Our Leader
Our Company
Julianne Boyd is the Founder (1995) and Artistic Director of Barrington Stage Company (BSC) where she has directed many productions, including the critically acclaimed West Side Story (2018) and the 2017 hit production of Company, starring Aaron Tveit. She also directed the world premiere of Christopher Demos-Brown’s American Son, which won the Laurents-Hatcher Award for Best New Play by an Emerging Playwright in 2016. Other productions include the world premieres of Mark St. Germain’s Dancing Lessons, The Best of Enemies and Dr. Ruth, All the Way and the critically acclaimed revival of Goldman and Sondheim’s Follies. In 1997 she directed BSC’s smash hit production of Cabaret, which won six Boston Theater Critics Awards and transferred to the Hasty Pudding Theatre in Cambridge for an extended run.
Boyd conceived and directed the Broadway musical Eubie!, a show based on the music of Eubie Blake which starred Gregory Hines and garnered three Tony nominations. She also co-conceived and directed (with Joan Micklin Silver) the award-winning Off Broadway musical revue A…My Name Is Alice (Outer Critics’ Award) and its sequel A…My Name Is Still Alice.
Ms. Boyd has created several seminal programs at BSC. In 2000 she created the Playwright Mentoring Project, BSC’s underserved youth program that won the prestigious Coming Up Taller Award in 2007. In 2012 she started the 10×10 New Play Festival, and with the City of Pittsfield, the city-wide 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival. In 2013 she founded the Musical Theatre Conservatory, BSC’s pre-professional training program for college-aged musical theatre performers and directors.
From 1992 to 1998 Ms. Boyd served as President of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the national labor union representing professional directors and choreographers in the U.S. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre History and Criticism from CUNY Graduate Center. She and her husband Norman have three grown children.
MISSION
Barrington Stage Company (BSC) is a not-for-profit professional theatre company in the Berkshires (MA) with a three-fold mission: to produce top-notch, compelling work; to develop new plays and musicals; and to engage our community with vibrant, inclusive educational outreach programs.
VISION
Barrington Stage creates theatre experiences that engage and excite our audiences by entertaining as well as challenging them with the most dynamic and provocative productions possible. BSC creates a platform for new voices and diverse perspectives that drives all of our work: our productions, our educational programming and our community engagement.
VALUES
-
Artistic Excellence — we create an environment that empowers and supports artists to do their best work.
-
Community — we create relevant work that deeply resonates with the diverse communities we serve.
-
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion — we welcome artists, staff and patrons of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, economic groups, religions, age, gender and physical ability.
-
Respect and Openness — we strive to create a positive environment where ideas from many different perspectives are valued and openly discussed.
-
Fiscal Responsibility — Financial health and stability are necessary for the success of our organization.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
We acknowledge that we are gathering on the ancestral homelands of the Mohican people. Despite tremendous hardship in being forced from here, today their community resides in Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We pay honor and respect to them and their ancestors as we commit to building a more inclusive and equitable space for all.
Barrington Stage Company recognizes that we are a predominantly white institution that has historically benefited from systemic racism. We commit to anti-racism and anti-oppression throughout our organization. Black lives matter. We accept the responsibility to fight to end racial inequities in our theatre and our industry.
Barrington Stage Company is committed to a workplace free of discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, or disability. Our work seeks to celebrate all members of our community and amplify the marginalized voices who are often silenced. It is our responsibility to prioritize and protect from discrimination and oppression those who make our work possible. We stand in solidarity against bigotry and racism. We will hold our artists, staff, board, audience members, volunteers and donors accountable to these principles.
HISTORY
Barrington Stage Company is the fastest growing arts venue in Berkshire County, attracting more than 60,000 patrons each year. BSC continues to gain national recognition for its superior quality productions and comprehensive educational programming.
Dan Fogler, Deborah S. Craig, Celia Keenan-Bolger, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Sarah Saltzberg in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” (2004)
Barrington Stage has produced several award-winning plays and musicals, beginning in its inaugural year with The Diary of Anne Frank, which won the Elliot Norton/Boston Theatre Critics Award. In its third year, BSC won two Elliot Norton/Boston Theatre Critics Awards and four Outer Critics Awards for its smash hit production of Cabaret, which moved to Boston and played an extended run at the Hasty Pudding Theatre. Several other BSC productions, including Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill; Mack and Mabel; The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; Follies; West Side Story; Freud’s Last Session; Sweeney Todd; Best of Enemies; Breaking the Code and On the Town have been named among the top 10 productions of the year in many area newspapers — leading The Boston Globe to laud BSC as “one of the jewels in the state’s crown.”
In 2016, Barrington Stage swept the first annual Berkshire Theatre Awards by winning 20 out of the 25 awards. In 2016, BSC produced the world premiere of American Son, which won the Laurents/Hatcher Award for Best New Play and opens on Broadway, November 2018.
In 2017, BSC produced the much-lauded revival of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Company, starring Aaron Tveit.
In 2018, BSC produced the critically acclaimed production of West Side Story, in honor of Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins’ 100th birthdays. In 2017 and 2018, BSC won the Best of the Berkshires Readers’ Choice for Best Live Theatre.
2019 marks BSC’s 25th Season Anniversary.
AND THEN TO BROADWAY…
Barrington Stage gained national prominence in 2004 with the world premiere of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin. The musical, a runaway hit at Barrington Stage, later moved to Broadway and won two Tony Awards. In June 2013, BSC produced Leonard Bernstein, Comden, and Green’s On the Town, directed by John Rando and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse. It received across-the-board rave reviews, with Ben Brantley of The New York Times writing, “Normally, I wouldn’t tell citizens of the five boroughs to drive three hours to be told that New York is a helluva town. But this enchanted vision of a city that was—and of course never was—is worth catching…” A Broadway production opened in October of 2014 to rave reviews. The show received four Tony nominations, including Best Musical Revival.
A PERMANENT HOME
The Wolfson Center, purchased in 2016 through the generosity of Bernie & Jessie Wolfson.
In its first 11 years, BSC operated from rented space at the Consolati Performing Arts Center at Mount Everett High School in Sheffield, MA. BSC used a high school auditorium as their Mainstage space, and two cafeterias as makeshift theatres, one for their Stage 2 (where The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee premiered) and the other for their Youth Theatre. In July 2005, BSC purchased a 1912 vaudeville theatre in downtown Pittsfield and presented their first season in 2006 in the partially renovated space (with only the orchestra available for seating). By June 2007, BSC opened its doors to a completely renovated 520-seat, state-of-the art theatre now known as the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage.
In the spring of 2012, BSC purchased the former V.F.W. building in Pittsfield, three blocks from the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage. The building, now called the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center in honor of the BSC patrons who made the purchase of the building possible, houses the 132-seat St. Germain Stage and Mr. Finn’s Cabaret, a 99-seat cabaret space in the lower level of the building. In the summer of 2016, Barrington Stage’s campus grew once again, with the acquisition of 122 North Street, now called the Wolfson Center, after BSC patrons Jessie and Bernie Wolfson, who made the purchase possible. In May of this year, BSC’s administrative offices, rehearsal rooms and costume shop moved to the Wolfson Center, giving Barrington a prime location in downtown Pittsfield.
BSC has become an integral part of downtown Pittsfield’s economic revitalization. In 2009 the Massachusetts Cultural Council presented a “Creative Community” Commonwealth Award to the City of Pittsfield in recognition of its efforts to boost the creative economy in Massachusetts.