| Amy Porter
aporter@thereminder.com
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CHESTER — With college interns arrived and first rehearsals begun the last week of May, James Barry and Tara Franklin of Williamstown, the recently appointed co-producers and artistic directors of the Chester Theatre Company, are looking forward to the 2023 season.
The married couple are professional actors familiar to Chester audiences. Barry has been involved in the Chester Theatre Company since 2011, and Franklin since 2016. Barry most recently appeared in 2022’s “Pass Over.” Previous works include “Title and Deed,” “Tiny Beautiful Things” (winner of the Berkshire Theatre Critics Award), “The Aliens” (another Berkie winner), and “Sister Play.” Franklin has also taken home a Berkie for her work in “On the Exhale.” She has appeared in several other Chester Theatre productions, including “Tiny Beautiful Things” and “Sister Play,” sharing the stage with her husband in both. They are excited to now be heading the organization and setting the program on the Town Hall stage.
“We’re excited about all of it — we have a great blend of performers and artists that have worked extensively with us, and new faces we are excited to welcome into the family,” said Barry.
Among Chester Theatre’s “artistic family” who are returning for the 2023 season are actor Joel Ripka; directors Christina Franklin and Daniel Elihu Kramer, Chester Theatre’s former producing artistic director; designers Lara Dubin, Charles Schoonmaker, James McNamara, Juliana von Haubrich and Tom Shread; and stage managers Meg Lydon and Keri Schultz Kent. Franklin said it’s particularly special when theater artists start with the company as interns and return to them as professionals.
“Hero Marguerite was with us for two seasons as an intern, and now she will be making her Town Hall theater debut in ‘Circle Mirror Transformation.’ Meg Lydon, who will stage manage two shows this summer, was an intern around the time James started acting here, and now she is the production state manager at Portland Stage and Bowdoin College in Maine, and we’re thrilled to have her return this summer,” Franklin said.
Barry will also direct the first show of the season, “The Making of a Great Moment,” written by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, which runs from June 22 to July 2. This will be Barry’s directing debut at Chester Theatre Company. Previously he was slated to direct a play in 2020 that was canceled due to COVID-19.
Barry said in “The Making of a Great Moment,” Canadian actors Mona and Terry are touring America by bicycle making theater while camping. It features a play-within-a-play — “Great Moments in Human Achievement” — and is described as “an uproariously funny love letter to the theater. Or is it?”
Bill Bowers (Broadway’s “The Lion King,” “Steppenwolf,” “Rattlestick” and more) stars as Terry, and Esther Williamson (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Taffety Punk Theatre Company, the Riot Grrrls) stars as Mona. Both are making their Chester Theatre Company debuts.
July 6 to 16 will feature “Guards at the Taj,” written by Rajiv Joseph and directed by Reena Dutt.
Barry calls it one of his favorite plays. Two best friends stand guard as the Taj Mahal is being built. They protect it with their lives, yet they are forbidden from looking upon its beauty.
“But there is an ugly side to nearly everything — perfection comes at a price, and those in power decide who pays and at what cost,” according to a description of the play.
Director, producer, and teaching artist Reena Dutt makes her Chester Theatre Company directing debut with the production, which will star Ruchir Khazanchi (Lyric Opera of Chicago, Northlight Theatre, Porchlight Music Theatre) and Abuzar Farrukh (Chester Theatre’s “Disgraced,” Ancram Opera House, and the WAM Theatre in Lenox).
Mid-season on July 20 and 21, Barry will direct a special workshop production and the debut of “Unreconciled,” co-written by and starring Jay Sefton, and co-written by Mark Basquill.
Sefton is an Easthampton-based actor, playwright and therapist. “Unreconciled,” a one-person autobiographical piece is about a young boy who has his sights set on becoming an actor, and the priest who exploits his love of theater to abuse him.
“From a Catholic school in the suburbs of Philadelphia to a law office on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, ‘Unreconciled’ is the journey from finding your voice to then using it to save yourself.”
Barry said the play is a tour de force — funny, empathetic and dignified: “You get to watch him become this vast array of characters.”
Franklin said the show will also be a special one for the interns, who will be producing the piece after working on the first two shows, taking the lead on stage management, design, marketing and development. The company’s seven interns this season come from colleges throughout the Northeast, including Smith and Mount Holyoke.
The second half of the season will feature “The Light,” written by Loy A. Webb and directed by Christina Franklin, which runs July 27 to Aug. 6.
Barry said Chester Theatre is excited to be welcoming back Christina Franklin as a director for the third season in a row, with her “great talent and positive energy.” Franklin previously directed 2022’s “Pass Over” and 2021’s “The Niceties,” both nominated for Berkies.
“The Light” is about Rashad and Genesis, who have just gotten engaged. To celebrate, he wants to take her to a show by a Chicago musician who’s made it big. When she refuses, revealing that the rapper assaulted a friend in college, the celebration is cut short. As their discussion grows into an argument, more secrets are exposed, and the past threatens to overshadow their future.
Kala Ross makes her company debut as Genesis, and Kayodè Soyemi (“Pass Over”) returns for his second season to play Rashad.
Aug. 10-20, former Chester Theatre director Daniel Elihu Kramer will return to direct the final show of the season, which will also feature Tara Franklin in the acting ensemble.
“Circle Mirror Transformation,” written by Amherst native Annie Baker, is about five very different people who come together in a Vermont community center for an amateur acting class.
“They are there to learn about performing, but their games and exercises teach them more about themselves and each other than they do about theater,” according to a description of the play.
Barry said the play is about watching actors play actors performing a play within a play.
Along with Tara Franklin, performers include Corinna May (two-time 2022 Berkie winner) and former intern Hero Marguerite, both of whom make their Chester Theatre debuts; and Joel Ripka, who returns to the Town Hall stage for the first time since appearing in Conor McPherson’s “The Night Alive.”
Franklin and Barry have been theater professionals in the area for 25 years. They met at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in the summer of 2007. Afterward, Franklin, who grew up in Dalton, moved to Brooklyn for 10 years before they moved back to the area in 2016.
“Our son was starting kindergarten. I wanted to move back,” she said.
While not new to the Chester Theatre Company, they called becoming the producing artistic directors “a new gig for us, really exciting and challenging, a real joy to dive into. The casting and hiring process, what we want the future of the theater to look like — it’s all very exciting.”
All performances will take place at the auditorium at Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Rd., Chester, Wednesdays through Sundays. Single tickets and subscriptions are on sale now at www.chestertheatre.org or 413-354-7771. Box office phone hours are noon to 3 p.m. Monday and Wednesday until the end of May. Phone hours for summer months will be posted at chestertheatre.org.
Barry said matinees are selling well already, and they are encouraging people to select the shows they want to see, and “seal the deal” soon.
Individual tickets are $52.50. Discounted tickets are offered to Chester and Middlefield residents at $10 each, and are available at 413-354-7770. Proof of residency (can be a posted envelope) is required. Military personnel tickets for $15 are available through the Blue Star Theatres program by calling the box office.
Chester Theatre also offers $10 tickets for holders of EBT, WIC and ConnectorCare cards by calling the box office through the Card to Culture program, a collaboration between Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Department of Transitional Assistance, Massachusetts Health Connector, and WIC Nutrition Program. Student rush tickets are also available for $10 the day of the show by calling the box office or at the door. Students must show valid ID to pick up rush tickets.