Great Barrington Arts Market at train station
Great Barrington — The Great Barrington Arts Market, or GBAM as we all know it, is holding their Delightful & Delectable Holiday market again this year at the historic Great Barrington Train Station on Castle Hill Avenue, Friday through Sunday, December 19-21. The market brings more than 25 artists and makers together for festive shopping featuring the work of local artisans in a variety of media and price ranges. There will be gifts of food, ceramics, clothing, jewelry, and woodcrafts, among other stunning work.
Lucky 5 Gypsy Jazz will play at Friday night’s 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. preview party. The $10 ticket gets you Glass Bottom Beer or wine, appetizers and 10 percent off dinner that night at Prairie Whale or Allium. Live music will go throughout the weekend.
Vendors include: Mighty Brittle, Dancing Bare Soap, Ali Herman, Undermountain Weavers, Hosta Hill, JK Custom Furniture, Ben Evans Ceramics, That Scarf, Free Ramblin’ Kids, Lucky Duck Press, Owl Kill Studio, Jess Fitzgerald Studio, Liz Olney Functional Art, BOHO Originals, The Petal Collection, Lupine and Lily, Moho Designs, KathrynBee Designs, Kelly and Co, Wake Robin Botanicals, Lou’s Upcycles, Flower Bin Bakery, Cut it Out, H.R. Zeppelin and No. Six Depot.
Friday, December 19, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday, December 20, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday, December 21, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Tickets available at the door or reserve them now by emailing gbartsmarket@gmail.com
For more information go to www.facebook.com/gbartsmarket
— H.B.
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Deborah Alecson reads from ‘Complicated Grief’
Great Barrington – Thanatologist Deborah Alecson will read from her new book of poetry, “Complicated Grief,” Saturday, December 20, at the Lauren Clark Fine Art on Railroad Street from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.
“This is raw stuff,” Alecson explains, noting that the poems resulted from the complexity of her feelings after her mother’s suicide in 2013.
“I completely fell apart, and then the poetry started pouring out during my bereavement,” she said. “I have very ambivalent feelings about my mother, who was an abusive parent. Ultimately, I wrote these poems to help others with similar complicated emotions. I wanted them to know they’re not alone. This is another life lesson for me.”
Alecson wrote and read poetry at cafés in Park Slope in Brooklyn during the 1980s when she was working full time as a teacher of English and special education.
“I began as a poet,” she said, but she has several books to her credit: “Lost Lullaby” in 1995 and “We are So Lightly Here; A Story about Conscious Dying” in 2009.
Currently, she teaches various courses in thanatology and the ethics of health care at Excelsior College.
“These poems are not academic, though I am an academic,” she adds.
— D.S.
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Kristin Wold’s ‘Thetis: Immortal Fire’ at Shakepeare & Company
Lenox — Kristin Wold presents “Thetis: Immortal Fire” in the Tina Packer Playhouse at Shakespeare & Company on Saturday, December 20 at 5 p. m. One performance only.
“Thetis” is a dance theatre performance inspired by the story of Thetis, the sea nymph of Greek mythology who was a shape-shifter and mother of the great warrior Achilles. Thetis tries to immortalize the baby Achilles by burning him in the hall fire by night and anointing him with ambrosia by day. In another version of the story, she tries to protect him by dipping him in the River Styx in Hades. His heel, untouched by the water, was not protected and became his mortal weakness.
The performance features Susannah Millonzi as the sea goddess Thetis, and Josh McCabe as Peleus, the mortal father of Achilles.
Kristin Wold was most recently seen acting in Shakespeare & Company’s critically acclaimed shows, “Shakespeare’s Will” and “Julius Caesar” last summer. In the one-woman show “Shakespeare’s Will,” directed by Daniela Varon, she played Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s enigmatic wife. In “Julius Caesar,” the “bare Bard” production directed by Tina Packer, she played Portia, Calpurnia, Lucius, Metellus Cimber and Pindarus.
“Thetis is project which takes me into new artistic territory as a creator, choreographer and director,” says Wold. “Most of my work has been as an actor in brilliantly written plays — most of those by William Shakespeare. With this project, I am creating a world of pure movement.
“Thetis is fascinating to me. She is sea goddess, a shape-shifter, an immortal. Zeus and Poseidon both want her, but it is prophesied that her son will be greater than his father, so they marry her off to a mortal man, Peleus. Her wrath at being taken down or humanized, eventually transforms into love and a passion to protect her son, Achilles.
“Exploring the tension between divinity and humanity, between order and chaos is my focus. I am amazed at the brutality we humans inflict on ourselves and each other. I am even more amazed at our extraordinary kindness and ability to love. I sometimes think that if we, as a species, could see the bigger picture — could see our planet in the midst of its galaxy in the midst of the universe, maybe we would stop killing each other.
“I’ve been studying fractals lately and am inspired by the beauty and order they represent in what can seem to be a chaotic world. Nature is full of them — trees, rivers, coastlines, mountains, clouds, seashells, hurricanes. They show up in the melodic and rhythmic structures of music. I think artists intuitively understand and create with them. It’s been exciting for me to learn some of the science behind it all. Embodying the order of the natural world has been the backdrop for the creation of this piece.”
A long-time resident of the Berkshires, Wold played Ariel in two Shakespeare & Company productions of “The Tempest,”, first with Michael Hammond as Prospero in 2001 and again with Olympia Dukakis as Prospera in 2012. In “King Lear” she was Regan opposite Dennis Krausnick in 2012 and Cordelia opposite Jonathan Epstein in 2003.
For tickets call the Shakespeare & Company Box Office at 413-637-3353 or visit https://tickets.shakespeare.org.
— D.S.
