Williamstown Theatre Festival announces in-person summer season
WILLIAMSTOWN — Williamstown Theatre Festival today announced plans for an in-person, outdoor summer 2021 season featuring three world premieres. Tickets will go on sale to the general public in mid-June. The shows are as follows; casting is subject to change.
Outside on Main: Nine solo plays by Black playwrights
July 6–25 | Front lawn of the ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance
Directed by Wardell Julius Clark, Candis C. Jones & Awoye Timpo
Guest curated by Robert O’Hara
Featuring new plays by Ngozi Anyanwu, France‑Luce Benson, J. Nicole Brooks, Guadalís Del Carmen, Terry Guest, Ike Holter, Zora Howard, NSangou Njikam, and Charly Evon Simpson
Discover the power and intimacy of the solo play with this series of three shows centering and celebrating Black artists and their voices through theatrical storytelling. Each show consists of three, 30-minute world premieres, created by Black writers, written for actors of color, and brought to life by the directors on the lawn of the ‘62 Center.
Outside at The Clark: Row
July 13–August 8 | The Clark Art
Book by Daniel Goldstein, music and lyrics by Dawn Landes
Directed by Tyne Rafaeli
Inspired by “A Pearl in the Storm” by Tori Murden McClure
Featuring Grace McLean
The Clark’s serene reflecting pool becomes the stage for this uplifting world premiere musical that interrogates the resilience, fear, and ambition inside one individual as she aims to be the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic. Inspired by “A Pearl in the Storm” by Tori Murden McClure, “Row” exposes you to the elements endured by an extraordinary woman undeterred by the odds.
Outside Around Town: Alien/Nation
July 20–August 8 | Williamstown
Featuring & devised by the company of The Forest of Arden
In collaboration with writers Jen Silverman & Eric Berryman
Directed by Michael Arden
Including members of WTF’s Community Works program
From Tony Award-nominated director Michael Arden and the company of The Forest of Arden comes an immersive world premiere theatrical experience that takes you on a journey throughout Williamstown, revealing unexpected surprises around you and within you. Choose to experience this unique site-specific performance by foot or by car, and plunge yourself into the center of stories inspired by real events that took place in Western Massachusetts in 1969.
—A.K.
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Registration open for Canoe Meadows community gardens
PITTSFIELD — Mass Audubon recently announced that registration is open for its members to rent space at its organic gardens at Canoe Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary, on Williams Street in Pittsfield. Participants have been growing vegetables, flowers, and herbs at the two-acre gardens site for over three decades. The gardens, which have been described as “the most scenic location to plant a garden in Berkshire County,” are scheduled to reopen on May 1.
In order to participate, all community gardeners are required to commit to organic gardening and must attend a free virtual organic gardening workshop on Thursday, April 29, from 6:30–7:30 p.m. The workshop will cover the benefits of organic gardening, along with practical information on how to incorporate this approach. The program is open to all gardeners, not only those who wish to make use of the community gardens.
The garden sites, which measure 15 feet by 20 feet, each rent for $35 for Mass Audubon members. Currently, a special half price $32 Mass Audubon family membership offer is in effect. Gardeners may rent multiple sites. There are also 4 accessible raised garden beds; please call for more information. New this year, Mass Audubon will offer need-based financial assistance to new or previous gardeners who are eligible.
If you are interested, please call the main office at Pleasant Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Lenox to register for the workshop on April 29 and to find out more about the Canoe Meadows Community Gardens. Participants may register online or by phone 413-637-0320. You may also email berkshires@massaudubon.org for more information.
—A.K.
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Ventfort Hall to offer free lecture on suffragette Helen Hamilton Gardener
LENOX — Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum will present award-winning historian, speaker, and writer Kimberly A. Hamlin, Ph.D., in a virtual talk on Saturday, April 17 at 3:30 pm.
In the talk, “Helen Hamilton Gardener, Fallen Woman, Free Thinker,” Hamlin will tell the story of the woman who reinvented herself to become the “most potent factor” in the Congressional passage of the 19th Amendment.
Hamlin’s presentation is based on her book, “Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener.” Exposed in Ohio newspapers for an affair with a married man, Alice Chenoweth refused to cower in shame. Instead, she changed her name to Helen Hamilton Gardener, moved to New York, pretended to be married to her lover, and became a wildly popular lecturer and author.
Called the “Harriet Beecher Stowe of Fallen Women,” Gardener campaigned to raise the age of sexual consent for girls, decried double standards of sexual morality, and debunked scientists’ claims that women’s brains were inferior. Moving to Washington, D.C., she became the suffragists’ lead negotiator. She persuaded Woodrow Wilson and other male politicians to support the 19th Amendment. In 1920, President Wilson appointed Gardener to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, making her the highest-ranking woman in the federal government.
The talk is free with support by a grant from the Bridge Street Fund, an initiative of Mass Humanities. To order via eventbrite, please visit this website.
—A.K.
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Designer Adam Lippes, entrepreneur Alexander Farnsworth launch cannabis venture
GREAT BARRINGTON — American fashion designer Adam Lippes and entrepreneur Alexander Farnsworth have launched their joint venture, Farnsworth Fine Cannabis with a retail location in The Berkshires accompanied by an ecommerce site.
The 2,000-square-foot retail shop at 126 Main Street in Great Barrington introduces a sophisticated approach to the dispensing of East Coast cannabis. This dispensary will mark the newest LGBTQ+ owned and led retailer in the state of Massachusetts and, as such, Farnsworth and Lippes have pledged that 65% of the business staff will be made up of LGBTQ+, women, racial minorities [POC], and veterans.
Farnsworth and Lippes commissioned London-based architect Simon Aldridge to create a retail design that balances high and low, masculine and feminine, modernism and Classicism. After checking in at the minimalist front lobby, customers follow a long hallway into a showroom with wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling uniform arched cabinetry. The 78 oakwood vitrines display, amongst the cannabis products and accessories, the company’s collection of vintage Farnsworth Radios. Available at the dispensary will be Farnsworth’s in-house line of cannabis cigarettes, sold in light, classic, and bold for $11 each; the FFC 4-piece accessory set, which includes a matchbox and cigarette holders, rolling paper tray, and ashtray ($350); THC products from around the world; apparel; and jewelry.
—A.K.
