Arts & Culture

    Tom Donahue’s documentary, Casting By, takes us through the last 50 years of Hollywood history from an entirely new perspective -- that of the casting director. Pioneers like Marion Dougherty and Lynn Stalmaster were iconoclasts whose exquisite taste and gut instincts helped to put an end to the studio system and usher in a new Hollywood. They broke away from traditional typecasting and brought actors like James Dean, Dustin Hoffman, Bette Midler, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, and Gene Hackman to the screen.

Tom Donahue combines personal narratives from actors, directors, and casting directors with extensive archival material to reconstruct the untold tale of Hollywood’s most invisible and unheralded profession.

Casting By will screen as part of The Berkshire International Film Festival on Sunday, June 2 at The Triplex in Great Barrington, MA. A Q&A will follow the screening with Casting Directors 
Gretchen Rennell and Elissa Myers.

    22-year-old Kevin Pearce had just come off of the most successful competitive season of his snowboarding career, challenging the dominance of his friend and rival, snowboarding legend Shaun White. Kevin’s professional ascent came at a time when snowboarding tricks were becoming more and more breathtaking – but also more dangerous.

On December 31, 2009, while riding the slopes of Park City, Utah in final training for the 2010 Winter Olympics, Kevin missed his landing and took a hard fall.

He was airlifted to the hospital, where doctors scrambled to save his life as his family flew from their home in Vermont to be at his side. When Kevin finally woke up from his coma - that was only the beginning of a long road to recovering from his Traumatic Brain Injury. From language to vision, motor skills to memory, Kevin had to come to terms with his new impairments.

This is the story told in The Crash Reel - a film by two-time Academy Award nominated filmmaker, Lucy Walker. The Crash Reel is screening at The Berkshire International Film Festival on Friday at 6:30pm at The Triplex in Great Barrington, MA.

    Millions know their voices, but few know their names. In his compelling new film 20 Feet From Stardom, award-winning director Morgan Neville shines a spotlight on the untold true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21st century.

20 Feet From Stardom is the opening night film at The Berkshire International Film Festival - it screens tonight at The Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, MA at 6pm. The film features interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger and Sting to name just a few. 

  One of the backup singers featured in the film is the incomparable, Darlene Love - and she will be in attendance at The Mahaiwe.

From her first number one recording, “He’s A Rebel”, through her string of label hits with legendary producer Phil Spector, to the countless songs she sang backup on for artists like Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, Cher and Aretha Franklin, Darlene Love has blazed a trail of success in the music industry and was inducted into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

David Greenberger has just released his latest CD, So Tough, recorded with his new band, A Strong Dog (Kevin Maul, Mitch Throop, and Matthew Loiacono). For decades, David has collected stories from elderly people. Rather than portraying them as repositories of wisdom and memory, Greenberger illuminates their full and present humanity. David's monologues are entwined with live music in a show that is emotionally rich, charming, funny and evocative.

The works all draw from David's conversations with the elderly in nursing homes, senior centers and mealsites. Some reflect memory loss or other aspects of cognitive decline, while others simply mirror the process of two people coming to know one another through conversation and listening.

David Greenberger and A Strong Dog will perform at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY on May 31st at 8pm.