MASTER CLASS to Open Shakespeare & Company's 36th Season Tonight

Artistic Director Tony Simotes and Shakespeare & Company are pleased to present celebrated playwright Terrance McNally's powerful Master Class,officially kicking off its 36th Performance Season. This riveting production directed by Daniel Gidron stars Elliot Norton and IRNE award-winning actress Annette Miller as Maria Callas. Master Class runs from May 24th through August 18th in S&Co.'s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.

Tickets to Master Class are $15-$50, and S&Co. offers a wide range of discount options, including discounts for groups, students, senior citizens, military, teachers and our very popular 40% Berkshire Resident Discount. To view a complete schedule, receive a brochure, or inquire about discounts, please call the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or visit www.shakespeare.org. For customized group visits - which may include artist talkbacks, tours, weddings, parties and catered events - contact the Group Sales office at (413) 637-1199, ext. 132. The Bernstein Theatre is hearing aid assisted and wheelchair accessible.

A Tony winner for Best Play, McNally's Master Class takes us inside Callas' infamous sessions, which she conducted late in her career. It's a riveting portrait of the opera diva told through her recollections of the glories, triumphs, and tragedies of her own life and career.

Callas' voice is gone, her lover is long departed, and her sanity could possibly be next. All she has is a lonely itinerary of master classes and luggage packed full of the memories that are her only travel companion. Her students are the hapless targets of her sharp tongue, while she remains the picture of innocent aristocracy. Master Classshows that while the actress may have left the stage, she will never give up her audience.

"I remember distinctly the first time I heard Maria Callas singing," says Gidron. "I was a freshman in high school in Tel Aviv, and an American girl lent me a record of Callas singing Puccini arias. Even though I was a classical music lover I had never heard anything like it. The pain, the joy, the power, the vulnerability of those Puccini ladies were jumping at me from the LP grooves. I was hooked. I started listening to everything of Callas I could get a hold of, and saving money to buy those treasured albums. I could not believe that the soprano singing Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, Tosca in Tosca, or Rosina in The Barber of Seville was one and the same woman, yet it was clear that the sensibility, musical judgment, and acting power were all Callas'."

In a true tour de force performance, audience favorite Annette Miller embodies the iconic opera diva Maria Callas as she continues to thrill Berkshire audiences with her performances of both classical and contemporary characters. Ms. Miller, an Elliot Norton and IRNE Award-winner (Golda's Balcony) and star of last summer's hit comedy, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife once again teams up with director Daniel Gidron. Gidron previously direcTed Miller in Golda's Balcony (2002 and 2009), and in Full Gallop in 2003. In addition to his work with S&Co., Gidron's directing credits include productions with the Lyric Stage Company, Gloucester Stage Company, and Merrimack Repertory Theatre, among many others. He is the Associate Director of the Nora Theatre Company in Cambridge, MA.

The cast also includes Company members Deborah Grausman (Broadway in the Berkshires 2011 and 2013 producer and performer) as Sharon, Luke Reed (A Midsummer Night's Dream 2013, Tartuffe The Imposter 2012), as Manny, and Josie Wilson (The Merry Wives of Windsor 2006, Macbeth-New England Tour 2008), and new-comers Alec Donaldson as Tony and Nora Menkin, as Sophie.

McNally has earned a total of four Tony Awards (Ragtime, Master Class, Love! Valour! Compassion!, and Kiss of the Spider Woman) and written other great theater hits fromThe Full Monty to Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune -- clearly securing his place among the great modern playwrights.

"I have spent a lifetime admiring the art and craft of Maria Callas," adds Gidron. "So when Tony Simotes called me to see if I would be interested in directing Master Classwith Annette Miller I was ecstatic. Reuniting with Annette at Shakespeare & Company is wonderful. I directed her amazing performance in Golda's Balcony and the experience was so joyful and rewarding. The prospect of working with her on inhabiting another icon of the twentieth century, Maria Callas, fills me with anticipation and delight. I can't wait for the audience to share in our journey."

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