At the heart of its mission, Great Barrington Public Theater is committed to presenting new work, particularly by local playwrights. Leigh Strimbeck is a member of Berkshire
Voices, GB Public’s signature script development program where playwrights collaborate in a supportive environment to craft new plays. Strimbeck’s Dog People, which wasgiven a first public reading in 2022, was chosen to kick off the company’s 2024 season, May 31-June 16, in the Liebowitz Theater, Daniel Arts Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
GB Public’s Associate Artistic Director Judy Braha directs a cast of two playing an estranged couple and their sidekick, now counterpart rescue dogs who bring their own perspectives and insights to human dilemma.
“Our company actively looks for and develops new plays that speak to today,” Braha explains why the play was selected for production. “Dog People does so in a clever, inspired way that is meaningful yet whimsical and fun. As Leigh says, ‘it’s the story of two people, two dogs, one day in the park. The dogs are rescues, and their people need second chances too. Who really rescues who?’ Her script deals with issues many of us face; the search for meaning, grappling with loneliness and our shared wish for nurturing partnerships in life.”
Dog People features Sheila Bandyopadhyay as Jesse and Betty, while Chris Tucci takes on the role of Avery and Atila. Both actors, who are accomplished and familiar to Berkshire audiences, bring clearly defined character, sensibility and humor to their crisscrossed roles.
“Leigh has written the kind of fast-paced play that sneaks up, and takes you in before you know it,’ Braha adds. “Dog people or not, everyone will come away smiling, and a little wiser about the human need for rescue, refuge, recovery and self-discovery in our fractured, topsy-turvy world.”
Dog People plays Thurs-Sat 7:30pm; Sat. & Sun. 3pm, in the Liebowitz black box theater, Daniel Arts Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Rd., Great Barrington, MA 01230. Reservations can be made on the Great Barrington Public Theater website, or by calling the box office 413-372-1980.
GB Public’s four-show summer season plays May 31-August 25, on two stages in the Daniel Arts Center, Bard College at Simon’s Rock, in Great Barrington, with the closing production staged in association with Shakespeare & Company at their Elayne P. Bernstein theater, Lenox. More information and tickets for the 2024 summer productions are available on the company site.
Leigh Strimbeck (Playwright Dog People) is an actor, director, and playwright. Her plays include: Dog People, Poor Bastard, Loss for Words; as well as the one woman show The Queen of Fenway Court: Isabella Stewart Gardner- all with the support of Berkshire Voices.Other plays include the commissioned history plays Yours: A Centennial Celebration of Russell Sage College and This House Builded. Devised plays: MIRROR, MIRROR; I’m Not a Feminist But…. Plays co-written include: Berwick, America!, with Gerard Stropnicky; Here Be Dragons with Paul Outlaw; Letters to the Editor with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (BTE). Writer of the short film Almost You for Great Barrington Public during the COVID shutdown.
Other regional theater acting and directing includes work with Bridge Street Theatre; Gloucester Stage Company, Storyhorse Documentary Theater; BTE; WAM (also co-founder); The Rep in Albany; Saratoga Shakespeare; Shakespeare and Co (Understudy for Tina Packer, Mother of the Maid); and Berkshire Playwrights Lab. Feature films: UnCivil Liberties, Fighting for Freedom, Little BiPeep, Lifetime Movie Network’s Off the Rails; Sleeping with My Student, and the short films Key Transitions and Blind Man’s Buff. Associate member of BTE; former artist in residence in the theater program at Russell Sage College and adjunct acting professor at SUNY Albany. Head of the Actors Program for NY State Defenders Association Basic Trial Skills Program. Proud member of Actors’ Equity Association and SAG/AFTRA. For reel and more info: leighstrimbeck.com
Judy Braha (GBPT Associate Artistic Director/Director of Dog People) has been a director, actor, teacher and activist for social justice for over four decades. She was long-time head of the M.F.A. Directing Program at Boston University’s School of Theater, with credits including theaters and universities throughout New England. With a commitment to the arts as activism, Judy collaborates with Andre de Quadros in the BU College of Fine Arts Prison Arts Initiative, teaching incarcerated students in Massachusetts’ prisons and jails. They also worked together within the BU community, teaching the Collaborative Arts Incubator and the groundbreaking series Race, Prison, Justice, Arts. Judy was honored by the Association for Theater in Higher Education (ATHE) with the 2022 Oscar Brocket Award for Excellence in Theater Teaching.
As a director, Judy’s work often has concern for human rights at its center: To Kill A Mockingbird (Gloucester Stage Company), Emilie, La Marquise du Chatelet, Defends Her Life Tonight (Central Square Theater), Othello, I Am Lear, a devised piece on aging (Actor’s Shakespeare Project), The Oil Thief + Deported, a dream play(Boston Playwrights Theater), Golda’s Balcony (NEW REP), Our Class, Our Country’s Good and The Exonerated at BU/School Of Theater, the new work Mr. Fullerton, Between the Sheets(Great Barrington Public Theater and Gloucester Stage Company) and the East Coast premiere of Things I Know To Be True (GBPT). Currently, Representation and How to Get It, a new solo work about the feminist, suffragist, abolitionist Julia Ward Howe, for Great Barrington Public Theater at The Mount and Revolutionary Spaces in Boston, MA.A longtime member of the Society of Directors and Choreographers, AEA and SAG-AFTRA, Judy is also proud to have been a founding board member of Stage Source, New England Theater’s service organization committed to connecting theaters, artists and their communities. https://judybraha.squarespace.com
Sheila Bandyopadhyay (Jesse and Betty) is a director, movement specialist, performer and devisor of original theater based in Brooklyn, New York. With an extensive background in new work and Shakespeare, Sheila is committed to non-traditional theatrical performance that is literary, music-driven and physical. She enjoys working on ensemble shows and innovative adaptations of classical texts. Productions credits as a director and devisor include plays featured at the West End Theater, the 72nd St Theater Lab, the Brick, The Tank, the Boston Center for the Arts, and the Fringe Festival circuit. Additionally, she has served as a choreographer and/or movement director for productions at Shakespeare & Company (Lenox, MA), The Humanist Project (NYC), Gallatin NYU (Hamlet, Measure for Measure, The Rape of Lucrece), FSU/Asolo (Twelfth Night, The Aliens) and numerous shows for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts Company. As a performer, some of her favorite roles include: Tamora in Titus Andronicus (The Humanist Project), Bianca/Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew (Tempest Ladies) and Madge in DRESS (West End Theater).
Sheila is Director of Training at Shakespeare & Company’s renowned Center for Actor Training in Lenox, Massachusetts. From 2021-2022, she served as Head of the Professional Training Program and Core Movement Faculty at Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, CA. Prior to Dell’Arte, Sheila was Head of Movement at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.
Chris Tucci (Avery and Atila) is a company and faculty member of Tectonic Theatre Project. Regional stage work includes roles at Barrington Stage Company, The Geffen Playhouse,The Warner Theatre, and in multiple festivals in New York and the Berkshires (including Anne Undeland’s winning production of The Kiss). He and Aida Turturro recently premiered one of Joy Behar’s short comedies at the Marjorie Dean Theater under the direction of John Gould Rubin. On film his work has premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, LA International Film Festival, LA Shorts Festival, and the Berkshire International Film Festival. The locally filmed The Sweet Taste of Freedom, directed by Matthew Penn, received several awards at over 19 festivals in the last year. Chris’ voice can be heard in numerous episodes of the popular podcast Circle Round on WBUR/NPRas nearly every animal, mythical creature, or historical figure from stories around the world. He and his family have been actively involved for over eight years with Guiding Eyes for the Blind where they raise, train, and foster dogs for the visually impaired.
Great Barrington Public Theater was founded by Jim Frangione and Deann Simmons Halper to create opportunities for theater artists in the Berkshires and neighboring regions. Great Barrington Public Theater recognizes the many excellent playwrights, actors, directors, designers, administrators and technicians living in the Berkshires and surrounding areas. Our objective is to bring a mix of new plays to the stage in a variety of formats; to generate and foster creative and rigorous opportunity for local theater artists, while engaging our theatergoing public with new and contemporary readings, workshops, and fully-staged productions, involving local talent as often as possible and keeping ticket prices affordable.
