Great Barrington — For several years, Great Barrington Public Theater (GBPT) has presented modern and provocative theater performances featuring topics that many other theater groups would not tackle.
The theater group was established back in 2019 and, for years, held performances at the Daniel Arts Center on the campus of Bard College at Simon’s Rock. However, Bard College announced back in 2024 that it was shutting down the Great Barrington Simon’s Rock campus in 2025, with the campus put up for sale in the summer.
“We’ve been in touch with Bard and the realtor, but we couldn’t get a definitive answer about whether we could be there this summer,” GBPT Artistic Director Jim Frangione said. “We fully expect to be up there next summer, but for this summer we had to fish or cut bait.”
Which means that for this season all GPBT performances will be held at Saint James Place, located at 352 Main Street. “We are excited about what we can do with the space at Saint James Place because we plan on going beyond what we’ve done in there before,” Associate Artistic Director Judy Braha said. “We have had readings and our ‘Chat GBPT’ panel discussion series at Saint James over the years. I think we’re going to have beautiful and intimate theater experiences for people this season.”
“We’re going to create a very small and intimate black box theater in the Great Hall at Saint James Place,” Frangione said. “We’re going to add seating risers, put in 75 seats, and we’re looking at installing an augmented lighting package as well. We’re going to create a nice little space that will be appropriate for very small cast and intimate plays.”
“Creating theater is magical because it is so versatile,” GBPT Managing Director Serena Johnson added. “You can have theater performances in a traditional space or even a non-traditional space. This is an exciting opportunity for us to activate a new space in the community and to showcase the venue with the high-level work we do.”
Braha said that for its 2026 season, the theater group sought out plays that can fit into both the space and context of Saint James Place.
However, Johnson said GBPT would not back away from performing plays that deal with modern topics. “Being provocative is not the lens in which we select our plays for the season, and it’s not the lens in how we make decisions in this company,” she said. “Jim and Judy find plays that will fit the space but are also asking really important questions about the times we live in. These are all intimate human stories that all fit within a global context. Is it provocative to talk about these things, or is it just the nature of what our playwrights are writing and thinking about? New work is inherently of the moment. I wouldn’t place it as if we are trying to poke a bear or be provocative. I think it’s just inherent in the work that we do.”
“The phrase that we’ve come up with is that these are all intimate and human stories with global implications,” Braha added. “The stories we perform are usually about a person or a couple of people, but the ramifications of the play really reverberate against the landscape of the crazy world that we are living in right now. There’s no way around it, this is a provocative time.”
“We’re not here to perform ‘Charley’s Aunt’ or ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’; we’re here to do new plays that the audience has never seen before,” Frangione said. “That’s our mission and our vision.”
The first play of this season, “Fragments,” is written by Jim Petosa, who will also perform in it under the direction of Braha. A developmental reading will be held on May 2 at 4 p.m., with performances from June 20 to July 5.
GBPT describes the play as a “memoir of a very specific time and place that shines a light on the turbulent years from 1985 to 1990 when the world was overtaken by the AIDS crisis.”
“This play is very reflective of the AIDS crisis back in the mid-’80s and talks about a time when many of us who were in New York were terrified,” Frangione said. “It’s a very moving and cathartic story told by someone who went through that.”
The second play for the season will be “iBoss,” written by Thomas Kee and directed by Clay Hopper, with performances from July 25 to August 9.
Hopper directed last year’s play “How to Not Save the World with Mr. Bezos.”
GBPT describes “iBoss”:
Taking place in a not so distant future, the rapidly accelerating intelligence of AI systems has created “Lisa.” Powered by AI, she wields enormous power. Shockingly, Lisa displays an emergent property of AI — sentience. And from this newly sentient being something else emerges: an emotional agenda. As Job Johnson begins his first in-person evaluation, it’s clear this isn’t going to be just another day at the office.
“In choosing this play to perform, we wanted something that was different, and also is responding to a particular topic that is very contemporary,” Frangione said. “We think that a play about AI is very contemporary. Clay has been researching AI, and the play is evolving as we speak.”
The final play in the series is “Yellow Wallpaper 2.0 – 2020,” written by Jennifer Maisel and directed by Braha.
GBPT describes the play as “[a] riff on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s classic domestic horror story “The Yellow Wallpaper” about a woman driven crazy by the rest cure for postpartum depression.” They add, “’Yellow Wallpaper 2.0 – 2020′ is about a female adjunct professor trying to thrive in COVID quarantine despite her toddler and demanding husband outside her bedroom and the personal demons she faces within.”
“The Yellow Wallpaper” was written by Gillman in 1892, and Braha said GPBT has adopted it for modern times. “Jennifer has taken the same situation and adopted it to pandemic times,” she said. “During the first days of the pandemic, people didn’t really know whether or not things were going to be shut down for two weeks or for the rest of our lives. The main character is also suffering from postpartum depression, and she shuts herself away from the world and is confronted with ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’ I won’t tell you what happens, but that’s the parallel.”
As for the company itself, Frangione said GBPT is thriving even as theater groups close across the country.” “We are doing the best we can,” he said. “We are tightening our belt, and we are producing small-cast plays.”
“This is hard work, and this is not an easy universe to live in,” Braha said. “I think we have to do plays that we believe in. “Some might call them ‘woke’ or ‘important’ or ‘ridiculous’ or whatever. But these are pieces that we believe in and we think people need to see. We are not thinking in the ‘land of woke.’ We’re just thinking in the land of what do we care deeply enough about to produce, and what do we want to share with our audiences.”
For more information about Great Barrington Public Theater, visit its website.
