About Barrington Stage Company

About

Barrington Stage Company is the fastest-growing arts venue in Berkshire County, attracting more than 60,000 patrons each year. Co-founded by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd in 1995, BSC continues to gain national recognition for its superior-quality productions and comprehensive educational programming. In its first 11 years, BSC operated from rented space at the Consolati Performing Arts Center at Mount Everett High School in Sheffield, MA.

Production History

Barrington Stage has produced several award-winning plays and musicals, beginning in its inaugural year with The Diary of Anne Frank, which won the Elliot Norton/Boston Theatre Critics Award. In its third year, BSC won two Elliot Norton/Boston Theatre Critics Awards and four Outer Critics Awards for its smash hit production of Cabaret, which moved to Boston and played an extended run at the Hasty Pudding Theatre. Several other BSC productions, including Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill; Mack and Mabel; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; Follies; West Side Story; Freud’s Last Session; Sweeney Todd; Best of Enemies; Breaking the Code, On the Town and Pirates of Penzance (to name a few) have been named among the top 10 productions of the year in many area newspapers — leading The Boston Globe to laud BSC as “one of the jewels in the state’s crown.”

In 2016, BSC produced the world premiere of American Son, which won the Laurents/Hatcher Award for Best New Play by an Emerging Playwright and ran on Broadway in 2018-19. In 2017, BSC produced the much-lauded revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company, starring Aaron Tveit and in 2018, BSC produced the critically acclaimed production of West Side Story, in honor of Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins’ 100th birthdays.  In 2021, BSC produced three extraordinary world premieres that received across-the-board rave reviews: Joseph Dougherty’s Chester Bailey, Mark St.Germain’s Eleanor and A Crossing, a musical by Josh Bergasse, Mark St Germain and Zoe Sarnak in association with the Calpulli Mexican Dance Company.

 BSC and Theatre Awards

In 2016, Barrington Stage swept the first annual Berkshire Theatre Awards by winning 20 out of the 25 awards and has continued to sweep the Berkies each year since then. In 2021 BSC won 17 Berkies, including Outstanding Production of a Play (Chester Bailey) and Outstanding Production of a Musical (A Crossing). BSC has won the Best of the Berkshires Readers’ Choice for Best Live Theatre for the past five years, and in 2020 won the BroadwayWorld Berkshires Best Theatre Company of the Decade Award.

Producing during COVID

Following the industry-wide shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, BSC was the first Equity theatre in the US to return to live performance with its critically acclaimed production of Harry Clarke, starring BSC Associate Artist Mark H. Dold and directed by Ms. Boyd. The season also included the acclaimed concerts, The Hills Are Alive with Rodgers & Hammerstein, Leslie Kritzer: Is It Over Yet? and BSC’s fully staged, streamed show Holiday Getaway as well as several streamed readings. In 2021, BSC produced a full season of plays and musicals, both outdoors under a tent and on the Boyd-Quinson Stage.

AND THEN TO BROADWAY…

Barrington Stage gained national prominence in 2004 with the world premiere of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin. The musical, a runaway hit at Barrington Stage, later moved to Broadway and won two Tony Awards. In June 2013, BSC produced Leonard Bernstein, Comden, and Green’s On the Town, directed by John Rando and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse. It received across-the-board rave reviews, with Ben Brantley of The New York Times writing, “Normally, I wouldn’t tell citizens of the five boroughs to drive three hours to be told that New York is a helluva town. But this enchanted vision of a city that was—and of course never was—is worth catching…” A Broadway production opened in October of 2014 to rave reviews. The show received four Tony nominations, including Best Musical Revival. Christopher Demos-Brown’s American Son played to packed audience at BSC in the summer of 2016, returned in the fall to play to more than 2000 students and was later produced on Broadway (2018-19) starring Kerry Washington. 

A Permanent Home

In its first 11 years, BSC operated from rented space at the Consolati Performing Arts Center at Mount Everett High School in Sheffield, MA. BSC used a high school auditorium as their Mainstage space, and two cafeterias as makeshift theatres, one for their Stage 2 (where The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee premiered) and the other for their Youth Theatre. In July 2005, BSC purchased a 1912 vaudeville theatre in downtown Pittsfield and presented their first season in 2006 in the partially renovated space (with only the orchestra available for seating). By June 2007, BSC opened its doors to a completely renovated 520-seat, state-of-the art theatre now known as the Boyd-Quinson Stage.

In the spring of 2012, BSC purchased the former V.F.W. building in Pittsfield, three blocks from the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage. The building, now called the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center in honor of the BSC patrons who made the purchase of the building possible, houses the 136-seat St. Germain Stage and Mr. Finn’s Cabaret, a 99-seat cabaret space in the lower level of the building.

In the summer of 2016, Barrington Stage’s campus grew once again, with the acquisition of 122 North Street, now called the Wolfson Center, after BSC patrons Jessie and Bernie Wolfson, who made the purchase possible. BSC’s administrative offices, rehearsal rooms and costume shop moved to the Wolfson Center, giving Barrington a prime location in downtown Pittsfield. For the first time in the company’s history, all BSC offices, rehearsal spaces and classrooms are under one roof, including the costume shop and storage.

In 2019, BSC purchased a 22,000 sq. foot building at 34 Laurel Street that has become its Production Center, housing the set, prop and paint shops. The Production Center was also the site of BSC’s outdoor tent productions in 2021.

BSC has become an integral part of downtown Pittsfield’s economic revitalization. In 2009 the Massachusetts Cultural Council presented a “Creative Community” Commonwealth Award to the City of Pittsfield in recognition of its efforts to boost the creative economy in Massachusetts.

Commitment to New Work

Since its inception in 1995, Barrington Stage (BSC) has produced 41 new works, 21 of which have moved on to New York and major regional theatres around the country. 

BSC believes that new work is the heart and soul of theatre. If theatre is to thrive and create meaningful and new experiences for audiences, then it is vital to support playwrights and their visions of the world we live in.

BSC’s New Works Fund takes a two-pronged approach – PlayWorks supports the creation of new plays while our acclaimed Musical Theatre Lab develops new musicals. In both of these programs, BSC seeks artists whose unique voices speak to our audiences with relevant new plays and musicals. BSC hopes our new work will ask questions of the world we live in – questions that may not have answers but will begin a dialogue between the artists and our audiences.          

PlayWorks

In 2000 Barrington Stage began producing new plays with Suzanne Bradbeer’s Full Bloom but it was not until 2003/2004 that our new works gained momentum with the world premieres of Mark St. Germain’s Ears On A Beatle, followed by his The God Committee in 2004, both of which moved Off Broadway.

In 2009, Mark St. Germain’s Freud’s Last Session secured our place in the development of new plays because of its tremendous success with both critics and audiences.  It ran more than 10 weeks on BSC’s Stage 2, becoming the longest running play in BSC’s history. It later moved to New York where it played Off Broadway for more than two years. As mentioned earlier, in 2016 BSC produced the world premiere of American Son, which later ran on Broadway in 2018-19. 

Musical Theatre Lab

BSC’s commitment to new work is also seen in the acclaimed Musical Theatre Lab (MTL). MTL was created after BSC workshopped and premiered William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2004). It was in response to musical theatre writers not having a home to develop their shows. As William Finn writes, “Musicals, when they are good, soar. But what seems effortless is only achieved through a painstaking, exacting developmental process…few people understand the complexity of the process because they don’t see the work being developed. They don’t see the talent of the unproduced.”

MTL is a place for young musical theatre writers to develop their work on all levels: from staged readings to workshops to full productions. Since its creation in 2006, 12 world premieres and 7 workshops of new musicals have been produced, and many have moved on to New York and around the country, most notably:

• The critically acclaimed The Burnt Part Boys (2006), written by Nathan Tysen, Chris Miller and Marianne Elder, received a production at Playwrights Horizons in 2010.
• See Rock City and Other Destinations by Adam Mathias and Brad Alexander was produced in 2008 and later played at the Transport Group in NYC.
• In 2010 BSC produced The Memory Show by Sarah Cooper and Zachary Redler, which was later seen at the Transport Group in 2013.
• The Black Suits by Joe Iconis and Robert Maddock received a workshop production at BSC in 2012 and received its world premiere at Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles.
• In 2013, Southern Comfort, written by Dan Collins and Julianne Wick Davis and starring Annette O’Toole and Jeff McCarthy, opened to rave reviews and transferred to the Public Theater in NYC in 2016.
• A Little More Alive (2015) by Nick Blaemire will soon be made into a movie.
• Broadway Bounty Hunter, written by Joe Iconis, Lance Rubin and Jason SweetTooth Williams, was produced Off Broadway in 2019.

Learn more about New Works at BSC.

Education

For information on BSC’s many educational programs, including the award-winning Playwright Mentoring Project (2007 Coming up Taller Award given by the President’s Commission on the Arts and Humanities, 2015 Commonwealth Award) the Musical Theatre Conservatory Summer Program, Youth Theatre, KidsAct! and other initiatives, please visit the Education section of our website.

Community

Community is all-important to Barrington Stage. We have a community of artists who have been working with us and sharing their talents with our audiences for many years. Coming back year after year, our Associate Artists make significant contributions to the theatre. We strive to make Barrington Stage an artistic home for this community of talented actors, writers, designers, directors and musical directors, as well as a home for our community of staff, students, interns and educators.

This commitment to community extends to the residents of Pittsfield. Barrington Stage has been in the forefront of community engagement since moving to Pittsfield in 2006. Our goal is to deepen our connection to residents and families through our ongoing education and community engagement programs, as well as our productions. We aim to make theatre accessible to all and to create inclusive programs in partnership with our community. 

Black Voices Matter was created in response to the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020. Black Voices Matter supports and encourages Black community members by giving a platform for Black creativity and self-expression. Black Voices Matter initiatives seek to empower, educate and celebrate. 

For the second year in a row, Barrington Stage Company, as part of its Black Voices Matter initiative, is sponsoring “Celebration of Black Voices,” a four-day festival on Pittsfield’s West Side, with events celebrating the local Black community through artistic engagement. “Celebration of Black Voices” seeks to live up to its name by showcasing a mix of professional artists and local talent. This festival will provide a joyful space for exploring, amplifying, and celebrating Black voices in our community.

Most notably:

In 2016, Barrington Stage presented Christopher Demos Brown’s American Son, which was the impetus for a weekend symposium on race and bias. It also played to more than 2,000 high school students who participated in talk backs with the actors and creative staff.

In November 2016, Artistic Director Julianne Boyd was the first recipient of the Larry Murray Award, given by the Berkshire Theatre Critics Association to the individual whose work best advances the social and community issues in the Berkshires. In November 2022, Julianne Boyd was re-awarded the Larry Murray Award this time alongside Kate Maguire, Berkshire Theatre Group artistic director and CEO, for their roles in reviving live theatre in The Berkshires during the pandemic.

In 2021, Artistic Director Julianne Boyd received the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in the community.

In 2012 BSC created the 10X10 New Play Festival, a highlight of the winter season. Each year BSC introduces audiences to an evening of ten 10-minute plays.  BSC was also instrumental in helping create the larger 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival, which now draws more than 6,000 patrons to events in downtown Pittsfield each February.