The cultural highlights for our region this weekend include dance, theater, Broadway, experimental music, chamber music … plus a whole lot more.
Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass., kicks off its summer season this weekend with “Who Could Ask For Anything More?: The Songs of George Gershwin,” an original jukebox musical featuring the Gershwins’ greatest hits, including songs like “I Got Rhythm,” “Embraceable You” and “Summertime”. Also at Barrington Stage this weekend are previews of “Chester Bailey,” starring real-life father and son, Tony Award winner Reed Birney and Ephraim Birney, as a doctor and patient during WWII.
At Berkshire Theatre Group in Stockbridge, the summer gets under way this weekend with a staging of Oscar Wilde’s comedy, “The Importance of Being Earnest.” And “The Dark Master,” written by psychiatrist-turned- playwright Kuro Tanino, gets a staging at PS21 in Chatham, N.Y., this weekend, running tonight through Sunday. The experimental program has been called "part fable, part dream play, part David Lynch surrealism,” which sounds pretty good to me.
Tonight at 7 at the Foundry in West Stockbridge, feminist folk quartet Ruby Mack perform songs from their new album “Devil Told Me,” which updates the story of Adam and Eve. And Chris Barron, lead singer of the band Spin Doctors, brings his quirky songs and tales from the road, opening for the likes of the Rolling Stones, to the Egremont Barn in South Egremont, Mass., tonight at 8pm.
Passion Fruit Dance Company brings its New York City-based street/club dance theater to MASS MoCA in North Adams on Saturday at 4pm. And Cellist Yegor Dyachkov and pianist Ilya Poletaev perform works by Bach, Enescu, Ligeti and Brahms on Saturday night at 8pm in the Tannery Pond concert series at the Darrow School in New Lebanon, N.Y.
Seven Count brings its experimental music to Dewey Hall in Sheffield, Mass., on Saturday at 7:30pm, as part of the Other Sounds series. On their latest album, the instruments the trio plays include flugelhorn, electronics, RC helicopter, bells, slide whistles, ballet slippers, and wolf masks, on songs with titles including “Take a Walk on the Milo Side,” “Caves of Altered Miros,” and “Where Have You Gone Toe.”
Musicians of the New York Philharmonic, including Sheryl Staples, Principal Associate concertmaster; Yulia Ziskel, First Violin; Cong Wu, Assistant Principal Viola; and Eric Bartlett, recently retired Assistant Principal Cello, will perform for Clarion Concerts Annual Gala on Saturday at 3pm at the Circa 1799 Barn in Ancramdale, N.Y., performing string quartets by Mozart and Schubert.
Hudson Hall hosts bestselling author Mark Bittman for a book event and signing for “Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, From Sustainable to Suicidal” tonight at 6pm. Also in Hudson, on Sunday at 4pm, The Don Byron Quartet headlines a free Juneteenth Concert at the city’s waterfront park, also featuring the Matthew Shipp Trio and the Alan Palmer Trio.
And Living Colour frontman Corey Glover takes the stage at the Falcon in Marlboro, N.Y. tonight at 7pm.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of the Rogovoy Report, available at rogovoyreport.com
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