Daniel Elihu Kramer News

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) has just announced a significant, new artistic undertaking. Playwright Darcy Parker Bruce has been selected to author the new work, tentatively slated for the 2020 Season. Longtime, loyal CTC attendees Frances Henry and Walter Korzec have generously underwritten the project with a $100,000 gift to the company. This marks the first commission in what the organization sees as a new artistic initiative, to consistently develop original works that will appear on its stage and have life in other theatres beyond Western Massachusetts.

Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer has chosen to begin the season with the New York Drama Critics' Circle Best Play Winner The Night Alive, written by Irish playwright Conor McPherson, as a tribute to CTC's co-founder, Vincent Dowling, who served as Artistic Director of Dublin's Abbey Theatre in the late 80s, and who helmed CTC from its founding until 1995.

Co-founded by Vincent Dowling and H. Newman Marsh in 1990 with the belief that every town should have a professional theatre, Chester Theatre Company (formerly The Miniature Theatre of Chester) prepares to celebrate its landmark 30th Season with four works, each a New England Premiere. 

At an SRO ceremony held at Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsfield, the Board of the Berkshire Theatre Critics Association presented the Berkshire Theatre Awards on the evening of Monday, November 12, 2018. This was the third year the awards have been presented to honor and celebrate the excellence and diversity of theatre in the greater Berkshire region.

Every year, WAM Theatre donates a portion of the box office proceeds from their fall Main Stage production to agencies that benefit women and girls locally, nationally, or internationally. The success of ANN enabled the company to present their largest donation ever - $15,000 split evenly between its 14th and 15th beneficiaries, The Denise Kaley Fund and the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts' 2018 Leadership Institute for Political and Public Impact (LIPPI). Each organization will receive $7,500.

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) is proud to present Amherst native Annie Baker's The Aliens in the historic Chester Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road in Chester, MA from August 9 through August 19, 2018.   Jasper and KJ, both suffering from 'failure to launch,' have created their own universe behind a local coffee shop, where the dumpster smells last week's lattes. Enter Evan, an impressionable new employee/high school student intrigued by the pair's unconventional charm. While the two impart their 'wisdom' on their new, young friend, life's great pleasures like literature and music are savored along with its bitter brew.  

Jane Austen's most popular novel opens Theater at Monmouth's 2018 Summer Repertory Season adapted by Daniel Elihu Kramer as Pride@Prejudice.

The board of MassDevelopment, the Mass Cultural Council's partner in the administration of the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund (CFF), has awarded Chester Theatre Company (CTC) one of 63 capital grants given statewide by the CFF, a state program that fosters the growth of the creative economy by supporting building projects in the nonprofit arts, humanities, and sciences. In a press release issued by the Mass Cultural Council, MassDevelopment President and CEO Lauren Liss stated, 'The Cultural Facilities Fund supports crucial capital projects at institutions that serve as the backbone of the Massachusetts creative economy.'

Chester Theatre Company has announced its 2018 summer season which is set for June 21 to August 19. More performances, an American Premiere, a special theatre event, and the return of many favorite artists mark CTC's 29th season.

Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer has announced Chester Theatre Company's 2018 Summer Season, which will feature an American Premiere, a Pulitzer Prize winning play, and a play written by a Pulitzer Prize winner and 2017 MacArthur Fellow.

This summer, Theater at Monmouth celebrates wily, wicked, and wonderful women through classic literature's most fantastic females. From fierce matriarchs, unfaithful wives, and every Madonna in-between, Roar! The Year of the Woman spotlights the ladies who move mountains for their families, friends, and most importantly, themselves. Taking on tyrants, freeloaders, and faithless frauds these femme fatales fight for what they believe in, charting a course to a better world for their sisters and daughters.

Following the success of Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol, the Peterborough Players Winter Season returns to the stage with an award winning production of the comedy/drama Every Brilliant Thing.

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) has received two Berkshire Theatre Awards for work seen on the stage of Chester's Town Hall Theatre this past summer. Actor Joel Ripka was cited for Outstanding Solo Performance Piece for Every Brilliant Thing (written by Duncan Macmillian with Jonny Donahoe, and directed by CTC Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer.) Every Brilliant Thing was also named the year's Outstanding New Play or Musical.

Critics J. Peter Bergman and Macey Levin once again hosted the ceremony, which saw top honors for Best Play go to the Berkshire Theatre Group's production of David Auburn's Lost Lake, and a tie between Barrington Stage Company's production of Stephen Sondheim's Company and the Mac-Haydn Theatre's production of Hello, Dolly! for Best Musical.

Following a successful inaugural winter season, the Peterborough Players are offering a line-up of plays that will illuminate the festive spirit of the winter season. First is a classic holiday tale told from a new perspective, followed in February by a touching look at all the things worth holding onto in life, and closing out the season with the New Hampshire Premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire's new comedy.

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) is proud to present Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe's Every Brilliant Thing in the historic Chester Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road in Chester, MA, from August 2 - 13, 2017. The production is directed by CTC Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer.

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) is proud to present Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe's Every Brilliant Thing in the historic Chester Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road in Chester, MA, from August 2 - 13, 2017. The production is directed by CTC Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer. 

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) is proud to present Lauren Gunderson's I and You in the historic Chester Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road in Chester, MA, from June 28 through July 9, 2017. The production is directed by WAM Theatre Artistic Director Kristen van Ginhoven.

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If, perchance, you had never read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, you'd be none the worse for the delight you'd glean from Southwest Shakespeare Company's scintillating and brainy production of PRIDE@PREJUDICE, Daniel Elihu Kramer's clever modernization of the 1813 classic.