Barrington Stage Company is a regional theatre company in The Berkshires of Western Massachusetts. It was co-founded in 1995 by Artistic Director, Julianne Boyd, and Managing Director, Susan Sperber, in Sheffield, Massachusetts. In 2004, BSC developed, workshopped and premiered the hit musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Following the successful Broadway run, which nabbed two Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Featured Actor, BSC made the move to a more permanent home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Previously housed in the Consolati Performing Arts Center at Mount Everett High School in Sheffield, Massachusetts, BSC purchased and renovated the Berkshire Music Hall in downtown Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Its 520-seat Mainstage Theatre is now located on 30 Union Street. In 2008 it signed a 5-year lease on an old VFW to house its Stage 2 venue, a small black box space. In 2012 the company secured the purchase of the VFW turning it into the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center, including the St. Germain Stage and a 49-seat space dubbed Mr. Finn's Cabaret.
The Theatre
Originally named the Union Square Theatre, the Mainstage theatre hosted vaudeville acts, stage shows, and eventually, silent pictures. In 1983, the venue became known as the Berkshire Public Theatre, which produced plays until 1994. In 1994 the space changed hands once again and became the Berkshire Music Hall. When Barrington Stage Company purchased the building in 2005, it underwent a full renovation and became a 520-seat venue, opening its doors in the summer of 2006.
New works
Outside of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, many other new works have seen their world premieres at BSC. In the last seven years, BSC has produced 11 world premieres. In 2003, BSC produced The Game, a musical based on the novelLes Liaisons dangereuses, Mark St. Germain's Ears on a Beatle, The God Committee and Freud's Last Session, all plays that transferred to New York for Off-Broadway runs. In 2005, BSC workshopped and then premiered Cusi Cram's Fuente.
Created in 2006, the Musical Theatre Lab is a place for young musical theatre writers to develop their work from an early reading to full productions. Overseen by Tony-Award-winning composer-lyricist William Finn, it has produced four workshop and seven world premiere musicals. Many of the new musicals have gone on to a life after Barrington Stage. The Burnt Part Boys was produced at Playwrights Horizons in Spring of 2010. Funked Up Fairy Tales continued to be developed at the Sundance Institute in December 2007. Calvin Berger was produced at George Street Playhouse with an Off-Broadway production planned. See Rock City or Other Destinations is now published by Samuel French.
Notables
Productions
BSC won the Elliot Norton/Boston Theatre Critics Award in its inaugural year for The Diary of Anne Frank. Two years later they won the same award for its production of Cabaret, which transferred to Boston for an extended run at the Hasty Pudding Theatre. Mark St. Germain's Freud's Last Session became BSC's longest running show in the summer of 2010. Over two summers and multiple extensions, it lasted 61 performances prior to its Off-Broadway run. Other popular productions at BSC include a 2005 production of Follies and a 2007 production of West Side Story.
