PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Pittsfield Parade Committee picked Barrington Stage Company's (BSC) soon to be retired Artistic Director and cofounder Julianne Boyd to be this year's Grand Marshall.

 

Boyd, who recently announced her retirement, was chosen because of her personal accomplishments and the importance of BSC to the region.

 

According to a press release, Grand Marshalls are typically individuals who have an attachment to Pittsfield or the Berkshires and who have been acknowledged for their personal or professional accomplishments. Past Grand Marshalls include local musician David Grover and Olympic Skiers and sisters Kim and Krista Schmidinger from Lee. Christian Center Director Will Durant was selected twice.

 

Boyd has directed productions, including "West Side Story" (2018) and the 2017 production of "Company," starring Aaron Tveit. She also directed the world premiere of Christopher Demos-Brown's "American Son," which won the Laurents-Hatcher Award for Best New Play by an Emerging Playwright in 2016. 

 

Other productions she has directed include the world premieres of Mark St. Germain's "Best of Enemies," "Dancing Lessons," "Dr. Ruth," "All the Way," and the revival of "Goldman and Sondheim's Follies."

 

In 1997 she directed BSC's production of "Cabaret," which won six Boston Theater Critics Awards and transferred to the Hasty Pudding Theatre in Cambridge for an extended run.

 

Boyd conceived and directed the Broadway musical "Eubie!," a show based on the music of Eubie Blake which starred Gregory Hines and garnered three Tony nominations. She also co-conceived and directed (with Joan Micklin Silver) the award-winning Off-Broadway musical revue "A…My Name Is Alice" (Outer Critics' Award) and its sequel "A…My Name Is Still Alice."

 

At Barrington Stage, she has produced the world premieres of William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin's "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," Mark St. Germain's "Freud's Last Session" and the revival of "On The Town" – all of which have moved successfully to New York to Broadway or Off-Broadway. "American Son" also moved to Broadway with an entirely new production produced by Jeffrey Richards.

 

In 2000, Boyd created the Playwright Mentoring Project, BSC's youth at-risk program that won the Coming Up Taller Award in 2007. This award, given by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, is the nation's highest honor for after-school and out-of-school programming.

 

Boyd and William Finn created the Musical Theatre Lab in 2006, where more than 18 New Musicals have been developed, including the world premiere of Finn and Sheinkin's "The Royal Family of Broadway" in 2018. In 2012 Boyd started the 10×10 New Play Festival, and with the City of Pittsfield, the city-wide 10×10 Upstreet Arts Festival. In 2013 she founded the Musical Theatre Conservatory, BSC's professional training program for college-aged musical theatre performers and directors.

 

From 1992 to 1998, Ms. Boyd served as President of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre History from CUNY Graduate Center.

 

 

Boyd said she brought the theater company to Pittsfield in 2005 despite the need to rehabilitate the former Berkshire Public Theater because of its central location to larger communities to the east and west such as Northampton and Albany. She called out former Pittsfield Mayor James Roberto as "very helpful" in opening BSC.

 

She calls Pittsfield a "microcosm of the country" and has received "fabulous support."