Tony Shalhoub

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – Berkshire Playwrights Lab kicks off its sixth season with a multimedia Gala Celebration on Friday, June 7, 2013, at 7:30pm at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center.  The gala cast will include actors Treat Williams and Tony Shalhoub (who was just nominated for a Tony Award for his Broadway performance in Golden Boy). The evening will feature new one-act plays written exclusively for BPL by Joe Cacaci, Richard Dresser, Jim Frangione, and Mark Malone, as well as a scene from Anna Ziegler’s Life Science, which BPL will present in a full workshop production later in June.

The Gala will also include a screening of Halftime, a short film written by Richard Dresser and directed by Berkshire Playwrights Lab co-artistic director Joe Cacaci that stars Treat Williams and was produced by John Whalan’s Black Ice Entertainment LLC. The film, which was shot on location at Berkshire School, grew out of the play Dresser wrote for last year’s Berkshire Playwrights Lab Gala.

Tickets are $27 to $52 (performance only) and $202 (the latter including a post-show reception with the artists at Castle Street Café). For performance-only tickets, visit Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center or call 413.528.0100; to purchase tickets that include the post-show party, please call 413.528.2544.

Proceeds from the evening will help support the Berkshire Playwrights Lab’s upcoming staged readings of new plays on Wednesdays, July 10, July 24, August 7, and August 21 at 7:30pm at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center and the presentation of its first full workshop production, Anna Ziegler’s Life Science, June 19 through June 30, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm, with the exception of the Saturday, June 22 performance, which will begin at 9:30pm at Bard College at Simon’s Rock Daniel Arts Center (84 Alford Road, Great Barrington, Mass.).

Founded in 2007 by theatre professionals Joe Cacaci, Jim Frangione, Bob Jaffe, and Matthew Penn, the Berkshire Playwrights Lab is the area’s only theater dedicated exclusively to encouraging, developing, and presenting new plays. Through readings — and this season, a full workshop production — the Lab provides emerging and established writers with a professional and creative environment, while offering audiences the engaging and provocative opportunity to share in the dramatic evolution of premiere works.