Daily Archives: May 17, 2011

Jim Brochu portrays theater legend Zero Mostel at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield

BSC’s Stage 2 season opens with award-winning one-man show Zero Hour

By Lesley Ann Beck

Actor Jim Brochu, who brings his award-winning one-man show about Zero Mostel to Barrington Stage Company (BSC) this week, remembers the day he first met Zero Mostel—it was May 13, 1962, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum had just opened on Broadway. Zero Mostel played the lead, of course, a role for which he won the Tony Award, and, said Brochu, in a recent telephone interview, “I’ve never seen anybody funnier in my life.”

Brochu went to see the show because a family friend, David Burns, was playing the role of Senex. Brochu was thirteen years old and enrolled in a military school at the time; he was wearing his uniform when he went backstage after the show to greet his friend.
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Folk music legend Tom Paxton performs at the Colonial

American folk music icon Tom Paxton will perform a solo acoustic concert at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on May 21 at 8. Paxton’s enduring career as a singer and songwriter has lasted for more than forty-five years, from … Continue reading

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Local authors pen novels, memoir

Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck In her new literary thriller, A Stranger Like You (The Viking Press/Penguin Group), Elizabeth Brundage (whose two previous novels were set in Albany, N.Y., and Stockbridge, Mass.) gives us a gritty, authentic Los Angeles as … Continue reading

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Edith Wharton on Audio from Berkshire Media Artists offers three classic short stories

Reviewed by Lesley Ann Beck A society matron schemes to have her estranged husband appear at their daughter’s wedding; a socialite awaits the reviews of her first published novel with dread; and a woman shunned by society for being a … Continue reading

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The O Solo Mama Mia Festival opens Thursday in a pop-up theater in Pittsfield

O Solo Mama Mia, WAM Theatre’s festival of solo works written and performed by women, runs Thursday to Sunday, May 12 to 15, in a pop-up theater in the Storefront Artist Project space at 31 South Street in downtown Pittsfield, … Continue reading

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