Birchwood Inn » Shakespeare & Company

The British Are Coming… Again!

innkeeper — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:04:15 +0000

Last year's British Motorcar Festival winner and his 1959 Lotus.

Last year’s British Motorcar Festival near our Lenox, MA inn was such an enormously successful event that it calls for an encore! This year’s Berkshire British Motorcar Festival hits the road June 15-17, 2012, in downtown historic Lenox and at Shakespeare & Co. just a couple of blocks from the center of town.

And you don’t have to have a British Motorcar to participate in the weekend events!

Friday:

Fun Rally, a 30-minute self-guided rally, back (but paved!) roads driving tour of the scenic Berkshire hills.
Registrants’ Reception, 4-6 pm, for registrants, car owners and vendors on Shakespeare & Co.’s grounds.
At 6:15 pm, the British Motorcar owners with festival credentials form a procession to downtown Lenox. This is my favorite event of the weekend with the cars all lined up on the village streets. No drooling on the cars permitted! Also you can enjoy the live British Tribute Band, and savor food and drink along the way.

Saturday:

The Concours d’Elegance, the judged competition.

Sunday:

And it’s not over yet! Sunday features a 60-minute scenic driving tour, led by a 1947 Bentley, starting at 8:30 am. Be still my heart!
British-themed Tailgate Picnic Competition.
British Car Corral so get your checkbooks out as this is an opportunity to buy or sell a British motorcar or motorcycle.

Throughout the weekend British companies and vendors will be selling all things British at the British Market Place & Auto Jumble.

Come and have a great weekend during your stay at our Lenox, MA Inn!

Our Inn in Lenox, MA offers 12 accommodations enjoy Berkshires, Bed & Breakfast,Inn in Lenox MA featuring private baths, cozy fireplaces and more. You can read the original blog post here The British Are Coming… Again!.

We’ve Got Snow and The Arts

innkeeper — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:19:50 +0000

In Winter, Berkshires Culture Moves Indoors

Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

Top: Ventfort Hall in Lenox, Mass., where Anne Undeland performs “Open Marriage” in the library, right. Above: A work by Adrian Paci, left, at Mass MoCA in North Adams.

Original Article By Mark Vanhoenacker

There’s far more to the Berkshire Mountains than Tanglewood, and the arts and culture do continue after Labor Day all around our Lenox Bed and Breakfast. As Mark Vanhoenacker says in The NYT, “even in January, cultural life here thrives, at museums, theaters and music halls. And when it’s time for a little après-edification, you’ll find acres of elbow-room on area slopes.”

Why not start your cultural tour in North Adams, at Mass MoCA, one of the largest museums of contemporary art in the world? There are currently some exciting exhibits. And Mass MoCA’s performance stages are busy as well, such as jazz vocalist Catherine Russell on Feb. 18.

“The grande dame of Berkshire museums, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, just down the roadin Williamstown. The Rembrandt and Degas exhibition runs until February 5. “Clark Remix” opens Feb. 12. Pittsfield, which celebrated its 250th birthday in 2011, Pittsfield host 10×10 on North, the county’s first-ever winter contemporary arts festival, Feb. 16 to 26, featuring “exactly 10 of a number of things, including short pieces by two theatrical groups, Barrington Stage and New Stage; performances by poets, tango dancers and singer-songwriters; and short films.”At the Colonial Theater, a treasure from the Gilded Age, offers a busy winter calendar, including the Turtle Island Quartet (Feb. 17) and the Cajun masters BeauSoleil Avec Michael Ducet (Feb. 24).

In Lenox, Shakespeare & Co., as Vanhoenacker notes, “never lets the floorboards cool.” This season’s winter programming includes Molière’s comedy “The Learned Ladies,” which opens Feb. 3.

We hope you have the opportunity to enjoy some of these fantastic cultural events during your stay at our Berkshires Inn!

Shakespeare & Co. Celebrates 35th Anniversary

innkeeper — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:07:33 +0000

There are anniversaries galore in Lenox this year — Tanglewood, Jacob’s Pillow and now Shakespeare & Co, all near our Lenox Bed and Breakfast.

Shakespeare & Co’s 35th season is one of rebellion and revolution, and features one of Lenox’s favorite visitors, Academy Award-winning Olympia Dukakis (she loves Cafe Lucia!), in “The Tempest” and OBIE Award-winning actor John Douglas Thompson in “Satchmo at the Waldorf.”

“The season is designed to look at who we were, who we are, and where we’re going,” said artistic director Tony Simotes. “Revolution and rebellion, that the energy of the theater. That’s what we do.”

The summer portion of the company’s 35th anniversary season runs from May 25 through Labor Day.

Highlights include “The Tempest,” mid-July-mid-August; “Satchmo at the Waldorf,” mid-August-Labor Day; and “King Lear,” mid-June-mid-August.

The season also features “Endurance,” the story of the unlikely survival of Sir Ernest Shackleton and crew in Antarctica; and “Red,” a play based on painter Mark Rothko.

“Cassandra Speaks,” a play about controversial journalist Dorothy Thompson; “Parasite Drag,” a dark comedy of two estranged brothers; and “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife”; a comedy about a depressed, unfulfilled Upper West Side wife, round out the season.

A star-studded season for a star-studded anniversary! We hope you have the chance to enjoy this exciting season during your stay at our Bed and Breakfast in Lenox!

Hot Time in the Old Lenox December 9, 10 & 11

innkeeper — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:52:29 +0000

Quinn says: Lenox, MA, in the heart of The Berkshires, has been

compared to a Currier and Ives sketch. This is especially true during

the December holiday period. And there’s nothing that says New

England better than Lenox village dressed in holiday-style.

Catch the spirit on the weekend of December 10 when the village hosts

the Lenox Caroling Festival. The festival is a gala weekend, a

Christmas stocking filled with holiday events. The celebration

of seasonal songs begins on Saturday, December 10. Thirty or more

of the Northeast’s finest choirs and choral groups have been invited

to lift their voices in a day-long songfest and competition, 10 am to

noon and 1:30 pm to 4 pm throughout the village (in case of

inclement weather, the festival will move to indoor venues).

During the weekend you can also tour many of the village’s renown

bed and breakfast inns, including Birchwood Inn (Our Lenox Bed and Breakfast is

offering holiday special rates this weekend — and throughout most

of November and December as well) and sample holiday treats from

our special local restaurants (Quinn notes that this is her favorite event,

ever optimistic that there will be some cookies that drop on the floor!)

Lenox’s unique shops and restaurants will also be featuring festival specials.

On Saturday, from 6 pm to 7 pm, enjoy the Carolers’ Reception,

award presentations, and sing-a-long at Shakespeare & Co. For a

great feel-good experience, moreover, see David Sedaris’ “Santaland

Diaries” 7:30 pm on Saturday as well as two matinee performances,

Friday and Saturday at 2 pm.

Trinity Church invites everyone to its Holiday Fair and Silver Tea

on Saturday from 10 am to 3 pm.

And what are the holidays without a gingerbread house? The Lenox

Library hosts the annual Gingerbread Contest on Sunday, 10 am to

3 pm.

This is a most special weekend, for sure, but everyday is special

in Lenox during the holidays. Come and celebrate the season of

lights with us at our Lenox MA Inn!

Dog Days? I’m Insulted

innkeeper — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 07:53:11 +0000

As a most fine and upstanding canine, I am not at all happy that these miserably hot days in the Northeast, with unheard of temperatures in the 90s and humidity that even curls my hair, are called Dog Days. Dogs are cool!

Here in Lenox, in the heart of the Berkshire Hills in Western Massachusetts, there are gentle breezes in the garden and on the front porch at Birchwood Inn.

The leafy hiking trails in Kennedy Park across the street are very pleasant. There is plenty of shade under the ancient oaks at Tanglewood, and fortunately the air-conditioning is working mighty fine at Shakespeare & Co., Jacob’s Pillow, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Barrington Stage Co., The Colonial, and Williamstown Theatre Festival. I also love taking a cool respite at The Norman Rockwell Museum, The Clark Art Institute, and MASS MoCA.

And there’s nothing more refreshing than a swim in one of the many nearby mountain lakes.

Nothing doggy about it. Why not the Cat Days of Summer?

And that’s the way I see it. Quinn