(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass,) – The already crowded summer theater season gets just a bit more crowded this week when Mass Live Arts, a festival presenting three New York City-based alt-theater companies, takes a bow at Simon’s Rock College. Radiohole, New York City Players, and Half Straddle will be performing from Thursday, July 18, 2013, through Saturday, August 3, 2013, at the Daniel Arts Center – already home to the Berkshire Fringe Festival — at Simon’s Rock.

Half Straddle, a rapidly rising Brooklyn company, will kick off the festival July 18-20 with their widely popular Seagull (Thinking of you). which rethinks Anton Chekhov’s iconic play, The Seagull, through his personal letters, translations, and perverse sense of comedy to consider anew what makes the human heart really beat and why we ever try to say something out loud, let alone in front of an audience. With a Russian folk metal-influenced score.

Tina Satter and Half Straddle, in collaboration with Richard Maxwell’s Obie-Winning company, New York City Players, will have a development residency and work-in-progress showings of a new work, Mona’s House of Dance, during the second week of the festival. Showings run July 25-27 and will include opportunities for audience participation in post-performance panels about the work.

Radiohole’s critically acclaimed work, Inflatable Frankenstein, explores James Whale’s classic films and the tragic life of novelist Mary Shelley, and will close out the festival August 1-3.

Performances run Thursday – Saturday at 8pm of each week July 18-August 3 in the Daniel Arts Center. Tickets: $25-$35.