Barrington Stage Company
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 the move to a more permanent home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Formation
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 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.[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 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. [3]
The Mainstage Theatre[edit]
Originally named 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 a 520-seat theater, opening its doors in the summer of 2006, under the name The Boyd-Quinson Mainstage.
Notables[edit]
Productions[edit]
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 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 the Westside Theatre.[4][5] 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.[6]
Other critically acclaimed productions at BSC include: