Jeremy O Harris’s guide to Williamstown Theatre Festival
The playwright and actor tours the event’s ‘hallowed’ Berkshires home
I came to the Berkshires in the most millennial-Gen Z way possible. Today’s CV is an Instagram account, and the managing director of Williamstown Theatre Festival DM’d me to ask if I’d like to get involved. I’ve been working in theatre for 15 years and have never been approached by a festival, let alone Williamstown, which is legendary. Fast forward a year or so and I am spending the summer in Williamstown as the festival’s creative director, and my latest play, Spirit of the People, has its world premiere here in July.
Williamstown is a hallowed space in regional theatre: James Cusati-Moyer cut his teeth here, as did Andrew Burnap. For a young theatre obsessive, this was always the gold star. Tennessee Williams visited the festival many times, and Edward Albee and Sam Shepard spent time here, too. There is such a rich artistic community in the Berkshires: you have filmmakers, musicians, dancers, painters and writers within a 30-mile radius, so there is creativity everywhere.