethan Mechare, an actor, writer and filmmaker who grew up in Falls Village, CT, where his mother is now the First Selectman, is returning home from California for the Kent Film Festival. His documentary, Work Harder (click on the title to see the trailer), which chronicles the lives of Acela

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Arts

A Conversation with "House of Cards" Author William D. Cohan

Author William D. Cohan, our neighbor in Columbia County, was an investment banker for 17 years before he left Wall Street and wrote his first best-seller, The Last Tycoons.  On Saturday evening, March 28, he will be at the Hammertown Barn in Pine Plains to talk about his latest book,

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Arts

Nostalgia Now: "Barns of the Berkshires"

Stephen Donaldson is a photographer who thinks like a cultural anthropologist. His latest book, Barns of the Berkshires (Schiffer Publishing, $24.95), not only documents a significant and vanishing part of our rural landscape but also sounds the alarm for saving barns before it's too late. "The

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Arts

Documentaries Dominate the 4th Annual Kent Film Festival: March 26 - 29

Four years ago, without any experience or a business plan, Frank and Patrice Galterio decided to create a film festival in Kent, CT.  They envisioned an event that would attract international talent yet remain authentic, accessible and community-minded. "Everyone walks down the same red carpet here,” says Frank, speaking

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Arts

A Masterful Clown's Free Performance at Simon's Rock

Tomas Kubinek gives performance art a good name.  "Mr. Kubinek is an acrobat, storyteller, stilt walker, unicyclist, musician, magician, clown and comic whose jokes and ad-libs bring giggles from youngsters and laughter from adults," according to The New York Times.  As critic Lawrence Van Gelder wrote: "Mr.

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Arts

Presenting The First Annual Berkshire Festival of Women in the Arts

For the past eight years, Bard College at Simon’s Rock has quietly hosted an Annual International Women’s Day conference.  This year, Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, the director, believed the theme, The Power of Women in the Arts, had sufficient strength to exceed the bounds of the Great Barrington

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Arts

Recession Drama: Shakespeare & Company Will Do More With Less

Tina Packer usually defies—and exceeds—expectations. Over 32 years in the Berkshires, the founder of Shakespeare & Company has transformed the troupe that put on plays in the dilapidated Mount and its surrounding woods into a theatrical powerhouse. With year round educational programs and a reputation for producing gutsy

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Arts

To Hell with Home Alone: We've Got Oscar Parties!

Come on, admit it, you love it: the red carpet fashion show, the fatuous exchanges between the stars and Chris Connolly, the host's lame jokes, the "humble" acceptance speeches (even when the Academy voters get it dead wrong).   The Academy Awards is one of those ties

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Arts

The Banff Film Festival Comes to Lenox

Most film festivals last a weekend and then they're over. The organizers of the Banff Mountain Film Festival in Canada, which is devoted to movies about outdoor sports and adventure travel, take a broader view and send their festival on the road for six months, and this weekend

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Arts

A Musical Sleuth Revives Works by a Lost 19th-Century Composer

Just when you think you've heard it all—the entire classical music canon—Close Encounters With Music's artistic director Yehuda Hanani pulls another rabbit out of a hat.  The trick this time is the re-discovery of a heretofore virtually forgotten 19th-century composer, Eduard Franck, a student

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Arts

"Kiss This - A Valentine's Day Cabaret" at Barrington Stage

Nikos Tsakalakos is the type of talented and ambitious young artist who finds Pittsfield a font of creativity. "Two years ago, Bill Finn told me his crazy idea that he wanted to make Pittsfield the epicenter of new musical theater," says Tsakalakos, who was a student of the

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