Debra Jo Rupp as Dr Ruth (by Kevin Sprague )
‘DR. RUTH’ RETURNS TO BARRINGTON STAGE
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) – Playwright Mark St. Germain’s summer smash hit, Dr. Ruth, All the Way, based on famed radio and television sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer and portrayed by veteran actress Debra Jo Rupp, star of TV’s That ‘70s Show and a part-time Berkshirite, is in its second run at Barrington Stage Company now through Sunday, October 7, 2012. The one-woman show traces Dr. Ruth’s incredibly journey from the girlhood of Karola Ruth Siegel, fleeing the Nazis in the Kindertransport and joining the Haganah in Jerusalem as a scout and sniper, to her struggles to succeed as a single mother coming to America. St. Germain Stage (formerly Stage 2) at the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center, 36 Linden Street, Pittsfield. Performances Wednesday-Friday at 7:30pm, Saturday at 4pm and 8pm, Sunday at 3pm.
LANGHORNE SLIM BRINGS BOISTEROUS FOLK-ROCK TO CLUB HELSINKI HUDSON
Langhorne Slim & The Law
(HUDSON, N.Y.) – With bands like Mumford & Sons and the Avett Brothers leading the way, old-fashioned, boisterous folk-rock is making a big comeback. With its new recording, The Way We Move, Langhorne Slim & The Law stake their claim to the contemporary folk-rock pantheon. The upstate New York group performs at Club Helsinki Hudson – just across the river from Catskill, N.Y., where the group recorded the album at Kenny Siegal’s Old Soul Studio – on Friday, September 28, 2012, at 9 p.m.
ART OPENINGS AND MUSIC FILL DOWNTOWN NORTH ADAMS FOR DOWNSTREET ART CELEBRATION
Neckpiece in Nesting Case, by Linda Kaye-Moses, at Gallery 51
(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – Downtown North Adams will host 10 new art exhibitions and live performances by MCLA’s fine and performing arts students and local bands on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012, from 6 to 9 p.m., as part of DownStreet Art 2012. All events are family-friendly, free and open to the public.
The celebration begins at Adams Community Bank Gallery with the 5 p.m. opening of “Figuratively Speaking, Abstractly,” a two-person exhibition featuring New York-based artist Bob Anderson and Berkshire-based artist William Clements. Curated by MCLA alumna and artist Kristen Parker, “Figuratively Speaking, Abstractly” displays visual concepts associated with expression and emotion through the use of non-representational styles.
“Gneiss,” the newest outdoor public mural, entitled and inspired by microscopic and macroscopic formations found in metamorphic rocks that make up the buildings of North Adams, will be completed and officially unveiled on Holden Street between Main and Marshall streets at 6 p.m. The 75-foot-long mural is created by North Adams-based artist Melissa Matsuki Lillie, and will be the final installment of the Mural Project.
PHILLIP LOPATE, DISTINGUISHED AUTHOR AND TEACHER, TO SPEAK AT THE CLARK
Phillip Lopate
(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – Award-winning novelist, essayist and poet Phillip Lopate speaks at The Clark on Sunday, September 30, 2012, at 3 pm, as part of the museum’s Profession of Words series, featuring lectures and book signings celebrating writers who are making a career in the difficult business of creating books. Admission is free.
Lopate has been publishing widely-acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction – essays, memoirs, poetry, biography, and criticism – for forty years, in addition to teaching writing, currently at Columbia University and elsewhere. He will read from work in progress and talk about modesty and self-assertion in the development of the writer’s persona, as well as taking questions and signing books.
Lopate has two books coming out early next year, Essay Love and To Show and to Tell: the Craft of Literary Nonfiction.
HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE TO HOST ANNUAL COUNTRY FAIR
(PITTSFIELD, Mass.) –Hancock Shaker Village’s 15th annual Country Fair – replete with locavore food, handcrafts for sale, best in show awards, bluegrass music, and agricultural-derived activities for the whole family – takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 29 and 30, 2012, from 10am to 5pm. The fair features a Kids Tent, wagon and pony rides, and a display of antique engines and tractors. New this year, the first annual Chicken Games (in honor of the London Olympics) will be held, with races at 11am and 2pm both days. Country Fair event tickets are included with museum admission.
The Harvest of Quilts exhibition will feature approximately 30 antique and newly-made quilts on display in the Round Stone Barn. Selected quilts in the Harvest of Quilts exhibit will be available for purchase, with a portion of the proceeds helping to support Hancock Shaker Village programs. There will also be daily demonstrations of quilting techniques. Viewers Choice and Heritage Award prize ribbons will be awarded on Sunday at 4:30pm.
AVERY SHARPE BRINGS ‘SOJOURNER TRUTH: AIN’T I A WOMAN’ JAZZ PROJECT TO WILLIAMS
Avery Sharpe
(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.) – Bassist-composer Avery Sharpe leads his jazz sextet in his program, “Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I A Woman,” celebrating the life and work of African American abolitionist and woman’s rights activist, at Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall on the Williams College Campus on Friday, September 28, 2012, at 8 p.m. Sharpe released a recording by that name earlier this year.
The concert and presentation consists of compositions based on the life of Sojourner Truth and the famous speech she made for women’s suffrage in 1851, later titled “Ain’t I A Woman.” Sharpe’s sextet features Onaje Allan Gumbs, piano; Yoron Israel, drums; Jimmy Greene, saxophone; Duane Eubanks, trumpet; Jeri Brown, vocals; and Sharpe himself on bass.