Berkshire Botanical Garden’s annual Holiday Marketplace set for December 4–5
STOCKBRIDGE — Berkshire Botanical Garden’s (BBG) Holiday Marketplace, a 31-year tradition featuring the legendary Gallery of Wreaths, is scheduled for December 4-5, 10 a.m.–4 p.m., at the BBG, located at the intersection of Routes 102 and 183 in Stockbridge. Admission and parking are free.
Holiday Marketplace is held in the Garden’s Exhibition Hall, which is transformed into a shop featuring regional artisan vendors, one-of-a-kind designer wreaths, and hand-selected flowering plants. Live acoustic music will be performed throughout the weekend and a children’s craft table hosted by the Garden’s education department will be staffed on Saturday from 11:30 a.m.–3 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.–2 p.m. offering hands-on projects including botanically themed gifts and holiday decorations using natural materials.
Proceeds from Holiday Marketplace help support the Garden’s education and horticulture programs. Garden members receive a discount on BBG products and complimentary mimosas on Saturday, Dec. 4, 10–11 a.m.
—A.K.
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Ruth Bass to host reading by Carolyn Kay Brancato
RICHMOND — Berkshires author Carolyn Kay Brancato will read from her latest book, “The Night Belongs to the Maquis: A World War II Novel,” on Thursday, Dec. 2 at 4 p.m. at the Richmond Congregational Church on Route 41. The reading is part of the Richmond Free Public Library’s Lively World Series, hosted by Berkshire Eagle columnist Ruth Bass and presented in memory of her late husband, Berkshire Eagle arts editor Milton Bass. The event is free, and masks are required.
While entirely a work of fiction, Brancato based many events in the novel on personal interviews she conducted with three members of the French Resistance (the Maquis). One was the leader of the circuit that escorted 500 Allied pilots over the Pyrénées and into Spain. He was captured by the Gestapo, tortured by Klaus Barbie, and gave Brancato his deposition in the Barbie trial in Lyon, asking her to please tell the story of his compatriots in the resistance. The novel is dedicated to all those courageous enough to fight fascism … past and present.
Brancato’s is the author of 2019’s “The Circus Pig & the Kaiser,” and has worked in theater as a director and playwright. Her plays have been mounted at Steppenwolf in Chicago and the John Houseman Theatre in NYC. She holds a BA from Barnard College and a PhD from NYU. Brancato lives in the Berkshires with her husband; together they were among the founders of The Guild of Berkshire Artists.
—A.K.
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Melanie Greenberg’s ‘The Elephant in The Room’ to run at Apple Tree Inn
LENOX — The Apple Tree Inn presents “The Elephant in The Room” on December 3, 10, and 17, at 8 p.m. It’s the tale of Melanie Greenberg, a nice Jewish girl who goes on a psychedelic odyssey through Pentecostal churches, psych wards, the Ivy League, and 12-step meetings that finally brings her closer to God, herself, and a resolution of intergenerational trauma. But funny! And with music!
At 15, Greenberg pawned her mother’s fur coat, ran away from home on the Upper East Side, and took up with a family of Pentecostal born-agains in Houston. In her quest for freedom, she unwittingly set off a chain of events that would imprison her literally and figuratively for decades to come.
Greenberg spent her adolescence and early adulthood moving through the full spectrum of American institutions, all while trying to make sense of a fraught relationship with her mother. Narrated through the context of a psychedelic ayahuasca trip, this one-woman musical — winner of Best Comedy at the 2021 United Solo Festival — outlines this revelatory experience in brutally honest and often hilarious detail, all while paying tribute to the showtunes that helped Greenberg survive the whole ordeal.
—A.K.
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Notice Otis Series continues December 9 with sculptor Robin Tost
OTIS — The Otis Historical Commission and Otis Preservation Trust (OPT) are hosting the second Notice Otis Series cultural event of the 2021–22 season on Thursday, Dec. 9 at 7 p.m., via Zoom. Sculptor Robin Tost of New Marlborough will discuss her body of work.
Tost grew up in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, she moved to New York City where she worked for Bil and Cora Baird’s Marionette Company and showed her wire sculptures and life-sized fabric mache people. In 1985, she moved to the Berkshires, where she has a barn in which to work and store all the “inventory” she collects from roadsides, the transfer station, and a variety of local scrap yards. She is a firm believer in recycling in its many forms.
“For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to bits of trash,” said Tost. “My satisfaction in the variety of colors on discarded things (new, faded or scratched away), the found pieces of metal (bright, bent or rust eaten), and the shapes of broken manufactured bits (sinuous, circular or geometric) is only surpassed by the joy of combining all of these various treasures into something unexpected.”
To register for this event, visit the Otis Preservation Trust website. Donations are encouraged.
—A.K.
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Canna Provisions donates Thanksgiving meals to Lee Food Pantry
LEE — Canna Provisions the award-winning, adult-use, retail cannabis community in Western Massachusetts ensured dozens of families had a happy Thanksgiving this year by donating full meal kits to the Lee Food Pantry.
Canna co-owners CEO Meg Sanders and COO Erik Williams, and staff members from company’s Lee retail location at 220 Housatonic Street, assisted 35 families in need with a Thanksgiving dinner.
Each dinner kit included a gift certificate for an entire turkey (or equivalent), 12 dinner rolls, a box of stuffing mix, a 5-pound bag of potatoes, cans of cranberry sauce, green beans, and gravy, as well as supplies for pie which included a pie crust, pumpkin pie filling, and evaporated milk.
—A.K.
