So every morning I walk my son Stuart and my nephew Colin to school. This is a flat, half-mile long jaunt through our nauseatingly cute New England college town, filled with sidewalks and crossing guards and plenty of other kids and parents headed the same direction. On the surface it may seem to lack the edge that traversing the concrete jungles of my youth had, but let me disabuse you of that misconception immediately. Doing anything with two little boys is just about as hazardous and adventure-packed as I care to get!

I say this from great experience since I have two boys of my own. Roger is 16 and Stuart is 11. Since Stuart was born I have known the joy of trying to keep up with two rambunctious kids, at completely different stages of development, both of whom want all of my attention all of the time. Just when I thought that they were both safely hurtling towards adolescence, when they would be so embarrassed to be seen with me that I would finally get my life back, along came Colin. He just turned 4.

This morning we set out and immediately Stuart and Colin both started talking at once. Colin worries a lot about squirrels and this gets him worrying about wildlife in general. Last week a squirrel made him think about skunks, and he informed me that skunks had “greedy ants in their tails that smell worse than dog poo!” It took me half a block, while Stuart was holding forth on his favorite topic of how much homework he gets in 5th grade, to decipher that “greedy ants” meant “ingredients”.

Today the squirrel reminded Colin of mice and he launched into a long discussion of how there was a mouse in his closet that was just huge and…

“Mice aren’t huge,” Stuart said.

“Yes they are! They are huge and scary and they hurt you!” Colin replied.

“I like field mice the best,” I chimed in, deciding this should be a really Chekovian conversation in which no one listened to anyone else, “They have enormous eyes and ears and tiny little bodies. They get so scared when they see you that sometimes they just up and die.” I did an entertaining impression of a field mouse suddenly expiring.

“Rats are huge and mean,” Stuart observed, “Mary killed one once and brought it to me upstairs in the barn. Why do cats do that? Why do they think that you want dead animals?”

“Because they notice that you are too lazy to catch any for yourself,” I replied, “They’re feeding you.”

“I lost my colored pencils,” Colin said.

“I notice that Colin has been tattling a lot lately,” Stuart reported self-righteously, “I heard him the other day telling his mother on me…”

“That’s right, Stuart, I told my mother that you took my colored pencils!” Colin shouted.

“You see! He’s tattling way too much, don’t you think, Mom?”

“I think that you’re tattling on him now.” This intelligent remark of mine goes unnoticed as Stuart’s mind wanders to his new fetish, a disease called Encephalitis Lethargica.

“Mom, do you think anyone in our school will ever give my class a lecture on the disease Encephalitis Lethargica?” He asked. I said that I seriously doubted it. “Well then I think that I will give a report on it because it really is a very dangerous disease. Had you ever heard of Encephalitis Lethargica, Mom?” Not until you started talking about it on a daily basis, dear.

“Fa-la-lite-us!” Colin sang, “Don’t step in the water Gaily, you always tell me don’t step in the water and you just stepped in the water.”

“It really is a very dangerous disease and it can leave you paralyzed from the neck down like Superman, or that other guy who is in a wheelchair. Who is that, Mom? Something like hawks…”

“Stephen Hawking?”

“That’s right. How did he get to be paralyzed, Mom?”

“Stuart took my colored pencils to Stephen Hawking’ house!” Colin suddenly accused dramatically.

“Stephen Hawking can’t even use colored pencils,” Stuart announced with disdain, “He has to blow into a straw to write. Besides, your colored pencils are in the barn, Colin.”

“How did they get there?” I asked. If I had the capability to raise one eyebrow I would have, but it is a talent that passed me by. My eyebrows go up and down in one solid piece, when I secretly long to look like Mr. Spock.

“Annabelle and I took them there the other day. We had to color something red,” Stuart explained. Annabelle is the girl next door.

“That’s just what I told my Mommy!” Colin cried, “I told her that you took my colored pencils and Annabelle and you took them to the barn and when I get out of school my Mommy is going to drive me home and then we’ll go to the grocery store and then I’ll go right out to the barn and get my colored pencils because you took them, Stuart, and I told my Mommy that you took them!”

At this point Colin had to stop in the middle of the one major road that we cross to explain his righteous indignation to the crossing guard. I tugged at him urgently while cars honked and Stuart started in on the grievous amount of homework he received and how he really needed a vacation so that he could do well in school because he was just going to keel over from exhaustion and Encephalitis Lethargica otherwise…

Once I get everyone delivered to their classrooms I meet my friend Sarah, who walks with me part of the way to work. Sarah has just walked the younger two of her four children a similar distance to school, but she always seems unruffled by the experience and has never heard of Encephalitis Lethargica. Maybe its because she’s British…

“I hate Dip-de-Dop music,” Colin announces loudly as we approach a group of college students enjoying some tunes on the lawn on this beautiful May day. At least it sounded like he said “Dip-de-Dop” I have no idea what he was actually talking about.

“Shut up!” Stewart said. “They can hear you, man! That’s called streaming. I hate when people drive around and stream.” At least I thought he said stream, it isn’t a term I am familiar with.

“I am just saying that people who listen to Dip-de-Dop are dumbasses,” Colin said, equally loudly.

“Geez, you’re just just like your mother, bud. You nag first and think later,” Stewart remarked.

“Where did all these college kids come from?” Colin asks as a crowd of them meanders down the center of the road where I am trying to drive.

“Dude, we live in a college town,” Stewart yells. “You should never, ever have to ask ‘Where did all these college kids come from.’ That’s all we have here!”

We turn on to Syndicate Road, which is notoriously narrow and twisty, and promptly meet another car at the apex of a steep curve.

“I hate this road,” Stewart says.

“We didn’t die,” I remark.

I am wearing my fluffy pink scarf in order to teach it a lesson. I wave it under Stewart’s nose. “I am wearing my scarf,” I say.

“Yes, I like it. Its very fluffy,” he replies. “It reminds me of Lisa Douglas on Green Acres.”

“Ah-lee-vah! Ah-lee-vah, dahling” I say in my best Hungarian accent.

“I know who you’re channeling,” Colin pipes up from the front seat. “She’s on PBS…”

“Nooooo!” Stewart and I chorus, “NOT on PBS!”

“And she was on I Dream of Jeannie too,” he concludes.

“Wrong!” we both shout.

“I need you to help me pick out some courses to audit in the fall,” Stewart says.

“What kind of courses are you thinking of taking?” I ask.

“Well, anything to do with writing or screenwriting or how to put a story together…”

“First you write the beginning…” I say.

“No…”

“…then you write the middle and then you write the end.”

“No, I know lots of people who write the end first,” Stewart says. “But that’s an idea, why don’t you, my writing Mom, teach me everything you know?”

“Okay, do you want to know the best piece of writing advice I’ve received recently?”

“No, I want you to teach me how to write.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Okay! So if you shut up I’ll tell you!”

“Okay.”

“First you write everything you want to write and then you go back and delete the first paragraph and the whole thing will be much better.”

“Then you delete the second and the third – but the fourth! The fourth is always good, right?”

“Right!”

We pull in to the dump.

“Want to see an AMAZING FEAT OF STRENGTH??” Colin inquires as he climbs out of the car without opening the door, like the Dukes of Hazzard, and reaches down beside me to open the trunk

“Sure” I reply, and applaud as he heaves the brimming garbage bag into the hopper. Stewart has taken the glass and plastic. Colin slams the trunk and grabs the paper. Stewart returns with the recycling bin and sighs as he has to reach down beside me and reopen the trunk.

Colin stands in the narrow passage way between the parked cars and shouts that a truck is trying to run him over. We shout to get out of the road, fer chrissakes! He does so and the truck passes harmlessly by. Then he shoots back in the window a la Bo and Luke and we start up. After we go about 50 feet I ask “Do we want to stop at the book shed?” I love second-hand books, especially free ones!

“NO!” the boys shout in unison. Then…

“Yes,” says Stewart. “Yes, I think I might have the need of a free book.”

So we stop again and all three of us wedge ourselves into the tiny shed.

“Oooo! Look!” I cry, grabbing an extremely thick paperback by an author I like. But not that much…it is a very thick book, and not in the series of her works I had started… I put it back.

“Oooo! Look!” I cry again. This time it IS a treasure. A clean, hardback copy of “Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel.” Why aren’t these two BOYS more excited about it. It is a BOYS’ book, right? Maybe I’ll give it to my friends’ new daughter…

We get back into the car. “Weren’t we going to go tag sale-ing today?” Stewart asks.

“I went. No good sales,” I reply.

“So we went to the dump instead,” he sighs.

Right.

“I am glad that I was exposed to such a wide variety of humor growing up,” Stewart says, as if I had nothing to do with this. “I am the monarch of the sea, the ruler of the queen’s navy…” he sings suddenly and badly.

I correct him and start the song again: “Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants…”

“And we are his sisters and his cousins and his aunts,” Stewart finishes in falsetto. “You know, you haven’t taught me very well. I don’t have the encyclopaedic knowledge of show tunes that you have. I just know ditties.” Then he starts the song again in a basso profundo. “I think I’m ready to start singing bass.”

“Instead of soprano?” I ask.

“Hey! Can I go get my zapfdingler from your house, Stewart?” Colin asks. At least I think he said zapfdingler, I have no idea what he was actually talking about.

“No! And that’s MY zapfdingler, you know, not yours. I hate when you come over to my house and just take stuff, man.”

“No, remember that one is mine. Yours is upstairs in the barn,” Colin retorts.

And they are off, arguing about electronic games and hurling insults. We pull into the driveway and they rocket out, still babbling. I grab the recycling bin and “Mike Mulligan…” and wonder where the years went.

VERSE ONE
I put my socks into the wash
I put them in, a pretty pair
But when I went to get them out
Why, only one was there!

I looked through all the underwear
I searched for it both high and low
I even looked down in the drain
Now where did that sock go?

REFRAIN
A pair of socks!
A pair of socks!
I cannot find a pair of socks!

I searched the family’s frocks and jocks
But I can’t find a pair of socks!

A pair of socks!
A pair of socks!
A most elusive pair of socks!
Oh please, oh please, oh please, find me a pair of socks!

VERSE TWO
I wonder where those lost socks go,
I wonder if there is a place,
Where every lost sock finds its way
They vanish without trace.

And why do all the ones I like
The ones that came as gifts to me
All vanish while the ones with holes
All come back, guaranteed?

REFRAIN
A pair of socks!
A pair of socks!
Why don’t I own a pair of socks!

My footwear fashion’s on the rocks
‘Cause I can’t find a pair of socks!

A pair of socks!
A pair of socks!
I cannot find a pair of socks!
Oh dearie me, where could they be? That pair of socks!

VERSE THREE
If this just happened to me once
I don’t think I would mind a bit
But since it happens every week
It really gives me fits.

And so each week I match them up
The striped ones with dots and plaids
The knee-highs with the ankle socks
I think that I’ll go mad!

REFRAIN
A pair of socks!
A pair of socks!
I cannot find a pair of socks!

I searched the family’s frocks and jocks
But I can’t find a pair of socks!

A pair of socks!
A pair of socks!
I cannot find a pair of socks!
Oh please, oh please, oh please, find me a pair of socks!

It is the only thing I need, a matching pair of socks
Won’t someone help me find a Goddamn matching pair of socks!

At this point Bob whipped out his camera and started shooting using the autoflash with its distinctive “Chew, chew, chew” sound. I had never heard that sound in real life, only on television, and I associated it with the entrance of the President at a press conference. Lying there in the birthing room hard at work and hardly looking my best, I was suddenly terrified that President Regan had dropped in to see how things were going.

Then I heard a lusty cry. “What is it?” I asked eagerly.

“That part hasn’t been born yet,” my Obstetrician replied. I contemplated the lunacy of having some person, who hadn’t even had the good grace to introduce him or herself, stuck halfway out of my body caterwauling and I gave a mighty push.

“It’s a boy!” everyone crowed.

“I knew it!” I shouted, and I had known it. From about the fourth month of my pregnancy I had been convinced that I was carrying a boy. But apparently that “vocalization” was no more appropriate than my earlier attempts.

The first inkling that I had that I was in trouble came immediately after that when all the nurses started shouting “Look at the size of him!” Since they saw babies born everyday, it dawned on me that Roger, at 10 pounds, 11 ounces and 24 inches long, was something out of the ordinary.

I continued my run of inappropriate vocalizations when they put Roger in my arms and the first words out of my mouth were: “Someday I’ll be a grandmother.” There was a general horrified silence and then one of the nurses said, “Let’s take one thing at a time” and showed me how to nurse. Or rather she pointed Roger in the direction of my breast. He needed no coaching.

The nurses continued to marvel at Roger’s size. “Thank goodness he isn’t your first, dear” they continually muttered.

“But he is my first,” I told them over and over again. But I received no further information about why that might be a bad thing.

As I looked at this new person, who had one eye stuck shut and bore a strong resemblance to Popeye, I noticed that he had a perfectly round head, like a bowling ball. In Lamaze class they spend a lot of time warning not to be alarmed if your baby’s head “molded” in the birth canal and came out all pointy and misshapen. I remember looking at Roger’s head and thinking, “If he didn’t mold, what happened to me?”
 
Bob told me later that he saw several buckets of my blood removed from the room.
 
Why was this day unlike any other?
 
It was the day Roger was born and I nearly died. I NEVER regretted drinking that cup of tea.
 

1
Two dogs lying in the sun.
A cloud comes.
Why?

2
Shadows meet
As noses touch
Sunlight on the wall

3
Abby’s eloquent ears
Are chocolate silk
Elegantly draped

4
Dachshunds are
Both loooooooong
And short.
Discuss.

5
Big barks,
Small dogs,
Balance of powers.

6
Asleep, Abby curls into an O.
While Cody remains
The independent I.

7
Loving licks
Clean wounds
And cure what ails.

8
As Dumbo flies
So dachshunds run,
Ears aloft.

9
The blankies smell warm
Of fur and farts.
We hate laundry day.

10
Graceless, Cody falls
On face or fanny
Dignity undone.

11
Noses come first,
Then eyes and ears.
Tails come last,
But never least.

12
Long legs
Are pointless.
All the good smells are down here.

13
Experts say Cody snorts to clear his olfactory tract,
But he chooses when
And what they mean.

14
Cody is piebald.
Pumpkin pie on the top.
Bald on the bottom.

15
Dachshunds hear the morning sun
Creep into their crate.
A siren call.

16
Rubber moose
Squeaks so loud.
Kill it good.

17
Abby dreams in tiny barks
Of sheep she herded,
Huddled in fear.

February 25/26, 2012

18
The Snow Day Lament of a Male Dachshund
(Variations on a Theme)

Low slung
Snow come
Now fun

Slung low
In the snow
Fun? No!

March 1, 2012

What is Dachu?
Very short poems written by very short dogs and their human companions.

Why aren’t there any rules for writing Dachu?
Dachshunds do not like rules.

I am a big dog, can I write Dachu?
Oh, alright….

I am a Chihuahua, may I write in Spanish?
No, that just perpetuates negative stereotypes. We don’t write in German.

Who are you?
We are Abby and Cody, a bonded pair of middle-aged miniature dachshunds. Cody is the Alpha Male. He looks like a giant sweet potato with legs. He is the brains of the outfit. Abby is a brown bitch. She is very beautiful. You can see a picture of us below.

Our human is a bitch named “The Mommy.” She is spayed and generally hairless. Her ears are very small, and her legs are so long that her nose is more than 5 feet off the ground. She would be lost without us, but she is useful for typing and opening cans.

(Note: This is published with Justin’s knowledge and consent, but is clearly meant in good fun. I am NOT affiliated with his completely serious campaign for a seat on the Select Board. I encourage Williamstown voters to listen to all the candidates and vote your consciences.)

My neighbor, Justin, has just announced his intention to run for a seat on the Board of Selectors here in Williamstown. This is an excellent plan and I think he will make a fine Board member, but the trouble with elections in Williamstown is that they are very, very boring. So boring that no one pays any attention to them. I don’t even think that the fact that Justin is a trans-guy will make the newspapers.

This is very dreary and I think our town deserves better, so I think I will run against Justin. I have just given up being a theatre critic and have all this time on my hands, and a good, dirty, name-calling race will draw attention to the actual issues facing the town in a way that our current, almost covert, electoral process cannot and does not.

It is almost mud season, so we will kick off our campaigns with a healthy round of mud-slinging. Its a clear shot across Linden Street from my yard to his, so everyone can get a good view of the proceedings. This event will appeal to people who like to see fat women and trans-guys roll around in the mud, and it will appeal to people who like to see fat women and trans-guys get mud thrown at them. I wouldn’t be surprised if the video of our first debate goes viral on YouTube!

And children – the voters of tomorrow – love mud! This will be a great way to introduce them to our political system.

Of course we will shout loudly at each other about the issues while we sling mud. I’ll shout “Fix the high school!” and he can shout “Affordable housing!” Then I’ll counter with “Build a new police station!” and he can retort “We need a new fire station more urgently!”

After this we will both go inside, shower and change, and come back out to exchange wash buckets so that we can each air the other’s dirty laundry on clothes lines in our respective yards. This will make the environmentalists happy because they are all in favor of using clothes lines instead of dryers, and, as biological weapons go, mud is one of the cleanest.

The following week we will do a whistle stop tour of all the stables and dairy barns in town for some serious muck-raking while calling attention to the plight of our local farmers. Lobbing locally grown produce at each other will commence as soon as the farmer’s market on Spring Street reopens.

I think this colorful campaign strategy offers oodles of excellent photo-ops, and will ensure that someone gets elected….probably the incumbent. Who’s also a really nice guy with many years experience as a dedicated public servant, although not much of a mud-slinger. So discretion really is the better part of valor in this case. I will keep my mud, dirty laundry, and muck-rake at home for now, and let the snooze-worthy Williamstown political process run its course. Wake me when its over…

“There’s a saying in the theatre trade that all plays are love stories,” according to CTC Artistic Director Byam Stevens “and our 23rd season will bear that saying out. But, there’s a twist — these aren’t your usual love stories, you won’t find a conventional romantic comedy among them. Not to worry though, there’s still romance and comedy and betrayal and magic and mystery aplenty – all the makings of great theatre from today’s best writers!”

The season opens on July 5th with the New England Premiere of Animals Out of Paper, by Rajiv Joseph, author of the hit play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which starred Robin Williams in its Broadway run. This wise and richly layered comedy tells the story of Ilana, a world-renowned origami artist. When the play opens, her life is in disarray – she’s going through a divorce, her dog has run away and she hasn’t answered her phone in two months. Then her intercom buzzes. It’s Andy, a fan, a high school teacher who counts his blessings. Literally. Andy soon introduces Suresh, an ipod addict and origami prodigy into Ilana’s life and the plot folds really get complicated. The New York Times called Animals Out of Paper “Pitch-perfect… alternately wrenching and funny.”

Running to July 18-29, The Swan, a mysterious and comic variation on the Leda and the Swan myth, will offer a complete change of pace. Elizabeth Egloff’s remarkable play, awarded the prestigious Kesselring Prize for its premiere production at New York’s Public Theatre, recounts the adventures of Dora Hand. Dora lives by herself on the Nebraska prairie — she’s gone through three husbands and now seems destined to play the lonely mistress to her married milkman, Kevin-until a swan crashes into her living room window. Strangely, to all outward appearances, the swan seems to be a charismatic and child-like man who quickly learns the ropes: speech, dressing, checkers, beer and love for his new mistress. According to New York Newsday The Swan is “A bewitching bedtime story for grown-ups.” Daniel Elihu Kramer, director of CTC’s thrilling 2011 journey into the supernatural, The Turn of the Screw, will direct.

The New England Premiere of Running by Arlene Hutton, author of the CTC smash hit The Nibroc Trilogy, will open August 1 and run through August 12. Ms. Hutton brings her trademark gift for the natural ebb and flow of dialogue to a modern New York story. It’s the eve of the New York Marathon, and Stephen, preparing for his first race, needs a good night’s sleep. His wife is in London on business and he has the apartment to himself. Until Emily, his wife’s ex-roommate, shows up unexpectedly in the wee hours of the morning. Their late night conversation becomes late night confessions and connections in this witty, insightful dramedy that was the hit of the New York Fringe Festival, and is hailed as “a smart, funny script …a very real, human drama” (NYTheatre.com).

The 2012 season will come to a close with the Western Massachusetts Regional Premiere of The Betrothed by Dipika Guha. Ms. Guha, a recent graduate of Yale Drama School is an exciting young playwright who’s had fellowships at Yale, Harvard and Brown. The Betrothed, her delightful adventure in magic realism, opens as Simon’s flight crosses the Atlantic to the Old Country, where he imagines the beautiful woman waiting for him. Betrothed from birth, he’s waited thirty long years to meet his beloved. Upon arrival, his fantasy is derailed by old crones, morally ambiguous clergymen, deceitful babies, and barnyard animals. Simon must navigate a world where murder, ghostly possession, and rampant cuckoldry wreak havoc with his sense of reality. This existential comedy with a fairy tale heart is “A whimsical tour of the supernatural” according to the Boston Globe. Directed by Byam Stevens, the production runs August 15-26.

ABOUT CHESTER THEATRE COMPANY

Chester Theatre Company, a professional theatre company located in the foothills of the Berkshires, produces 4-5 plays each summer and fall, performed by top-flight actors, directors and designers from across the country. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Byam Stevens, CTC has earned a reputation for producing the best in contemporary theatre — seventeen CTC productions have gone on to Off Broadway, regional, national, and international engagements in the last 15 years. For further information visit the CTC website at www.chestertheatre.org

CTC performances are supported, in part, by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and the Local Cultural Councils of Blandford, Chester, Huntington, Middlefield, Montgomery, Russell, Westfield, and Worthington.

Made in the Berkshires will run Columbus Day weekend, October 5, 6 and 7, 2012 at the Colonial Theatre, Pittsfield and the Unicorn Theatre, Stockbridge.

Submitting artists must live and work at least part time in the Berkshires. Submissions may include short and full length plays, poetry, short story, music, performance art/spoken word, film and dance. All material must include artist’s name, address and contact information; written material must be bound and two copies submitted. Music, dance and film must include 2 CD’s or 2 DVD’s with the artist name and contact information. No online submissions will be considered. Submissions may be mailed to: Made in the Berkshires, P.O. Box 797, Stockbridge, MA 01262.

About Berkshire Theatre Group

The Colonial Theatre, founded in 1903, and Berkshire Theatre Festival, founded in 1928, are two of the oldest cultural organizations in the Berkshires. Having united in November of 2010 under the helm of Artistic Director and CEO Kate Maguire, these two institutions are providing the Berkshires and beyond with the finest in live theatre, music, dance and the visual arts on three stages in Stockbridge, MA and Pittsfield, MA. The Fitzpatrick Main Stage (408 seats), cataloged by the National Register of Historic Places, was originally designed and built by Stanford White as the Stockbridge Casino in 1888. The intimate Unicorn Theatre (122 seats) is a home for emerging artists and new theatrical ideas. The Colonial in Pittsfield (800 seats) re-opened in August of 2006, following a $21 million restoration, and boasts pristine acoustics, classic gilded age architecture and state-of-the-art technical systems. Together they serve over 100,000 patrons per year and reach over 10,000 students through their educational and outreach programs. For more information on BTF call (413) 298-5536 and on The Colonial call (413) 448-8084. To purchase tickets, call (413) 997-4444 or (413) 298-5576 or go online to www.berkshiretheatre.org or www.thecolonialtheatre.org.

After a successful second year that included presenting The O Solo Mama Mia Festival, which benefited the training of a community midwife at Edna’s Hospital in Somaliland, the first 24hr Capital Region/Berkshires Theatre Project, which involved over 50 theatre artists, and The Attic, The Pearls and Three Fine Girls which led to a $1750 donation to the Berkshire United Ways’ Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative, WAM Theatre is pleased to announce it’s 2012 Season.

The second 24hr Berkshires/Capital Region Theatre Project, co-produced with MOPCO, will take place on April 13 + 14 at Shakespeare and Company in the Bernstein Theatre complex with a public performance taking place at 8pm on Saturday, April 14. It will again involve over 50 professional theatre artists from the Berkshires of MA and the Capital Region of NY and will showcase five new works by women playwrights with everything written, rehearsed and performed in 24hrs.

In August, WAM will create a new piece of devised theatre entitled ‘Women & Technology’ during the WordxWord Festival in Pittsfield. WAM will spend five days 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.”

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.

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!”

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. Link to Stratford Press Release: http://www.stratfordfestival.ca/media/media.aspx?id=646

“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

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