On the eve of the first 10×10 Festival, 11 years ago, I wrote a question — with a Smartphone and inside knowledge, what kind of film would I make about Pittsfield?
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ABCD — glimpsing the wires of broken school systems
What are the ethics of cheating in school? Harder: what about the ethics of cheating for the sake of a school which is being threatened by closure?
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Here be dragons … and fireflies and courage #this weekend
As Ben and Scarlet and I walk out from the opening night of ABCD at Barrington Stage, we’re thinking of the choices the characters have to face, and their strength …
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How does Iran see Andy Warhol?
The young man at the window turns to the American, the older man on a half-official visit, and says ‘did you learn anything about my country before you came here?’ And the question echoes through the play.
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Afong Moy, the first woman to come from China to the U.S., tells her story
On Broadway, a young woman sits in a small room. At 3 and 7:30 p.m., twice a week, she will drink tea, walk in a circle and eat rice with chopsticks. She may sing a song from home and remember the quick and fluid music of strings and wooden flute […]
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Ragtime rocks the foundations and lifts strong voices at Barrington Stage — BTW column
Make them hear you. Make them hear you. His voice is low and proud, angry and resolute. His voice is bass, and he carries it to the back of the hall. Darnell Abraham is Coalhouse Walker Jr., tall and formal in a dark red suit jacket and a bowler hat, […]
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Summer theater in the Berkshires asks the nature of an American
A young man from Colombia sees New York for the first time. A pianist from Harlem sees his son for the first time. A woman speaking in sign insists on the beauty of her language. What is American? Berkshire theaters are taking on this question with a tough and broad-minded […]
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Weekend ahead June 30 to July 2
‘And there was distant music, simple and somehow sublime’ … and getting closer. This weekend, Ragtime takes Barrington Stage Company back to the turn of the 20th century, as a stifled housewife, an immigrant father and a musician from Harlem fight for their own real American dreams. It’s July in […]
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10×10 Festival heats up in Pittsfield
Drum beats and improvisation, bonfires, dance, oil paintings and spoken word … the city is getting ready. As I revise the poem I’m working on for the WordxWord Project on Friday, Pittsfield is preparing for its annual 10 days of performance and art — with tacos. And chocolate.
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‘His Girl Friday’ brings fast action on the Chicago Beat to Barrington Stage
It’s late night in a Chicago press room in 1939. Camped out in city hall, with the condemned cell behind a door and a gallows outside the window, reporters from the city papers are waiting for a hanging. Hildegard Johnson (Jane Pfitsch), once the best journalist in the city, drops […]
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