<div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">For Immediate Release</span></b><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Contact: Mike Clary</span></b><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a><b><span style="color:blue">MrMikeClary1@gmail.com</span></b></a></span><b><u><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:blue"></span></u></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">518-267-0683</span></b></p><img src="cid:ii_l3x9wymn5" alt="gbpt2.png" width="148" height="170" style="margin-right: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><b style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">June 2, 2022</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Great Barrington Public
Theater Solo Fest Premieres Will LeBow’s <i>The Bard The Beat The Blues</i>.
A master actor’s muses and music take him from Greenwich Village and Lawrence
Ferlinghetti to Shylock, Malvolio and Ma Rainey.</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">GB Public Theater 2022
stage season begins with four new solo performances that run for over five
weeks. All feature stories of humanity and demonstrate the power of a single
voice. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">GB Public is proud to
include in this series the premiere of Will LeBow’s raconteurial jewel, <a name="m_1166812912387242770__Hlk104886956"><b>The Bard The Beat The Blues </b></a>(June 8-26),
directed by company Artistic Director Jim Frangione and featuring the
accomplished actor-musician LeBow, storytelling and versifying his creative
arc, from his family’s acting roots to a his life on stage--all presented with funny
asides, anecdotes, screen media and musical interludes. In this mesmerizing, quickly-paced
hour of storytelling, audiences will fall under the spell of a marvelous entertainer
and musician; we move along with LeBow from his ancestry in the Jewish ghetto
of Vilna, Lithuania to Brooklyn, where his grandfather acted in Yiddish
theater, to growing up in 1950s, heading off to City College, discovering
Shakespeare, being introduced to the nightlife in the heyday of Greenwich
Village, the poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and other influences that led him
to a lifelong career on stage.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">In his story, LeBow weaves
bits from Shakespeare, Chekov, August Wilson, Mississippi John Hurt and Scott
Joplin, the stream of anecdotes and life-lessons accompanied by LeBow at the
keyboard, playing his own bluesy music. It’s a seamless performance by a
fantastic storyteller, loaded with laughs, heart, bite, and historical
commentary. It recounts the world and road as they unfolded for LeBow, why it’s
ill-advised to bite our tongues when others tell us to, and, in his words, why
this “nutzo, farkakte world” with all its randomness and unseen possibilities
is the best world to be born in, if you have the creative bones to deal with
it.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Will LeBow’s<b> </b>musical
pictorial memoir <b>The Bard The Beat The Blues</b> is onstage seven times
only, in rotation with the other solo performances, from June 8-June 26,
Thurs.-Sun., 7:30pm and 3pm, in the Liebowitz Black Box Theater, Bard College
at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Rd, Great Barrington, MA 01230. Ticket reservations
are encouraged and can be made on the </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a href="https://www.greatbarringtonpublictheater.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">Great Barrington Public Theater website</span></a></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> </span></p><img src="cid:ii_l3x9tt4y2" alt="image.png" width="318" height="451"><br>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">###</span></b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 42pt 0in 0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Will LeBow</span></b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> has
had an accomplished, decades-long career on stage and screen. His credits
include BROADWAY: <i>Act One</i>. OFF-BROADWAY: <i>Mrs. Miller Does
Her Thing</i>, <i>Nocturne</i> NYTW Drama Desk Nomination. REGIONAL:<i> Ma
Rainey's Black Bottom, Sonia Flew,</i> <i>The Rivals, The Cherry Orchard,
The Corn is Green, Love's Labour's Lost </i>(Huntington)<i>; The Merchant
of Venice, The Birthday Party, Full Circle, We Won't Pay We Won't Pay, Picasso
At The Lapin Agile, Ubu Rock, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Uncle Vanya, Animals
and Plants, Romance, Duck Variations, Marvelous Party, (</i>ART); <i>Once
in a Lifetime </i>(ACT); <i>Glengarry Glen Ross, Twelfth Night </i>(MRT); <i>Abduction
>From the Seraglio, Ariadne Aux Naxos,</i> (Boston Lyric Opera); <i>Porgy
and Bess,</i> (BSO);<i> Polar Express, How the Grinch Stole
Christmas, </i>(Boston Pops); Film/TV: <i>What Doesn't Kill You, Next
Stop Wonderland, Home Movies, Dr.Katz: Professional Therapist.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 42pt 0in 0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> </span></p><img src="cid:ii_l3x9uoat3" alt="image.png" width="247" height="343" style="margin-right: 0px;"><br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Will LeBow, credit GBPT</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt 0in 0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">Jim
Frangione</span></b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">
(Director):<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span>After more than
ten years developing new plays with Berkshire Playwrights Lab, Jim is proud to
be working alongside the many talented and dedicated colleagues at Great
Barrington Public Theater. Last summer with the Public, Jim directed Mark St.
Germain’s new play, <i>Dad</i>, as well as the East Coast premiere of David
Mamet’s, <i>The Christopher Boy’s Communion</i>. He directed Anne Undeland’s
play, <i>Lady Randy</i>, for WAM Theatre; <i>Romance</i> at Wellfleet Harbor
Actors Theater; <i>Private Life</i> at HERE Arts in NY; and <i>An Evening of
Shorts</i> by Mamet, Pinter and Silverstein at the ART/Harvard Institute for
Advanced Theatre Training. Jim’s play, <i>Flight of the Monarch</i>, premiered
at Gloucester Stage Company in 2017. His play, <i>Breakwater</i>, the second in
a trilogy of Cape Cod plays, received its premiere in 2019 as part of Great
Barrington Public’s inaugural season (Berkshire Theatre Critic’s Nomination).
Jim has acted for over 35 years; On and Off-Broadway, in National Tours; in
many plays with the Atlantic Theater Company and at regional theaters such as:
The Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf, The Alley Theater, Berkshire Theatre
Festival, The Humana Festival of New Plays—most recently in <i>Prairie Du Chien</i>
at Atlantic and <i>Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike</i> at Shakespeare &
Company. His film work includes <i>Joy, Transamerica, Spartan, Heist, State and
Main, The Spanish Prisoner, Homicide, Suits, Claire Dolan and Maryam</i>. Jim
is also an award-winning audiobook narrator performing over 400 titles.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:12pt 0in 0in;break-after:avoid;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></p>
<img src="cid:ii_l3x9vngy4" alt="image.png" width="257" height="281" style="margin-right: 0px;"><p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;font-size:9pt;font-family:Cambria,serif;color:rgb(31,73,125);font-style:italic"><span style="color:windowtext;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt">Great Barrington Public Theater Artistic Director Jim
Frangione, credit GBPT</span><br></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in;font-size:11pt;font-family:Cambria,serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><a href="https://www.greatbarringtonpublictheater.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">Great Barrington Public Theater</span></a></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"> was founded by Artistic Director Jim
Frangione and Executive Director Deann Simmons Halper to create opportunities
for theater artists in the Berkshires and neighboring regions. Great Barrington
Public Theater recognizes the many excellent playwrights, actors, directors,
designers, administrators and technicians living in the Berkshires and
surrounding areas. Our objective is to bring a mix of new and contemporary plays
to the stage in a variety of formats; to generate and foster creative and
rigorous opportunity for local theater artists, while engaging our theatergoing
public with new and contemporary readings, workshops, and fully staged
productions, involving local talent as often as possible, and always keeping
ticket prices affordable.</span></p></div>