Great Barrington — At 7 p.m. on the evenings of Thursday, May 1, through Sunday, May 18, the long-beloved Mixed Company Theatre will present an evening of four one-act plays by Joan Ackermann, each set in the Berkshires in a different season. The three-week limited run marks the return of Berkshire County’s oldest year-round theater—on cue with fresh lights, an updated sound system, and a well-curated set.
Mixed Company, located in the old Granary building that runs along the railroad tracks at 33 Rosseter Street in Great Barrington, first opened in the summer of 1982, when playwright Joan Ackermann and actor Gillian Seidl put on Alan Ayckborn’s “Bedroom Farce.” “We had no intention of starting a theater. We just wanted to act and put on a play,” Ackermann admits.
In a rented space, they constructed 12 lights made out of stovepipes purchased at Carr Hardware, pieced together 60 slatted seats from a discarded pile marked for firewood, assembled a cast, and rehearsed for six weeks. “It was an instant hit. Gene Shalit wrote that it was the best theater he’d seen in the Berkshires that summer, and we were mobbed. We had no phone and charged $5 a ticket,” Ackermann recalls.
After a sold-out seven-week run, the creative partners decided to put on another play, and another, culminating in over 170 productions over the decades. Carl Sprague (designer for Berkshire Theatre Group), following Mixed Company’s last pre-COVID performance, raved: “Such an evening! Great cast. Great play. And, as always, the best place for theater is in the Berkshires.”
Then came COVID. When Broadway closed, smaller theaters like Mixed Company followed. “We closed our doors five years ago when the pandemic struck, but we’re coming back,” Ackermann states—a dream she has nurtured for the past two years. “It’s an important time for live theater. An important time to shine our lights as brightly as we can,” she adds.
Julie Webster affirms, “These stories are really timely. This needed to happen now, stressing the importance of art, theater, telling stories.”
The cast for “This place. These hills.” includes local and regional actors Julie Webster, Deann Simmons Halper, Daniel Osman, David Joseph, Caitlin Teeley, Ryan Marchione, Gray Simons, Mae Hedges Boyce, Dana Harrison, MJ Asprey, and Thom Whaley. The set, designed by Buzz Gray and Carl Sprague, includes paintings of landscapes by Sprague’s late wife Susan Merrell.
The four one-act plays are tied thematically to the Berkshires and the seasons, but perhaps most importantly, they are tied to humanity. One eavesdrops on a first consult between a local landscape designer and a second-home transplant from the city. Another takes us into the chance encounter of two men on the Appalachian Trail. A third takes us along on an airport drop-off following an opera performance at Tanglewood, and the final act brings us into the theatrical realm with an actor preparing the lead in Shakespeare’s “Richard III.”
While presenting the plays is one draw, the most compelling reason the actors cited for getting involved is the quality of Ackermann’s writing and the camaraderie and sense of community among the cast. “I’m always very happy when Joan calls,” Daniel Osman shares. “I did my first play (‘Bus Stop’) here in 1985 and performed in ‘Ithaka’ 15 years ago.”
“I ran into Joan coming back from the city,” Webster notes. “I walked into the car and saw her, and we immediately started chatting. Joan mentioned that she wanted to revive acts from ‘Season by Season’; again, and—although my first instinct was to say, ‘I’m quite busy,’ I couldn’t say no if Joan was going to do this. Her writing is so divine. All of her stories are love stories—not in a romantic way but in terms of humanity.”
Deann Simmons Halper agrees. “There’s something about this ensemble. We’ve all done plays together, here and elsewhere, and it’s pretty fun to come together again, like family.” The shared excitement in being reunited as a cast working with Ackermann’s scripts and under her creative direction is palpable. There is a “summer camp catch-up” buzz on the back porch of The Granary in the hour before rehearsal begins.
“Coming back into pieces we knew so intimately, we needed to land in each other’s lives again,” Webster explains.
Ryan Marchione and Gray Simons, who act in the third story (where the title “This place. These hills.” originates), are both hikers in real life and performed in an iteration of the play 10 years ago. Ackermann wrote a new scene for this re-opening, with a monologue tailor-made for Simons and a continuation of her theme of coming together as humans, despite the assumptions we often make when we meet.
Faye Ehrbar, a student at Monument Mountain Regional High School and stage manager for its recent production of “Mean Girls,” is part of the tech team, along with Steven Mason at the lighting board (who took Ackermann and Seidl to Carr Hardware to create the stovepipe lights 43 years ago). Peter Lindstrom helped to update the old sound system, and the theater now has a split system for greater comfort in all seasons.
Beginning the second to last rehearsal before opening night, Ackermann smiles and acknowledges, “It’s so nice having everybody all together.” For the original co-founders, Mixed Company was always a way of lifting people’s spirits. “We always wanted to give something of value, reflect on what was good in humanity, and leave people feeling better than when they came,” she shares. That intention remains her calling and purpose four decades later.
So, if you are in need of a reminder of the humanity we still share, or simply a night of theater to lift your spirits, come and experience “This place. These hills.” The box office opens at 6:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased on Mixed Company’s website.
For more on Mixed Company’s history and re-opening, read The Berkshire Edge’s July 2023 Business Monday story.
