The cultural highlights for our region this weekend include new plays, indie-folk, opera, German classical music … plus a whole lot more.
WAM Theatre in Lenox, Mass., begins its 12th season with an Online Fresh Takes Play Reading of LETTERS TO KAMALA, streaming beginning this Sunday through Sunday, March 21. Playwright Rachel Lynett conjures three female American political leaders of the past who share their wisdom, perspective, and wry humor with vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Charlotta Bass was the first Black woman candidate for vice president, Charlene Mitchell was the first Black woman to run for president, and Patsy Matsu Takemoto Mink was the first woman of color to be elected to the House of Representatives and the first Asian-American to run for president. For more info visit www.WAMTheatre.com.
Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass., is celebrating its 10th Annual 10X10 New Play Festival, part of the 2021 10X10 Upstreet Arts Festival in Pittsfield. The 10X10 New Play Festival will be filmed live on the Mainstage and will stream online this weekend and next. Plays in the program are about Lizzie Borden, Cupid, brownies laced with pot, and a whole lot more. Visit www.barringtonstageco.org. for more details.
The Albany-based indie-folk outfit the Magdalens perform live from the stage of Spencertown Academy on Saturday at 7:30 as part of the Academy's Roots & Shoots Concert series. The Magdalens play original songs and covers drawn from a unique blend of Americana, post-punk, and indie classics. The group features Renée DaVink as lead singer and songwriter, Britany Orlebeke on violin, and John Caplis on guitar. ?No registration is necessary and the concert streams live on the academy’s YouTube channel at 7:30.
The irrepressible Hershey Felder, who explores the work of various artists and composers through his one-man shows, tackles Puccini on Sunday at 8pm in his Live from Florence series, brought to us via the Berkshire Theatre Group in Pittsfield. Performed on location in Lucca, Italy, in the very home where Puccini was born, the program recounts the great composer’s scandalous life, his female characters, and how the real women in his life affected the women he created on stage in such operas as La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. More info is available at berkshiretheatregroup.org.
This week’s new BSO NOW ONLINE video stream features Giancarlo Guerrero leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra in an all-German program of Kurt Weill’s Suite from The Threepenny Opera and Hindemith’s Concert Music for strings and brass, and chamber music featuring Florence Price’s Five Folksongs in Counterpoint, in a themed concert called "A Fragile Peace: Between The Wars," streaming now through April 10. Visit www.bso.org/now for details.
And finally, there’s quite a lineup on Sunday night at 7pm at the Falcon in Marlboro, N.Y., featuring a trio of amazing musicians, including keyboardist Brian Mitchell, who worked with the late Levon Helm, drummer Shawn Pelton of the Saturday Night Live band, and bassist Tony Garnier, best known for his many decades as the musical director of Bob Dylan’s band for almost the entirety of the Nobel Prize-winner’s so-called Never Ending Tour.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com
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