Berkshire Playwrights Lab offers Radius Playwrights Festival
Great Barrington — Berkshire Playwrights Lab will launch its inaugural Radius Playwrights Festival at Saint James Place with performances on Friday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m. and on Saturday, Jan. 28, at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. The festival features fully staged readings of the six selected new short plays created by local writers within a 50-mile radius of Great Barrington.
The purpose of Radius Playwrights Festival is to cultivate and celebrate local talent. BPL’s managing director Ann Garner said, “Our participants are from all over the area — three playwrights from Berkshire County, one from the Pioneer Valley and two from adjacent New York. We received 109 submissions from local playwrights, and we met almost 40 local actors at auditions, many of whom we’d never met before.”
The included plays were written by Katherine Burger of Kingston, New York; James McLindon of Northampton; Steven Otfinoski of Sandisfield; Andy Reynolds of Great Barrington; Maizy Broderick Scarpa of Canaan, New York; and Rachel Schroeder of Great Barrington. The plays will be directed by Berkshires-based David Adkins; Michael Brady of Southfield; Ann Garner of Stockbridge; Berkshire School’s Jesse Howard of Sheffield; Aglet Theatre Company’s Macey Levin of Taconic, Connecticut; and Berkshires-based Kristen van Ginhoven of WAM Theatre.
Tickets are $15 each with discounts available for groups of six or more. For tickets and more information, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or call BPL at (413) 528-2544.
–E.E.
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Simon’s Rock to host journalism symposium
Great Barrington — On Thursday, Jan. 26, at 7 p.m., Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Berkshire Magazine and Multicultural BRIDGE will present the symposium and panel discussion “Social Justice: Ethics, Writing and Reporting for Social Change,” at the Daniel Arts Center at Simon’s Rock. The panel will be moderated by Berkshire Magazine editor Anastasia Stanmeyer with support from Simon’s Rock faculty member Dr. Jennifer Browdy and Isabel O’Donnell, founding editor of Speak Easy, Simon’s Rock’s student newspaper. A workshop for students of all ages will precede the symposium at 5 p.m.
All are welcome to attend. For more information or to RSVP to the workshop, contact adminsupport@multiculturalbridge.org.
–E.E.
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Pianist Leonel Morales to perform at Hotchkiss School
Lakeville, Conn. — The Hotchkiss School’s Hotchkiss Concert Series will welcome pianist Leonel Morales to its Esther Eastman Music Center’s Katherine M. Elfers Hall on Saturday, Jan. 28 at 7 p.m. Morales will perform an all-romantic program that will include pieces by Spanish composer Martín Sánchez Allú, Chopin’s third piano sonata and Rachmaninov’s second piano sonata. The concert is free and open to the public and no ticket reservations are necessary.
Born in Cuba, Morales graduated from the University of Havana and has lived in Spain since 1991. A professor of piano at the Conservatorio Superior de Castellón, Morales also teaches at Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio and Internationale Sommerakademie Mozarteum in Austria. Morales and his wife are co-founders of the international piano competition “Spanish Composers” in Spain, International Piano Competition Maria Herrero, International Piano Festival Masterclass Leonel Morales, and International Piano Course for Children and Teenagers. Morales frequently serves as a juror at major international piano competitions. In 2008, he was awarded the Tasto D’Agento prize in Italy, reserved for pianists with distinguished international concert careers.
For more information, call (860) 435-4423.
–E.E.
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Balkan food talk at the Scoville Library
Salisbury, Conn. — On Saturday, Jan. 28, at 4 p.m., the Scoville Memorial Library will present photographer and food researcher Babs Perkins, who will give a talk titled “Tales From 10,000 Kilometers: On the Road in Search of Cheese, Wine, and Other Traditional Foods.”
Perkins is a photographer and writer from Norfolk who has traveled extensively in the region of former Yugoslavia and discovered a wealth of traditional food culture and products that are relatively unknown outside that area. She will speak about her ongoing travels in the Balkans in search of cheese and discuss her work photographing the individuals still using traditional production methods. She will share her images along with stories about the people, places and products. As a special treat, Perkins will have wine and cheese from the Balkan region available for tasting.
For more information, contact the library at (860) 435-2838 or scovlibn@biblio.org.
–E.E.
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‘Thanks for the Fish’ spoken work poetry event
North Adams — On Sunday, Jan. 29, at 3 p.m., WordXWord Festival will present the spoken word poetry event “Thanks for the Fish: Voices Against Greed,” at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts’ Gallery 51. “Thanks for the Fish” will feature poets bearing witness to a world where greed appears to have no limits but where every day holds moments of generosity and compassion.
Doni Smith ‘19 will host the event, which will be set in the context of MCLA visiting assistant professor and visual artist Josh Ostraff‘s exhibition “OFA ATU.” Poet participation in the event is available on a pre-registration basis only.
The event is free and open to the public. The audience is advised that the program may contain explicit content. For more information, contact web@wxw365.org.
–E.E.
