My Nonprofit Reviews

Every parent looks for ways to enrich their children's lives, and when my sons were 8 and 10, my gut told me that Shakespeare and Company's upcoming production of "The Comedy of Errors" scheduled for the Barn at The Mount was exactly the intro they needed to The Bard's work. We picked them up from an overnight visit with their aunt and uncle and on the hour-long drive from Albany to Lenox, all they did was complain that they only wanted to go home and see their dog, not some dumb play. I quelled my misgivings (were they too young? would they make a scene in the audience? what if, heaven forbid, they just didn't get it?) by telling them it was a comedy and they'd laugh. During the opening scenes where the father recounts the tragic loss of his son, my 8-year-old leaned over to employ the kind of sarcasm a mother dreads. "You said this was a comedy," he practically sneered in something too close to a stage whisper. "It is," I insisted, hoping that my own memory of having seen this as a teenager wasn't faulty. Soon, though, the all-woman cast portraying long-lost identical twins worked their magic, and when one of the Dromios ran up the stairs, jumped into my husband's lap and begged for protection, my sons were won over. That was 10 years ago. We still quote a phrase from that show in our house and periodically recite our "life list" of Shakespeare plays we've seen. One of our older son's best college interviews was when he could talk about Henry V's "Band of Brothers" speech, and the 8-year-old who was so skeptical of the Bard played Touchstone in "As You Like It" at his high school this year. We know that each show we see at Shakespeare and Company will inform us, awe us and prove a great day out. We love to bring a picnic and eat on the lovely grounds before a show, catch the always-amusing preludes, and settle in to our seats with an anticipation rare and delightful. Our children are leaving the nest, and we owe Shakespeare and Company two large debts. One for enriching their lives beyond measure; the other for providing us with a set of memories that will warm us, make us laugh, and make us think for the rest of our lives.

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