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50-585: 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 Managing 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

100-609: A "new brain." Finn's 1998 musical A New Brain is based on his experience with AVM and his subsequent successful surgery. He is openly gay, and lives with his life partner, Arthur Salvadore, in New York City and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he is a composer and writer. Finn is a member of the NYU Tisch Graduate Program in Musical Theater Writing faculty. He is the co-founder and artistic producer of

150-491: A 520-seat theater, opening its doors in the summer of 2006, under the name The Boyd-Quinson Mainstage. BSC won the Elliot Norton/Boston Theatre Critics Award in its inaugural year for The Diary of Anne Frank .  In its third year it won two Elliot Norton/Boston Theatre Critics Awards and four Outer Critics Awards for its production of Cabaret , which transferred to Boston for an extended run at

200-421: 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 2003, BSC produced The Game , a musical based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses . In 2016, Barrington Stage Company premiered Christopher Demos-Brown's American Son which later transferred to Broadway and became a Netflix film. In 2018

250-704: A comparatively narrow range along New York's eastern border. Also referred to as the Berkshire Highlands, Berkshire Hills, Berkshire Mountains, and Berkshire Plateau, the region enjoys a vibrant tourism industry based on music, arts, and recreation. Geologically, the mountains are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains . The Berkshires were named among the 12 Last Great Places by The Nature Conservancy . The term "The Berkshires" has overlapping but non-identical political, cultural, and geographic definitions. Politically, Berkshire County, Massachusetts ,

300-446: A girl from a family of great Broadway actors who contemplates leaving show business and getting married. It has apparently been shelved, according to William Finn's personal notes for Make Me a Song , Playbill magazine and an article from 2006. Finn's songs were featured exclusively on Lisa Howard 's album Songs of Innocence and Experience , released on April 12, 2011. The musical comedy Little Miss Sunshine , premiered at

350-610: A production. In 2019, the company produced Ragtag Theatre Company's world premiere musical Hansel and Gretel, and following a program shutdown 2020–2021 for COVID-19, continued to produce new work with The SupaDupa Kid , a devised play based on the book of the same title by local novelist Ty Allan Jackson. 42°27′25″N 73°15′14″W  /  42.4570°N 73.2538°W  / 42.4570; -73.2538 The Berkshires The Berkshires ( locally / ˈ b ɜːr k ʃ ɪər z , - ʃ ər z / ) are highlands located in western Massachusetts and northwestern Connecticut in

400-403: 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 on Broadway Bounty Hunter , written by Joe Iconis, Lance Rubin, and Jason Williams, which was later produced Off-Broadway. Barrington Stage's Youth Theatre program serves local teens, allowing them to work with professionals to mount

450-446: Is a heavily autobiographical writer; he always writes his own lyrics. His topics have included the gay and Jewish experiences in contemporary America, and also family, belonging, sickness, healing, and loss. According to a 2006 article, " The Washington Post called him 'the composer laureate of loss.'" Finn is especially noted for his work on what was to become a trilogy of short musicals Off-Broadway . In Trousers , March of

500-773: Is a landmark destination of 750 acres, 20 historic Shaker buildings, and over 22,000 Shaker artifacts. On the National Historic Register, it is one of the most comprehensively interpreted Shaker sites in the world. The Berkshires lie within the New England/Acadian forests ecoregion . Similarly, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Massachusetts (Griffith et al. 1994) has defined six ecoregions within this area: Taconic Mountains, Western New England Marble Valleys, Lower Berkshire Hills, Berkshire Highlands, Vermont Piedmont, and Berkshire Transition. Each region

550-484: Is distinct from the others, providing a unique habitat assemblage. Much of the Hoosic and Housatonic River valleys have underlying bedrock limestone and marble which contribute to calcareous wetlands unique in Massachusetts. The alkaline pH waters support a diversity of plants and animals intolerant of more acidic waters, some of which are state-listed rare or endangered. Combined with the rich mesic forests ranging from

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600-542: The 46th Tony Awards , winning two: the 1992 Tony Award for Best Original Score as well as the 1992 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical , the latter shared with James Lapine . A critically acclaimed revival opened on September 29, 2016, at the Walter Kerr Theater and went on to garner five nominations at the 71st Tony Awards , including Best Revival . With Lapine, Finn penned a musical loosely based on his near-death experience following brain surgery, exploring

650-548: The Barrington Stage Company with Putnam librettist Rachel Sheinkin penning the book. In 1992, Finn suffered deteriorating vision, dizziness and partial paralysis and was rushed to the hospital. He had arteriovenous malformation , or AVM, in his brain stem. In September 1992, he had Gamma Knife surgery, which obliterated the AVM. After the surgery, Finn experienced a year of humbled serenity and constantly felt like he had

700-537: The Housatonic River . The Berkshire hills runs through: The largest municipalities associated with the Berkshires cultural region include Pittsfield , North Adams , Great Barrington , Williamstown , Stockbridge , Lee , and Lenox, Massachusetts . During the American Revolution a Continental Army force under Henry Knox brought captured cannons from Fort Ticonderoga by ox-drawn sleds south along

750-511: The La Jolla Playhouse , California, from February 15, 2011, through March 27, 2011. James Lapine wrote the book and is the director, set design by David Korins, staging by Lapine and Christopher Gattelli . The opening night cast featured Hunter Foster (Richard), Malcolm Gets (Frank), Dick Latessa (Grandpa), Taylor Trensch (Dwayne), Georgi James (Olive), and Jennifer Laura Thompson (Sheryl). The ensemble, who Jay Irwin wrote "...took

800-582: The Lincoln Center Theater in 1998. The musical won the 1999 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. The UK premiere was at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe . At the 2006 Elliot Norton Awards Ceremony, Finn brought his high school drama teacher, Gerry Dyer, onstage with him to present an award. Finn said of Dyer that he "imbued us with a ridiculous sense of our own self-worth." Another student of Gerald Dyer, Alison Fraser , found fame on Broadway, collaborating with Finn in

850-599: The Sundance Institute . Calvin Berger (Barry Wyner) was produced at George Street Playhouse , and See Rock City or Other Destinations (Brad Alexander and Adam Mathias) and The Memory Show (Zach Redler and Sara Cooper) were later produced by The Transport Group. Southern Comfort (Dan Collins and Julianne Wick Davis) moved to the Public Theatre. Additionally, Robert Maddock and Joe Iconis 's The Black Suits received

900-850: The Westside Theatre . The play showcased the sex therapist 's life from fleeing the Nazis in the Kindertransport and joining the Haganah in Jerusalem as a scout and sniper , to her struggles to succeed as a single mother coming to America. Other critically acclaimed productions at BSC include: In addition to The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee , many other new works have seen their world premieres at BSC. As of 2020, BSC had produced 36 pieces of new work, including 19 of which that moved to New York stages in some capacity. Mark St. Germain's Ears on

950-470: The northern hardwood to the taiga or sub-alpine, the Berkshires have a valuable, biologically diverse ecosystem. The classic study of the vegetation of the Berkshire Highlands was Egler's 1940 monograph, covering the flora of an area stretching roughly from Pittsfield, Massachusetts , in the west to Hatfield, Massachusetts , in the east, and from Goshen, Connecticut , in the south to the Vermont border in

1000-695: The Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge , and Berkshire Playwrights Lab in Great Barrington ; and America's first and longest-running dance festival, Jacob's Pillow , in the town of Becket . William Finn Finn was born in Boston, Massachusetts . He is Jewish, raised in conservative Judaism , and grew up in Natick, Massachusetts , with his parents and siblings, Michael and Nancy. He attended

1050-504: The Berkshire plateau. The Berkshires and related Green Mountains formed over half a billion years ago when Africa collided with North America , pushing up the Appalachian Mountains and forming the bedrock of the Berkshires. Erosion over hundreds of millions of years wore these mountains down to the hills that we see today. The average regional elevation of the Berkshires ranges from about 700 to 1,200 feet (210 to 370 m). One of

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1100-849: The Berkshires include Tanglewood Music Center and Boston University Tanglewood Institute in Lenox , the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra ; the Bang on a Can Summer Festival for contemporary music in North Adams ; Shakespeare & Company in Lenox; summer stock theatre festivals such as the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown , Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield ,

1150-547: The Burman New Play Award was established. The award is given to emerging playwrights for unproduced full-length 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. Created in 2006 by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd and Tony Award winner composer William Finn ,

1200-608: The Falsettos , and Falsettoland all chronicle the lives of the character Marvin; his ex-wife, Trina; his boyfriend, Whizzer; his psychiatrist , Mendel; and his son, Jason. Falsettos , the combination of the latter two parts of his Marvin Trilogy ( March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland ), opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theater on April 29, 1992, and ran for 486 performances. It went on to garner seven nominations at

1250-626: The Hasty Pudding Theatre. Mark St. Germain 's Freud's Last Session , starring Mark H. Dold and Martin Rayner, became BSC's longest-running show, playing 61 performances over two summers and multiple extensions, prior to its two-year Off Broadway run. St. Germain's one-woman play Dr. Ruth All the Way set in 1997, starring Debra Jo Rupp , played to sold out houses at BSC before it moved Off Broadway, renamed Becoming Dr. Ruth. It opened Off Broadway at

1300-518: The Musical Theatre Lab (MTL) is a place for young musical theatre writers to develop their work from an early reading to full productions. As of 2020, it had produced six workshops and 11 world premiere musicals. Many of the new musicals have gone on to a life after Barrington Stage. The Burnt Part Boys ( Chris Miller and Nathan Tyson) was produced at Playwrights Horizons , and Funked Up Fairy Tales (Krisitn Childs) continued to be developed at

1350-471: The Natick Speech Team and was in the drama department headed by Gerald Dyer. For his bar mitzvah , he received a guitar and taught himself to play. He went on to attend Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts , as a music major. He originally entered as a guitar major, "When I got to college I kind of transferred to the piano. I transferred what I knew on the guitar to the piano. But when I

1400-571: The Temple Israel in Natick, where his rabbi was Harold Kushner . In Hebrew School, Finn wrote his first play, saying, "I don't think I ever told anyone this: The first play I ever wrote was in Hebrew. I have no idea what it was about. But it was horrible, I guarantee it. I couldn't write plays, and I couldn't really speak Hebrew, so how good could it be?" While attending Natick High School , Finn competed with

1450-676: The Union Square Theatre, built in 1912, 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

1500-612: The United States in 2006. The show was first workshopped and produced at Barrington Stage Company (BSC) in Pittsfield, MA, where Finn later created The Musical Theatre Lab (MTL) with BSC Artistic Director Julianne Boyd . The MTL is an annual summer lab where emerging musical theatre artists are supported and new musical works are created, fine-tuned and produced under the curatorship of Finn and Boyd. Three musical revues or song suites of Finn's music have been produced: Finn's first show

1550-607: The United States. Generally, "Berkshires" may refer to the range of hills in Massachusetts that lie between the Housatonic and Connecticut Rivers . Highlands of northwest Connecticut may be seen as part of the Berkshires and sometimes called the Northwest Hills or Litchfield Hills. The segment of the Taconic Mountains in Massachusetts is often considered a part of the Berkshires, although they are geologically separate and are

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1600-545: The border they fall on. In physical geography, the Berkshires extend from the Housatonic River and Hoosic River valleys in western Massachusetts, to the Connecticut River valley in north-central Massachusetts, and to the foot of the lower Westfield River valley in south-central Massachusetts. In Connecticut, where they are referred to as the Litchfield Hills, they extend east from the upper Housatonic River valley in

1650-571: The center of Pittsfield today. BSC's scenic departments operate out of a 22,100 square-foot facility, located at 34 Laurel Street, referred to as the Production Center (PC). The PC was purchased in 2019 in order to more conveniently construct and pre-assemble scenic elements before being loaded into BSC's performance spaces. Before purchasing the PC, BSC operated out of a warehouse at Fenn and Fourth streets in order to construct their sets. Originally named

1700-611: The company purchased an old VFW building on Linden Street in Pittsfield, 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. Additionally, the company acquired the Wolfson Theater Center which serves as the company's administrative offices and a rehearsal space in

1750-625: The high points is Spruce Mountain, at 2,710 feet (830 m). The highest point in the Berkshires physiographic region is Mt. Greylock at 3488 feet. The Housatonic River, Hoosic River, Westfield River , and Deerfield River watersheds drain the Berkshire region in Massachusetts; in Connecticut the main river drainages are the Farmington River , the Naugatuck River , the Shepaug River , and

1800-614: 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, purchased and renovated the Berkshire Music Hall in downtown in 2005. The venue was renamed the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage after its renovation. The 520-seat Mainstage Theatre is now located at 30 Union Street. In 2012

1850-465: The north. Today, efforts are being made by many organizations to preserve and manage this region for biological diversity and sustainable human development. The Berkshires have numerous shops, motels, hotels, museums, and trails, including part of the Appalachian Trail , large tracts of wilderness and parks Berkshire Botanical Garden and Hebert Arboretum The area includes Bash Bish Falls ,

1900-777: The northwest part of the state. Geologically, the Berkshires are bordered on the west by the Taconic Mountains , the south by the Hudson Highlands , and to the east, they are bordered by the Metacomet Ridge . They are on the average 1,000 ft (300 m) lower and less prominent than the Green Mountains of Vermont, and form a broad, dissected plateau punctuated by hills and peaks and cut by river valleys. The Berkshires topography gradually diminishes in profile and elevation from west to east and from north to south, except where rivers have cut deep gorges and sharp bluff faces into

1950-462: The original casts of In Trousers and March of the Falsettos . Finn had another Broadway success with The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee , for which he wrote both music and lyrics. The show won two Tony Awards in 2005-one for Best Book of a Musical , and another for the Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical . It ran Off-Broadway, then on Broadway in 2005 and toured

2000-460: The role of music in his life and recovery. The musical's main character is a man who has what may be a terminal arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Finn's longtime partner, Arthur Salvadore, is represented by the character Roger Delli-Bovi. Finn's mother is also present in the piece. That musical, A New Brain , starred Malcolm Gets , Kristin Chenoweth and Chip Zien , and premiered Off-Broadway at

2050-579: The royal governor (in office 1760–1769), named the area "Berkshire" to honor his home county in England . In the present, the name of the modern American region is pronounced differently ( BERK -sheer, -⁠shər ) to the modern English County ( BARK-sheer, -⁠shər ). Geologically and physically, the Berkshires are the southern continuation of the Green Mountains of Vermont , distinct from them only by their lower average elevation and by virtue of what side of

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2100-841: The small parts they were given and ran with them, almost right out of the theater as each of them brilliantly played the comedic relief to the family's "straight man"", starred Bradley Dean , Carmen Ruby Floyd, Eliseo Roman, Andrew Samonsky, Sally Wilfert, and Zakiya Young. Little Miss Sunshine began previews Off Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre in New York on October 15, 2013, and opened November 14, 2013. Finn's frequent collaborators include librettist James Lapine , director Graciela Daniele and singers/actors Stephen Bogardus , Carolee Carmello , Stephen DeRosa , Alison Fraser , Keith Byron Kirk , Norm Lewis , Michael Rupert , Mary Testa , Christian Borle and Chip Zien . Finn

2150-405: The star of the show, played by J. Tyler Griffin, Jr., dying in an electric chair. Sizzle played to packed houses. Rubin possesses a reel-to-reel tape containing excerpts from the show, including most of the music. His long-in-development show, The Royal Family of Broadway , with a book by Richard Greenberg , was based on the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber , which tells the story of

2200-701: The tallest waterfall in Massachusetts. The Berkshire region is noted as a center for the visual and performing arts, many institutions which are associated with Williams College . The art museums include the Norman Rockwell Museum , the Clark Art Institute , the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), Berkshire Museum , Hancock Shaker Village, and the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA). Performing-arts institutions in

2250-530: The term "Berkshires" includes all of the highland region in western Massachusetts west of the Connecticut River and lower Westfield River . The cultural region also includes the Taconic Mountains bordering New York, which are geologically distinct from the Berkshires orogeny. Southwest Vermont and the Taconic region of New York are occasionally grouped with the Berkshires cultural region. Sir Francis Bernard ,

2300-564: The west bank of the Hudson River from the fort to Albany , where he then crossed the Hudson. Knox and his men continued east through the Berkshires and finally arrived in Boston . This feat, known as the " Noble train of artillery ", was accomplished in the dead of winter, 1775–1776. The Berkshires is also home to Hancock Shaker Village , which is the oldest continuously working farm in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. Hancock Shaker Village

2350-469: Was called Sizzle and was produced at Williams College in the fall of 1971. Finn wrote the music and lyrics, and his good friend, Charlie Rubin, wrote the libretto. Sizzle was the first original musical produced on the Williams College campus since Stephen Sondheim attended the college over 20 years earlier. Sizzle was a coming of age musical about college students but concluded in an unusual way with

2400-486: Was formed as a governmental unit in 1761. It includes the western extremity of the state, with its western boundary bordering New York and its eastern boundary roughly paralleling the watershed divide separating the Connecticut River watershed from the Housatonic River and Hoosic River watersheds. However, like most other counties in Massachusetts, the active governmental role of Berkshire County has been abolished, so has no legal or governmental function. Culturally,

2450-764: Was one of a selected few composers who contributed to the song cycle Stars of David which premiered in October 2012 at the Philadelphia Theatre Company . It was based on the Abigail Pogrebin 's book Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish and starred Nancy Balbirer, Alex Brightman, Joanna Glushak, Brad Oscar and Donna Vivino . Finn also contributed to the Off-Broadway musical Mama & her Boys . His long-shelved musical, The Royal Family of Broadway , saw its first full production in 2018 at

2500-413: Was playing the guitar I was always writing my own songs — and singing a few of — I only had one book of folk songs, a blue book, of these sad, sad folk songs. ...I would start them the way they were written and then I would change them to how I wanted them…. I would just use the lyrics — re-musicalize the lyrics." When he graduated, he received the Hutchinson Fellowship (a musical composition award). Finn

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