Summer's Harvest

Summer's Harvest

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date,” quoth the poet. But its brief harvest sure is bountiful. In the three-month feast of performance just ended, 15 theater companies in the Valley and Berkshires mounted some 60 productions in 23 indoor and...
Stage Struck: Reversal of Fortune

Stage Struck: Reversal of Fortune

In The Arabian Nights, Princess Scheherazade subverts a debauched king’s nightly ritual of rape and murder by telling him stories. As Mark Vecchio interprets the tale, “The kingdom was becoming a wasteland, nothing had any meaning anymore. Her storytelling...
StageStruck: Wrestling With Demons

StageStruck: Wrestling With Demons

Before the audience are even all seated, a burly, bearded man in dirty fatigues shuffles onstage, unrolls a sleeping bag, lies down and wearily closes his eyes. He’s soon disturbed by a scruffy street musician who plugs his Stratocaster into a rolling amp and...
Green Mountain Magic

Green Mountain Magic

“Every time we do the festival, we think, ‘That’s it, we don’t have to do it again.’ But there’s just so much good work out there, it’s irresistible. We have to present it.” That’s Eric Bass, co-founder/director of...

Stage Struck: Backtalk

“It’s much too dark.” “It’s repetitive and boring.” “This is not entertainment.” The scene was the Theater Project’s rehearsal studio in West Springfield. The occasion was a series of staged readings of new plays....