Friday: Hancock Shaker Village Free Fun Day

Hancock Shaker Village and the Highland Street Foundation bring you a Free Fun Fridays! Hancock Shaker Village is an outdoor living history museum and center for the study of principled living in the 21st century. The fully-restored Village includes 18 historic buildings, heirloom medicinal and vegetable gardens, Shaker furniture, crafts, tools, and clothes, as well as heritage breed farm animals and spectacular hiking trails. Come see for free!

Friday & Saturday: Berkshire Athenaeum Book Sale

Buy a bevy of books at the Berkshire Athenaeum, as part of its summer book sale. If you're a book lover, you will appreciate the collection of used books available for sale. There are plenty of hidden gems; but get there early so you can have first pick at the best books! All proceeds go to support the programs of the wonderful Friends of the Berkshire Athenaeum! (Love libraries and books? Join them!)

Friday & Saturday, July 20-21 | 10am-4pm | Berkshire Athenaeum | 1 Wendell Avenue | 413-499-9480

LAST CHANCE to see A Chorus Line at The Colonial!

The Colonial Theatre presents A Chorus Line, receiving rave reviews everywhere! "There is not a false note, a false gesture, a false move or expression anywhere on the Colonial Theatre stage. This Berkshire Theatre Group production pulses with the freshness of first-time discovery."-Berkshire Eagle. Click HERE to learn more details about A Chorus Line and watch a clip.

Friday & Saturday, July 20 & 21 |  8pm | The Colonial Theatre | 111 South Street | 413-997-4444 | $40-$60

Friday, Saturday & Tuesday: The Pittsfield Suns!

Enjoy a great game of baseball at historic Wahconah Park with the mighty Pittsfield Suns, as you enjoy fireworks tonight! Bring your family on Friday night, when they will be taking suggestions as to fun music themes and on-field contests. On Saturday, gather all you need to survive December 21, 2012, as the Suns give away free survival supplies. Finally, on Tuesday, celebrate the life and work of great American novelist Herman Melville who was born here in Pittsfield! Time to play ball!

Friday, Saturday & Tuesday, July 20, 21 & 24 | 7pm | Wahconah Park | 105 Wahconah Street | 413-445-7867 | $5-$7

LAST CHANCE: Melvilles & Morewoods at Arrowhead

Melvilles and Morewoods is the first in a trilogy of plays about Herman Melville performed inside and outside of his historic home Arrowhead this summer and fall. Melvilles & Morewoods begins one summer evening in 1851 as a Victorian social idyll, and ends later that evening with Herman Melville's chaotic descent into madness, as he feverishly writes the final chapters of his masterpiece Moby-Dick. Iincludes pre-performance refreshments and a talkback with the actors afterwards.

Friday & Saturday, July 20 & 21 | 7pm refreshments; 7:30pm performance | Arrowhead | 780 Holmes Road | 413-442-1793 | $25

Friday: Rango at Clapp Park!

The family-friendly Summer Outdoor Movie Series continues Friday night with Rango. Bring your lawn chairs or picnic blankets. Film screenings begin shortly after dusk (about 8:30pm). Click here to watch a trailer of Rango. Rain cancels.

Friday, July 20 | Dusk (around 8:30pm) | Clapp Park | West Housatonic Street | FREE

Friday: 8 Foot River at Mission

Mission Bar + Tapas presents 8 Foot River for a special live performance on Friday. The Housatonic-based alternative indie rock group features richly textured instrumentation and complex compositions revealing the vulnerability and emotion of the human experience.

Friday, July 20 | 9pm | Mission Bar + Tapas | 438 North Street | No cover

Friday & Saturday: COVET by ArtBerkshires

ArtBerkshires brings you COVET, a series of special arts events in the Berkshires.  Join artists and curators for behind-the-scene tours of current exhibitions at museums throughout Berkshire County, as part of the "Meet Me At…” programs. This week's programs include:

Friday 10am-12pm - Throwers & Shakers at Hancock Shaker Village

Saturday 10am-11am - Arts? Rocks? The Intersection

Saturday 11:30am-1pm - IS183 Berkshire Residency Exchange Open House

Saturday: The Gather-In

The 42nd annual Gather-In, a free family-friendly neighborhood festival in Pitt Park will be held this Saturday and everyone's welcome! Organized by the Westside Neighborhood Resource Center, the event features pony rides, a youth basketball tournament, incluidng all girl teams, a kid's bike race, youth performers including Youth Alive, face painting, a dunking booth, a bounce house and much more. Everyone's invited!

Saturday, July 21 | 1pm-6pm | Pitt Park | Columbus Avenue at Dewey Avenue | FREE

Saturday: The Robbins-Zust Marionettes 

The Robbins-Zust Marionettes return to The Marketplace Cafe to bring you more family fun with another season of fabled puppet shows! This week, Robbins-Zust depicts the classic tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. Fun for all ages.

Saturday, July 21 | 11am | The Marketplace Cafe | 53 North Street | 413-358-4777 | FREE

Saturday: Downtown Public Arts Walk

Artscape invites people of all ages to explore the variety of public art in downtown Pittsfield with artist and educator Craig Langlois. The 90 minute walking tour features new 2012 sculptures inspired by Pittsfield's Call Me Melville summer festival. Other works included in the tour are selections from some earlier Artscape installations, as well as previous projects and initiatives.

Saturday, July 21 | 1pm-2:30pm | Pittsfield Visitors Center | The Colonial Theatre | 111 South Street | 413-499-9370 | FREE

Saturday: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the Berkshires

Hancock Shaker Village invites you to learn about the wide ranging legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the Berkshires. The CCC was a separate New Deal agency, yet often worked in close collaboration with other WPA public relief initiatives. Here in the Berkshires, the CCC primarily focused on stewardship of the environment — improving existing, and developing new, Massachusetts state forests and parks. This event is presented in connection with A Promising Venture: Shaker Photographs from the WPA.

Saturday, July 21 | 2pm | Hancock Shaker Village | 1843 West Street | 413-443-0188 | Adults $17, youth ages 13-17 $8, children 12 & under FREE, Village members FREE

Sunday: Defiled at the Lichtenstein

The Town Players of Pittsfield present a staged reading of Defiled: Or, the Convenience of a Short-Haired Dog by Lee Kalcheim at the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts. A nerdy, technophobic librarian, clutching in his hands the detonator that will obliterate the library if his beloved card catalog is carted away, is pitted against a harried police negotiator in this fast-paced debate on society's obsession with computers. Directed by Michael P. Murphy, the cast includes Susan Murphy, Denise Roller and Sam Slack.

Sunday, July 22 | 4pm | Lichtenstein Center for the Arts | 28 Renne Avenue | 413-499-9348 | $5

Sunday: Free Family Theatre Outdoors

The award winning Mettawee River Theatre Company returns to Pittsfield for their annual visit Sunday evening, bringing a terrific family-friendly performance of Archy and Mehitabel, featuring puppets, live music, actors and a wonderfully inventive set. Don't miss it! (NOTE: the location has changed from Springside Park to St. Joseph's Church lawn.) Click here to read a terrific story about Mettawee in this week's Berkshires Week! 

Sunday, July 22 | 8pm | St. Joseph's Church lawn | 414 North Street | FREE

Tuesday: Melville and Me with JoAnne Spies 

The Berkshire Athenaeum invites you to join JoAnne Spies in creating music from the themes of Herman Melville and Moby Dick. Young audiences will love learning while singing along. Spies's one-woman multi-media show Me & Melville has been performed at Dixon Place in NYC, Herman Melville's home Arrowhead, and colleges and museums in the northeast.

Tuesday, July 24 | 1pm | Berkshire Athenaeum | 1 Wendell Avenue | 413-499-9480 x203 | FREE

Tuesday: Writer's Room with Cathi Hanauer

Y Bar presents Cathi Hanauer, as its featured author for the weekly Writer's Room series. Cathi Hanauer is the author of 3 novels—Sweet Ruin, My Sister's Bones, and just published GONE, which was most recently published—and the editor of the New York Times bestselling essay anthology The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth about Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood and Marriage.

Tuesday, July 24 | 8pm | Y Bar | 391 North Street | No phone | No cover

Wednesday+:Youth Performance of Beauty & the Beast

Barrington Stage Company presents a youth performance of Beauty & the Beast at the Berkshire Museum! Step into the enchanted world of Broadway's modern classic, Beauty and the Beast. Based on Disney's Academy Award-winning animated feature, the stage version features favorite film songs and new ones, too! You'll be transported to the heart of French provincial life as you follow the tale of Belle and the Beast in a story of love, courage and transformation.

Wednesday-Sunday, July 25-August 12 | Wednesdays – Saturdays 7pm; Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays & Sundays 2pm | Berkshire Museum | 39 South Street | 413-236-8888 | $15 adults, $10 youth 18 and younger; preview (7/25 – 7/26) $8

Wednesday: Live on the Lake with Whiskey City

Bring a chair or blanket and enjoy live music by Whiskey City at beautiful Burbank Park on Onota Lake. Live On the Lake is brought to you by Live 95.9 and Greylock Federal Credit Union. Live on the Lake is intended to be a family friendly, alcohol free event.  (Possession and consumption of alcohol in City Parks is prohibited by park regulation.)

Wednesday, July 18 | 6-8pm | Burbank Park at Onota Lake | Free

Thursday: Poetry Slam Workshop at the Athenaeum

The Berkshire Athenaeum presents a workshop and mock poetry slam featuring youth poet and performer Jeanicia Smith. Pittsfield is working to create a poetry slam team to compete nationally in 2013. Former Pittsfield resident, Hartford Poetry slam team artist, and founder of the Springfield Poetry Slam Team Maurice "Soulfighter” Taylor will be a featured contestant.

Thursday, June 28 | 6:30 p.m. | Berkshire Athenaeum | 1 Wendell Ave. | 413-499-9480 | FREE