"This is a rock concert of Shakespeare!" That line comes from WBUR Boston, and Shakespeare & Company quotes it on its Fall Festival page. It describes four days when the Tina Packer Playhouse fills with teenagers performing full productions and the audience cheers between scenes. This year the 38th festival runs Thursday, Nov. 19, through Sunday, Nov. 22.
Across town, NightWood returns to The Mount on Saturday, Nov. 21. The festival lasts four days and NightWood lasts 22 nights, running into January. They share exactly one date. That Saturday, Lenox's fall program ends its last full day and its winter program begins.
Nine Weeks of Rehearsal for One Weekend
The Fall Festival is a nine-week, non-competitive residency. Shakespeare & Company directing teams work with more than 500 students at 10 high schools in Massachusetts and New York. Each school's cast learns a different play through a language-based approach and stages it twice: once at its own school and again on the main stage in Lenox. Shakespeare & Company calls the festival the flagship of its Education Program. It describes the weekend as "a celebration, never a competition," with students from different schools working together.
So the weekend in Lenox is the last stop of a fall that began in classrooms from southern Berkshire County to Columbia County, New York. All ten productions perform on one stage over four days:
| Day | Time | School | Play |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu., Nov. 19 | 6:15 p.m. | Berkshire Waldorf High School | The Winter's Tale |
| Thu., Nov. 19 | 8:30 p.m. | Monument Mountain Regional High School | Hamlet |
| Fri., Nov. 20 | 6:15 p.m. | Pittsfield High School | Romeo and Juliet |
| Fri., Nov. 20 | 8:30 p.m. | Mt. Everett Regional School | A Midsummer Night's Dream |
| Sat., Nov. 21 | 1:15 p.m. | Lenox Memorial High School | Julius Caesar |
| Sat., Nov. 21 | 3:30 p.m. | Springfield Central High School | Pericles, Prince of Tyre |
| Sat., Nov. 21 | 6:15 p.m. | Mt. Greylock Regional High School | Cymbeline |
| Sat., Nov. 21 | 8:30 p.m. | Lee Middle & High School | Hamlet |
| Sun., Nov. 22 | 1:15 p.m. | Taconic Hills Jr./Sr. High School | Love's Labour's Lost |
| Sun., Nov. 22 | 3:30 p.m. | Chatham High School | Twelfth Night |
| Sun., Nov. 22 | 5 p.m. | All companies | Closing Reverence |
The schedule includes two Hamlets, from Monument Mountain on Thursday and from Lee on Saturday. Each one has its own directing team, so seeing both shows you two separate readings of the same play. Monument Mountain's production is directed by Malle Winters and Adam Koda, and Lee's by Abigail St. John and Lochlan Angle. Shakespeare & Company notes that the schedule is subject to change.
General admission is $20 for adults, $15 for students ages 13 to 22 who are not in the festival, and $8 for children 12 and under. Each price includes a $2 maintenance fee. Shakespeare & Company also sells full-weekend, three-show and two-show passes.
Saturday Carries the Most Weight
Saturday has the busiest schedule of the four days: four productions, starting just after lunch and ending well after dark. It is also the day Lenox's own students perform. Lenox Memorial High School's Julius Caesar opens the afternoon at 1:15 p.m. Victoria Rhoades and Leslie Field direct, with scenic design by Rey Hankinson and costume design by Lezlie Lee.
Saturday also brings NightWood's opening night and the first evening of the Nightwood café at The Mount. The Terrace Café there has closed for the season. Here is how the day lines up:
- 1:15 p.m. Lenox Memorial's Julius Caesar at the Tina Packer Playhouse.
- 3:30 p.m. Springfield Central's Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
- Evening. NightWood opens for the 2026 season at The Mount, and the Nightwood café opens with it.
- 6:15 p.m. Mt. Greylock's Cymbeline.
- 8:30 p.m. Lee Middle & High's Hamlet, the last show of the day.
A household can split the day between two places that are usually busy in different seasons: the playhouse in the afternoon and the woods after dark, or the other way around. On Sunday the festival closes with its 5 p.m. Closing Reverence, and NightWood isn't scheduled that night.
What NightWood Adds This Year
NightWood is The Mount's sound and light installation, inspired by the estate's trees and woodlands. It turns the grounds into a walk through music, light and scenic design. It first opened at The Mount in 2020, according to The Berkshire Eagle. For 2026, The Mount says the path is longer and runs deeper into the woods, with new encounters along the way.
The team behind it is listed on The Mount's artist page:
- Chris Bocchiaro, creative director and lighting designer
- Megan Kinneen, scenic designer
- Greg Hanson, composer and sound designer
- Ben Lieberson, associate scenic designer and technical director
- Zach Dobryn, lead lighting technician and programmer
- Jacob Ferrante, lead audio technician
Hanson's music from past seasons, released as Music from NightWood 2020–2025, is a free download on Bandcamp.
Twenty-Two Nights, Spread Across Three Months
The festival takes up a single weekend. NightWood runs until Jan. 2. Its 2026 dates, as The Mount lists them:
- November: 21, 25, 27 and 28
- December: 4, 5, 11, 12, 17 through 23, and 26 through 31
- January: 2
Only four of those nights fall before December, and the Saturday opener is the only one that shares a date with the festival. The other November nights cluster around Thanksgiving: the Wednesday before, plus Friday and Saturday after. Out-of-town guests will still be in Lenox on those nights. December is busier, with nightly runs from Dec. 17 to 23 and from Dec. 26 to 31.
The Mount's practical guidance is specific. It recommends winter boots because the trails can be muddy or icy. Strollers are not recommended on the rough terrain, and dogs are not allowed on the trail. The route has stairs and uneven ground and is not accessible to walkers or wheelchairs. On select days, The Mount offers golf cart rides at 4:30 p.m., which can be reserved by calling 413-551-5104. The experience includes bright, colorful light, flashing lights and moderate to loud music.
NightWood takes part in the Mass Cultural Council's Card to Culture program. A NightWood ticket also gets 50% off The Mount's adult and senior house tours. The discount can be booked in advance or claimed by showing the NightWood confirmation email on arrival. That pairing makes a daytime house tour followed by an evening in the woods one inexpensive outing, through the first days of January. Tickets are sold through The Mount's NightWood page.
The Rest of That Week in Lenox
The night before the overlap, Friday, Nov. 20, Ventfort Hall holds one of its Robert Oakes ghost tours, a two-hour storytelling tour for ages 12 and up that begins at 7 p.m. The other ran on Nov. 6. Ventfort Hall's event calendar has details. The tour runs at the same time as both Friday festival shows, Pittsfield High's Romeo and Juliet at 6:15 p.m. and Mt. Everett's A Midsummer Night's Dream at 8:30 p.m., so a Friday evening means picking one.
For dinner between Saturday's performances, the restaurants from Lenox's first Restaurant Week are a ready list. It ran Nov. 1 to 8 with The Restaurant at Doctor Sax, Ombra, Frankie's Ristorante, Antimony Craft Brewery and Kitchen, Brava, Firefly, Cello, Bea's House and Pizzeria Boema, as The Berkshire Eagle reported.
The festival has two deadlines that also fall on its closing day. Leading donors have offered a $50,000 match called "Fill the Quill," doubling gifts to Shakespeare & Company's Education Program through Nov. 22, up to $50,000. For anyone who can't make the weekend, Community Television for the Southern Berkshires posts archived festival performances going back to 2005 for free at ctsbtv.org/fallfest. Those recordings stay online long after the stage comes down. NightWood's last scheduled night is Jan. 2.
If you'd like to talk through life in Lenox after Tanglewood, whether you're settling in for your first winter here or planning ahead, Katie Soules and The Soules Team are glad to help. Schedule a consultation, and we'll start with the calendar you actually want to live by.
