Holiday greetings from all of us at Berkshire on Stage! This is your Webmaster (Webmistress??), Gail M. Burns (and my dog, Sylvie). I asked my excellent team of theatre critics to write a little something about their favorite experiences of 2025. I gave them no instructions as to length or…
2025 was an exciting and innovative season—a mix of new plays and classics, chock full of exceptional performances, directors and designers. Barbara Waldinger’s Top Ten Plays For first rate ensemble performances: Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz, directed by Robert Egan. Dorset Theatre Festival The Piano Lesson by August…
by Barbara Waldinger Sometimes a performer leaves such an indelible impression in the interpretation of a character that it’s hard to accept another actor in the role.  That seemed to be the case for the dual roles of Ethel and Norman Thayer in Ernest Thompson’s ON GOLDEN POND. How…
by Barbara Waldinger What could be better, when producing a play about conflicts within a family, than casting three superb actors (in a cast of five) who are a family? That is the case with the Dorset Theatre Festival in Vermont, currently running OTHER DESERT CITIES by Jon Robin Baitz.…
by Barbara Waldinger To celebrate their tenth anniversary, the Berkshire Opera Festival has selected one of the most beloved, most frequently produced operas in the Verdi canon: LA TRAVIATA. According to Maestro Brian Garman, Conductor, Artistic Director and Co-founder of the company, Berkshire audiences have often requested this masterpiece, and now the BOF has delivered…
by Barbara Waldinger From the moment we notice the set (designed by Luke Cantarella) of Rajiv Joseph’s KING JAMES at Barrington Stage Company’s St. Germain Stage, it is clear that we are in the presence of a well-oiled production that has had the time to mature and grow. And this…
by Barbara Waldinger Mac-Haydn Theatre’s latest “Special Event” is a two-day run of Jason Robert Brown’s THE LAST FIVE YEARS, sandwiched in just before the final weekend of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. Experimenting with events like concerts, “Show Stoppers” and now a fully-staged musical, Producing Artistic Director John Saunders, who directs…
by Barbara Waldinger On January 27, 1997, August Wilson (playwright) debated Robert Brustein (director, critic, professor) in New York’s Town Hall about race in the American theatre. Wilson, who advocated for a separate theatre by, for, and about African Americans, argued: “When a little Japanese child is handed a Samurai…
