(Pittsfield, MA – March 7, 2023) – Barrington Stage Company (BSC) in association with Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF), will partner for the first time to present the 1998 musical A New Brain. As previously announced, A New Brain, featuring music and lyrics by BSC Associate Artist William Finn (BSC: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Royal Family of Broadway), book by Finn and James Lapine (Broadway: Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George), and direction by BSC Associate Artist Joe Calarco (BSC: Waiting for Godot, Into the Woods, Ragtime), will play from August 16-September 9 on the Boyd-Quinson Stage (30 Union Street). Opening night is Sunday, August 20.

“Bill Finn and James Lapine’s A New Brain has long been deserving of rediscovery, so it is a wonderful opportunity for our theatres to join forces for the first time to present it for our audiences this summer,” commented BSC Artistic Director Alan Paul and WTF Interim Artistic Director Jenny Gersten, in a joint statement. “Bill is an Associate Artist at Barrington Stage Company and a resident of Williamstown and graduate of Williams College, the home of WTF, so we are especially pleased to celebrate one of the most distinct voices in the American theatre, who makes his home here in the Berkshires.”

A New Brain was originally presented in 1998 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, where it won the 1999 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical. The largely autobiographical musical is about Finn’s life-threatening experience surviving a neurological brain condition.

For a 2015 production of A New Brain at New York City Center’s Encores! Off-Center, Jesse Green, writing for New York Magazine, said, “What makes A New Brain so satisfying is that its almost relentless humor and cynicism are used to promote a very serious and often sad inquiry into key human questions. What do we make of our time here? What do we make of our abilities? Finn’s answer is the obvious one, but no less generous for that. If your brain is wired for it, you make music.”

In A New Brain, Gordon can’t get past his writer’s block when a medical emergency forces him to reassess if his songs (or lack thereof) are more important than his family, his friends or his partner. He needs to navigate a mean nurse, shelves of books and a bossy frog to get to the heart of his music.

Casting and additional creative team for A New Brain will be announced in the coming weeks.

BSC Season Tickets, including A New Brain, are now on sale and offer true flexibility: any show, any theatre, any time. These season tickets allow you to buy tickets in bulk, with a maximum of a 14-Ticket Stack. This means that you can book 14 tickets for any BSC play/musical for any number of tickets per show. You can also use these tickets to bring friends and family to shows. (Ticket Stacks are non-transferrable, but you are welcome to book for guests). Ticket Stack quantities available are packaged to offer the largest discount, savings, and availability to a seven-show season. The final day to purchase season tickets is March 13, 2023. Please call the BSC Box Office for more information at 413-236-8888 or by visiting Barringtonstageco.org/Tickets. The BSC Box Office will open for single ticket sales on Tuesday, March 14 at 10:00 am ET.

Additional details about Williamstown Theatre Festival’s 2023 Season will be announced soon.

ABOUT BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY
 
Barrington Stage Company (BSC) is an award-winning theatre located in Pittsfield, MA, in the heart of the Berkshires. Co-founded in 1995 by Julianne Boyd, BSC’s mission is to produce top-notch, compelling work; to develop new plays and musicals; and to engage the community with vibrant, inclusive educational outreach programs. Alan Paul succeeded Ms. Boyd as the company’s Artistic Director in 2022.
 
BSC attracts over 60,000 patrons annually and has gained national recognition for its superior-quality productions and comprehensive educational programming, including the award-winning Playwright Mentoring Project, the Musical Theatre Conservatory, Youth Theatre, KidsAct! and other initiatives. The company has become integral to the economic revitalization of downtown Pittsfield.
 
BSC’s reputation for excellence began with a smash revival of Cabaret that moved to Boston in 1997 for an extended run. The theatre’s prominence grew with the world premiere of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin (BSC 2004; Broadway 2005-2008, winner of two Tony Awards). Other notable productions include the world premiere of Christopher Demos-Brown’s American Son (BSC 2016; Broadway 2018); Mark St. Germain’s Freud’s Last Session (BSC 2009; Off-Broadway 2010-2012); Leonard Bernstein, Comden & Green’s On the Town (BSC 2013; Broadway 2014, four Tony Award nominations); Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company, starring Aaron Tveit (2017); and West Side Story in honor of Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins’ centenaries (2018).
 
BSC develops and commissions new work with two programs: PlayWorks, which supports the creation of new plays, and the Musical Theatre Lab, which develops new musicals. Since 1995, BSC has produced 38 new works, 19 of which have moved to New York and major US regional theatres. Following the industry-wide shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, BSC was the first Equity theatre in the US to return to live performance with its critically acclaimed production of Harry Clarke, starring BSC Associate Artist Mark H. Dold and directed by Ms. Boyd.
 
The 2022 season featured a critically acclaimed revival of Ain’t Misbehavin’, which won two Berkshire Theatre Awards, including Outstanding Ensemble; Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Anna in the Tropics; Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s A Little Night Music, winner of eight Berkshire Theatre Awards including Outstanding Production of a Musical; the world premiere play All of Me by Laura Winters, winner of two Berkshire Theatre Awards; the world premiere play Andy Warhol in Iran by Brent Askari, winner of a Berkshire Theatre Award for world premiere of a new play; May Treuhaft-Ali’s world premiere play ABCD; the Youth Theatre’s world premiere production of The Supadupa Kid; and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, winner of three Berkshire Theatre Awards including Outstanding Production of a Play.

ABOUT WILLIAMSTOWN THEATRE FESTIVAL

For seven decades, the Tony Award-recognized Williamstown Theatre Festival has brought emerging and professional theater artists together in the Berkshires to create a thrilling summer festival of diverse, world premiere plays and musicals, bold new revivals, and a rich array of accompanying cultural events.

Artists are drawn to Williamstown Theatre Festival to make great theater in an environment conducive to artistic risk-taking. Matthew Broderick, Audra McDonald, Dominique Morisseau, Mary-Louise Parker, Susan Stroman, Uma Thurman, and Blair Underwood are just a few of the luminous theater artists who have worked at the Festival. Many others, including Sterling K. Brown, Ty Burrell, Charlie Day, Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn, Allison Janney, Brie Larson, Chris Pine, and George C. Wolfe, began their careers at the Festival. 

Productions and artists shaped at the Festival fill theaters in New York City and around the world. Recently, Williamstown Theatre Festival was represented on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally by The Sound Inside, Grand Horizons, The Rose Tattoo, The Visit, Fool for Love, The Elephant Man, Seared, Selling Kabul, Unknown Soldier, and Lempicka, to name just a few. Cost of Living, which was developed and premiered at Williamstown Theatre Festival, was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and made its Broadway debut last fall.

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

Barrington Stage Company
in association with 
Williamstown Theatre Festival
present
A New Brain
Music and lyrics by BSC Associate Artist William Finn
Book by William Finn and James Lapine 
Directed by BSC Associate Artist Joe Calarco 
August 16 – September 9
Opening Night: Sunday, August 20 at 2:00 pm
Barrington Stage Company
Boyd-Quinson Stage
30 Union Street
Pittsfield, MA. 01201
Ticket Information: Barringtonstageco.org/Tickets