Mural-making sessions at Ramsdell Library
Housatonic — Calling all kids and teens (5 years old and up) to help create a gigantic garden-themed mural for the kid’s room at Ramsdell Library in Housatonic.
On Saturday, May 9, from 12 to 1 p.m., and again on Wednesday, May 13, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. you will draw, paint, collage or mix your media to create garden and nature images that will be compiled into the final design by artists Kim Waterman and Adam Gudeon. The image will be photographed, printed on vinyl wallpaper and applied to the wall. It could be there for a long, long time so don’t miss this opportunity to get in on the wall.
Gudeon is a Great Barrington Libraries Trustee as well as children’s book author and illustrator with a BFA from Pratt: https://adamgudeon.com/
Waterman is a well-known performing and visual arts practitioner and teacher with a BFA from Parsons and an MSEd from Hunter.
Call the Ramsdell Library for more info: 413-274-3738
— D.S.
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Solar home energy workshop at Sage Bushnell Library
Sheffield — There will be a workshop/presentation on solar and home energy efficiency for residents from Sheffield, Alford, Ashley Falls and Egremont. The presentation will be open to the public and held on Friday, May 8th at 6:30 p.m. at the Sheffield Library. Speakers will include representatives from CET, from Community Energy Solar, as well as Jim Barry, the regional coordinator for Green Communities Division. Residents who have solar panels or have participated in community solar will also talk about their experience.
— D.S.
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Great Barrington Fairgrounds spring cleanup
Great Barrington — Join the Great Barrington Fair Ground (GFBG) this Saturday, May 9th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to clean up the property, clear some brush, fill a dumpster, tend trees, and get ready for a season of fun and culture. The day will end with food and music.
These music and community-filled Saturdays will continue through the season, along with outdoor films and the Zoppe Circus in July.
Please bring work gloves; wood needs to be stripped of its nails to build the new cowshed; brush needs to be chopped, and beds planted among plenty of other tasks to suit all interests and abilities.
Bring a cup or bottle for water on site and dress to prevent ticks and poison ivy contact, and bring insect repellant and sunscreen.
There will be fun projects for young volunteers like seeding, planting and mulching around the schoolhouse building.
If you have yard-work tools in good working condition that you no longer need, please contact Beth Carlson at GBFG, at https://gbfg.org. For more information see the cleanup Facebook page.
GBFG WORKDATES 2015 (Sundays 9 a.m.-11 a.m.)
May 9 SATURDAY 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Spring Clean Up
May 31
June 14
June 28
July 12
July 26
August 9
August 23
September 13
September 27
October 11 (Columbus Day weekend)
October 25
November 8
— H.B.
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Shakespeare & Young Company in the Packer Playhouse
Lenox — Shakespeare & Company is pleased to announce its 2015 Spring Shakespeare & Young Company Performances of One That Loved Not Wisely, But Too Well, adapted and directed by Josh Aaron McCabe and Douglas Seldin, and To You I Give Myself, For I Am Yours, adapted and directed by Enrico Spada and Tori Rhoades. Both original pieces are derived from various Shakespeare plays and include excerpts from over half the Canon. The productions mark this year’s culmination of the Shakespeare & Young Company’s eight-week Spring Session. Performances are Friday, May 8th and Saturday May 9th at 7 p.m. in the Tina Packer Playhouse, 70 Kemble Street, and are open to the public.
“These two talented ensembles have spent the last couple of months creating and working together,” says Director and Education Artist Josh Aaron McCabe. “They are very excited to share these stories and bring Shakespeare’s words and world to life.”
Shakespeare & Young Company is designed to further develop young actors and empower them as creative individuals who can work well collaboratively. During the training young actors develop the skills necessary to be more creative and to effectively communicate thoughts and feelings in a communal environment. Young Company sessions are offered in the spring and Summer for high school and college students age 16-20. Many students are first introduced to the work through residencies or the Company’s annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare. Admissions for summer enrollment are now underway and scholarships are available.
For tickets: www.shakespeare.org. For additional information on Shakespeare & Company’s Education programs for students and teachers visit www.shakespeare.org/education.
— H.B.
Rufus Wainwright performance at Mahaiwe
Great Barrington — The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center presents The Best of Rufus Wainwright on Saturday, May 9 at 8 p.m. at 14 Castle St.
“We look forward to an incredible evening with this exceptional artist,” said Mahaiwe Executive Director Beryl Jolly. “He is truly one of the great male vocalists and songwriters of his generation.”
The New York-born, Montreal-raised singer-songwriter is the son of folk music luminaries Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle and the brother of Martha Wainwright. But Wainwright has achieved his success by carving out his own singular sound in the worlds of rock, opera, theater, dance and film. He has released seven studio albums, three DVDs, and three live albums. He has also collaborated with a wide range of artists, including Elton John, David Byrne, Boy George, Joni Mitchell, Pet Shop Boys, Robbie Williams, and producer Mark Ronson, among others.
His latest album, Vibrate: The Best of Rufus Wainwright, was released in 2014 on Universal. In addition to being a celebrated contemporary pop singer, Wainwright has made a name for himself in the classical world. His much-acclaimed first opera, titled Prima Donna, premiered at the Manchester International Festival in 2009. The opera was subsequently performed in London at Sadler’s Wells, in Toronto at the Luminato Festival, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House. Now fully established as a composer of operas, he was commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company to write his second opera based on the story of the Roman Emperor Hadrian and Antinous, to premiere in Toronto in October 2018.
Tickets are $35 to $80. A limited number of $15 tickets are available for audience members ages 30 and younger through the Mahaiwe ArtSmart Tix program, sponsored by Greylock Federal Credit Union. This concert is sponsored by Cyril & Dayne Artisan Eyewear. Box office hours are Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 6:00pm and three hours before show times. For tickets and information, see www.mahaiwe.org or call 413.528.0100.
— H.B.
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Snowden Wright reading at The Mount
Lenox — Stone Court Writer-in-Residence Snowden Wright will read from his work on Saturday, May 9 at 3 p.m. at The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home. The reading is open to the public, free of charge, and co-sponsored by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, the Berkshire Waldorf High School, the Stockbridge Library Museum and Archives, and The Mount. There will be refreshments.
Wright hails from Oxford, Mississippi. He holds a BA in Creative Writing from Dartmouth College and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia University. His nonfiction work has been published in Salon, TheAtlantic.com, Nerve, The Morning News, Freerange Nonfiction, Thought Catalog, The Good Men Project, Esquire.com, Bookslut, The Millions, and the New York Daily News. His fiction has been published in Dark Sky, The Rumpus, TheLMagazine.com, Emprise Review, elimae, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Wright was the 2012 recipient of the Summer Literary Seminar’s Graywolf Prize for best novel excerpt.
From a young age, Wright has been an avid reader, and early realized that he wanted to write stories like the ones he read. He began his first novel in second grade. It was, by his own account, “a terrible book.” He wrote little in high school but elected to major in creative writing as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. Wright also calls his thesis novel a “terrible book.” Ten years later, when he next stood in the room in which he had given a reading from his thesis novel, however, it was to read from his first published novel, Play Pretty Blues, a fictional account of the blues musician Robert Johnson, told from the perspective of Johnson’s six surviving wives. Will Allison, author of Long Drive Home said that “Wright’s fervent, musical prose captures the very essence of the blues. [This is] a work of extraordinary imagination and soul.”
Stone Court Writer-In-Residence program, which is in its inaugural year, offers two 12-week residencies, one beginning in September and one beginning in February. It provides emerging writers the freedom, time, and material support to concentrate on their creative work. The intent is to bring young writers who represent diverse American voices — particularly those from other regions of the United States — to the Berkshires. The program is structured to permit the writer to contribute to the community by leading a creative writing “master class” at the Berkshire Waldorf High School and offering community readings of his or her work.
Stephen Sagarin, Faculty Chair at the Waldorf High School, said, “Snowden Wright and the Stone Court residency allow our students to see beyond their lives in the Berkshires, to get to know the minds and voices of those from different parts of our country, and to improve their skill in creative writing.”
A student reading of work from the creative writing workshop of Snowden Wright will held Wednesday, May 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkshire Waldorf High School, 14 Pine Street, Stockbridge. The reading is free and open to the public.
— H.B.
