Curtain's Up For Visions Of The Stage Exhibition At The Clark

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WILLIAMSTOWN - The relationships between theater, visual art, and performance in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France will be explored this fall at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. An exhibition, Visions of the Stage: Prints and Drawings, 1600-1800, will open to the public on August 23, held in conjunction with the two-day symposium "Visions of the Stage: Theater, Art, and Performance in France, 1600-1800" on September 12 and 13. Renowned harpsichordist and musicologist Mark Kroll will perform works by French composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on September 13 at 8 pm at Williams College.

Visions of the Stage: Prints and Drawings, 1600-1800, an exhibition of 20 works, draws from the collections of the Clark and Chapin Library of Rare Books at Williams College, and includes drawings, prints, and books relating to theater and performance. Included will be drawings by Jean-Antoine Watteau, illustrations by Francois Boucher and many others, as well as costume designs, portraits of actors, and designs for theaters.

The symposium, "Visions of the Stage: Theater, Art, and Performance in France, 1600-1800," held September 12 and 13 and convened in association with the Calendrier Électronique des Spectacles sous l'Ancien Régime et sous la Revolution (CESAR), brings together historians of art, literature, theater, and culture to explore the complex relationships between the visual and theatrical arts in Ancien Régime and Revolutionary France. Cost to attend is $25 for adults, $15 for students, and free for Williams students and faculty. Register online at www.clarkart.edu <http://www.clarkart.edu> or by calling 413-458-0524.

Symposium participants include: Mark Bannister, Oxford Brookes University; Kathryn A. Hoffmann, University of Hawaii; Jeanne Bovet, Université de Montréal; Véronique Lochert, Université de Haute-Alsace; Jan Clarke, Durham University; Sabine Chaouche, Oxford Brookes University; Anne L. Schroder, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University; Christian Biet, Institut Universitaire de France, Université de Paris X (Nanterre); Nathalie Rizzoni, CELLF 17e-18e, Université de Paris (Sorbonne); Françoise Rubellin, Université de Nantes; Daniel Smith, Northwestern University; Georgia Cowart, Case Western Reserve University; Sarah Cohen, University at Albany, State University of New York; and Nicholas Paige, University of California, Berkeley. Funding for the symposium has been provided by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Florence Gould Foundation.

In association with the symposium, renowned harpsichordist and musicologist Mark Kroll will play a free program of music by Couperin and other French composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on September 13 at 8 pm at Williams College. He will focus on music that paints musical "portraits" of people, places, and things, which reflects seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French society and culture. Kroll is a world-renowned harpsichordist, fortepianist, and scholar, described by the Washington Post as "the ideal performing artist." He has recorded extensively and toured widely, and has written books on Hummel and Beethoven, and has published extensively in early music journals. Held at in the Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall at Williams College.

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open daily in July and August from 10 am to 5 pm (closed Mondays September through June). Admission June 1 through October 31 is $12.50 for adults, free for children 18 and younger, members, and students with valid ID. Admission is free November through May. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit www.clarkart.edu.
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Williamstown Planning Board Narrowing in on Subdivision Bylaw Changes

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Planning Board late last month discussed specific features of what it plans to pass as a new subdivision control bylaw this year.
 
The board long has discussed the complex set of regulations as being out of date and cumbersome to both potential developers and the board itself, which has needed to hear requests for waivers of outdated rules for the handful of residential subdivisions that have been proposed in town in recent years.
 
This spring, the town engaged consultants from Northampton's Dodson and Flinker Landscape Architecture and Planning to go through the existing bylaw, compare it to more contemporary regulations in other communities and help craft a revised bylaw.
 
Unlike the zoning bylaw, where amendments require approval of town meeting, the subdivision control bylaw is a creation of the Planning Board, which can make changes on its own after a public hearing process it hopes to complete this year.
 
At a special Planning Board meeting on May 26, Dillon Sussman of Dodson and Flinker and his colleagues walked the board through a dozen different decision points that the board must resolve — either by leaving the bylaw as is or making a change — and offered suggestions based on best practices.
 
All of the issues are technical and ranged from the fundamental, like how the bylaw will define types of subdivisions, to the highly specific, like what turning radii will be required in new streets that are constructed to serve planned developments.
 
One example of a topic that came up in the recent approval of a four-home subdivision off Summer Street is stormwater management.
 
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