BerkshireWeekend

A selective, curatorial view of the cultural highlights of the upcoming weekend in the greater Berkshire region.

BSO Opens Tanglewood Season with All-American Program

(LENOX, Mass.) – The Boston Symphony Orchestra opens its 2015 Tanglewood season with an all-American program featuring works by John Harbison, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and Duke Ellington, all under the direction of conductor Jacques Lacombe, music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, on Friday, July 3, 2015, at 8:30pm. Actor John Douglas Thompson…

Live Radio Plays Return to PS21

(CHATHAM, N.Y.) – Hudson Air Radio Theater returns to the Tent at PS21 on Friday, July 3 at 8pm and Sunday, July 5, 2015, at 2pm with a selection of radio plays by classic American writers including Mark Twain, O. Henry, Dorothy Parker, and Booth Tarkington, performed live by a cast of five actors, renowned…

Avant-Garde Americana Version of ‘Oklahoma!’ Staged at Bard SummerScape

(ANNANDALE-on-HUDSON, N.Y.) – The Pulitzer Prize-winning classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, “Oklahoma!,” is getting a reboot in an experimental staging in the Fisher Center at Bard College as part of Bard SummerScape, now through July 19, 2015. The interactive production in-the-round features new staging, new musical arrangements for a six-piece Americana band by Henry Hewes…

BEHOLD! New Lebanon Launches First Living Museum of Contemporary Rural Life

(NEW LEBANON, N.Y.) – BEHOLD! New Lebanon, the nation’s first living museum of contemporary rural American life, kicks off its first full season on Saturday, July 4, 2015. BEHOLD! New Lebanon (BNL) is a museum-without-walls, unlike any other, offering a variety of guided tours by Rural Guides, locals who introduce visitors to today’s rural America.…

Flamenco Dance Drama ‘Antigona’ to Play at Mahaiwe

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca will perform their original dance drama, “Antigona,” at the Mahaiwe from Wednesday, July 1, through Sunday, July 5, 2015. This visually arresting adaptation of Sophocles’s “Antigone” merges live music, theatrical spectacle, and dance, bringing the inherent theatricality of Flamenco to bear on this classical tragedy –…

The Wiyos Bring Old-Timey Music to Helsinki Hudson

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Old-timey trio the Wiyos bring their original blend of music inspired by the early American musical idioms of the 1920s and ’30s, including blues, country, ragtime, gospel, and swing, to Club Helsinki Hudson on Thursday, July 2, 2015, at 8pm. The Wiyos are Michael Farkas, Teddy Weber, and “Sauerkraut” Seth Travins. Beloved…

BerkshireWeekend Cultural Preview, June 24-28, 2015

ETHEREAL GOTHIC-FOLK DOUBLE BILL FEATURING MELORA CREAGER and RYDER COOLEY at CAFFE LENA (SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y.) – Ryder Cooley & Dust Bowl Faeries and Melora & Luis, featuring Melora Creager of Rasputina, will perform a double bill of original, ethereal gothic-folk at Caffe Lena on Saturday, June 27, at 8pm. Melora & Luis are Melora…

Tom Rush to Play Two-Night Stand at Guthrie Center

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass.) – Legendary singer-songwriter Tom Rush will perform at two-night stand at the Guthrie Center on Friday and Saturday, June 26-27, 2015, at 8pm both nights. Rush has been called one of New England’s favorite musical sons, “the consummate contemporary folk musician,” and “the man with the golden ear,” for having early on…

One-Man Show on Thoreau Gets Premiere at BTG

(STOCKBRIDGE, Mass.) – “Thoreau or, Return to Walden,” a world premiere written and performed by David Adkins, is now running at the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre through Saturday, July 11, 2015, at 8pm. In this one-man show, Adkins takes the stage as New England Transcendentalist, poet, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau. The writing of…