CEWM to present author Linda Hirshman at The Mount
Lenox — Close Encounters With Music will present lawyer, best-selling author and cultural historian Linda Hirshman in its “Conversations With…” series on Sunday, May 14, at 3 p.m. at the Mount.
Hirshman has chronicled battles that have changed the social landscape of America in her books “Get to Work: A Manifesto For Women of the World,” “Hard Bargains: The Politics of Sex,” and others. “Sisters in Law,” her dual biography of Supreme Court justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reveals how the trailblazers shaped the legal framework of modern feminism, also situating their respective ascents to the court within the broader women’s rights movement. Hirshman has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, and the Daily Beast, and participated in Supreme Court cases representing organized labor. She has also spent time teaching law, and philosophy and women’s studies at Brandeis University. A charismatic speaker, she will analyze the 14th and 19th amendments in tandem as two paths to equality in the suffrage effort and as they affected private and public lives of women.
Tickets are $15. For tickets and more information, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or call (800) 843-0778.
–E.E.
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Ruth Abram to speak on ‘Museums That Matter’ at Knosh & Knowledge
Great Barrington — On Friday, May 12, at 10:45 a.m., the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires will present the Knosh & Knowledge program “Museums That Matter (And How They Grow)” with Ruth Abram, founder of New York City’s Tenement Museum and BEHOLD! New Lebanon, at Hevreh of Southern Berkshire. The presentation will be followed by a buffet lunch.
Abram founded the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, the National Women’s Agenda and Coalition, the Institute on Women’s History, and the traveling exhibition and book “Send Us a Lady Physician: Women Doctors in America, 1835 – 1920.” In 2014, she founded BEHOLD! New Lebanon, the nation’s first living museum of contemporary rural American life. Abram’s writing has been published by a wide range of national publications and she has made media appearances on World News Tonight, the Today Show, and NPR. In 2016, Abram was awarded the J.M.K. Innovation Prize and was honored by the New York Academy of History for her outstanding contribution to New York history.
Admission is $11, which includes the lunch. Participants may attend the program only for $5. Advance reservations for lunch are required. For more information or to make reservations, contact the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires at (413) 442-4360 x10 or jfb.officemanager@verizon.net.
–E.E.
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‘Through the Lens’ student photography exhibit
Pittsfield — Miss Hall’s School, Berkshire Children and Families and the Berkshire Museum have partnered to curate the student photography exhibit “Through the Lens,” a story-based portrait series at the Berkshire Museum featuring youth from Herberg and Reid middle schools and based on the Dear World project. The exhibit runs through Friday, May 12, with a closing reception set to take place Friday, May 12, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Mikala L’Hote, a senior at Miss Hall’s senior and an intern at the Berkshire Museum, and Gabriela Keator, also a Miss Hall’s senior as well as an intern at Berkshire Children and Families, worked with students at Herberg and Reid for the exhibit, asking them: “What do you want your message to the world to be?” The students were then photographed with their messages painted on their arms.
The reception is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Erin Sullivan at esullivan@berkshirechildren.org.
–E.E.
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Douglas Tallamy to speak on native plants
Lakeville, Conn. — On Friday, May 12, at 7:30 p.m., the Salisbury Forum will present Douglas Tallamy, author of “Bringing Nature Home,” in a talk titled “How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens and Surrounding Landscapes” at Hotchkiss School.
As the chair of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware, Tallamy studies the impact of native plants on the animals that depend on them, and how invasive species can disrupt local ecosystems and lead to the disappearance of both large and small animals. Tallamy’s talk will show how plants that are imported for decoration may actually lead to a mass extinction of local birds and animals that depend on native ecosystems.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Salisbury Forum at info@salisburyforum.org.
–E.E.
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BCC Players to stage ‘Next to Normal’
Pittsfield — The BCC Players will present the rock musical “Next to Normal” in the Robert Boland Theatre at Berkshire Community College at 8 p.m. on Friday, May 12; Saturday, May 13; Friday, May 19; and Saturday, May 20; and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, May 14, and Sunday, May 21.
With book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey and music by Tom Kitt, “Next to Normal” explores how one suburban family copes with crisis and mental illness and won three 2009 Tony Awards and the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The BCC production is directed by Sam Slack with musical direction by Ellen Shanahan and features Isabel Costa as Diana, Kyle Carson as Gabe, Joseph Sicotte as Dan, Sadie Clouser as Natalie, Michael Morin Garrity as Henry, Lyndsay deManbey as Dr. Madden, and Cheyenne Reed as Dr. Fine.
Tickets are $15 general admission and $10 for BCC faculty, staff, students and alumni as well as for senior citizens. For tickets and more information, calling (413) 236-2100.
–E.E.
