Duepree, Harris, Setlock, Wilkas Set for BTF’s Pageant Play

Full cast and creative team have been announced for Matthew Wilkas and Mark Setlock’s satiric comedy Pageant Play, to play the Berkshire Theatre Festival’s Unicorn Theatre, July 1-26. The production, to be directed by Martha Banta, will open officially on July 5.

The show, about a pair of stage mothers with rival beauty pageant coaches for their daughters, will feature the authors along with Daiva Duepree and Jenn Harris. The creative team includes Luke Hegel-Cantarella (sets), Jessica Risser-Milne (costumes), Thom Weaver (lighting), and Bart Fasbender (sound).

The BTF’s mainstage season has started with Jayne Atkinson, Michel Gill, David Schramm, Samantha Soule, Jeremiah Wiggins, and Finn Wittrock in Anders Cato’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s Candida, to run through July 5. It will continue with Karen Zacaraias’ The Book Club Play (July 8-19), with Cherise Booth, Sarah Marshall, Keira Naughton, Bhavesh Patel, Tom Story, C.J. Wilson, and Anne Louise Zachry.

That production will be followed by Richard Corley’s production of Robert Bolt’s historical drama A Man for All Seasons (July 22-August 9), with Andrew Belcher, David Chandler, Tara Franklin, Douglas Friedman, Eric Hill, Walter Hudson, Greg Keller, Peter Kybart, Diane Prusha, James Lloyd Reynolds, Thom Rivera, Gareth Sax, Tommy Schrider, and Allison Vanousel; and Noel Coward in Two Keys, to be directed by Vivian Matalon, which will run August 12-30.

The Unicorn Theatre season will also include Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, starring David Adkins, Stephen DeRosa, Randy Harrison, David Schramm, and Cooper Stanton (July 29-August 23); and Rhoda Lerman’s solo play Eleanor: Her Secret Journey, about former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt , to be played by Elizabeth Norment (August 26-November 9).

BTF’s Theatre for Young Audience series will include Hercules (June 25-July 26) at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield; Around the World in 80 Days (August 6-23) at the Unicorn; Oliver! (September 11-14) on the Main Stage; and A Christmas Carol (December 11-30) at the Unicorn.

In addition, Tony Award winner Judy Kaye and her husband David Green will perform on Sunday, October 12; the event also includes a pre-show reception and a post-show dinner at Wheatleigh in nearby Lenox.

For more information, call 413-298-5536 or visit www.berkshiretheatre.org.