Jump to content

Barrington Stage Company

Add links
Coordinates: 42°27′25″N 73°15′14″W / 42.4570°N 73.2538°W / 42.4570; -73.2538
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 69.193.0.202 (talk) at 02:17, 5 February 2021 (→‎The Burman New Play Award: Removed unnessecary apostrophe). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Barrington Stage Company
Formation1995 (1995)
TypeTheatre group
Location
  • Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Artistic director(s)
Julianne Boyd
Websitebarringtonstageco.org

Barrington Stage Company (BSC) is a regional theatre company in The Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. It was co-founded in 1995 by Artistic Director, Julianne Boyd, and former Executive Director Susan Sperber, in Sheffield, Massachusetts. In 2004, BSC developed, workshopped and premiered the hit musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Following the successful Broadway run, which nabbed two Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Featured Actor, BSC made the move to a more permanent home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

The company which was previously housed in the Consolati Performing Arts Center at Mount Everett High School in Sheffield, Massachusetts, would come to purchase and renovate the Berkshire Music Hall in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The venue was renamed the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage after it's renovation. The 520-seat Mainstage Theater is now located on 30 Union Street. In 2008 it signed a 5-year lease on an old VFW to house its Stage 2 venue, a small black box space. In 2012 the company secured the purchase of the VFW turning it into the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center. The Blatt Center includes the St. Germain Stage (formerly known as Stage 2) and a 99-seat space dubbed Mr. Finn's Cabaret[1]. Additionally, the company acquired the Wolfson Theater Center[2] which serves as the company's administrative offices and a rehearsal space in the center of the City of Pittsfield today.

The Mainstage Theatre

Originally named the Union Square Theatre, the Mainstage theatre hosted vaudeville acts, stage shows, and eventually, silent pictures. In 1983, the venue became known as the Berkshire Public Theatre, which produced plays until 1994. In 1994 the space changed hands once again and became the Berkshire Music Hall.

When Barrington Stage Company purchased the building in 2005, the venue underwent a full renovation and became a 520-seat theater, opening its doors in the summer of 2006, under the name The Boyd-Quinson Mainstage.

Dedication to New Works

Outside of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, many other new works have seen their world premieres at BSC. As of 2020, BSC has produced 36 pieces of new work, including 19 of which that moved to New York stages in some capacity[3].

In 2003, BSC produced The Game, a musical based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses. Additionally, Mark St. Germain's Ears on a Beatle, The God Committee and Freud's Last Session, are all plays that were initially produced at BSC which transferred to New York for Off-Broadway runs. In 2005, BSC workshopped and then premiered Cusi Cram's Fuente. In 2016, Barrington Stage Company premiered Chris Demos-Brown's American Son which would later transfer to Broadway and be captured on film for Netflix.

The Burman New Play Award

The company also established the The Burman New Play Award to further the voices of playwright's presenting new works. Past Grand Prize winners include Stacey Rose’s America v. 2.1: The Sad Demise & Eventual Extinction of the American Negro, and Daniella De Jesus's Get Your Pink Hands off Me Sucka and Give Me Back.

Musical Theatre Lab

Created in 2006, the Musical Theatre Lab (MTL) is a place for young musical theatre writers to develop their work from an early reading to full productions. Overseen by Tony-Award-winning composer-lyricist William Finn, it has produced six workshop and eleven world premiere musicals as of 2020[4].

Many of the new musicals have gone on to a life after Barrington Stage. The Burnt Part Boys was produced at Playwrights Horizons in Spring of 2010. Funked Up Fairy Tales continued to be developed at the Sundance Institute in December 2007. Calvin Berger was produced at George Street Playhouse with an Off-Broadway production planned. See Rock City or Other Destinations is now published by Samuel French, and was produced by the Transport Group in 2008. The Memory Show by Sarah Cooper and Zachary Redler was produced at Barrington Stage Company in 2010, and would later move to the Transport Group in 2013 as well.

Additionally, Robert Maddock and Joe Iconis's The Black Suits received a workshop production in 2012 before its world premiere at Center Theatre Group. And Iconis worked with Barrington Stage Company on a new musical once again in 2016's Broadway Bounty Hunter, written by Joe Iconis, Lance Rubin and Jason 'SweetTooth' Williams, which was later produced Off-Broadway.

Notables

Productions

BSC won the Elliot Norton/Boston Theatre Critics Award in its inaugural year for The Diary of Anne Frank. Two years later they won the same award for its production of Cabaret, which transferred to Boston for an extended run at the Hasty Pudding Theatre.

Mark St. Germain's Freud's Last Session [5] became BSC's longest running show in the summer of 2010. Over two summers and multiple extensions, it lasted 61 performances prior to its Off-Broadway run.

Other popular productions at BSC include a 2005 production of Follies and a 2007 production of West Side Story, and a 2016 production of Pirates of Penzance.

Artists

Actors
Directors
Designers
Choreographers
Playwrights and Lyricists

References

  1. ^ Admin, B. S. C. "Visit". Barrington Stage Company. Retrieved 2021-02-04.
  2. ^ Admin, B. S. C. "About the Company". Barrington Stage Company. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
  3. ^ Admin, B. S. C. "New Works Fund". Barrington Stage Company. Retrieved 2021-02-04.
  4. ^ Admin, B. S. C. "About the Company". Barrington Stage Company. Retrieved 2021-02-04.
  5. ^ Freud's Last Session Home Page Archived October 30, 2010, at the Wayback Machine

42°27′25″N 73°15′14″W / 42.4570°N 73.2538°W / 42.4570; -73.2538

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barrington_Stage_Company&oldid=1004918485"