Shakespeare & Company's flagship Education Program, the Fall Festival of Shakespeare brings more than 500 students together each year for a nine-week exploration of Shakespeare's plays. The Fall Festival has deep roots in the communities it serves, some with two or even three generations of students participating through 10 high schools in Massachusetts and New York. In collaboration with Shakespeare & Company directors, production designers, and costume designers, students rehearse and produce Shakespeare plays they perform in their own communities, then at Shakespeare & Company for the public and each other during four exhilarating days of the Fall Festival Weekend.

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Lenox Memorial High School’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Shakespeare & Company

Taconic Hills Jr/Sr High School’s As You Like It

Pittsfield High School’s The Tempest

Berkshire Waldorf High School’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will

Only 32 years old, saxophonist-songwriter-singer Grace Kelly has been on stage for more than half her life, and is recognized as an unequivocal musical prodigy. Her latest album, “Grace Kelly with Strings: At the Movies,” adapts classic and current movie themes for an orchestral setting, along the lines of the historic “Charlie Parker with Strings”. The new release –her fifteenth– will be performed with a full string section augmented by the Kids 4 Harmony advanced ensemble. The limited VIP seating includes Meet and Greet and photo opportunity with the artist, plus a signed poster.

Berkshires Jazz presents: Grace Kelly With Strings plus Kids 4 Harmony

Golnar, a punkish Iranian-American millennial, returns home to her mother Nasrin for the anniversary of her father’s passing, and walks into hoards of family memorabilia that her grandmother Mamani has moved in with her. This comedic and touching play is about generational differences, grief, control, and learning to let go; but more than anything, it’s a love story to immigrant mothers.

Three Tall Persian Women

Experience a play in its early stages, when possibilities are endless! Returning for its third year, Plays in Process offers a glimpse into the inner workings of play creation as new works are readied for the stage, with lively talkbacks with playwrights and performers accompanying every performance.

Plays in Process

The Winter’s Tale is an odyssey through a world where kingdoms collide, betrayal weaves its web, and love battles against all odds. Magic, mystery, and a man-eating bear feature as the story unfolds, examining the consequences of jealousy and the power of forgiveness.

The Winter’s Tale: An Enhanced Staged Reading

Two siblings, Sheila and Thomas, were both born and raised in a small, New England fishing village where they still live. This darkly comic play explores how siblings’ lives are intertwined, what we owe to the people who know and love us best, and how family members’ needs and desires may push the boundaries of what we can be expected to do for others.

Flight of the Monarch

Anna lives an insular life on an underpopulated island in the Great Lakes. She has few friends and likes it that way. Her quiet, controlled world is turned upside down by the arrival of a charming but secretive new neighbor Dutch. For different reasons, Dutch and Anna have each retreated from mainstream society. Can their connection survive the revelations that must inevitably come with true intimacy?

The Islanders

The Comedy of Errors takes over Shakespeare & Company’s outdoor mainstage this summer – The Bard’s fast-paced and farcical story of mistaken identities that begins with two sets of twins separated by a storm at sea, and culminates in a raucous series of misunderstandings and mishaps.

The Comedy of Errors

A waggish collection of Shakespeare’s stories and songs celebrating the heartbeat of the Bard’s words. For folks familiar with or new to Shakespeare, this limited run makes for a lively love letter to language and music. After all, if music be the food of love, let’s play on!

Shake It Up: A Shakespeare Cabaret

The Gala begins at 5 pm with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres under the festive Tina Packer Playhouse tents, followed by a unique tribute film in the theater with special live appearances! Next is a splendid, seated dinner from SoMa Catering in the elegant Rose Meadow tent. Cap off your evening with a delectable dessert and an ice cream station featuring specially created flavors by local favorite SoCo Creamery. Then dance the night away to the irresistible beats of DJ Justin Allen!

2024 Annual Gala

Moss and Avis, a sophisticated and successful couple, wake up one morning in an isolated summer house high above a picturesque body of water. The weather’s fine; the view’s magnificent. There’s only one problem — neither of them can remember who they are. When a young woman named Wren arrives, information starts to flood in. But will it help? Her explanations seem only to make Moss and Avis’ world — as well as ours — more terrifying.

A Body of Water

Django Reinhardt’s unmistakable cool and jumpin’ joie de vivre have made him an icon for an unlikely range of luminaries from Carlos Santana to Eric Clapton. Jimi Hendrix named his “big band of gypsies” in tribute, and Willie Nelson adopted his influence in “country-swing.”

Berkshires Jazz presents: The Django Festival Allstars

Enjoy the beauty of our 33-acre Lenox campus as we celebrate and showcase nonprofit organizations from across Berkshire County, including Ventfort Hall, Lenox Library, Drag Story Hour Berkshires, and more. From games to food trucks to live music, there’ll be something for everyone.

Community Day

Community Access to the Arts presents “CATAverse”

On a summer night, in the middle of a field on their midwest farm, a long-married couple sits on folding chairs to observe the seven stages of a lunar eclipse. While watching the celestial phenomenon unfold, the two sip bourbon and reflect on land and legacy, on children and dogs, and the accelerating passage of time. Lunar Eclipse is a new work by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies (Dinner With Friends, Time Stands Still, Collected Stories), making its World Premiere at Shakespeare & Company.

Lunar Eclipse

Murder both intentional and accidental as well as madness both piteous and pretended will haunt the Tina Packer Playhouse as Shakespeare & Company presents a three-performance reading of William Shakespeare’s most memorable tragedy: Hamlet.

Hamlet: A Staged Reading

The World Premiere of Golda’s Balcony, featuring the Elliot Norton Award-winning Annette Miller, was produced at Shakespeare & Company in May 2002 and went on to become the longest-running one-woman play in Broadway history.  The inspiring story of Golda Meir – Russian immigrant, American school teacher, and fourth Prime Minister of Israel – returns to the Berkshires this year in a searingly topical production, staged at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre for a limited run of eight performances.         

Golda’s Balcony

Athenians mix it up with the forest fairies in this raucous romp that features magical meddling, romantic tangles, and a play within a play for good measure. One of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been described by scholars as carnivalesque: pushing the plot forward through humor and chaos.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

A moving study of emotional depth and the human condition, August Wilson’s Fences follows the story of Troy Maxson – a working-class Black man struggling to provide for his family. His past includes the low of a prison sentence and the high of a promising career with the Negro Baseball League, but it’s Troy’s unrealized dream to play for Major League Baseball that fills his days with resentment and regret.

August Wilson’s Fences, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play in 1987, is set in the 1950s and is part of the playwright’s acclaimed American Century Cycle.

August Wilson’s Fences

When Golnar, a punkish Iranian-American millennial, returns home to her mother, Nasrin, for the anniversary of her father’s passing, she walks into hoards of family memorabilia that her grandmother, Mamani, has moved in with her. Golnar tries to get “the dames” to get rid of some stuff, but Nasrin resists. While getting ready for the anniversary gathering, Golnar searches for her lost box of medicinal ’shrooms. As the evening intensifies within the cramped space, Golnar comes to find out the dames are trying to set her up with a family friend, Arash. Who survives the night? What’s inside the tea that everyone’s drinking? This play is about generational differences, grief, control, and learning to let go of it. But more than anything, it is a love story to our immigrant mothers.

This production is part of Play in Process, returning for its second year, and offering a glimpse into the workings of what goes into the creation of plays – catching them in their early stages, when possibilities and challenges are discussed. Every performance of this one-day festival of plays-in-workshop will be accompanied by a talkback, with lively discussion encouraged.

Plays in Process: Three Tall Persian Women

In the summer, an old man and old woman sit on a park bench, talk about birds, and bet on the rain. A funny-sad play about getting older in a future that’s closer than we think.

This production is part of Play in Process, returning for its second year, and offering a glimpse into the workings of what goes into the creation of plays – catching them in their early stages, when possibilities and challenges are discussed. Every performance of this one-day festival of plays-in-workshop will be accompanied by a talkback, with lively discussion encouraged.

Plays in Process: The Aves

Considered to be the inspiration for Game of Thrones, Henry VI, Part II is commonly regarded as the strongest of the Henry VI trilogy, telling the story of the contention and power struggles between the two ancient families of Lancaster and York who wrestled for the fate of England.

Now, four centuries on and in tandem with the current King Charles III’s coronation, Shakespeare & Company presents The Contention – an exploration of themes that remain timeless: strategic marriages, political treachery, religious unrest, and a measure of comic sport.

The Contention (Henry VI, Part II)

Monument Mountain Regional High School’s Romeo & Juliet

Lee Middle & High School’s Cymbeline

Springfield Central High School’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Mount Everett Regional School’s Twelfth Night

Mt. Greylock Regional High School’s Hamlet

Chatham High School’s As You Like It

Emma Woodhouse prides herself on being a matchmaker with an impeccable track record, much to the chagrin of her dear friend Mr. Knightley. Her latest scheme revolves around the sweet Harriet Smith, whom Emma advises to reject a perfectly good marriage proposal in favor of another eligible bachelor. But her best-laid plans are turned upside down by unpredictable displays of affection, unexpected rivals and Emma’s sudden realization that true love may have been under her nose all along.

Shakespeare & Company

Nov 23, 2024

Monument Mountain Regional High School’s Romeo & Juliet

Nov 23, 2024

Lee Middle & High School’s Cymbeline

Nov 23, 2024

Springfield Central High School’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Nov 23, 2024

Mount Everett Regional School’s Twelfth Night

Nov 24, 2024

Mt. Greylock Regional High School’s Hamlet

Nov 22, 2024

Lenox Memorial High School’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Nov 22, 2024

Taconic Hills Jr/Sr High School’s As You Like It

Shakespeare & Company