Williamstown Theatre Festival Cancels On-Stage Season in Berkshires

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Williamstown Theatre Festival announced Tuesday that it will not produce the summer 2020 season in Williamstown as planned.

The season was scheduled to open on June 30 on the Main Stage with Tennessee Williams' classic "A Streetcar Named Desire." Six-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald was scheduled to star as Blanche DuBois in this production directed by Robert O'Hara, with Carla Gugino as Stella and Bobby Cannavale as Stanley. 

The season was scheduled to end on Aug. 23 on the Main Stage with "Photograph 51" by Anna Ziegler, which honors the work and contribution of Rosalind Franklin as she closes in on a discovery around the DNA molecule, and on the Nikos Stage season with "Animals," a world premiere by Stacy Osei-Kuffour. 

"This is a very difficult situation for everyone at the festival," Artistic Director Mandy Greenfield said in the announcement, emailed to supporters. "In the event the governor's or other civil authority's positions or requirements are amended or updated, we will let you know if these changes affect our ability to mount the season in Williamstown, as planned."

Greenfield said 2020 season ticket bundle buyers will receive a separate email detailing how bundle purchases may be converted into a donation, credit voucher or refund.

WTF will forge ahead with the new work that had planned but making it in a different way.

"We will create seven new productions with Audible, the world's largest producer and provider of original spoken-word entertainment and audiobooks, in a format safe to elevate, entertain, transport, reveal, unmask and transform audiences from the comfort of their homes," she wrote. "The stellar group of artists who planned to spend the summer in Williamstown, will deliver — with fearlessness and redoubled passion — on the promise they made to create this work for you. 

"This virus might get to tell us what we cannot do but it does not get to dictate what we can do. The voices of these artists will be heard."

Williams College Plans Temporary Parking Lot at Former Field House Site

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
01:37PM / Sunday, March 09, 2025

The foundation of the demolished Towne Field House is still visible on the Williams campus.

 

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College last month secured the town's permission to convert the former site of Towne Field House to a temporary parking lot.

 

In a series of meetings hearings before the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Conservation Commission, the college received a special permit and a negative determination of applicability of the Rivers Protection Act to enable to new use for the lot on Latham Street.

 

Engineer Charlie LaBatt of Guntlow and Associates represented the college before both town panels, stressing each time the temporary nature of the plan.

 

"Five to eight years is what's anticipated, as the college works to solve what's next for that area of campus." Guntlow told the ZBA. "It will help alleviate parking concerns they have while other projects go on around campus that may displace workers and tenants.

 

"This use of this area, which has been dormant for about two years, it was felt was a fairly easy, low-impact and yet beneficial use for the community — five to eight years in the while everyone could benefit from it."

 

LaBatt and college officials who attended the ZBA meeting said that while the planned 66-space lot is intended for college use, it could be available to the public in the evening, on weekend or during college breaks, just like the adjacent existing lot associated with the college's facilities building.

 

The school needed a special permit from the ZBA, in part, because of the temporary lot is an expansion of and will be connected to the existing parking lot, which itself does conform to the bylaw. The lot across from the Weston Field athletic complex extends beyond the front edifice of the facilities building it serves; the bylaw requires parking areas in that district to be set back from the road at least to the profile of the building.