PS21 season closing celebration features unique performances
Chatham, N.Y.— This weekend will mark the closing weekend for the PS21 season, and will feature three unique events.
On September 2 – 3, PS21 will present the year’s sole North American performance of Phillippe Quesne’s Farm Fatale. This performance tells an eco-futurist fable: birds have gone extinct, and five scarecrows find themselves out of work. Taking up the challenge of restoring life on earth, they archive, investigate, make music, and seek ways to save what can be saved. The scarecrows contemplate the fragile beauty of our ecosystem, and in the process are transformed into dreamers, poets, and activists in a quest for a kinder, less harmful future for the planet.
Acclaimed French theater director, scenographer, and visual artist Philippe Quesne marries activism and art to create this unforgettable theatrical experience, a dramatic tightrope act that balances tenderness and catastrophe, refusing to succumb to despair.
The two performances of Farm Fatale will begin at 7 p.m. in PS21’s open-air Pavilion Theater. Tickets are $40 patron; $30 general; $20 PS21 members; $10 farmers, environmentalists, and food justice activists; FREE students and youth
On September 3 – 4, Compagnie Galmae will present C’EST PAS LÀ, C’EST PAR LÀ (IT’S NOT THAT WAY, IT’S THIS WAY). Inspired by his experiences of street protests in Seoul, street artist Juhyung Lee has conceptualized a performance that transforms a crowd into a problem-solving collective. Faced with a dense maze of string that resembles a spider web, one spectator will pick up a stone and start to roll up the string bound to it, as another walks into the middle of the labyrinth and contemplates the unraveling tangle. Passing over and under the threads, the spectators will be transformed into actors in the performance, helping each other. A neutral space becomes a place of encounters, and the individuals form a community.
The evening ends with a celebration to commemorate the achievement of working together as a community. In the process, participants begin to ask questions: What happens to individuals when they form groups to pursue a common goal? How do crowds move? How do people work together to solve a problem?
The September 3 performance will start at 8:30 p.m., and the September 4 performance will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 general; FREE students and youth
On September 4 at 7 p.m., immediately preceding the performance by Compagnie Galmae, Philippe Quesne’s band The Moles will perform a short family-friendly rock concert. In The Moles, a companion piece to Farm Fatale, Philippe Quesne invites audiences into a parallel universe where there are no humans and no words. In this mysterious underground world, larger-than-life moles are the architects of something between a processional utopian spectacle and a punk rock band. Read more about The Moles in the New York Times.
For more information about PS21’s closing weekend, and to buy tickets to performances, visit: https://ps21chatham.org/events/
***
Artist residency for local first and second generation artists
North Adams— The Studios at MASS MoCA and Berkshire Immigrant Center are collaborating on a pilot program called Iris Residency. This program is specifically for Western Massachusetts-based artists who are foreign-born or identify as first or second generation American. The residency program will be held in February 2023 for four weeks.
Artists will receive a variety of benefits including a living and food/materials stipend, private studio space, and housing. Mentorship and professional development opportunities will also be available, as well as resources from the Berkshire Immigrant Center.
The deadline for application submissions is September 15, and notifications will take place in late October.
Application are welcomed from artists in all career stages, income levels, and disciplines (painters, sculptors, installation artists, fiber artists, printmakers, writers, performers, designers, photographers, filmmakers, etc.) whose practice allows them to work quietly (nothing is sound-proofed, so power tools and loud music are discouraged). The program will accept 2 artists.
Please contact luiza@berkshireic.org with any questions about the residency or the application.
***
Author and journalist Amy Russo to speak about First Ladies
Lenox– Amy Russo will speak about First Ladies of the White House at Ventfort Hall on Tuesday, August 30 at 4 p.m. She will discuss material in her book, Women of the White House, the illustrated story of the First Ladies of the United States of America. A tea will follow her presentation.
Some First Ladies are known for their image and style, others are known for their political ambitions and some aren’t well known at all. One thing they all have in common: they took on a role for which they never applied. Each First Lady, in their own way, helped to define a position for which there is no job description.
Amy Russo joined The Providence Journal as a city reporter in 2021. A New York City transplant, she previously wrote for outlets including The New York Post, HuffPost and NBC News. Her coverage has spanned politics, national news and the media industry itself. Amy has also reported internationally, investigating Sweden’s treatment of child refugees in 2017 as a fellow for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Amy is a graduate of Hunter College in Manhattan.
Tickets are $30 for members and with advance reservation; $35 day of; $22 for students 22 and under. Reservations are required as seats are limited. Walk-ins accommodated as space allows. For reservations call us at (413) 637-3206. The historical mansion is located at 104 Walker Street in Lenox.
***
Shakespeare & Co. regional tour to return
Lenox– After a two-year hiatus, Shakespeare & Company has announced the return of the Northeast Regional Tour of Shakespeare, sending touring productions of Shakespeare’s plays, along with a variety of related workshops, into middle and high schools, colleges, and other venues across the Northeast and beyond.
From early February to early May 2023, Shakespeare & Company Actors/Education Artists will tour a seven-actor, 90-minute version of Romeo & Juliet (directed by founding company member Kevin G. Coleman) throughout the Northeast.
The production will be fully produced with sets, costumes, props, and sound. The Northeast Regional Tour of Shakespeare reaches approximately 20,000 students and audience members across 8 states each year. Kaitlin Henderson, education tour and professional development manager for Shakespeare & Company, said the Education team sees renewed opportunities in next year’s tour. “Because so many arts programs have been canceled, students have lost many opportunities to engage with the world in creative ways.”
Audiences in schools, colleges and universities, community centers, and other venues will enjoy a full, one-day package of activities, including a 90-minute performance; a 15-minute, interactive, post-show forum; and the choice of one of two 45-minute workshops with students, centered on either workshopping in performance or the actor-audience relationship.
Digital study guides prepared by Shakespeare & Company and tailored specifically to that year’s production are available to schools and educators as part of a tour booking, designed as supplemental resources for teachers and students to help them better understand the play, but also to form points of connection between the experiences of modern-day students and the story of the play.
For more information, email northeastregionaltour@gmail.com, or call (413) 637-1199 ext. 108.
***
Tickets on sale for Sharon Playhouse Spotlight Gala
Sharon, Conn.— The Spotlight Gala at Sharon Playhouse, held on October 1, will feature Cacophony Daniels, returning afterher unforgettable debut last summer. Known as the Belty Broad From Broadway, she’s a live-singing drag darling from New York City who has toured internationally with her cabarets, including Wanna Bette?, her tribute to Bette Midler, and Under The ‘C’, her tribute to the late Howard Ashman, for which she received a 2017 Bistro Award. Cacophony will be regaling the Sharon Playhouse community with Broadway standards, pop covers, and her extraordinary humor and charm.
The event will begin with a cocktail hour at 5:30 p.m., and the performance will begin at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale September 1, and start at $125. For more information, visit www.sharonplayhouse.org/spotlight-gala
