The cultural highlights in our region this weekend include comedy; chamber music; modern jazz; multimedia; new plays; vocal music; and a whole lot more.
Absurdist comedian Jo Firestone performs in Club B10 at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Mass., on Saturday at 8pm. Joe Pera returns to MASS MoCA to warm up the crowd for Firestone, whose off-kilter talents are on display in the HBO series “High Maintenance” and in her writing for the Chris Gethard Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Also at MASS MoCA, “Are you really my friend?”, an exhibition of hundreds of photographs by Maine-based artist Tanja Hollander that explores the nature of friendships real and virtual, opens on Saturday. An opening reception for the exhibit will be held on Saturday, March 18, from 5:30pm to 7pm, in conjunction with openings for new exhibitions by Liz King, Steffani Jemison, and Chris Domenick.
Bach cello suites performed alternately by Yehuda Hanani and Kivie Cahn-Lipman will be showcased in “The Intimate Bach” at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, Mass., on Saturday at 6pm, as part of the Close Encounter with Music series.
The Mark Turner Quartet, led by the acclaimed tenor saxophonist, performs in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall at Williams College on Monday, February 20, at 8pm. The concert is free and open to the public. Turner leads a quartet of kindred spirits, with trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Marcus Gilmore. The subtle volatility of their sound is a mesmerizing musical experience.
The sixth annual 10X10 New Play Festival at Barrington Stage Company is taking place now through Sunday, March 5, at BSC’s St. Germain Stage in Pittsfield. The event, part of the 2017 10X10 Upstreet Arts Festival in Pittsfield, features ten new 10-minute plays performed in repertory by a cast of a half-dozen professional actors, directed by Julianne Boyd and Matthew Penn. This year’s playwrights are Suzanne Bradbeer, Marilyn Millstone, Annette Storckman, Allie Costa, James McLindon, Gwendolyn Rice, Tom Coash, Scott Mullen, Susan Middaugh, and Ann Marie Shea. The cast of the 10X10 New Play Festival features returnees Matt Neely, Dina Thomas, and Peggy Pharr Wilson, along with newcomers Jane Pfitsch, Lucky Gretzinger, and Douglas Rees.
“20th Century Music for Strings and Women’s Voices,” a program of works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, Camille Saint-Saëns, Poulenc, and Foote, takes place at The School | Jack Shainman Gallery in Kinderkhook, N.Y., on Sunday at 1pm, as part of the Concerts in the Village. Artistic director David Smith will conduct the Broad Street Orchestra and the women of the Broad Street Chorale in the 20th concert of the series, the third at The School. Soloists include sopranos Amanda Boyd and Caroline Dunigan and flutist Elizabeth Chinery.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkishire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available online at rogovoyreport.com