Last year, the event was held outside at Monument Mountain's track. However, four hours into the event, a microburst storm hit the track, destroying the event area. This year, event organizer Ray Gardino told The Berkshire Edge they are not taking any chances and will hold the event indoors.
There is a sense of relevance to the pack of plays, a time-sensitive sensibility that gives even the least of them a reason to be heard and seen right now.
TheatreFest@SaintJamesPlace will feature staged readings of eight original plays from presenting companies including Berkshire Playwrights Lab’s Berkshire Voices writers’ group, GhostLit Repertory Theatre and New Stage Performing Arts.
What I am referring to is the vast amount of playwriting talent there is in this area. We have plays in development, plays and musicals in production, and some that are being written at this very moment!
The 10 10-minute plays, divided by one intermission, feature 10 playwrights who, each with remarkable economy, illuminate some aspect of life—in the everyday, in the home or in the news—as we are living it, like it or not, in this 2019 winter of discontent.
The play that ends the first half of the program, 'Pipeline' written by Michael Brady and directed by Julianne Boyd, is utterly moving and effective as three exuberant protestors on the edge of a mountain forest in south Berkshire County are confronted by an actual moment of disaster.
Berkshire Voices, led by playwright Michael Brady, was created by and for Berkshire-based playwrights to provide key support and resources for writers at every stage of their careers
The Radius Playwrights Festival features fully staged readings of the six selected new short plays created by local writers within a 50-mile radius of Great Barrington.
The purpose of Radius Playwrights Festival is to cultivate and celebrate local talent, explains Ann Garner, managing director of the Berkshire Playwrights Lab.
