Articles
by Jennifer Levesque | Apr 29, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Featured
Treating yourself to a night (or day) out can sometimes feel like you have to alter your everyday life to squeeze in that extra me-time. Do you feel guilty for that? You shouldn’t. Mental health awareness month is right around the corner, and with a pandemic that has...
by Steve Pfarrer | Apr 28, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Featured
Just under a couple years ago, Nayana LaFond, like so much of the world, was stuck at home, sheltering from COVID-19. The Athol artist, who until that point had mostly been a semi-abstract painter, was looking both to keep busy and maybe take on a new project. In...
by Dusty Christensen | Apr 28, 2022 | Articles, Featured, News
When police raided a house at 276 Amherst St. in Granby earlier this year, they described finding an “elaborate” marijuana grow operation with nearly 1,400 plants, an extensive lighting system for six grow rooms and a packaging operation. The person they arrested,...
by Dusty Christensen | Apr 28, 2022 | Articles, Featured
Seen from the road, the commercial warehouse at 17 East St. is unassuming. A garage door opens up to a sally port in the front with a drab office building connected to the side. The ambitions of its owners, however, are anything but modest; they want their new...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 28, 2022 | Articles, Featured, Monte Belmonte Wines
I was in a certain local fine wine store, eavesdropping on a person who was picking out wines for a home wine tasting. I happened to be standing in front of a selection of Chablis, when I heard them say, “We need some white wines. Anything but Chardonnay!” I blushed...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 28, 2022 | Articles, Featured, The V-Spot
Dear Yana, As a polyamorous person who’s having much more success building new connections these days, I worry sometimes that I am dating from a feeling of not enoughness-ness, in a way that keeps me too focused on the new and the possible, and not enough with the...
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 18, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
One of the things I’ve missed in the past two years of no-theater, followed by limping-back-theater, is the not-quite theater offered by NT Live. After the worldwide pause, those live-capture performances from the English stage have resumed, and the Amherst Cinema has...
by Advocate Staff | Apr 14, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Celebrate the cannabis holiday with Pleasantrees
by Chris Rohmann | Apr 4, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
If you were in the Valley in the Nineties or before, you probably remember the old Amherst Cinema, in the Amity Street building that now fronts the new Amherst Cinema. If you were ever inside, you’ll remember it as a shabby, downtrodden place where, according to the...
by Dusty Christensen and Abigail Soukup | Feb 24, 2022 | Articles, Featured, News
The machines inside Analytics Labs seem like futuristic, esoteric devices. Workers in lab coats move around instruments with names like Agilent High-Performance Liquid Chromatography System, performing what seems like complicated science experiments. But the work that...
by Bob Flaherty | Feb 24, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Featured
The call went out for actors who were good at Shakespeare. It was quickly answered by a white-haired man in a black overcoat and low-brimmed hat: “Hath not a Jew eyes?” pleads Joe Vincent in a roiling voice. “If you prick us, shall we not bleed? If you tickle us,...
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 24, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Two women leaders of Valley theaters retired at the end of last year from the organizations they’ve nurtured from seedlings into models of socially engaged theater. Priscilla Kane Hellweg leaves Enchanted Circle Theater after an even 40 years at its head. And Lucinda...
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 7, 2022 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
“We hope that this is the most enjoyable piece of bad news audience members have ever experienced.” That’s how writer/performer/musician/clown Jonathan Mirin ended a recent newspaper interview, and it’s a fitting entrée into his latest show, Canary in a Gold Mine....
by Monte Belmonte | Jan 27, 2022 | Articles, Featured, Monte Belmonte Wines
I’m pretty sure it was the author/physician/scientist Vikram Paralkar who said it first, but it became a popular meme in the early days of the pandemic: “It’s only Quarantine if it’s in the Quarantine province of France. Otherwise, it’s sparkling isolation.” In March...
by Bob Flaherty | Jan 27, 2022 | Articles, Featured
Before the cellphone contagion, what games did families play during long trips in the car? Spotting license plates from other states or guessing the names of passing motorists kept our cherubs amused,: “Oh, that’s a Fester for sure!” These days, you could keep the...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 23, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
After the spring, summer, fall and winter of our discontent — not to mention fear, frustration and isolation — this year area theaters tentatively, and often inventively, stepped onstage again. Some initially performed outdoors, some played inside/outside under tents,...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 15, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Two shows based on classic holiday movies are brightening area stages this season. In Pittsfield, Berkshire Theatre Group offers the stage adaptation of the 1954 blockbuster White Christmas, and Hartford Stage Company has moved It’s a Wonderful Life into an old-time...
by Chris Rohmann | Dec 6, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Tidings of comfort and joy, along with a couple of seasonal satires, are filling the area’s theaters. This month, I count at least three Christmas Carols and a Nutcracker, along with original takes on evergreen Hollywood movies and more family-friendly events. God...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 28, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
The “holiday season” has officially begun, and theaters in the area are unwrapping their holiday goodies. But the December show I’m most looking forward to has nothing to do with the season. It’s Bright Half Life, at Silverthorne Theater Company. Tanya Barfield’s...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 15, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
I didn’t much like the movie version of Cabaret. Because it was a vehicle for Liza Minelli, it deleted subsidiary characters and storylines not involving her, to the detriment of the stage musical’s ensemble character as well as its source material. I’m happy to...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 5, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Two comedies now playing in the Valley turn on mix-ups and plot twists. Don’t Dress for Dinner is a sex farce set in the French countryside. The Pirates of Penzance is an operetta set in the hometown of “Arrr!” I’ll admit to approaching the Majestic Theater’s current...
by Chris Rohmann | Nov 2, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Hartford Stage scheduled Ah, Wilderness! for its spring 2020 season, then rescheduled it for that fall when Covid struck, then pushed it back a full year when the pandemic persisted. Now, Eugene O’Neill’s only comedy is opening the 2021-22 season. Way back in BC...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 29, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Vitek Kruta was born in what is now the Czech Republic, trained in visual arts, including theatrical and architectural design, and worked for 10 years in Germany “restoring old castles and churches.” After moving to the States, he told me recently, “I rarely had the...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 22, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
When I was doing research for my book A World of Ideas, I learned that the mid-century European movement known as Theater of the Absurd had an interesting lineage. Some early Church Fathers held that the key Christian belief, that God became mortal in order to suffer...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 19, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
A Halloween basket of goodies in the area this weekend and next – from ghost stories imagined and real, to plays witchy and weird, plus a one-night Happening. (Most venues require proof of Covid vaccination and have distanced seating; contact them for confirmation or...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 14, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
WAM Theatre’s press kit includes advice on how to approach reporting on their production of Kamloopa. A statement by the playwright, Kim Senklip Harvey, a member of the Syilx and Tsilhqot’in Nation centered in British Columbia, outlines “Protocols for entering the...
by Chris Rohmann | Oct 9, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Mrs. Joe Bradshaw – née Shirley Valentine – is talking to the wall in her working-class Liverpool kitchen. She’s bored, lonely, dissatisfied and unfulfilled. Her kids are grown and gone, and her husband – well, she might as well be talking to the wall. So she chats...
by Bob Flaherty | Sep 14, 2021 | Articles, Featured
When it’s right in front of you, like the nine decaying cherry trees on Northampton’s Warfield Place that the city of Northampton recently removed in order to rebuild the road and sidewalk, residents lose their minds. Some likened the tree-cutting “violence” to napalm...
by Monte Belmonte | Sep 14, 2021 | Articles, Featured
When disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blamed his poor behavior on being Italian, I cringed. To quote Lady Gaga, “I’m Italian-American.” Aren’t there enough negative Italian stereotypes to deal with besides lecherous pervert? We’re supposed to talk with our...
by Yana Tallon-Hicks | Sep 14, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Dear Yana, From your perspective as a sex educator and relational therapist, what are your thoughts about how to know if two people have sexually grown apart due to outgrowing one another sexually or whether a relational sexual reboot is just needed? I guess...
by Dusty Christensen | Sep 14, 2021 | Articles, Featured
In the world of marijuana breeders and growers, Gregory Krzanowski is royalty. But you wouldn’t necessarily know it by searching that name on the internet. Search “Chemdog,” however, and information abounds about the 48-year-old’s famous cannabis “cultivar,” as...
by Steve Pfarrer | Sep 14, 2021 | Articles, Featured
When it comes to art, September has usually been an especially busy time in the Valley, as college galleries and museums unveil new exhibits to welcome back students and faculty, and area galleries display their monthly changes as well. Last fall, the pandemic shut...
by Joanna Buoniconti | Sep 14, 2021 | Articles, Featured
If the billboards popping up on the Massachusetts Turnpike are any indication, cannabis-infused seltzers are becoming the new “must-have” product for cannabis consumers. But what exactly is a cannabis-infused seltzer? How is it made? And what’s the appeal? We turned...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 7, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Arcadia Folk Festival returnsNORTHAMPTON – Signature Sounds Presents and Mass Audubon announce the return of the third annual Arcadia Folk Festival on Sept. 19, at Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary, 127 Combs Road, Easthampton. This outdoor fall musical event, which will...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 7, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Amherst1 Rise Holdings 169 Meadow St.Hours: Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.Phone: 413-825-9770Website: risecannabis.com/Products: Offers medical and recreational marijuana. 2 Mass Alternative Care Inc. 55 University...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 7, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Sept. 8 — Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi, Academy of Music, 7:30 p.m. Americana favorite Giddens has a new album out, “They’re Calling Me Home,” which she recorded with Italian multi-instrumentalist Turrisi. $34.99-$44.99 Sept. 9 — Lindsey Buckingham (with...
by Advocate Staff | Sep 7, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Once upon a time, I was a songwriter. This summer, one of those songs has been jingling in my head.The first line, stolen from “King Lear,” is “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!” and the chorus begins, “Rain tomorrow, rain today…”That’s what this theater season has...
by Chris Rohmann | Sep 2, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Once upon a time, I was a songwriter. This summer, one of those songs has been jingling in my head. The first line, stolen from King Lear, is “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!” and the chorus begins, “Rain tomorrow, rain today…” That’s what this theater season has...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 23, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Every year, in my annual pilgrimage to Cape Cod, I make sure to catch whatever is playing at Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet, which describes itself as “a theater by the sea that’s right on the edge” and lives up to that billing. This year’s reduced schedule...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 22, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Here’s my second e-postcard from Cape Cod, following yesterday’s report on WHAT theater’s Nat Turner in Jerusalem. Up the Cape now, to Provincetown, where the play Tennessee Williams wrote in that town is being revived. Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie in 1943, when...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 20, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Every summer I spend a week on Cape Cod, enjoying the beach and, of course, the theater. This year I saw four shows at three Outer Cape theaters, two of which I haven’t visited in a while. The Provincetown Theater is reviving a classic that was written there; in...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 10, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
It’s August, and the summer theater season is winding down. No, wait. It’s not. Five Berkshire stages are running to the end of the month, and in the Valley, no fewer than six live-in-person productions will be vying for our attention this weekend alone. Here’s a...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 4, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Going in, I knew next to nothing about the material in last week’s mainstage show at Jacob’s Pillow, Life Encounters, Archie Burnett’s personal history of house dance. But I was surprised to see that I knew one of the dancers. Not personally, unfortunately, but I’ve...
by Chris Rohmann | Aug 3, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Serge has just purchased an ultra-abstract painting for an outrageous sum and is excited to show it off to his good friend Marc – who looks it over and offers his assessment: “You paid two hundred grand for this shit?” You see, it’s a large white canvas – all white,...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 24, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
My partner is a literature professor, specializing in women writers. She has noted a principle in both scholarship and fiction that she calls the Noah’s Ark Approach: If you want to get attention for your female subject, pair her with a famous man (think Girl with a...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 20, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck, Uncategorized
I had a theater-going “double feature” planned for last weekend – two outdoor shows in a row with adventurous Berkshire-based companies. But those plans were disturbed by two irresistible forces: Nature and Actors’ Equity Association. At Shakespeare & Company in...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 12, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Shakespeare & Company’s King Lear, the first show to open on its Lenox campus in a year and a half, marks another return of live theater after the long intermission. It’s also the inaugural production in the troupe’s new outdoor amphitheater, a handsome addition...
by Chris Rohmann | Jul 7, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
2020 was devastating for performing arts across the region and the world, perhaps none more so than for Jacob’s Pillow, the 79-year-old dance mecca in the Berkshires. Not only did the pandemic kill last year’s entire season, but in November the Doris Duke Theatre, the...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Eleven U.S. mayors — from Los Angeles to tiny Tullahassee, Oklahoma — have pledged to pay reparations for slavery to a small group of Black residents in their cities, saying their aim is to set an example for the federal government on how a...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Amherst1 Rise Holdings 169 Meadow St.Hours: Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.Phone: 413-825-9770Website: risecannabis.com/Products: Offers medical and recreational marijuana. 2 Mass Alternative Care Inc. 55 University...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Northampton Summer Park Series ready to rollNORTHAMPTON — For the sixth year, the Northampton Arts Council will host its Northampton Summer Park Series, live music and dancing throughout the summer in Pulaski Park downtown. Admission is free. The concerts continue a...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Summer’s here — how about a road trip? With a wealth of new exhibits on display, MASS MoCA in North Adams and The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown have a lot to offer in the northern corner of Berkshire County, either for a long day trip or over a weekend. Here’s a...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
When Charles Neville died in 2018, many mourned the passing of a superbly talented musician who not only played in a variety of styles but who by all accounts was unfailingly generous about sharing his music with fellow players and fans alike.And Neville, a...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Sometimes in the course of the past year I despaired of ever again hearing that mantra of curtain speeches in the cyber-era: “Please silence your cellphones.” But in late June it happened, as three western Mass companies greeted live audiences with live performances,...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
It’s a difficult conversation to bring up. It’s a public discourse that some have devoted a large portion of their lives trying to initiate in order to bring about societal change. It’s a conversation that is hundreds of years old. It’s about the 400-year history of...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Dear Yana, I happen to be a bisexual person who found out in high school, and yet I haven’t done anything with other men yet. Could I still call myself bisexual even though I haven’t had sex with men?Thanks, By Bi Guy Dear Bi Guy,As I understand it, sexuality can be...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
Why does wine give some people headaches? A commonly sighted cause is a plant chemical found in grape skins called tannins. But tannins are also found in things like tea. Others site sulfites. Sulfur is a naturally occurring element, and while sulfur is sometimes...
by Advocate Staff | Jul 1, 2021 | Articles, Featured
The first Black-owned cannabis cultivation center on the East Coast is, remarkably, located in the tiny hilltown of Cummington — with a population of 875, mostly white, residents.That fact didn’t dissuade Reginald Stanfield from selecting the community in northwest...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 26, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Last week, Barrington Stage Company’s Julianne Boyd greeted the audience for her troupe’s opening production, staged in a socially distanced tent at the edge of Pittsfield, with these long-awaited words: “I want to welcome you to live theater.” This week, introducing...
by Chris Rohmann | Jun 19, 2021 | Articles, Arts, Columns, Featured, Review, Stage, Stagestruck
Sometimes in the course of the past year I despaired of ever again hearing that mantra of curtain speeches in the cyber-era: “Please silence your cell phones” – or of hearing the words spoken by Julianne Boyd on Barrington Stage Company’s opening night: “I want to...
