Lenox — Since 1978, Shakespeare & Company has offered performances and education to the Berkshire County community. According to its website, the theater company has performed for more than 40,000 patrons annually.
The company recently announced its 2024 performance season, and Allyn Burrows, Shakespeare & Company artistic director and president of the Board of Trustees, told The Berkshire Edge that he is looking forward to it. “I’m really pumped for this season,” Burrows said. “Because of the pandemic, 2022 was kind of a gut punch for us because COVID didn’t cooperate. It kept people away and from coming back indoors. The whole theater industry was hurt in 2022, but in 2023, we had a really good season.”
Last year’s season included the performances of “Dear Jack, Dear Louise” by Ken Ludwig, “Fences” by August Wilson, and performances of several Shakespeare works including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and a staged reading of “Hamlet.”
“For last season, our attendance was 100 percent of our target goal,” Burrows said. “Obviously, we were crushed in 2020 because we were closed during the pandemic. In 2021 we had limited expectations, while in 2022 we didn’t come in where we wanted. In a lot of ways, we are clawing our way back when it comes to attendance numbers. We’re feeling very good about it.”
Shakespeare & Company has scheduled eight performances for this season. “For this season, we’re now able to be a little more measured and creative in our choices,” Burrows said. “You will see things on our schedule that are a break from our normal and usual programming. As for a theme for these performances as a whole, well, you could say that the theme is going to be ‘Love is going to win.’ It’s an election year, so love is going to win. There’s so much darkness and sadness in the world that we want to give people a spiritual and mental break from all of that darkness.”
The season starts this Saturday, March 16, at 2 p.m. with the Northeast Regional Tour of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The show, which will be held at the Tina Packer Playhouse, will be a sensory-friendly performance. According to Shakespeare & Company’s website, sensory-friendly performances are adaptations of plays that are less overwhelming to the senses and are designed to welcome individuals with various sensory needs, including people on the autism spectrum and those living with social or physical challenges.
From June 21 to July 21, Shakespeare & Company will be hosting performances of “A Body of Water” by Lee Blessing at its outdoor Roman Garden Theater. “It’s a very unusual play,” Burrows said. “Much more kind of absurdist than a walk in the woods. It’s a show that will resonate with people.”
As per the play’s description from the website:
Moss and Avis, a sophisticated and successful couple, wake up one morning in an isolated summer house high above a picturesque body of water. The weather’s fine; the view’s magnificent. There’s only one problem — neither of them can remember who they are. When a young woman named Wren arrives, information starts to flood in. But will it help? Her explanations seem only to make Moss and Avis’ world — as well as ours — more terrifying.
The next performance scheduled is “Shake It Up: A Shakespeare Cabaret,” from July 2 to July 7, at the Tina Packer Playhouse.
Burrows, who will be directing the performances, described the cabaret as “where Shakespeare meets rock and roll.”
“It’s going to be a mashup of music, text, and storytelling,” Burrows said. “We’re going to turn the Packer Playhouse into a cabaret for six nights and just have a really good time. We’re devising this piece with other musicians and artists about what happens in the pursuit of love and when we’re looking for love. That’s pretty much what you can boil down any Shakespeare play to. They’re pretty much about the failure of love or the pursuit of love.”
Next up, from July 13 to August 18, Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors” will be performed at the Arthur S. Waldstein Amphitheatre. The performances will be directed by Kate Kohler Amory, who has directed other performances at Shakespeare & Company in the past and is the founding artistic director of The Ridiculous Project. “The whole play is about a case of mistaken identity, so let the antics ensue,” Burrows said. “It’s going to have a vaudevillian theme, and Kate has some really fun ideas about it. It’s going to be a lot of fun and very fast-paced.”
After “Comedy of Errors,” Shakespeare & Company will be hosting the world premiere of Carey Crim’s “The Islanders” at the Tina Packer Playhouse, from July 25 to August 25. The performances will be directed by Regge Life, who is the senior distinguished director in residence at Emerson College. As per the play’s description from the website:
Anna lives an insular life on an underpopulated island in the Great Lakes. She has few friends and likes it that way. Her quiet, controlled world is turned upside down by the arrival of a charming but secretive new neighbor Dutch. For different reasons, Dutch and Anna have each retreated from mainstream society. Can their connection survive the revelations that must inevitably come with true intimacy?
“This is a play that has a beautiful, powerful, quiet, and funny story,” Burrows said. “For this play, we’re bringing back actor Troy Maxson who did great work with us last summer.”
From August 3 to August 25, “Flight of the Monarch” will be performed at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre. The play, which is written by Jim Frangione and will be directed by Judy Braha, is described as:
Two siblings, Sheila and Thomas, were both born and raised in a small, New England fishing village where they still live. This darkly comic play explores how siblings’ lives are intertwined, what we owe to the people who know and love us best, and how family members’ needs and desires may push the boundaries of what we can be expected to do for others.
From August 21 to August 25, a staged reading of Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale” will be performed at the Arthur S. Waldstein Amphitheatre. The performances will be directed by Shakespeare & Company founder Tina Packer.
Towards the end of the season, Shakespeare & Company will hold the world premiere performances of “Three Tall Persian Women,” from August 30 to October 13, at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre. The play is written by Los Angeles and New York City-based writer and actress Awni Abdi-Bahri, who has starred in multiple Broadway and off-Broadway shows. The performances will be directed by Dalia Ashurina, who currently serves as the associate director of “Sweeney Todd” on Broadway.
The play’s plot is described as:
Golnar, a punkish Iranian-American millennial, returns home to her mother Nasrin for the anniversary of her father’s passing, and walks into hoards of family memorabilia that her grandmother Mamani has moved in with her. This comedic and touching play is about generational differences, grief, control, and learning to let go; but more than anything, it’s a love story to immigrant mothers.
“The performances of this play came out of our ‘Plays in Process’ reading series that we held last summer,” Burrows said. “It’s important that we stay focused on trying to have plays by playwrights of the global majority. [Abdi-Bahri] is an Iranian playwright, and this play is about an Iranian-American family. It’s really fun and edgy.”
Burrows said that the season will conclude with a reading of the Jane Austen play “Emma,” which has not been scheduled yet as of press time. “When it comes to our performances, I think it’s important that we stay focused on the breadth of humankind so we can learn things,” Burrows said. “It’s important to experience performances live because sitting at home in front of a screen is not the same as seeing something live. You don’t have the same experiences through technology as you would if you were with people. We listen with our whole bodies, and the sound of the human voice vibrates off of our bones. When we take those vibrations in, it’s a communal experience. Even though the experience of audience participation may be a passive one, there’s still an energy exchange that happens between the audience and the performers.”
For more information about Shakespeare & Company, visit its website.
