Fall Cabaret Series at Barrington Stage Company
Pittsfield— Barrington Stage Company (BSC), under the leadership of Julianne Boyd, Artistic Director, celebrates the reopening of Mr. Finn’s Cabaret at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center (36 Linden Street) with a Fall Cabaret Series, September 30 through October 8.
Named after the Tony-winning composer William Finn, Mr. Finn’s Cabaret is an intimate 99-seat cabaret space that is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. BSC’s Fall Cabaret Series is sponsored by Sydelle and Lee Blatt.
All shows will start at 7 p.m. with the bar/house opening at 6:15 p.m. General admission tickets are $25. Call the BSC Box Office 413-236-8888 or purchase online at www.barringtonstageco.org.
Friday, September 30: Jazz and Blue featuring Chantell & Friends
A Soulful Songstress combined with an amazing and gifted band, that together creates a sound that is unmatched in the Berkshires!
Saturday, October 1: Fight On featuring Andy Tierstein and Friends.
Songs of Freedom and Protest. In a time of uncertainty and dislocation, five friends join forces to present songs drawn from the American folk tradition of speaking out for unity, freedom and peace.
Friday, October 7: Billy Keane and the Waking Dream with Billy Keane and Friends.
No stranger to Barrington Stage, Billy Keane is a well known band member of Whiskey Treaty RoadShow. Ranging from psychedelic indie rock, to acoustic singer/songwriter folk, Billy Keane and The Waking Dream create unique musical experiences, wide ranging and dynamic, blurring the line between pre-arranged and improvised.
Saturday, October 8: Gospel Night
Back by Popular Demand! After being a big hit at this year’s Celebration of Black Voices Festival, Music Director Gary Mitchell, Jr. has assembled the singers once again but this time to shake the rafters of Mr. Finn’s with their soaring voices!
For more information on programming at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center, visit barringtonstageco.org.
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Hilltown art activities
Cummington– The Hilltown Community Development Corporation has announced a full slate of art activities that run throughout the weekend of September 30 – October 2 in and around the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. The events are complemented with opportunities to taste the best of local farm and beverage producers at the height of harvest season.
The weekend begins Friday with an arts salon at the Cummington Community Center featuring five local artists and continues with the 4th annual Hilltown Arts Alliance Open Studio Tour through Sunday. The self-guided tour that takes visitors to see the work and studios of 23 Hilltowns artists who have chosen the region for its unique rural character and space to create.
Local food makers and growers are participating with seasonal offerings. There will be a wine tasting at Glendale Ridge Vineyard, and a special raspberry-infused beer, The Artist’s Palate, to commemorate the weekend produced by Sena Farm Brewery. Labels for the limited edition beer have been designed by artist Elena Allee, whose studio is on the tour. The Old Creamery Coop, which sells the goods of local farmers, is celebrating its 10th year with food and music in Cummington on Saturday evening.
The full schedule of activities includes:
- The Art Salon: Friday, September 30, 6 p.m., Cummington Community Center, Cummington. Engaging conversations with five unique and talented Valley-based artists.
- The Hilltown Arts Alliance Open Studio Tour: Saturday October 1 – Sunday, October 2, 10 a.m.- 5 p.m.; 19 locations, 23 artists. Pick up tour maps and view a representative show of the artists’ work at the tour hub in the Commington Community Center. Interactive map: https://hilltownartsalliance.org/tour-map/
- Sena Farm Brewery Artist’s Palate Beer Tastings: Friday, September 30, 2- 7 p.m., Saturday, September 1, 1 – 7 p.m., Sunday, October 2, 1 – 6 p.m., Worthington. Vibrant Lithuanian style beer with local raspberries introduced in celebration of our Hilltown artists: ask for the Benevolent Host. Farmer’s Daughters food truck on site. Old Creamery Co-Op 10th Anniversary Celebration. Saturday, October 1, 5 – 7:30 p.m., Pettingill Memorial Park, Cummington. Come enjoy food and drink from local establishments and farms that do business with the Creamery, a hub of the Hilltown economy.
- Glendale Ridge Vineyard Wine Tasting: Sunday, October 1, 4 – 6 p.m., Southampton. Experience the vineyard at harvest with views of Mt. Tom. Special pricing for those who show their Open Studio brochures.
- Artists on the Open Studio tour who are doing in studio demonstrations include: Jeanne Johns (11:30 a.m. Saturday, Portrait conversations); Valerie Claff (1:30 p.m. Saturday, Making a watercolor painting, start to finish); Mark Shapiro (3:30 p.m. Saturday, Throwing, assembling & decorating a teapot in under an hour); Kathy Ford (11:30 a.m. Sunday, The first block: character in quiltmaking); Leni Fried (1:30 p.m. Sunday, Printmaking).
Attendees of the tour will wander Massachusetts Scenic Byways 112 and 143, plus many backroads, at the height of leaf peeping season. Visitors can stop at as many arts locations and events as they prefer with Cummington as the tour hub.
The artists included in the Open Studio Tour are painters, sculptors, fabric artists, artisan jewelry makers, printmakers and ceramicists. The complete list of artists participating is: Gloria Conwell, Kathy Ford, Mark Shapiro, Jen Parrish-Hill. Elena Allee, Michael Falcone, John Walker, Ana Busto, Sergei Isupov, Kadri Pärnamets, Jeanne Johns, Leni Fried, Chris Bagg, Susanna White, Laura Bundesen, Olwen O’Herlihy Dowling,  Susan Flores, Laurie Israel, Guy Matsuda, Pleun Bouricius, Cyndy Sperry, David Marshall, Valerianna Claff.
For the most updated information on artists, events and food opportunities throughout the Open Studio Tour weekend, go to hilltownartsalliance.org/open-studio-tour.
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The Incredible Naumkeag Pumpkin Show
Stockbridge— The Trustees of Reservations (The Trustees), the nation’s first and state’s largest land conservation nonprofit, has announced a full slate of fall programming including The Incredible Naumkeag Pumpkin Show in Stockbridge.
The show will be held Wednesday through Sunday, September 30 to October 31. It will be open from 5-8:30 p.m. (last entry 7:30 p.m.)
Visitors can explore the gardens as Naumkeag is transformed into a celebration of autumn with more than 1,500 jack-o-lanterns, hundreds of mums, pumpkins, and countless gourds – most of which were grown on the premises. This year will feature parking on Main Street in Stockbridge and a short shuttle ride to the property. Hot cider and fall treats will be available for sale on-site.
This year, Naumkeag will also host an early show, which will include on-site parking for those who have very little ones that might not want to take the shuttle, need to make it home early, or have a family member with mobility or sensory needs. This 4-5 p.m. time slot will include fewer guests for a more accessible experience, whatever the need. Please note that the path for the show is still the same during this hour and covers uneven terrain with many steps, though with better visibility during the early evening hour.
Advanced purchase of timed tickets is required. Tickets will not be sold on site. Tickets for the Wednesday-Thursday show are $22 for nonmembers and $17 for members; Friday-Sunday tickets are $27 for nonmembers and $22 for members.
Children 3-13 are $10 for nonmembers and $5 for members (2 and under are free).
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Clark Art Institute debuts Film and Art Series
Williamstown—A new Film and Art series debuts at the Clark Art Institute this autumn with five screenings. The Clark shows O Horizon on Thursday, September 29 at 7:30 p.m., Foragers on Thursday, October 13 at 7:30 p.m., Zurbarán and His Twelve Sons on Thursday, October 27 at 6 p.m., Mur Murs on Thursday, November 10 at 7:30 p.m., and F for Fake on Thursday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m. All screenings are free and open to the public and take place in the Clark’s auditorium.
O Horizon: September 29, 7:30 p.m.
O Horizon (2018) is an experimental documentary that explores the environmental teachings of prolific Bengali writer and poet Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore was also a social reformer who cared deeply for the land. The film title references the surface layer of soil, changed in the area around Santiniketan, in West Bengal, India, as a result of Tagore’s introduction of new flora there. O Horizon was commissioned by research project bauhaus imaginista and produced by artist-led collective The Otolith Group, an organization that creates research-based films, installations, and performances. Run time: 90 minutes
Foragers: October 13, 7:30 p.m.
In Foragers (2022), Berlin-based Palestinian sculptor and filmmaker Jumana Manna blends documentary and fiction, profiling the age-old Palestinian practice of gathering wild edibles such as za’atar and the delicacy ’akkoub, which is outlawed by Israeli nature conservation laws. The film presents a meditative portrait of the resistance, joy, and deep ecological knowledge held by today’s foragers. Manna’s approach mirrors the gentleness of her subjects and the work of other documentarians like Agnès Varda (see related November 10 event). A post-film discussion with Williams College Arabic Studies and Comparative Literature Professor Amal Eqeiq and master’s students Max Gruber (’22) and Meghan Clare Considine (’22) follows. Commissioned in part by the Pacific Film Archive. Run time: 65 minutes
Zurbarán and His Twelve Sons: October 27, 6 p.m.
This documentary (2020) explores the meaning of Jacob and His Twelve Sons, a series of thirteen canvases painted by Francisco de Zurbarán in Seville around 1640. Learn how the canvases disappeared for a century until they were acquired at auction in the 1720s by the London merchant James Mendez. In 1756, a significant gesture in support of English Jews was made by Bishop Richard Trevor of Durham, who obtained the paintings and hung them in his dining room at Auckland Castle in England, where they remain. Screenwriter John Healey introduces the documentary. Run time: 72 minutes
Mur Murs: November 10, 7:30 pm
After returning to Los Angeles from France in 1979, filmmaker Agnès Varda created this kaleidoscopic documentary about the striking murals that decorate the city. Bursting with color and vitality, Mur Murs (1981) is as much an invigorating study of community and diversity as it is an essential catalog of unusual public art. Run time: 82 minutes
F for Fake: November 17, 7:30 pm
In F for Fake (1975), a free-form sort-of documentary by Orson Welles, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully reengages with the central preoccupation of his career: the tenuous lines between illusion and truth, art and lies. Beginning with portraits of the world-renowned art forger Elmyr de Hory and his equally devious biographer, Clifford Irving, Welles exposes and revels in fakery and fakers of all stripes—not the least of whom is Welles himself. F for Fake is an inspired prank and a clever examination of the place of duplicity in cinema and art. Run time: 88 minutes
All Film and Art screenings are free; no registration is required. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events.
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Berkshire County Historical Society to host author Aaron Sachs
Pittsfield—The Berkshire County Historical Society will host author and historian Aaron Sachs for a book signing and discussion of his latest book Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times (Princeton University Press) on Wednesday, September 28 at 5:30 p.m. Sachs will be joined in discussion at Arrowhead by author and former University of Albany professor of literature Richard Matturro.
Aaron Sachs is professor of history and American studies at Cornell University. He is the author of The Humboldt Current: Nineteenth-Century Exploration and the Roots of American Environmentalism and Arcadian America: The Death and Life of an Environmental Tradition.
Up from the Depths tells the interconnected stories of two of the most important writers in American history—the novelist and poet Herman Melville (1819–1891) and one of his earliest biographers, the literary critic and historian Lewis Mumford (1895–1990). Deftly cutting back and forth between the writers, author Aaron Sachs reveals the surprising resonances between their lives, work, and troubled times—and their uncanny relevance in our own age of crisis.
The author of Moby-Dick was largely forgotten for several decades after his death, but Mumford helped spearhead Melville’s revival in the aftermath of World War I and the 1918–1919 flu pandemic, when American culture needed a forebear with a suitably dark vision. As Mumford’s career took off and he wrote books responding to the machine age, urban decay, world war, and environmental degradation, it was looking back to Melville’s confrontation with crises such as industrialization, slavery, and the Civil War that helped Mumford to see his own era clearly. Mumford remained obsessed with Melville, ultimately helping to canonize him as America’s greatest tragedian. But largely forgotten today is one of Mumford’s key insights—that Melville’s darkness was balanced by an inspiring determination to endure.
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Ancram Opera House announces fall season
Ancram, N.Y. – The fall season at Ancram Opera House will begin on September 30, and will feature four unique shows.
Still Life: September 30 – October 9
Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 7 p.m., Saturday, Sundays at 2 p.m.
Still Life is a searing and revealing documentary play about the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam conflict on a former marine, his wife, and another woman with whom he has an intimate relationship, gleaned from interviews and refined to illuminate the post war experience.
This production of Still Life is in collaboration with Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company as part of their year-long celebration of playwright Emily Mann.
Crystal Radio Sessions: Saturday, October 29th at 7 p.m.
Crystal Radio Sessions, curated by Ashley Mayne, showcases fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction and personal essays by established and emerging writers from the Hudson Valley.
Real People Real Stories: Sunday, November 13th at 2 p.m.
Real People Real Stories is an audience favorite and mainstay in AOH’s seasonal programming. Local residents develop and shape monologues with guidance from program director Paul Ricciardi. The results are an array of poignant, humorous, and captivating tales that celebrate community and personal connection.
Real People Real Stories: Taconic Hills Edition: Saturday, December 3rd at 2 p.m.
Real People Real Stories: Taconic Hills Edition supports the school’s literacy and writing pedagogies by utilizing live storytelling as a step towards composing personal narratives. AOH is instructing over 300 students, helping each to develop and tell a story about a memorable event in their life. As a culminating event, students sign up to share their tale from the AOH stage, with the presentation being live-streamed for free to the public.
For more information, and to buy tickets, visit https://www.ancramoperahouse.org/fall-season-22.
