Curious Festival of Unfinished Works At the Adams Theater

08:12AM / Monday, February 16, 2026Print Story | Email Story

ADAMS, Mass. — On Feb. 21, eight puppeteers and object performers will present work they've spent time developing at the Adams Theater.

The inaugural Curious Festival of Unfinished Works, created by New England Puppet Arts in collaboration with the Adams Theater, has artists in residency working with a team of mentors to develop their ideas for the stage.

These developments will be shown on stage on Feb. 21, starting at 7 pm.

Tickets are available at https://www.adamstheater.org/events.

"I love this part of making theater," said David Lane, the theater maker and artist who is working with the Adams Theater to present this curious festival, which will include textiles, shadow puppetry, and abstract work. "At the early stage, when things start to click, is when it can get really exciting."

Lane, an old-guard puppet artist who has presented extensively across the U.S. and Canada, also teaches a puppetry intensive at MASS MoCA and said he frequently gets requests for a residency program focusing on unfinished work. Some artists will develop dramaturgy, some will be fabricating, and all will get to give and receive feedback on story, sets, props, and other elements. Artists are staying at the nearby Trail and Revival House hotels and walking over to the Adams to work.

"This is how theater is made," Lane said. "When you see a piece of theater in New York, it's gone through years of readings, workshops, rewrites. It feels like it's unfolding for the first time in front of your eyes, but there's always a process behind it. Giving artists access to share their work in a venue and for an audience is an important part of the process."

Artists include Pia Banzhaf, Karen Cantor, Guy Meilleur, Kimberly Cotter-Lemus, Madison J. Cripps, Genna Beth Davidson, Sarah McNair, and Junli Song. Their mentors will be Lane, Sandglass Theater's Shoshana Bass, theater designer Sydney Maresca, and director, writer, performer, and Williams College assistant professor Erica Terpening-Romeo. The project is funded by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Lane said he appreciates the theater's approach to showing new work and hosting artists developing it.

"They're super generous about supporting art that might otherwise not have a place to flourish," he said. "Residencies are complicated. In puppetry it can be doubly complicated, because you need space to put the performance together, and to fabricate. This is only possible through a partnership like what we have in Adams."

The Adams Theater participates in Mass Cultural Council's Card to Culture program, in collaboration with the Department of Transitional Assistance, the Women, Infants & Children Nutrition Program, and the Mass Health Connector.

EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare cardholders receive free admission to our shows and events by presenting their cards at our Box Office. See the complete list of participating organizations offering EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare discounts.

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State, Local Leaders Celebrate Funding Boost For Ashuwillticook Rail Trail Extension

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
05:39PM / Thursday, September 10, 2026

ADAMS, Mass. — State officials and local leaders kicked up their kickstands and took a ride along the final stretch of the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail on Thursday to celebrate new investments in rural communities.

Federal Funds and Infrastructure Office (FFIO) Director Quentin Palfrey joined local leaders, including State Rep. John Barrett III and Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC) Executive Director Laura Brennan, in Adams to highlight the newest round of FFIO funding. The grant will provide BRPC with $64,700 in state funds to help advance the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail expansion.

"When Governor Healey came into office, one of her big day-one commitments was to make sure that Massachusetts was fighting for every dollar possible coming out of Washington," Palfrey said, speaking about FFIO, a program created in 2023 to help the state aggressively pursue and coordinate federal funding opportunities.

This builds on a $17.3 million federal award secured last year for the project, dubbed the A2A project, which supports the design of a 9.3-mile shared-use path connecting the existing Ashuwillticook Rail Trail to the Williamstown Mohican Path.

"One of the things that she emphasized to me when we set up the Federal Funds and Infrastructure Office was that we need to make sure that these resources not only come into Massachusetts, but benefit all of Massachusetts," Palfrey added.

The additional $64,700 will allow BRPC to gather information about transportation needs in northern Berkshire County to help inform the design of the trail expansion. BRPC will partner with Williams College and Luminary Evaluation, LLC to use the University of Michigan's Transportation Security Index (TSI).

Brennan said BRPC will deploy a 16-question survey that will allow them "to research local and regional perspectives and surface the needs of our neighbors when it comes to transportation in the Berkshires."

"The best-case scenario would be if the survey turned up results that all needs are met and that everyone has access to the places and the things that they need to travel to – but we know that is not true," Brennan said. "We know that folks in Berkshire struggle to get to their place of employment, to be able to access important medical appointments, [and] other engagements. So, the transportation security index is going to help us really hone in on those specific needs, identify pockets of needs or areas where there is a strong concentration or depth of need."

She said FFIO's investment offers a "wonderful augmentation" to BRPC's current plans for the bike trail extension. It's also an investment that will make the region more competitive for other transportation opportunities.

"This is an incredibly multifaceted and valuable investment, and we deeply appreciate it," she said.

Barrett said these investments drive growth in the Berkshires.

"I've always found that if you're going to grow an area, you grow with what you have here to grow. You don't bring something in. We have a natural beauty. We have an environment that's second to none, and that's what we are going to grow on," he said.

Barrett said that in the First Berkshire District alone, 4,000 new people moved to the area.

"We're seeing that migration here. They're going to have activities. They're going to have jobs, and we're going to have a great educational system that goes with it with our two colleges that are here," he said.

Palfrey said it was clear during the initial creation of FFIO that federal funding often went to wealthier and more urban communities with larger planning departments and greater access to consultants. He added that FFIO helps reverse this trend and get projects in rural communities off the ground.

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