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Bear Tales

by KATHRYN BOUGHTON

From mama bears to Mamet, the newly formed Great Barrington Public Theater is positioning itself for a break-out season in 2020.

The theater group, which had its origin last year as a collaboration of theater professionals and newcomers, is committed to bringing new works, new voices and local talent to audiences in the Berkshires. Productions are staged at the Daniel Arts Center on the campus of Bard College at Simon’s Rock.

“Deann Simmons Halper, our executive director, and I started the group in April and May of last year, so we had a short season in 2019,” said artistic director Jim Fragione. “We did several developmental reading and Breakwater, a play that I wrote. This year we are expanding and will be in residence at the Daniels Art Center in May, all of June and through July 7.”

Frangione, who is an actor and playwright, was associated with the Berkshire Writers Lab for more than ten years developing new plays. Halper an actor, director and producer, has produced several New York and regional productions including the OBIE-nominated Incommunicado and The Vagina Monologues.

The Public Theater’s 2020 season kicks off with Bear Tales, as part of the Solo Performance Festival that brings together a selection of specially curated material between May 28 and June 7. Submissions are being accepted through April 1.

“Anyone within 50 miles of Great Barrington can submit their own bear stories,” said Frangione. “So, people from southern Vermont, upstate New York, western Massachusetts Northwestern Connecticut are all eligible to apply. It will be a great and fun thing—these people will not be performers, but people from the communities around us.

“Bears are magnificent creatures,” he continued. “In fact, our logo is a black bear with its paw up as if he is reciting a monologue. Personally I love bears and everyone seems to have their own bear story.”

He recounted the time that film and book critic, Eugene Shalit, was at his home in the Berkshires when a mother bear yanked his air conditioner away from his house. Too big to get through the opening, the mother bear deferred to the B&E skills of her cub. Shalit found the infant marauder in the kitchen with a lamp shade on its head.

Bear Tales is seeking solo performance pieces—one-person plays, monologues, true stories, music, rap, puppets—any story or performance piece that is unique, engaging and presented in solo form. The theater’s creative team will select a few of the works and work with the storytellers on their presentations, providing a stipend, rehearsals, casting and script development by the creative team.

“It can be about an actual encounter with a bear, but doesn’t have to be,” said Frangione. “If you don’t have a real bear story, make one up. Get creative and let us hear from you.”

The stories must be original and submitted to greatbarringtonpublic@gmail.com by April 1. They should be no longer than eight minutes.

Following Bear Tales, the new theater group will settle into its second season in earnest from June 17 to July 5 with the East Coast premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet’s new play, Christopher Boy’s Communion.

“It’s a brilliant new play that Mamet is letting us do the East Coast premiere of here in the Berkshires,” said Frangione, who has worked with Mamet both in plays and in films. Mamet, a playwright, director, screenwriter and author, received the Pulitzer and Tony nominations for his plays, Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow.

“He is an old friend and I have been working with him for 30 years,” said Frangione. “When I was an actor I was connected with the original production of his play, Oleanna, for two years—in New York, with the national tour of the play and then in a regional production of it. We have done five or six movies together. I worked with him on Heist, which starred Gene Hackman, on Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner and others as well as doing plays together.”

This long-time friendship is giving the fledgling theater an unusual opportunity. He said Berkshire theater troupes often stage new material but only after it has found a toehold in New York. “Berkshire County is a hot bed for new plays and new works,” he said, “but a lot of the theaters up here take plays off the boards in New York and produce them here. We are reversing that, having the East Coast premiere here before it moves to New York. We’re very excited about having the opportunity.”

For more information about the new theater group and/or submissions, please click on the link below.

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