Berkshire Theatre Festival
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Berkshire Theatre Festival
The Berkshire Theatre Festival is one of the oldest professional performing arts venues in the Berkshires, celebrating its 80th anniversary season in 2008. History The main building of the Berkshire Theatre Festival was originally the Stockbridge Casino, designed by Stanford White and built in 1887. At one point the center of social life in Stockbridge, by 1927 it had fallen into disuse. Mabel Choate, the daughter of one of the casino's founders, purchased the property for $2,000, but wasn't interested in the casino itself (she moved the Mission House (Stockbridge, Massachusetts), Mission House to the property). Three prominent Stockbridge residents, sculptor Daniel Chester French, businessman and artist Walter Leighton Clark, and Dr. Austen Fox Riggs, formed a committee called the Three Arts Society to save the casino; Choate sold the building to them for $1 on the condition that it be relocated. French, Clark, and Riggs agreed, and had the structure dismantled and moved to its cu ...
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Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Stockbridge is a town in Berkshire County in Western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,018 at the 2020 census. A year-round resort area, Stockbridge is home to the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Austen Riggs Center (a psychiatric treatment center), and Chesterwood, home and studio of sculptor Daniel Chester French. History Stockbridge was settled by British missionaries in 1734, who established it as a praying town for the Stockbridge Indians, an indigenous Mohican tribe. The township was set aside for the tribe by Massachusetts colonists as a reward for their assistance against the French in the French and Indian Wars. The Rev. John Sergeant, from Newark, New Jersey, was their first missionary. Sergeant was succeeded in this post by Jonathan Edwards, a Christian theologian associated with the First Great Awakening. First chartered as Indian Town in 1737, the village was incorporated on ...
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Beaupré Performing Arts Center
Beaupré Creative Arts Center was an American summer camp for girls, located in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The camp, which ran from 1955 to 1980, focused mainly on theater, dance, and art. The Beaupré property was sold in 1982 to the Berkshire Theatre Festival. History Mildred Chase di Lorenzo founded Beaupré, a summer school for the arts, in 1944 and presented her first season in 1945, with forty girls enrolled. In 1955, she sold the business to Lois North (an acquaintance through the music world) and Stanley North, who hosted their first season in 1956. In her memoir, Lois wrote that “The former owners handed us a format which had been operating more or less successfully for a number of years so with an inherited kitchen crew, a large part of the faculty signing on and with our own wide acquaintances among the potential instructors, we had a viable set up, however, the first year was a baptism of fire that almost did us in.” For the first three summers, the camp w ...
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Gene Hackman
Eugene Allen Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is an American retired actor and former novelist. In a career that has spanned more than six decades, Hackman has won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, two BAFTAs and one Silver Bear. Nominated for five Academy Awards, Hackman won Best Actor for his role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in the critically acclaimed thriller '' The French Connection'' (1971) and Best Supporting Actor as "Little" Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's Western film ''Unforgiven'' (1992). His other nominations for Best Supporting Actor came with the films ''Bonnie and Clyde'' (1967) and ''I Never Sang for My Father'' (1970), with a second Best Actor nomination for ''Mississippi Burning'' (1988). Hackman's other major film roles included '' The Poseidon Adventure'' (1972), ''The Conversation'' (1974), '' French Connection II'' (1975), '' A Bridge Too Far'' (1977), ''Superman'' (1978) and its sequels ''Superman II'' (1980) and '' Superm ...
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Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is the recipient of numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, three Drama Desk Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Hoffman has received numerous honors including the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1997, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1999, and the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 2012. Actor Robert De Niro described him as "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human". At a young age Hoffman knew he wanted to study in the arts, and entered into the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music; later he decided to go into acting, for which he trained at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles. He soon starred in the 1966 off-Broadway play '' Eh?'', for which ...
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Al Pacino
Alfredo James Pacino (; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he has received numerous accolades: including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, making him one of the few performers to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting. He has also been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the National Medal of Arts. A method actor and former student of the HB Studio and the Actors Studio, where he was taught by Charlie Laughton and Lee Strasberg, Pacino's film debut came at the age of 29 with a minor role in ''Me, Natalie'' (1969). He gained favorable notice for his first lead role as a heroin addict in '' The Panic in Needle Park'' (1971). Wide acclaim and recognition came with his breakthrough role as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's ''The Godfather'' (1972), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best S ...
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Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. Prolific in film, television and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. His films have grossed more than $1.6 billion in the United States alone. Walken has appeared in supporting roles in films such as ''The Anderson Tapes'' (1971), ''Next Stop, Greenwich Village'' (1976), '' Roseland'' (1977) and ''Annie Hall'' (1977) before coming to wider attention as the troubled Vietnam War veteran Nick Chevotarevich in ''The Deer Hunter'' (1978). His performance earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was nominated for the same award for portraying con artist Frank Abagnale's father in Steven Spielberg's ''Catch Me If You Can'' (2002). Since his breakthrough, Walken has appeared in films in various genres, both in lead a ...
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Calista Flockhart
Calista Kay Flockhart (born November 11, 1964) is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for portraying the title character on the Fox television series '' Ally McBeal'' (1997–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe Award in 1998 and was thrice nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. From 2006 to 2011, she starred as Kitty Walker on the ABC drama series '' Brothers & Sisters'', and between 2015 and 2021, Flockhart appeared as Cat Grant on the superhero drama ''Supergirl''. In film, she is known for roles in ''The Birdcage'' (1996), ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (1999), and ''Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her'' (2000). Early life Flockhart was born in Freeport, Illinois, the daughter of Kay Calista, an English teacher, and Ronald Flockhart (1932–2020), a Kraft Foods executive. Her parents retired to Morristown, Tennessee, where her father lived until his death and her mother continues to reside. She has one ...
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Thornton Wilder
Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays ''Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' — and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel '' The Eighth Day''. Early years and family Wilder was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Amos Parker Wilder, a newspaper editor and later a U.S. diplomat, and Isabella Thornton Niven. Wilder had four siblings as well as a twin who was stillborn. All of the surviving Wilder children spent part of their childhood in China when their father was stationed in Hong Kong and Shanghai as U.S. Consul General. Thornton's older brother, Amos Niven Wilder, became Hollis Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School. He was a noted poet and was instrumental in developing the field of theopoetics. Their sister Isabel Wilder was an accomplished writer. They had two more sisters, Charlotte Wilder, ...
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Ethel Barrymore
Ethel Barrymore (born Ethel Mae Blythe; August 15, 1879 – June 18, 1959) was an American actress and a member of the Barrymore family of actors. Barrymore was a stage, screen and radio actress whose career spanned six decades, and was regarded as "The First Lady of the American Theatre". She received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, winning for '' None but the Lonely Heart'' (1944). Early life Barrymore was born Ethel Mae Blythe in Philadelphia, the second child of the actors Maurice Barrymore (whose real name was Herbert Blythe) and Georgiana Drew. She was named for her father's favorite character—Ethel in William Makepeace Thackeray's ''The Newcomes.'' She was the sister of actors John and Lionel Barrymore, the aunt of actor John Drew Barrymore and grand-aunt of actress Drew Barrymore. She was also a granddaughter of actress and theater-manager Louisa Lane Drew (Mrs. John Drew), and niece of Broadway matinée idol John Drew Jr and ea ...
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Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist most famously known for the invention of dynamite. He died in 1896. In his will, he bequeathed all of his "remaining realisable assets" to be used to establish five prizes which became known as "Nobel Prizes." Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901. Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace (Nobel characterized the Peace Prize as "to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses"). In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden's central bank) funded the establishment of the Prize in Economi ...
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Pulitzer Prizes
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, and is administered by Columbia University. Prizes are awarded annually in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award (raised from $10,000 in 2017). The winner in the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, public service category is awarded a gold medal. Entry and prize consideration The Pulitzer Prize does not automatically consider all applicable works in the media, but only those that have specifically been entered. (There is a $75 entry fee, for each desired entry category.) Entries must fit in at least one of the specific prize categories, and cannot simply gain entrance for being literary or musical. Works can also be entered only ...
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Tonys
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in Midtown Manhattan. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theatre. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. The awards were founded by theatre producer and director Brock Pemberton and are named after Antoinette "Tony" Perry, an actress, producer and theatre director who was co-founder and secretary of the American Theatre Wing. The trophy consists of a spinnable medallion, with faces portraying an adaptation of the comedy and tragedy masks, mounted on a black base with a pewter swivel. The rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in t ...
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