by Barbara Waldinger Pondering why Million Dollar Quartet is so popular, Berkshire Theatre Group Director/Choreographer Greg Santos attributes its success to the “nostalgia factor”—the hit songs of Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll”: Elvis Presley. However, if this production consisted only of…
by Barbara Waldinger Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51 is not only significant because of its account of Dr. Rosalind Franklin, a Jewish female scientist whose essential contributions to her field continue to be overlooked sixty-five years after her death, but also as a psychological study revealing how Franklin’s all-consuming approach to…
by Barbara Waldinger The stage at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn has been transformed into a beach where a middle-aged, English-speaking, long-married couple are suddenly confronted by a younger, non-human, English-speaking couple: two large lizards, who have come up out of the sea. Given that this play, Seascape, was written by…
by Macey Levin Bram Stoker wrote his four-hundred-plus page novel Dracula in 1897. The world’s best-known vampire story has changed considerably on its way to becoming the play that is now in production at Berkshire Theatre Group’s Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Hamilton Deane, a British playwright, was the first…
by Macey Levin Jason Robert Brown is a prolific composer/lyricist, the creator of such shows as The Last Five Years, Parade, and The Bridges of Madison County. His first production, Off-Broadway 1995, was Songs for a New World, originally conceived by Daisy Prince who provided a unifying thematic concept to…
by Macey Levin In a program interview Tara L. Wilson Noth, the author of “B.R.O.K.E.N code B.I.R.D switching” says, “I would love for people to acknowledge that change is not possible if we aren’t willing to see that different realities and different truths exist and that’s what informs choices, outlooks…
by Macey Levin One of the theatre’s classic satires is Oscar Wilde’s 1895 The Importance of Being Earnest, the subtitle being “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People.” It aims for the British upper class’s “rules” for marriage, and their narcissistic vision of social distinctions and life styles. Berkshire Theatre Group has…
by Macey Levin The Berkshire Theatre Group’s world premiere production of Kathleen Clark’s What We May Be has a few problems, the major one being the script itself. Clark, the author of the highly regarded Southern Comforts and Secrets of a Soccer Mom, has thrown together a script that…
