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Dave Read

A Christmas Carol at Berkshire Theatre Festival

December 17, 2010 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall.

If you can get a ticket for A Christmas Carol, now playing on the Unicorn Stage at the Berkshire Theatre Festival through December 30th, grab it! Now in its fifth season, and 5th version, Eric Hill, director, adapter, and a talented actor has so deeply developed his role as Scrooge that he totally inhabits it. And Charles Dickens’ tale of a miser redeemed becomes something much more.

The minute shades of the man have been given as much development as one would expect in a Shakespearean lead. Here, Dickens’ grouchy hero evolves into a giddy, benevolent human being.

Cast of A Christmas Carol at Berkshire Theatre Festival; Photo by Jaime Davidson.
Cast of A Christmas Carol at Berkshire Theatre Festival; Photo by Jaime Davidson.
Meanwhile, Hill has given his large and talented cast ample opportunities to develop and display their abilities in the gloomy, but elegant set, designed by Carl Sprague; a dour gray London replete with want and ignorance, but also with determination and even love and joy. The ninety minute production involves a cast of around thirty with ages ranging from eight upwards to experienced actors with impressive biographies. They all work seamlessly together, as the plot, whirled along by the supernatural characters who lead Scrooge through past, present, and future Christmases charm us with song, or sweep us into their grief.

The many scenes are woven together and the production flows effortlessly from the first solo by a young boy (whom I cannot identify from the program, but who sings beautifully) to the last moment when the child Tiny Tim (Henry Taylor) sends us home with the message: God bless us everyone.

Kim Taylor, Henry Taylor, Daniel Garrity, and Mark E. Rosenthal in A Christmas Carol at BTF; Photo by Jaime Davidson.
Kim Taylor, Henry Taylor, Daniel Garrity, and Mark E. Rosenthal in A Christmas Carol at BTF; Photo by Jaime Davidson.
Outstanding moments for me included: Bob Crachit’s grief when he returned from the cemetery of a future in which there was no longer Tiny Tim to carry on his shoulder, a role played by Mark E Rosenthal; Ralph Petrillo’s Ghost of Christmas Present, with his gusto and seeming indifference to the pitiful children Want and Ignorance; one of E. Gray Simons III several roles including that as co-director; Marley in chains grappling with Scrooge, wearing a marvelous costume by Jessica Risser Milne; the strong family sense of love in adversity in the Crachit home lead by mother Kim Taylor whose second twin, Rufus, was an appealing younger Scrooge in a flashback. The BTF is lucky to have another family group aboard in this show as the Stantons have been in the past.

The lights that fell like rain drops over the stage and ceiling at times, the sound brought in bells and gongs, the buoyant dances that accompanied the gay uplifting moments, proved that skilled theatre technicians were at work to ensure that the play ran smoothly and convincingly. It was clear that the actors loved what they were doing and wanted to please us.

All this contributed to a lovely feeling of joy and good will and of having been present at a performance well worth having shared, one in which Hill’s theatrical talents showed brightly. Go, and carry Tiny Tim’s wish with you out of the theatre: “God bless us every one.”

  • Berkshire Theatre Festival
  • PO Box 797, Stockbridge, MA 01262
  • Box Office – 413-298-5576 ext. 33
  • website: BerkshireTheatre.org

Lenox, MA venues & attractions

Article updated Feb. 24, 2018 by

2018 Tanglewood schedule

The 2018 Tanglewood schedulefeatures a season-long celebration of the centennial of Leonard’s Bernstein’s birth, culminating in the Aug. 25 Bernstein Centennial Celebration hosted by Audra McDonald, with Maestro Andris Nelsons, four guest conductors and soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, and others.

Hotels near Tanglewood

Berkshires hotelsFind hotels near Tanglewood with user reviews, check amenities, nearby attractions, availability and then book your room reservations at these lodging establishments through our partner, International Hotel Solutions (IHS), the leading provider of secure online hotel reservations.

Tanglewood tickets and box office information

Tickets for the 2018 Tanglewood season available through Tanglewood’s website, www.tanglewood.org, SymphonyCharge at 888-266-1200, and at the Symphony Hall Box Office at 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston MA.

Berkshires skiing areas map

Where to ski in the Berkshires

Skiing in the BerkshiresSkiing is a favorite activity in the Berkshires and has been an important component of the local tourism industry for as long as Tanglewood has. In 1935, the first of the famous “ski trains” left Grand Central Station in New York bound for Bousquet’s in Pittsfield, MA, where the rope tow was perfected and night skiing was introduced. Before being discontinued in 1942, the ski trains to the Berkshires became very popular, delivering 4,000 skiers a day, and establishing Berkshire county as a skiing destination, with several ski areas and year-round resorts offering a variety of activities besides downhill skiing.

Berkshires downhill and cross-country ski areas

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This map shows locations and driving directions for skiing in the Berkshires; downhill skiing areas and cross county skiing areas are marked with distinctive icons. Each area also is listed below the map. Get more information, including contact information and links to the ski areas on our Berkshires skiing page.

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Using the map: Use the “zoom” function when icons are bunched together; for directions, click “directions” and enter your location in the box that appears just below the map.

Norman Rockwell Museum

Norman Rockwell Museum

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Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass. Photo by Art Evans. ©Norman Rockwell Museum
Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass. Photo by Art Evans. ©Norman Rockwell Museum
The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass., a popular cultural venue in the Berkshires, houses 574 of Norman Rockwell’s paintings and drawings. Rockwell (1894- 1978), who lived in Stockbridge for the last 25 years of his life, helped establish the museum, which occupies 36-acre site overlooking the Housatonic River, with a main gallery building designed by Robert Stern and including Rockwell’s studio.

In addition to permanent displays of Rockwell’s work, the museum schedules traveling exhibitions and special educational, curatorial, and entertainment programs with an emphasis on illustration and story telling. Over the years, the schedule at the Norman Rockwell Museum has included exhibitions featuring the art of the New Yorker, Frederic Remington, James Gurney, National Geographic Society illustrators, and Stan and Jan Berenstain.

Norman Rockwell Museum hours and contact info.

  • 9 Route 183 – Stockbridge, MA 01262
  • phone: 413-298-4100
  • May-October and holidays: open daily: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and until 7:00 p.m. on Thursdays in July and August
  • November-April: Weekdays 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. – Weekends and holidays: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
  • www.nrm.org

Norman Rockwell Museum driving directions

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MASS MoCA

MASS MoCA

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MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass. the Berkshires; photo by N-Lange.de
MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass. the Berkshires; photo by N-Lange.de
MASS MoCA occupies an industrial complex built between 1870-1900 by the Arnold Print Works, which produced printed textiles until becoming unprofitable during WWII. Then, the local Sprague Electric Company bought the property and manufactured capacitors and electrical components until competition forced it to close in 1985.

See also: performing arts events at MASS MoCA in 2014.

Within a year, a group from the nearby Williams College Museum of Art looked at the property as a place to display and exhibit large works of modern and contemporary art that wouldn’t fit elsewhere. That began the process that led to an $18.5 million grant from the state and the 1999 opening of MASS MoCA.

The exhibition, Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective, which Time magazine called the “…top museum exhibition of 2008,” will be exhibited in a 27,000 sq. ft. building through 2033. Since 2001, MASS MoCA has been home to the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, which was curated in 2010 by Wilco.

MASS MoCA contact info., map, driving directions

  • 87 Marshall St.; North Adams, MA 01247
  • Fall, Winter, Spring Hours: 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. closed Tuesday
  • Admission: $15 adults; $10 students; $5 children 6–16
  • Phone: 413.MoCA.111
  • Web: massmoca.org

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Clark Art Institute

Clark Art Institute

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The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, which is widely known as simply The Clark, opened in Williamstown, Mass. in the midst of the Cold War in 1955, where the founders hoped that their remarkable collection of Old Masters, Impressionist, and Barbizon school paintings would be safer from Soviet missiles than in New York where the Clarks had been ammassing their private collection for forty years. Sterling Clark was an heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune and had ties to Williamstown because his father and grandfather had been Williams College trustees.

Stone Hill Center at The Clark Art Institute
Stone Hill Center at The Clark Art Institute
In 2008, the Clark added significant exhibition space and a conservation studio with the opening of the Stone Hill Center, designed by Tadao Ando. Today, The Clark’s schedule of public exhibitions makes it one of the most popular venues in the Berkshires and its research center attracts top academics and students from around the world.

Clark Art schedules Romantic Nature: British and French Landscapes – through Sept. 20, 2011

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute contact info

  • 225 South Street
  • Williamstown, MA 01267
  • 413-458-2303
  • web: clarkart.edu

Clark Art Institute driving directions

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