Catharsis meets comedy: ‘Customers From Hell’ show will premiere at the Shea Theater on Sunday, June 15
By CAROLYN BROWN Staff Writer Most people who have worked retail and food service jobs have dealt with customers who were rude, annoying, or just plain strange. A new comedy TV series written and filmed in the Pioneer Valley wants to answer the question: what if those...
‘Jazz without borders’: Multicultural theme defines Northampton Jazz Festival, Sept. 27-28
By CAROLYN BROWN Staff Writer In a year of international strife, the Northampton Jazz Festival is aiming to bring people together with music that transcends borders. The Northampton Jazz Festival, which will return for its 12th year on Sept. 27 and 28, is celebrating...
Would you eat food off of a naked body?: Local event, Food & Form, has nothing – and everything – to do with nudity
By Melissa Karen Sances For the Valley Advocate To Coco Bustin, the body is a beautiful vessel. She first came to appreciate it in figure drawing classes at Tufts University, where she met every curve and contour with wonder. Nudity, she realized, was an artistic...
Mixtape: The doctor will see you now
By Jennifer Levesque For the Valley Advocate Michael Brady is a psychotherapist and songwriter based out of the Berkshires. His debut release, “Second Skin,” is a concept album written about fictional case studies Brady has concocted from inspirations from his...
Monte Belmonte Wines: Wine Snob Glossary, Part 1
By Monte Belmonte For the Valley Advocate While dining out with my lovely wife the other day, it occurred to me that I use a lot of extraordinarily snobby adjectives that are incomprehensible to the lay drinker. Then it occurred to me: maybe a wine glossary would be...
Theater Matters with Jarice Hanson: Exploring gender and body positivity on stage
By Jarice Hanson For the Valley Advocate This summer three outstanding shows in the Berkshires demonstrate that the performativity of gender has broken free from traditional gender-based casting in some places. In this edition of Theater Matters, we explore how some...
Messages from beyond?: Local psychics ‘channeling the truth’ and spirits of the dead
By ELISE LINSCOTT For the Advocate ‘The first thing I felt was cancer … she said ‘I was tired and there was no way back,’ which is pretty common for cancer,” South Hadley-based psychic medium and fiction writer Lisa Lanno said to a room of about 50 people one recent...
Curated for your viewing and listening pleasure: Amherst Cinema presents Sound & Vision series through Sept. 18
By SCOTT MERZBACH Staff Writer A documentary profiling Swing-era clarinetist Artie Shaw, a musical comedy featuring 1960s-pop band The Monkees and one of African cinema’s first musicals are among this year’s selections in an annual summer celebration of music culture...
The Gem from Easthampton: Gigantic bar manager’s recipe makes it across the pond to a speakeasy in Scotland
By CHRIS LARABEE Staff Writer With 3,100 miles and the Atlantic Ocean between them, what could Easthampton and Dundee, a city of approximately 148,000 people in Scotland, possibly have in common? Well, if you really do some digging, you might unearth a Gem of a...
Something for everyone: UMass Fine Arts Center announces robust 2024-2025 season lineup
By PAIGE HANSON For the Advocate Earlier this week, the University of Massachusetts Amherst Fine Arts Center announced its lineup of performances for its 2024-2025 season, which includes quite a few notable offerings, including “a one-time Grateful Dead keyboardist,...
Food, friends, music and beer: Food Truck Fridays is the place to be in Easthampton this summer
By ALEXA LEWIS Staff Writer Going out with friends can be challenging when clashing tastes in food make it impossible to choose a restaurant. But for Abandoned Building Brewery in Easthampton, the solution to this predicament is simple, and it comes rolling in on four...
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It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood: Easthampton joins national movement with inaugural Porchfest throughout New City neighborhood, Sept. 30
By MADDIE FABIAN Staff Writer As many Easthampton residents do, Marjory Zaik has deep ties to the historic New City Neighborhood. A 1930s family photograph pictures her aunts Stella and Helen laughing while cheerfully leaning against the rail of their Federal Street...
The V-Spot: I’m Just Not Jealous and My Partner is Pissed
If misery loves company, jealousy loves a full-on dinner party full of miserable commiserators to feel terrible with
Valley Advocate Staff Picks: Acid Dad, Majestic Open Mic, and Santo Taco
It’s a night of psychedelic rock n’ roll, experimental music, and a little bit of emo thrown in for good measure at Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center in Greenfield this Saturday.
Stoneman Brewery is a Beershare Off the Beaten Path
I drive until I lose cell service, then I keep driving. Downtown Colrain falls away behind me as I follow the North River up into the wooded hills. I park my car on a quiet road, two miles from the Vermont border, at Justin Korby’s house. Colrain’s small population is...
Stagestruck: And We’re Back!
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 welcome you to live theater!” Last week it happened, as two Western Mass companies greeted live audiences with live performances.
