Arts

Theater Matters with Jarice Hanson: Valley theater companies and audiences grow: Attracting new audiences has become an art in itself

Theater Matters with Jarice Hanson: Valley theater companies and audiences grow: Attracting new audiences has become an art in itself

By Jarice Hanson For the Valley Advocate In this next year, theater goers from Hartford to the Berkshires are going to have more entertainment choices than they’ve had in many years because attracting new audiences has become an art in itself. Older, more established...
Bridging a gap of understanding: Month-long visual arts and performance festival, “A Stone’s Throw,” examines the experiences of military veterans and their families

Bridging a gap of understanding: Month-long visual arts and performance festival, “A Stone’s Throw,” examines the experiences of military veterans and their families

By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Though she was too young to understand many details at the time, Mollye Maxner remembers the Vietnam War had a profound effect on her family. Her father, Steve Maxner, served as a combat medic in the war and endured emotional turmoil from...
Theater Matters with Jarice Hanson: The best of the Berkshires: Two plays with two different styles give audiences Broadway-quality productions, plus what’s on stage for spooky season

Theater Matters with Jarice Hanson: The best of the Berkshires: Two plays with two different styles give audiences Broadway-quality productions, plus what’s on stage for spooky season

By JARICE HANSON For the Advocate With the summer season winding down and “transition time” — both in terms of the seasons and the local theater offerings —  ramping up, two plays stand out as “the best of the best.” Donald Margulies’ newest (and perhaps his best)...
Take a day trip to a modernist paradise: The Frelinghuysen Morris Home & Studio in Lenox provides a splendid view of two groundbreaking artistic lives

Take a day trip to a modernist paradise: The Frelinghuysen Morris Home & Studio in Lenox provides a splendid view of two groundbreaking artistic lives

By DON STEWART For the Advocate A short drive from downtown Lenox, you travel past ornamental wrought iron gates and enter into the former Gilded Age estate of “Brookhurst.” You’re first greeted by a voluptuous two-and-a-half-ton reclining female figure sculpted by...
Time to swing: Jazz drummer and South Hadley native Joe Farnsworth returns to the Valley for a concert honoring his idol, Max Roach

Time to swing: Jazz drummer and South Hadley native Joe Farnsworth returns to the Valley for a concert honoring his idol, Max Roach

By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Joe Farnsworth was 10 or 11 when he got the chance to meet a drumming legend: Max Roach. It was at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in 1979, where Roach taught. Farnsworth, who grew up in South Hadley, remembers how one of his...