We have our tickets, and can’t wait to see “Oliver!” at the Berkshire Theater Festival in Stockbridge.  It’s one of the favorite musicals of all time. The cast includes children and adults drawn from the local Berkshire community.  Stay at Brook Farm Inn in Lenox Massachusetts, and see the show September 4 through 7.

Come to the Berkshires in September, and enjoy special events at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.  September 13, it’s Paula Poundstone, Sept. 21st see the Indigo Girls.  Then on Sept. 22nd the Metropolitan Opera “Live in HD” series begins, with Renee Fleming.  Stay with us at Brook Farm Inn in Lenox Massachusetts, and you can also enjoy the Mahaiwe’s Monday night movies, which present great classic flicks.

The Capitol Steps will be performing their hilarious political satire at the Cranwell Resort and Spa in Lenox Massachusetts through the Labor Day weekend.  Guests of Brook Farm Inn who saw the show this week reported that many new skits have been added that make the show timely.  The recent events in Georgia, the Olympics in China, and John Edwards all are dealt with as only the Capitol Steps can.  By the way, has anybody seen John Edwards lately?

Don’t miss the final weekend of performances.  Also, make reservations for  dinner at The Wyndhurst in the mansion at Cranwell before the Capitol Steps shows.  If you prefer a more casual meal eat at the Sloanes Tavern.  Try the porter on tap if you like dark beer.

We hope the Cranwell brings back the Capitol Steps next season.  In fact, we wish they were staying until November.  This election year should certainly give them a lot of material to work with.

It’s time for picking your own apples in the Berkshires!  At Brook Farm Inn in Lenox Massachusetts, we’re recommending Windy Hill Farm in Great Barrington, where the orchard offers a beautiful mountain view.  This weekend, Bartlett’s Orchard in Richmond will also be open for “pick your own.” 

At Brook Farm Inn in Lenox Massachusetts, we’re recommending that our guests see these wonderful exhibits at the Berkshire Museum.

Look at Us: Portraits from the Berkshire Museum
The Berkshire Museum showcases a diverse collection of art from the 17th century to the present. Look at Us, on view July 1 through October 26, 2008, will feature approximately 40 paintings,  drawings, photographs, and prints, by artists over the centuries. Featured artists include: Ammi Phillips, Rembrandt Peale, Asher B. Durand, Erastus Salisbury Field, John Singer Sargent, J.M. Whistler Edouard Vuillard, Norman Rockwell, Kaethe Kollwitz, Alfred Stieglitz, and more. Plus, a selection of portraits on loan from the Whitney Museum of American art will include works by Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, Ann Hamilton, and others. Explore how Facebook and other technologies change the way we think of identity and portraiture. Take your picture in the photo booth or get creative at the mobile art studio (Saturdays). July 1-September 1, 2008
Full Moon at Night: Monoprints by Betsy Dovydenas
Eight works by the Lenox, Mass., artist explore the natural world at night.  In-kind sponsor: Curtis Publishing and The Saturday Evening Post

Lenox, Massachusetts is a prime destination for September and October.  The Lenox Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring these great events, and we’re telling all our guests at Brook Farm Inn about them.  Call us for more information. 

Sept. 12-14 — A Weekend of the Gilded Age

Sept. 19-21 — The Autumn Art Festival

Sept. 26-28 — Apple Squeeze and Folk Art Festival

Oct. 11-13 — A Coaching Weekend and America’s Harvest

Oct. 18 — Scenic Fall Foliage Train Ride

The annual Tanglewood Jazz Festival is shaping up to be a weekend of outstanding music for jazz lovers (see our Aug 7 blog).  In addition to the Jazz Festival there are lots of things do in the Berkshires.  Here are some of them…

Barrington Stage Company (10 minutes from Brook Farm Inn in Pittsfield) is doing…

SONGS BY RIDICULOUSLY TALENTED
composers and lyricists you probably don’t know, but should… (summer finale—year 3)

Narrated by William Finn and sung by a cast of four, this is a Labor Day weekend celebration of extraordinary new songs and favorite Musical Theatre Lab numbers. Finn shares with the audience what makes a good lyric, why some work and others don’t—you’ll feel as if you’re in a master class in songwriting taught by the master himself. Two nights only—don’t miss out!

Berkshire Theater Festival (5 minutes away from brook Farm Inn)

Noël Coward in Two Keys(1966) was British playwright Noël Coward’s final stage work. It is composed of a pair of intriguing one-act comedies, Come into the Garden, Maud and A Song at Twilight, both of which are set in a Swiss hotel suite. Living life dishonestly takes its toll on Coward’s pithy, sophisticated characters. Vivian Matalon directed the esteemed author himself in the work’s London premiere, as well as the 1974 Broadway version that featured BTF alums Thom Christopher, Hume Cronyn, and Jessica Tandy.

and…

Eleanor: Her Secret Journey is a poignant and thoughtful one-woman play about Eleanor Roosevelt. This intimate portrait of the First Lady reveals her private struggles and offers a distinctly feminine look at politics, power, and war. She and her husband changed America forever. They lifted our society at a time when all appeared hopeless. It seems fitting to add her voice to the conversation during election season.

Shakespeare & Company (around the corner from brook Farm Inn)

Othello This season, for the first time fully produced on the main stage,  Shakespeare’s magnificent allegory that is so enduringly beautiful it has been called “the Othello music”. It is some of theatre’s most resounding language, and a story as startling, chilling and timely today as when it was written over 400 years ago.

The Ladies Man Set in Paris at the turn of the century, it’s about a suave doctor whose young wife and fire-breathing mother-in-law suspect him of infidelity, and who gets deeper into his own soup the more he tries to prove his innocence. The razor fine, saucy language exemplifies how Feydeau’s ear for words and eye for situations influenced today’s comedy. This convoluted story and whip-smart dialogue show where Noel Coward found his zing and the Marx brothers their zaniness. If you liked last season’s Rough Crossing, you’ll love this

All’s Well That Ends Well  One of Shakespeare’s “festive” comedies, written soon after Othello, it’s the topsy-turvy tale of an orphan bride in a self-brokered marriage who can’t get her husband to take her love—or her virginity. As all girls know, losing virginity is as important as keeping it. But no fear; “Girls just wanna have fun,” and Helena is a girl with a plan.

Additionally, there is a craft fair in Lilac Park and the Capitol Steps at the Cranwell, both here in Lenox.  We have availability call now! Brook Farm Inn 800 285 7638

The company that for many years produced the “News In Review” in the Berkshires is opening “Parenting 101, the Musical” Friday at the Kimmel Center’s Innovation Theater in Philadelphia and runs through Sept. 14.  Sketches and musical paradies are performed by a cast of four actors.  Nancy Holson and Jay Falzone, who wrote “The News In Review” also collaborated on this project and have been touring the country with Patenting 101 for three years.

The ”News in Review” did not perform this year in the Berkshires.  They are missed in an election year.  The Capitol Steps has been performing at the Cranwell.  They are talented and funny, however, their material is not as timely as the Holson/Falzone written sketches.   Brook Farm Inn guests enjoyed Capitol Steps last nite but commented that not a word was said about John Edwards.  That would never have happened with “News In Review”.

Golf in the Berkshires in September is incomparable. Link to the “Packages” page for Brook Farm Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts.  There you’ll find our newest package…

September Midweek  Golf Special! 

When you stay at Brook Farm Inn at least  2  midweek nights in September, you’ll receive 2 gift certificates for 9 holes at nearby Greenock Country Club.   Stay must include 2 weekday nights Monday thru Thursday.  (Tee times are subject to availability, cart fees are extra.)