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Check out our what to do section for a complete list of Berkshire cultural attractions.
Home for the Harvest
By Bess Hochstein
October 2008
While I make it a habit to stay in the Berkshires in the summer, due to my enjoyment of the nonstop cultural cavalcade, I’m equally reluctant to stray in autumn, as the trees put on their blazing show and the earth provides a bounteous harvest. Every day is a fall festival of glorious color, from the red, orange, yellow, and gold leaves everywhere we look to the Farmers Markets organized by Berkshire Grown, where summer squash has ceded space to emerald kale and vibrant root vegetables -- gleaming beets, carrots, and turnips -- along with late-season heirloom tomatoes and peaches.
Almost every Saturday morning K and I take Duffy and Hobbes to the Great Barrington Farmers Market, which this weekend featured an apple tasting. We sampled tasty varieties such as Honey Crisp, Gala, Macoun, Cortland, and McIntosh, and ended up buying a mixed peck along with a selection of vegetables that we planned to use for a pizza party with our friends. Then we continued on to Guido’s, where we picked up some olives and gluten-free pizza crusts (you can find just about anything at Guido’s!) before heading toward home via Lenox -- to stroll through the Apple Squeeze Festival -- and Lee, for another stroll through the Founders’ Weekend celebration. Sadly, we had to miss the Festival Latino in Lee that evening; instead, we went to MASS MoCA for a sold-out, work-in-progress showing of Time and Motion Study by composer Nick Brooke, who began his musical training at Mount Greylock Regional High School in Williamstown and now teaches at nearby Bennington College.
Seasonal celebrations continue, as the coming weekend brings both the Harvest Festival at Berkshire Botanical Gardens October 4 & 5, and the 53rd Annual Northern Berkshire Fall Foliage Parade in North Adams on October 5. Housatonic Heritage Walks offer copious opportunities to enjoy Berkshire County history and scenery; over the weekend historians, naturalists, environmentalists and other experts will lead more than 30 educational and entertaining walks.  Among the more intriguing are A Lichen Identification Walk and a Guided Canoe Trip, starting at Bartholomew’s Cobble and led by experts from The Trustees of Reservations; From Mission to Mansion, a historic walking tour of Stockbridge from Mission House on Main Street to the historic dairy barn at Naumkeag; Exploring The Mount’s Gardens and Grounds at Edith Wharton’s historic estate; Renewable Energy at the City of Peace: Shaker Water Power Archaeology Tour at Hancock Shaker Village; Art and Art Deco in the Berkshires: Frelinghuysen-Morris House, Studio, & Landscape led by the house museum’s director Kinney Frelinghuysen; Berkshire Railroads and Trolleys, a 90-minute round-trip train ride with historical narration on Berkshire Scenic Railroad’s vintage locomotives and coaches; hikes along the Appalachian Trail, followed by a cookout at the Tyringham Fire Department Picnic Pavilion; and behind-the-scenes tours of local theaters that are part of the new Performing Arts Heritage Trail, including the restored, gilded-age Mahaiwe and Colonial theaters and campus tours of Berkshire Theatre Festival and Shakespeare & Company. Some of these programs require pre-registration, so be sure to check out the Heritage Walks website.
Since foliage season is all about the environment, it’s apt that on Friday, October 3 the Berkshire Museum is hosting a kick-off and preview of the next day’s Green Buildings Open House Tour. In addition to environmentally friendly homes across Berkshire County, the October  4 tour highlights the use of sustainable resources at the Topia Inn, in Adams, the town houses at Aspinwell, in Lenox and in the beer-making process at Barrington Brewery. The next day, the Clark hosts a free Family Day, complete with outdoor activities that capitalize on the museum’s resplendent autumnal environment, including bird-watching expeditions and live bird demonstrations, as well as creative movement workshops, art projects, and a signing and visual imagination presentation by Caldecott medalist Mordicai Gerstein based on his book, How to Paint a Portrait of a Bird.
Columbus Day Weekend also abounds with autumnal activities. Victorian-era horse-drawn carriages roll into the Berkshires for A Coaching Weekend… America’s Harvest, featuring fine equines and riders in period attire driving through Lenox and Stockbridge, with luncheons and presentations at Shakespeare & Company (10/11), Norman Rockwell Museum (10/12), and The Mount (10/13). Hancock Shaker Village begins its series of Shaker Suppers, candlelight harvest dinners featuring traditional fare, followed by a Shaker music program, on October 11 & 12. Just in time for the High Holidays of the Hebrew calendar, The Lichtenstein Center for the Arts is hosting Nu? Artists Celebrate Jewish Culture, with work by more than 20 contemporary artists from across the county. And if fall weather fails to put a swing in your step, the Pittsfield City Jazz Festival, running from October 10-19, surely will. On the opening weekend you can jump and jive to live music at restaurants all over town, such as Aster’s, Pittsfield Brew Works, Brazilian Restaurant & Pub, Bobby Hudpucker’s, Hot Harry’s Burritos, and Patrick’s Pub after the Friday noon kick-off at Pittsfield City Hall, featuring the Eagles Stage Band.
While it might seem like all of those events will have my autumn calendar full, there are plenty more happenings that will keep me right here in the Berkshires. For example, on October 3, after the Green Buildings Tour preview at the Berkshire Museum,  K and I will walk down South Street to The Colonial for the opening reception of Think Pink, Storefront Artists Project’s 5th annual exhibit for Breast Cancer Awareness month. Then it’s off to Great Barrington to see Dar Williams at the Mahaiwe. The next evening, October 4, we’ll head to Williams College to see Lightning at our Feet, a multimedia song cycle inspired by the poems of Emily Dickinson. Composer Michael Gordon and Ridge Theater are staging this dynamic performance at the ’62 Center before taking it to New York in December for the BAM Next Wave Festival. The following Friday, October 10, will find us back at MASS MoCA to see Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, a co-presentation with Jacob’s Pillow of the renowned 16-member troupe featuring men in tutus who dance the fine line between high art and high camp. Then it’s back to the Mahaiwe on Saturday October 11for our first live-in-HD broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera: Salome by Richard Strauss.
Somehow this season I’ve also got to find time to see Barrington Stage Company’s production of To Kill a Mockingbird, presented October 8-26 as part of The Big Read, Pittsfield’s city-wide book-reading event, which begins with a screening of the classic film starring Gregory Peck on October 1 at The Colonial. Other Big Read events include an African-American Heritage Trail Walk on October 5, sponsored by the Samuel Harrison Society; a “Celebrate Urban Birds” weekend October 11 & 12 at the Berkshire Museum; an exhibition opening October 15 at Ferrin Gallery called To Kill a Mockingbird – Interpreted; a special  “Trivia Night” devoted to Harper Lee’s novel at Pittsfield Brew Works on October 14; and book discussions all over town, including one at the Berkshire Athenaeum on October 14. These events will present plenty of opportunities to peruse the creative scarecrows now populating downtown Pittsfield as part of the Hayman 2 public art project.
With election season approaching, I’m planning to look back at a different political era with Berkshire Theatre Festival’s production of Eleanor: Her Secret Journey, an intimate portrait of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s private struggles at a time when all appeared hopeless. And with Halloween just around the corner, it’s a great time to see The Canterville Ghost, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s tale about an American family in a haunted English manor and the stuffy old ghost who can’t seem to scare them. This family-friendly production marks internationally celebrated director Irina Brook’s debut at Shakespeare & Company; there are so many great ways to spend autumn in the Berkshires!
About Bess Hochstein
Bess J.M. Hochstein came to the Berkshires as a second-homeowner before deciding to move here full time. Previously a communications executive, she's now a freelance writer living in Tyringham with her corgis Duffy and Hobbs and K. She writes for several publications, including Berkshire Living, the Boston Globe, New England Wine Gazette, and Healing Lifestyles & Spas magazine.
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