The main building of the Berkshire Theatre Festival was originally the
Stockbridge Casino, designed by Stanford White and built in 1887. At one point the center of social life in Stockbridge, by 1927 it had fallen into disuse.
Mabel Choate, the daughter of one of the
casino's founders, purchased the property for $2,000, but wasn't interested in the casino itself (she moved the
Mission House to the property). Three prominent Stockbridge residents, sculptor
Daniel Chester French, businessman and artist
Walter Leighton Clark, and Dr. Austen Fox Riggs, formed a committee called the Three Arts Society to save the casino; Choate sold the building to them for $1 on the condition that it be relocated. French, Clark, and Riggs agreed, and had the structure dismantled and moved to its current location. After an extensive renovation, the newly christened Berkshire Playhouse opened on June 4, 1928, with a production of "The Cradle Song" with
Eva Le Gallienne. Actors who have starred in productions at the Berkshire Playhouse include
James Cagney,
Lionel Barrymore,
Lillian Gish,
Katharine Hepburn, and
Buster Keaton. Notable producing directors have included Billy Miles,
Joan White, Robert Paine Grose,
George Tabori,
Arthur Penn, Josephine Abady, Julianne Boyd, Bill Gibson, Richard Dunlap, and
Arthur Storch. In 1967, the Three Arts Society was dissolved and the Berkshire Playhouse was incorporated as a nonprofit organization, the Berkshire Theatre Festival. In 1982, the Berkshire Theatre Festival purchased
Beaupré Performing Arts Center's property in
Stockbridge, renaming it the Lavan Center for the Performing Arts. The site was used as a dormitory, classroom, and performance space for the organization's apprentices and interns. ==Past seasons==