Lenox, Massachusetts
What do the overlooked powers of joy, a pathological liar, and the simple pleasure of ice cream have in common? Find out at field, the dynamic, new ideas festival coming to Lenox October 23-25, 2026.
At a time when meaningful dialogue often feels increasingly difficult, field, a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery offers a different platform —one grounded in curiosity, intellectual rigor, and respect.
What’s up with our over-obsessed longevity addiction? Will advanced technologies in creativity redefine what makes art, art? Can a complex revolutionary, garden design, and lessons from establishing the Affordable Care Act save the world?
At field, leading thinkers from diverse backgrounds will put bold ideas front and center.
“We’ve become accustomed to celebrating personalities, but ideas are what ultimately shape our culture, our communities, and our future,” said Hunter K. Runnette, founder of field. “This festival isn’t about celebrity for celebrity’s sake. It’s about creating conversations where extraordinary thinkers and deeply curious audiences come together to ask better questions. Whether you’re on stage or in the audience, your willingness to listen, question, and engage is what gives ideas their power.”
Inspired in part by Wales’s internationally acclaimed Hay Festival, field will be a distinctly Berkshire gathering with national and international reach. Over one weekend, readers, writers, artists, scientists, policymakers, entrepreneurs, educators, and curious audiences will explore the ideas shaping our future.
“There is no better home for this festival than Lenox,” Runnette said. “The Berkshires has long attracted remarkable artists, writers, musicians, scholars, entrepreneurs, scientists, and innovators. We want to celebrate not only distinguished guests from around the world but also the extraordinary thinkers and creators who already call this region home.”
Programming is led by Bernard Schwartz, former executive of the 92nd Street Y and the Authors Guild Foundation, whose career has been devoted to bringing leading cultural voices together in conversation.
“The best ideas festivals don’t simply present accomplished people—they create conversations that couldn’t happen anywhere else,” Schwartz said. “The most interesting ideas often emerge where disciplines intersect. We want audiences to leave not with all the answers, but with better questions.
The founding board members of field includes Co-Chair Aly Brandt, Kelley Vickery of the Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF), Mary Mott, Anne MacDonald, Ann Lombard, Jeryl Oristaglio, and Tyler Whisnand. Executive Producer Lizzy Aspenlieder, a longtime Berkshire arts leader, has helped shape the festival’s inaugural season alongside the founding board and community partners.
The Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires is serving as the field fiscal sponsor while the organization completes its 501(c)(3) status. Early supporters also include Mungy, Berkshire Magazine, the Berkshire Edge, Berkshire Eagle, Your Color Connection, and several local private foundations.
Featured Participants Announced to Date
● Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark meet Bill Goldstein. Bird’s new biography, written with Susan Goldmark, is American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump. Bill Goldstein is writing a biography of Larry Kramer.
● Saidiya Hartman and Jamaica Kincaid explore gardening as both creative practice and metaphor. Saidiya Hartman is the author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. Jamaica Kincaid has written many classic works of fiction, as well as essays on gardening that have inspired generations of readers.
● Maira Kalman presents an artist’s journey centered on her new book, Joy. Kalman is an American artist, illustrator, writer, and designer. Joy is a luminous four-color collection of prose and paintings that reveals how joy—quiet, fleeting, and often overlooked—persists, even in the darkest of times.
● Adam Moss creates a collaborative ‘live’’ work of art with Colm Tóibín The former editor of New York magazine and author of The Work of Art, leading a live “Artists at Work” conversation with a special guest Colm Tóibín. Where do novels begin? How do writers find their way through uncertainty to the finished page? Drawing on his acclaimed book The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing, Adam Moss sits down with beloved novelist Colm Tóibín for a live conversation about the mysteries of artistic creation, following the evolution of a work from first spark to final form.
● Tom Hammick shares his operatic passion through painting and print making. Hammick is a painter and printmaker whose work has been praised by Julian Bell for being one of the “richest imaginative achievements in late 20th and early 21st century British art.”
● Pulitzer Prize Winners Annette Gordon-Reed and Brent Staples get political. Gordon-Reed, the author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family and Staples an essayist and memoirist for The New York Times.
● Laura Buchwald ventures into the paranormal. The supernatural has a way of sounding sublime in the sparkling words of Laura Buchwald,” wrote Hannah Bos (co-creator of HBO’s Somebody Somewhere). The fact that the protagonist of her novels The Coat Check Girl and The Book of Reservations has friends on both side of the veil reflects Buchwald’s abiding interest in the difficult and surprising process of grieving—how it shapes and refines us. For what promises to be an extraordinary, only-at-field conversation, Buchwald will interview a renowned author and psychic medium.
● Ezekiel Emanuel questions our yearning to live to 100. How do we ensure that scientific innovation leads to safe, equitable care? In the discovery and development of cutting-edge medical treatments, what is the right balance of human clinical insight and a transformative technology like A.I.? Where do best practices and politics meet in the structural reform of the healthcare system? What is the connection between the health of our communities and the health of our democracy? Ezekiel Emanuel and Tony Coles, friends and former classmates who are now prominent leaders in bioethics, public policy, and biotech, come to field to discuss some of the most urgent public-health issues facing us today. Their conversation is moderated by bioethicist Vardit Ravitsky, President and CEO of the Hastings Center—a nonpartisan research institute that strives “to promote collaborative exchanges that foster an inclusive, intellectually rich, and well-informed discourse, and for these exchanges to help patients and families, healthcare systems, the scientific community, and society at large.”
● Carol Gilligan and Niobe Way go mental. In a Different Voice revolutionized the study of girls, women, and human psychology. Way is an internationally-recognized Professor of Developmental Psychology, the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity.
● Bessel Van der Kolk and Dr. Ronald Siegel. Healing Trauma: The next frontier. Psychiatrist, author, researcher, and educator Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, author of the bestselling The Body Keeps the Score, joins Dr. Ronald D. Siegel, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School and an internationally recognized expert in mindfulness and psychotherapy. Together, they explore the science and promise of psychedelic-assisted therapy and its potential to transform trauma treatment.
“Curiosity is part of the culture of the Berkshires,” said Lizzy Aspenlieder, Executive Producer. “field is an invitation to gather around that spirit—to listen generously, think boldly, and discover unexpected connections. If someone leaves with one new question, one new friendship, or one conversation they never imagined having, then we’ve accomplished something meaningful.”
As field prepares for its inaugural season, supporters are invited to become founding donors and help establish a new cultural institution for Lenox and the Berkshires. Early philanthropic support will help expand community access, attract world-class speakers, and build the festival’s long-term future.
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field, October 23–25, 2026 | Shakespeare & Company’s Tina Packer Playhouse | Lenox, Massachusetts
Tickets go on sale September 25. Festival information, schedules, and ticket details are available at fieldlenox.org. *Speakers may be subject to change.