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Setting a New Stage

By Williamstown Theatre Festival

April 7, 2025

The beginning of the The Annex renovations (2025); photo by Production Director, Adrian White

“The Annex” is a new Festival venue in the North Adams Gateway Center, located at 245 State Road in North Adams, MA. We are converting a former Rent-A-Center into a flexible performance space for an intimate, non-traditional theatre experience. For W71, it will be home to four core productions.

Above is a behind-the-scenes shot that Production Director Adrian White took a week ago as the Williamstown Production team and our friends at Moresi & Associates and Hill Engineers start to renovate the space.

This summer, Heartbeat Opera’s production of Vanessa, Monica Bill Barnes & Company’s dance piece Many Happy Returns, Ahamefule J. Oluo’s solo musical The Things Around Us, and Late at The Annex––a series of late-night music performances with artists to be announced soon––all take place in The Annex.

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A moment as a gift.

The Things Around Us.

A moment as a gift.

Our version of a memory play.

Many Happy Returns

Our version of a memory play.

Monica Bill Barnes is a choreographer and performer. She’s been dancing for about forty years but hardly ever calls herself a dancer. I (Robbie Saenz de Viteri) write and insist I’m not performing even when I’m talking on stage. We’ve been collaborating for something like the last ten years. I say “something like” because the borders of working together have a pretty soft edge. When did we start? Whose idea was this? I’m going to make this change because of something you said which prompts you t

By Williamstown Theatre Festival

Jeremy O. Harris on W71

W71

Jeremy O. Harris on W71

Hello, I’m Jeremy O. Harris. And it is my pleasure to welcome you to Williamstown for my inaugural year as Creative Director. A “theatre festival” in 2025 is a curious proposition for a litany of reasons. First of all, what is theatre? And who is it for? A theatre festival in the Berkshires is an entirely different proposition altogether because it brings to mind a history of summer stock and communities that are quite foreign to those that I was raised within. These thoughts and queries, to m

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He was 27.

Not About Nightingales

He was 27.

Director Robert O'Hara returns to Williamstown.

By Williamstown Theatre Festival