Barbara Waldinger, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Theatre, Director, and Theatre Critic, is helming the OLLI Players’ staged reading of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here (a 1930s novel and play adapted in 2017 by Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen). The
performance, scheduled for Sunday afternoon, April 19 th , at 2:00 pm, at Shakespeare & Company’s Tina Packer Playhouse (70 Kemble St., Lenox, MA), is free and open to all, but pre-registration is required (limited seating): https://berkshireolli.org/event-6632410.
The play celebrates the battles at Lexington and Concord, MA on April 19, 1775, where the “shot heard round the world” was fired, signaling the beginning of the American Revolution, 250 years ago. Patriots’ Day, an annual Massachusetts holiday, honors the courage of the colonists and Minute Men, who resisted the mighty British Empire in their quest for liberty, independence, and freedom from tyranny. Productions of It Can’t Happen Here, which tells the story of the rise of a dictator in the US, will be playing all over New England and across the country during the period surrounding Patriots’ Day.
As can be seen from the nationwide protests, Americans are fervently reacting to political events in the United States and their impact on society at national, local, and individual levels. This prescient play, written nearly a century ago, inspires our artists to
join the community-at-large to express their values and beliefs.
This event is supported through the generous philanthropy of Nancy and Michael Vale, whose bequest established the Michael and Nancy Vale Performing Arts Fund at OLLI at Berkshire Community College. This endowed fund supports theater-based OLLI programming.
