Larry Murray, Berkshire On Stage, Feb 2012

You can’t have a discussion of art these days without bringing technology into the subject, and for that matter, politics. Even old opera singers can have revelations about how politics affects the world around them, while young artists consider the possibilities and limitations that technology offers in creating art and helping lead meaningful lives. If this all sounds a bit like a TED Conference, it’s because WAM Theatre has always thought outside the traditional box. The theatre company itself exists not only for performances, but as a new way to bring support to essential charitable or nonprofit causes.

2012 sees the company continuing to innovate and expand its welcome to everyone in the Berkshires using theatre as a fulcrum upon which they balance their concerns as both women and artists.

Artists in Residence at the WordxWord Festival

WAM will spend five days in Pittsfield as artists in residence, opening up the devising process to the public and completing their residency by presenting a public performance of the material created during the festival. The piece will center around the impact of technology on young women’s lives and will include interviews with community members as springboard material. The project will be directed by WAM co-founder Leigh Strimbeck and marks WAM’s official launch of devising original works of ensemble theatre that center around issues of importance in the lives of women. This project is sponsored in part by a grant from the Pittsfield Cultural Council.

Jim Benson, founder of WordxWord and WAM Theatre board member says, “Part of WordxWord’s mission is presenting new works, and new performers. WAM’s new project ‘Women and Technology’ is a perfect example of that. This piece will be current in real-time, and will have a lot to say about where we are, and will question a lot of our assumptions about what role technology and staying current with technology is doing to us.”

World Premiere of “The Old Mezzo” by Susan Dworkin

Presenting the WAM donation to the Women’s Fund of Western MA from the earlier production of Melancholy Play-Carla Oleska, CEO, Shonda Pettiford, Board President, Kristen van Ginhoven, Leigh Strimbeck, WAM Theatre co-Artistic Directors

In the fall of 2012 WAM will present the World Premiere of The Old Mezzo by Berkshire based writer Susan Dworkin. The play concerns the political awakening of a great opera singer, who must risk her fame and success to preserve the freedom that is so essential to the arts. The beneficiary for this production will be a Berkshire based women’s organization. Ms. Dworkin is best known for her books The Viking in the Wheat Field and The Nazi Officer’s Wife as well as her play All Day Suckers.

The Old Mezzo is a one act play about Alyssa, who used to be a great opera singer. Now she teaches — not exactly singing – but rather the politics of singing. Her lesson is her story, and her students play characters she has known, so that they will learn the responsibilties of the artist in a dangerous world.

Wildly imaginative, fanciful and hard-hitting, The Old Mezzo is perfect for this young company since 5 of the 6 players are young themselves. Whether it is staged with recorded music or live, or a combination of both is of special interest to me.

The 24 Hour Theatre Project at Shakespeare & Company

First rehearsal of ‘Melancholy Play’-photo by Kaitlyn Squires

The previously announced 24 Hour Theatre Project on April 13-14.It will bring together playwrights, directors, designers, stage managers and actors from both the Berkshires and the Capital Region. Together they will be armed and creative, with the common task of mounting 5 new short works by women playwrights in 24 Hours. (Full Story Here)

Kristen van Ginhoven, WAM’s Artistic Director says, “We look forward to collaborating with more local professional artists in the 24hr Project, to creating our first official devised theatre project at the WordxWord Festival and to ending our third season with the World Premiere of a play by a local playwright that will benefit a local women’s organization. We are so grateful for all the incredible support WAM has received since launching two years ago and are excited for the WAM Adventure to continue in 2012!”

Kristen van Ginhoven part of Stratford Festival’s 42nd Street

Additionally WAM announces that Artistic Director, Kristen van Ginhoven, has been selected for a spot in the Stratford Festival of Canada’s Michael Langham Workshop for Classical Direction. While at Stratford Kristen will assistant direct 42nd Street, directed by Gary Griffin.

“The WAM Theatre Board congratulates Kristen on this prestigious opportunity”, says Nick Webb, President of the Board. “We look forward to all she will bring to WAM from her time at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.”

For more information: www.WAMTheatre.com

More about WAM Theatre

Inspired by the book ‘Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide’ by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, WAM Theatre was founded in 2009 by professional theatre artists Kristen van Ginhoven and Leigh Strimbeck. WAM’s philanthropic mission is two-fold; first, producing theatrical events for everyone, with a focus on women theatre artists and/or the stories of women and girls; second, to donate a portion of proceeds from those events to organizations that benefit women and girls. WAM Theatre is based in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and the Capital Region of New York State. www.WAMTheatre.com

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WAM co-founder Leigh Strimbeck participated in the Berkshire’s first Pecha Kucha on International Women’s Day. She did her speech in iambic pentameter. Below is the text and some photos. Thanks to Berkshire Museum for the photos. WAM is proud to have been part of this first event, especially as it fell on International Women’s Day!

Good evening.
When you give an artist a tight framework
They’re driven to bust the frame to smith’reens
Or tighten the screws for the mere exercise
Of challenging their creativity to meet
A prescribed definition of commun-
ication hence my talk today has been
Written  in iambic pentameter
Hoping to tell you a tale and give you a grin.

Once upon at time, two females were born
In countries known for fair equality
(Canada and the US of A)
Raised up they were and right educated
And while not nearly in the one percent
A list of their schools shows that fortune bent
In their favor: Bennington, Emerson, NYU
To name but a few where they both studied
In theater where their hearts grew large
After many a year teaching, travelling
Performing and the like their stars crossed
In Upstate New York,  where their theater geekdom
Sparked passionate discussions, comparison
Of notes and declamations of Dionysean desire
Then as final fuel to the fire a book:
“Hark! OMG! & Behold” they cried
To one another when first they spied
Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof
And Sheryl Wudunn a book which
Espoused “Education of girls is
The issue major of this century”
So they met in two thousand and nine
With this vexing question foremost
‘What’ll we do to create opportunity
For both the female theater artist
And women and girls world over who !
Need a lift, a gift, from those who have 
So much?” We know, we know – WAM, WAM Theatre
The world needs another 501c3!
We’ll dedicate ourselves part time to
This unique double philanthropy!

We’ll do 2 plays a year and rent a place
And each time, each show, a percentage
Of proceeds will go to a beneficiary
That helps women and girls here and abroad! 
This idea may be, shall we say, the word
Oft used when women step out and try something new
“Crazy” but here’s what we both knew: these are
Crazy times, there’s no use denying it
So let’s get down, let’s go on and do it:
We’ll create theater work for us women 
Directors who have it tough to find a gig
And for women playwrights who voices don’t
Get heard enough even here even now
In the United States of America –
We will do theatre that is not too sad
Plays that lift up hearts and inquiring minds
Pay our artists every time as best we can
and you’d be surprised how rare that t’is
For an upstart company with no angel, alas
But having both been theater artists long enough
To know that being asked to work for free is
A constant, and a low blow. We know
There is an energy we feel, we see
Every time an audience gathers to view
A work of theater having dragged themselves
Up and away from distractions galore
And made the strong choice to risk a slice
Of precious time to witness something novel
A community forms however brief
But the altruistic space is massive!

Kickstarter gave us a platform so we
Shot a video and put it out there
Thirty-five hundred please
Cried we, and getting just a tad bit more
Were off to the races and heading towards
Our first big work Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play

Stunning writing by one of America’s best
On love at first sight and our amygdala-liness!
(Hey, Shakespeare made up words too!)
We chose our second beneficiary the
Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts+
Produced, paid our artists and wrote a check
For $1500 to this fantastic group

Right away planning for our next deal
The fundraising 24 Hour Theater Festival
Goal of which is to bring Berkshire Artists
Together with Capital Region Thespians
Writing, acting, producing five plays+
Brand new in 24 “frantastic” hours
Now, this is big fun you must understand
Stretching our creativity like —–taffy.

Onward cried we and jumped right back in
(We’re in Spring 2011 now)
With the O Solo Mama Mia Festival
Producing 5 female performers
Over two weekends in two venues
Solo plays on the Golden Age, Depression,
How to be a Friend of Sappho’s in 10 Days,
Katrina’s devastation and, as well,
the healing powers of the Weinermobile
Bridged two states, weekends, and diffr’ing venues
WAM to Troy New York and Pittsfield, Mass
Then giving to Edna’s Hospital In Somaliland
Six hundred and dollars forty
Enough to train, for that countryside
To gain one community midwife
Reducing the rate of fistula and death
For women laboring in a land with
Maternal health care at a standard too low
WAM! Women’s. Action. Movement is here t’stay!

And galloping on not wanting to lose
Momentum gained in a hard won way
The Attic, the Pearls and Three Fine Girls
At Barrington Stage two appeared
For our longest run yet written by
Five Canadian women and performed
By three thespians local and paid
Kristen directed this treat beautifully
which ticket sales allowed us to give
Our highest donation yet to a local beneficiary
Berkshire United Way Teen Pregnancy
Prevention Initiative – handing off 
One thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars!

Social media and relentless posting on Facebook
Twitter and the like allowed us to successfully
Complete two thousand and eleven’s
Hundred by hundred campaign meaning
WAM exceeded our fundraising goals
For the year and continued to plan
Our season ahead: in Lenox we invite 
You to see the 24 Hour Theater
Festival redux with fifty artists meeting
At Shakespeare and Company on April fourteenth
In August come see us create for you,
as company in residence at the
Word by Word Festival a fine and new
Workshop piece of theater which concerns the
Impact of technology on lives of women
Facebook, Twitter, smart phones our second brain
Helping us? Hurting us? A boon or a bane?

And in the fall we bring The Old Mezzo
A meditation on the political
awakening of a great opera singer
by Berkshire resident playwright Suzie
Dworkin whose work is strong and – groovy.

Final Statistics to leave you with we brag:
Over one thousand audience members 
Have seen our events. Our donations have now,
To organizations here and abroad
Reached pretty near five thousand dollars
We’ve work with over 100 theater
artists and proudly say just over
eighty percent have been female.

Education, opportunity, and
Bettering the lives of women and girls
Here and abroad continues to be our thrill
Along with creating the best theater work
That meets the needs of our bill –
But before I depart and risk the malign
Of leaving you with a poor, tragic rhyme,
I want to thank you for turning your ears
To the tale of 2 who set aside fears
And founded a double philanthropy
To celebrate our potential as community
Now indulge me that chance for one last cram:
Remember it, think on it: WAM, WAM, WAM!

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“Theater is not a medium where its practitioners slug along silently in the dark and yet so many of us who make our lives in the theater are so committed to our own projects, so engrossed within our own organizations and deadlines that we don’t often have an opportunity to participate in happenings beyond our individual spheres.

The 24 hour theater project is an incredibly exciting avenue that brings together so many disparate movers and shakers within the theater community and unites us in complete, full-contact collaboration! For me personally, it is a phenomenal and rare opportunity to be inspired by an extraordinary group of theater professionals throughout the Berkshire and Albany regions–many of whom I have not yet had an opportunity to cross pollinate with.  All of us who work in this field work so tirelessly and having 24 hours to come together, to spark new ideas and relationships is such an essential and enriching part of the ongoing creative processes. The concept is so refreshing and ingenious and I am already feeling completely charged! The focus on new work and new collaborators is particularly close to my heart. I can’t wait to see what emerges!”

Suzi Banks Baum, Actor in 2012 24hr Project:

Heart throbbing excitement.
Shaky anticipation.
Honor at being invited.
Cheering all the ‘Yes ands’.
Happy to Tweet, post, blog and photograph.
Really impressed by your thorough plan.
It is the anticipation of going on a very well fitted road trip…nice wheels! great seatmates! good food! unexpected vistas and belly flops! and a nice glass of wine after we return…to aid digestion and still our racing hearts.

Mark Fleischer, Dramaturge 2012 24hr Project (Director 2011):

“Creating new plays in  such an intense environment is bolstered by the opportunity to work with both longtime and new collaborators. I left those 24 hours invigorated and rethinking my own creative process on traditional longer projects. More than that, I felt more connected to this great professional theatre community than ever.”

Jamuna Yvette Sirker, Assistant director 2012 24hr Project (Playwright 2011):

“The WAM/MOPCO 24 Hour Theater is a wonderful time to join in community with fellow theater professionals in the Berkshire and Capital Region.  For me, last year’s event  marked the birth of a new play that went on to Berkshire Fringe Festival and other veneues and is still in development.  Relationships were forged that, in my case, led to new and exciting opportunities.  Also, it’s just a BLAST!”  

Brad Berridge, Sound Designer 2012 24hr Project (Sound Designer 2011):

“The 24 Theatre Festival is artistically rejuvenating! Reminds me of the reasons I became an artist.”

Ted Phelps, Actor 2012 24hr Project (Audience Member 2011):

This event was absolutely a night out. The word “Hoot” came out of everyone’s mouth after seeing it. But “hoot” is only the frothy surface of the phenomenon, reflecting the joy of being in the middle of pure creativity. We giggle like kids, maybe because it resonates the ancient memory of being five, sitting in the sandbox, damp and dirty, making silly and somber comedies and tragedies all afternoon with Sally and Jimmy. Out nothing.

WHERE:

Shakespeare & Company’s Bernstein Theatre
70 Kemble Street
Lenox, MA

WHEN:

Saturday, April 14 at 8pm

TICKETS:

$15 general seating
1-800-838-3006 or http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/217238 to order tickets

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“The WAM Theatre Board congratulates Kristen on this prestigious opportunity”, says Nick Webb, President of the Board. “We look forward to all she will bring to WAM from her time in Stratford.”

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          Analyzing the interactions of sisters is a bit like striking a wooden match on velvet: if there’s a spark at all, you lose it instantly only to be left in dark confusion. With the three Fine sisters, Jojo, Jayne and Jelly, it would be a waste of energy and time to even remove the match from its waterproof camper’s box. These three women, from giddy girlhood to masterly maturity, move, talk, caper and plop so quickly that it would take five stenographers capable of accurately jotting down dialogue at 135 words per minute to even approach maintaining a record of what was said by whom to whom about what and from which perspective.

          Jojo and Jayne spar verbally and physically. Jelly and Jayne converge physically and mentally. Jelly is often out on a limb, with a confession hanging off her lips, unnoticed by the other two. Jojo is easily insulted and vaguely dangerous when wet. Jayne is on the fence about her personal life and her sexuality and is building a fence around her professional life. When these three come together in the family manse to attend the death of their father and then have to throw him a party as a wake all hell breaks loose in a ninety minute one-act extravaganza with a cast of over ninety people we never see but we meet in our imaginations thanks to the Fine girls.

          Under the superb direction of Kristen van Ginhoven the three actresses portraying the current generation of Fines have a superb cocktail shaker and salad tosser. Van Ginhoven keeps them rattling, shaking and tossing with so much verve and vigor that the vinegar thickens with the oil and the vodka melds with the olive juice. The result on stage at Barrington Stage Company’s Stage 2 is an intoxicating melange of ingredients that are so rich and fulfilling that it really doesn’t matter that someone left the cake out in the rain. Though the play covers a week in the current time (and incidents in the past), the space never seems unoccupied and we are never left without something to ponder at the ends or beginnings of scenes.

          Deann Simmons Halper plays Jayne, the middle sister, the intellectual troublemaker whose business sense is sharper than a whale’s tusk. Jayne’s interpersonal skills with her sisters is a mixed bag and Halper manages these quixotic changes of attitude with a reality that is honed and painful. She has mastered the ironic head-toss; she is in control of the one-beat pose; she can batter with her voice and caress with her smile. There seems to be little unavailable to this actress as she portrays a complex woman whose career and sexuality (straight, gay, gay, straight) are bobbing around in a tub of over-ripe apples.

          She has sharp competition in the life-changes from Barbara Cardillo as older sister Jojo. Cardillo plays within the confines of the written role by stretching her words into aggressive assaults on her siblings. Her sweetness is less appealing than her bitterness and that leaves you gasping for breath. She takes Jojo to extraordinary psychotic places with ease and grace, then brings her back to a softer, safer space, an island of Jojo, a magical spot in a desert sea. It is a remarkable adventure when she reconnects with her wedding dress and a carving knife simultaneously. Both of these actresses, with all of this going on, manage to convey a picture of sisterly love that would make Chekhov’s three sisters blush with embarrassment at their own reticence in their relationship.

          Taking an unusual turn in a dynamic career of outlandish characters, Karen Lee portrays the baby of the family, Jelly, with a light touch and a sweetness that may mirror a side of her she rarely exposes publicly. Here is a woman confronting the demons of a difficult childhood, the passions of a young adulthood that is unsupported by her older sisters. Lee works hard at not working hard here and the gentleness she brings forth in this character makes her the standout in a cast of superb character actors. This actress makes more out of little than anyone I’ve seen in a long while. When Jelly loses her composure and freaks out, it is with the greatest of personal pleasure tamped down with perfect humility and just a touch of shame at her own needs being revealed. If you like this actress, see this play; this is the role you will remember and measure her future work against.

          Through the generosity of Barrington Stage the fine set by Juliana Von Haubrich gives these women everything they need to show the lives of these characters. Arthur Oliver’s clever costumes aid and abet the work of the company as does Ryan Winkles fight choreography. Jeff Roudabush and Nick Webb have done a beautiful job lighting this play and the superb sound design work by Brad Berridge fills in those other ninety roles without missing a trick.

          WAM is still new on the scene but this current production should assure them a place in the pantheon of top-drawer theater companies in the Berkshires. Their productions have both artistic and philanthropic goals which makes them unique. Their focus on women in the arts is not exclusive but in this production no man could make much of a mark on stage against this triumphant triumvirate of women. The play is Canadian, by the way, but there is no northern exposure in this set of characters. Instead there is the hot-blood of frighteningly real women who can stand on their own six feet without the aid of Freud, Jung or Ghandi. You’ll be glad you left your therapist-ears-and-eyes at home; you’ll get more than you bargained for at this show.

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By Jeffrey Borak, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Friday October 28, 2011

PITTSFIELD

For Berkshires actress Karen Lee, playing Jelly in the upcoming WAM Theatre production of “The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls” cuts close to the bone.

Jelly is the youngest of the three Fine sisters, an artist with a passion for boxes who thinks outside the box, an eccentric who is consistently misread and underestimated by her older siblings.

“It’s like that for me in my own family,” Lee said during a pre-rehearsal interview at the Spectrum Playhouse in Lee. “I’m the youngest of three. I’m free-spirited and I’ve always been underestimated.”

“It turns out that Jelly is the straightest of the three,” says Kristen van Ginhoven, the play’s director and artistic director of WAM Theatre.

The other two are Jojo (Barbara Cardillo), the oldest, a university professor obsessed with German playwright Bertolt Brecht, and Jayne (Deann Simmons Halper), a bisexual predatory corporate exec.

The production — which explores the dynamics among the estranged siblings as they come together in the attic of their recently deceased father’s house to sift through his belongings and memorabilia — officially opens next Friday evening at 8 at Barrington Stage Company’s Stage 2, where the comedy is scheduled to run weekends through Nov. 20. There’s a preview Thursday, also at 8 p.m.

In keeping with WAM’s mission, a portion of the proceeds of the entire run will be donated to a local service organization, in this case Berkshire United Way Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative.

Collectively written by Jennifer Brewin, Leah Cherniak, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Alisa Palmer and Martha Ross, “The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls” was a big hit in the writers’ native Canada when it premiered in 1995 at Theatre Columbu in Toronto.

“It had productions all over the country,” said van Ginhoven, a Canadian by birth. “It was all the rage when I graduated theater school in Canada.”

Van Ginhoven had all but forgotten the play until she found it by chance on her bookshelf. A play she says she’s wanted to do, it seemed the perfect contrasting choice, she said, to follow WAM’s inaugural production, “The Melancholy Play,” earlier this year.

The intermissionless “The Attic ” shows the Fine sisters as both their younger and adult selves.

“The transitions are very quick,” van Ginhoven said. “There are no set changes. They go quickly between their younger selves and their adult selves.”

It’s a fateful journey for the Fines.

“As children, being raised under the same roof, they naturally were always together,” van Ginhoven said. “As adults, they have virtually no contact with each other. But there are some things you can’t change in a family. They still know how to push each other’s buttons.”

One of the major challenges for Halper has been to clarify the differences between her character, Jayne, as an adult and as her younger self.

“I’ve been looking at her repression, her relationships, especially with her sisters, how those relationships have changed [or not changed] over the years,” Halper said.

Among the issues in the play is the tension between Jelly and Jojo over which one was dad’s favorite.

“I know I’m not,” Halper said of Jayne, “and that’s what’s so frustrating.”

“I’ve always believed I was his favorite,” said Cardillo, whose Jojo shared a love of books with her father, who was a physics professor.

But it’s Jelly who tended their father — virtually alone with the exception of Hospice — in his final months. It’s Jelly who ministered to him, cared for him, was given power of attorney.

“This play really has resonated for me,” Cardillo said. “I have a brother. We have separate viewpoints, differing world views. We’re redefining ourselves, our relationship and that’s the principle issue among the Fine sisters.”

“The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Sisters” is the result of three years of writing, rewriting, tweaking, fine tuning, improvising dialogue, much of which wound up in the finished play, according to van Ginhoven, who discussed the play with one of the writers as she was beginning work on it.

While the five collaborators have since gone on to individual careers in theater and performance, there is talk among them, van Ginhoven says, of writing a sequel that would pick up the Fine sisters 10 years after the events in
this play.

Van Ginhoven is hopeful the play will resonate not only with female and male siblings but also with those who have never had siblings.

“My father used to say that family feuds are a waste of time,” van Ginhoven said. “The play talks about our ability to see the other side, to find the lightness.

“I’m hoping that people who see our production will feel they’ve been invited, included, made part of a communuity; that they’re not just observers, witnesses. They are participants.”

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The Story of WAM Theatre

By Kristen van Ginhoven

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The title alone should be enough to get your attention: How to Be a Lesbian in 10 Days or Less. It’s one of five short solo works written and performed by women, comprising a two-state festival with an equally whimsical title, O Solo Mama Mia! And for this straight male, Leigh Hendrix’s fondly satirical swipe at lesbian life was the high point of the festival so far.

O Solo, which began in Troy, N.Y., last weekend and concludes this week in Pittsfield, is part of the continuing effort by Berkshire-based WAM Theatre to “bridge the gap between the two regions and share our work and talents,” according to co-founder Kristen van Ginhoven. WAM itself has a two-sided mission—to foreground work by and about women, while giving a portion of ticket sales to organizations that “lift up the lives of women and girls.” Proceeds from the festival will go to the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in Somaliland to support midwife training.

The framing device for How to Be a Lesbian is one of those high-powered self-improvement seminars aimed at “changing your life”—in this case, your sexual orientation. Our workshop leader is one Butchy McDyke (and I promise you that’s the dumbest gag in the show), whose lessons include tips on framing your own coming-out story as an “engaging narrative that will make you stand out in the cutthroat world of lesbianism.” They are interlaced with a delicious sendup of performance art with a self-absorbed radical feminist, and a couple of stories from Hendrix’s own journey of lesbian self-discovery. The magic of this show comes from its seamless marriage of pointed mockery with personal narrative, delivered by a witty and delightfully surprising performer.

Camilla Schade attempts a similar blend of the satirical with the personal in Performing Therapy, with somewhat less success. Here we’re in a group therapy session full of psychobabble, therapeutic exercises and motivational epigrams (“Failure is an opportunity for people not to expect anything of you anymore”) with excursions into Schade’s very real struggles with depression and disappointment. Both sides of the equation are engaging, but don’t quite mesh.

The third piece I saw in Troy, Paris 1890—Unlaced, a multi-character evocation of La Belle Epoque seen through the eyes of two high-society courtesans, won’t be on the bill in Pittsfield since it had a previous run at Ventfort Hall in Lenox. And I missed My Salvation Has a First Name: A Wienermobile Journey, Robin Gelfenbien’s account of her adventures behind the wheel of the Oscar Mayer promotional vehicle.

That one is joined in Pittsfield by Stories from Hell and High Water, which examines the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in a devastated New Orleans neighborhood. Performed by Richarda Abrams, it’s a one-act version of Yvette Jamuna Sirker’s full-length play, focusing on a Latina schoolteacher and six of her neighbors.

This week’s shows, playing in a rotating repertory, are a collaboration with Pittsfield’s Storefront Artists Project, where they accompany an exhibit by 11 visual artists celebrating empowerment and opportunity for women.

O Solo Mama Mia!: May 12-15, Storefront Artists Gallery, 31 South St., Pittsfield. Visit www.wamtheatre.com for schedule and tickets.

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By Milton Bass, Special to Berkshires Week of Berkshire Eagle

Thursday July 14, 2011

While the town of Lenox is churning itself into incomprehensibility over its impeccableness, two young Canadian women have described the soul of Berkshire County perfectly.

Both Catherine Taylor-Williams and Kristen van Ginhoven have their own theaters, the first The Wharton Salon in Lenox and the second the WAM Theatre in Pittsfield.

What makes them want to live and work in Berkshire County is what they described as “the culture” of the area. They are not talking so much about the regional theaters, the museums and the music and dance centers. Their emphasis is on the people who live here on both a year-round and seasonal basis. Some of them are borners, but a large portion migrated here strictly because of the atmosphere. Their souls could sense something that increased their appetites, that satisfied their hungers, that stretched their minds and comforted their bodies. They make culture a way of life as well as a word.

Taylor-Williams had trained as an actress in Canada and had toured the country forward and back, up and down, until, as she puts it, “I had run out of road. I was 29 years old and needed new places, new experiences.”

A course taken with Dennis Krausnick, director of training at Shakespeare & Company, opened a new road for Taylor-Williams, and also a new husband, Robert Serrell, a fellow actor. After seven years as an actor-manager at Shakespeare, Taylor-Williams left the company for other pursuits.

One thing she has pursued is restoring theater at The Mount, the former home of writer Edith Wharton. Shakespeare & Company had been doing a series of plays at The Mount, mostly works that Dennis Krausnick had adapted from Wharton novels. The head of The Mount, Susan Wissler, wanted to continue the theater work, and Taylor-Williams wanted a theater company, so she raised her own funds in 2008 and has put on plays the last three years.

By coincidence, Kristin van Ginhoven, also at the age of 29, found herself in limbo while living in Toronto. She had started her career as an actress but lost her nerve and got a teaching degree at Queen’s University which resulted in a four-year teaching stint in Belgium.

“I loved teaching at the college level,” she said, “but I wanted to be a director.”

Then she fell in love with a Britisher named Nick Webb who teaches computer science at Union College, and after their marriage they moved to the Berkshires. Her present career was inspired by reading a book, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity,” by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn.

“It was a call to action for women and girls to take action over their own careers,” said van Ginhoven, “and the book made it seem possible to me. Leigh Strimbeck and I formed WAM (Women’s Action Movement) in 2009 to benefit women.”

To raise money, van Ginhoven wrote 100 letters to family and friends, and enough of them contributed to stage the first production in 2010. Theater management chose not to pick a permanent theater site but to do productions in rented spaces that fulfill their audience requirements, which range from 50 to 99 patrons. Three plays have been produced, and they plan a fourth for November of this year.

“We Canadians,” said Ginhoven, with a glance at Taylor-Williams, “learn the rules, but we are both stubborn women who want to live and work in the Berkshires and hire local people and create a ‘Berkshire atmosphere.’”

“We have no theater building plans, either,” said Taylor-Williams. “Right now I just want a Wharton house, a relationship to Wharton’s own home. We may form a board in the next year, but what we are most interested in right now is creating an artistic legacy that will benefit both us and the Mount.”

The new work, “Autre Temps…” has been adapted by Dennis Krausnick from a Wharton short story and deals with “divorce, 1962, American-style.”

As you can see from the picture, both women are as good looking as they are determined, and you can be sure that the determination will only grow.

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