Barrington Stage Company (BSC), founded in 1995, is a not-for-profit professional theatre company in the Berkshires (MA), with a three-fold mission: to produce top-notch, compelling work; to develop new plays and musicals; and to find fresh, bold ways of bringing new audiences into the theatre, especially young people.

History

Barrington Stage Company has become the fastest growing arts venue in Berkshire County, attracting some 45,000 patrons each year, and gaining national recognition for its superior quality productions and comprehensive educational programming.

Co-founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, Barrington Stage has produced several award-winning plays and musicals, beginning with winning the Elliot Norton/Boston Theatre Critics Award in its very first year for The Diary of Anne Frank. 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, Three Viewings, Ears On a Beatle, Mack and Mabel, South Pacific, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Follies, West Side Story, The Mysteries of Harris Burdick and Freud’s Last Session, 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 2004, BSC developed, workshopped and premiered William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which took Broadway by storm in 2005, capturing two Tony Awards (for Best Book and Best Featured Actor), Three Drama Desk Awards and numerous other awards.

Commitment to New Work and the Musical Theatre Lab

In the last seven years, BSC has produced 11 world premieres. In addition to Spelling Bee, in 2003 BSC produced The Game, a musical based on the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, which starred Christopher Innvar and Tony Award-winner Sara Ramirez and was hailed by audience and critics alike; also in 2003 Ears on a Beatle by Mark St. Germain (starring Dan Lauria) opened on BSC’s Stage 2 and then moved to New York City where it ran Off-Broadway at the Daryl Roth Theatre (DR 2). In 2004 BSC produced Mark St. Germain’s The God Committee, which later moved Off-Broadway to the Lambs Theater. In 2005 BSC workshopped and then premiered Cusi Cram’s Fuente starring Michael Ray Escamillo and Lucia Brawley. In 2009 Mark St. Germain’s Freud’s Last Session, starring Mark H. Dold and Martin Rayner, was a 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 15-year history. An Off-Broadway production is planned in July 2010.

BSC’s commitment to new work is perhaps best seen in the Musical Theatre Lab (MTL), overseen by Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist William Finn. MTL, created in 2006, is a place for young musical theater writers to develop their work on all levels: from staged readings to workshops to full productions. Since its creation, five world premieres and four workshops have been produced. The critically-acclaimed The Burnt Part Boys (2006), written by Nathan Tysen, Chris Miller and Marianne Elder, will receive a production at Playwrights Horizons in May/June 2010. Kirsten Childs, who wrote the 2007 world premiere Funked Up Fairy Tales, continued developing her musical at the Sundance Institute in December 2007. And Barry Wyner’s 2007 hit musical Calvin Berger recently received critical acclaim at the George Street Playhouse, and an Off-Broadway production is planned. In 2008 The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Joe Calarco (book), Nathan Tysen (lyrics) and Chris Miller (music) received a full production (after a 2007 MTL workshop) and was chosen one of the Top 10 year-end shows by both The Boston Globe and The Berkshire Eagle. See Rock City and Other Destinations by Adam Mathias and Brad Alexander was also produced in 2008 and won a Top 10 nod from Metroland.

A Permanent Home

In July 2005 BSC purchased a 1912 vaudeville theatre in downtown Pittsfield. (In its first 11 years, BSC operated from rented space at the Consolati Performing Arts Center at Mount Everett High School in Sheffield.) In January 2006 BSC began renovations on the theatre and by June 2007, BSC opened its doors to a completely renovated 520-seat state-of-the art theatre.

Together with other cultural institutions, 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.

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), KidsAct!, Youth Theatre and other initiatives, please visit the Education section of our website.