Hospitality, ease of living and just plain fun are rolled into one for those who are intrigued by the leisure-time Caravana experience at the family-owned Four Brothers Drive-in in Amenia. John Stefanopoulos, pictured above, highlights fun possibilities offered by Hotel Caravana.
The month-long process of unwrapping and preparing the various features at the Four Brothers Drive-In is nearing completion, and the imaginative recreational destination will be ready to open for the season on Friday, May 10.
The drive-in theater is already open, as is the Snack Shack, and the rest of the recreational features are activating one by one, soon to be offering maximum fun for the whole family.
John Stefanopoulos, the second generation helping to guide the Stefanopoulos family’s recreational complex, brings a deep understanding of hospitality and business sense in support of the multi-faceted enterprise, begun in the 1970s, that is now a mainstay of the town of Amenia, located on a corner in the heart of the commercial district. He paused for an interview on Friday, April 26.
Two luxury camping trailers, each with an attached wooden deck and fire pit, make up Hotel Caravana, and each offers a different fun vibe, Stefanopoulos explained. The larger of the two, offers a California lifestyle, retro to 1967, although its modern where it should be. It can sleep four.
The smaller Caravana sleeps two and offers a lifestyle of the future dating to about 2041. It’s a brand-new Airstream, Stefanopoulos noted. It also has an attached deck with firepit.
“We get a lot of New York City people,” Stefanopoulos said when asked what sorts of people are apt to be attracted to Hotel Caravana. “They want to experience the upstate life,” he added. The idea of sitting out on the deck while watching an actual drive-in movie appeals to them, as does room service offered by the restaurant.
The lobster rolls prepared by the Snack Shack, are served on brioche hot dog rolls, either Maine-style or Connecticut-style, and the lobster can be topped with caviar. Four Brothers version is praised by customers for the generous portion of lobster in each, and the price is competitive.
Caravana guests may book for a single night, or maybe two, or even longer, taking advantage of the bicycles to pedal along the nearby rail trail, a local amenity, Stefanopoulos noted.
“We make our guests feel like movie stars,” Stefanopoulos said of the hospitality. And, if they like miniature golf, it is just a few steps away from their Caravana deck.
Asked how and why the Caravana idea began, Stefanopoulos recalled that as the drive-in theater grew in popularity, people were traveling from greater distances away. The last film of the night might start at midnight, he said, so the idea grew that Four Brothers might be able to offer an accommodation to stay the night.
In addition to Caravana, Four Brothers offers an alternative of two or three tent camping sites.
Future plans may include a third Caravana, Stefanopoulos said. Also, there is a giant mastodon skeleton, presently in storage, that should be on display, he said.
“It’s pretty big,” Stefanopoulos added.
The playground might be enlarged in the coming seasons, and perhaps an old-fashioned arcade added for retro amusement.
The community that surrounds Four Brothers remains important to the Stefanopoulos family as they offer substantial summer employment opportunity. Stefanopoulos said that a goal is to contract locally for business needs, such as musical entertainment and advertising. The drive-in also schedules occasion fundraisers to benefit local organizations, including the Amenia Fire Company and area schools.
Natalia Zukerman
Tremaine Gallery exhibit ‘Vulnerable Earth’ explores climate change in the High Arctic.
“Vulnerable Earth,” on view through June 14 at the Tremaine Gallery at Hotchkiss, brings together artists who have traveled to one of the most remote regions on Earth and returned with work shaped by first-hand experience of a fragile, rapidly shifting planet, inviting viewers to sit with the tension between awe and loss, beauty and vulnerability.
Curated by Greg Lock, director of the Photography, Film and Related Media program at The Hotchkiss School, the exhibition centers on participants in The Arctic Circle, an expeditionary residency that sends artists and scientists into the High Arctic aboard a research vessel twice a year. The result is a show documenting their lived experience and what it means to stand in a place where climate change is not theoretical but visible, immediate and accelerating.
That shared experience — weeks spent together navigating the waters around the Svalbard Archipelago —forms the connective tissue of the exhibition. Artists work across video, photography, performance and digital media, but what binds them is proximity: to the landscape, to one another and to the evidence of environmental change.
“The residency is fantastic,” Lock said. “You fly into the most northerly airport on the planet, get on a ship with a bunch of artists and then sail around the archipelago and find a bay or a glacier, get into little rubber boats and go to shore. There are three guides with rifles … and they form a triangle around us to protect us from polar bears, and then you’re just there.”
That immediacy — of risk, of beauty, of isolation — is evident in the work on view. “Everyone is concerned with the environmental shifts that are occurring, and you’re witnessing it out there,” Lock said. “We were cleaning the beach one day and there’s so much trash on this beach in the middle of nowhere … because there’s plastic in the sea. We are witnessing these things firsthand.”
Lock’s own contributions underscore how quickly the landscape is changing. In one piece, two photographs are mounted on a glacier-shaped metal stand. “I went to photograph the glacier, and we were sailing around and because of the map, we knew we were at the glacier, but we couldn’t see it,” he said. Dense fog, created by warming air meeting cold ground, obscured what should have been unmistakable. Only later, in post-production, did the glacier emerge. “In Photoshop, I could extract the glacier, but to the naked eye, it was no longer visible.”
Other changes are even more stark. Lock recalled the reaction of the ship’s captain comparing current conditions to his charts. “His ‘up to date’ map showed that the glacier was 8 kilometers between one side and the other, but we parked at one side, sailed and moored on the other side and it was 1.4 kilometers,” Lock said. “So, it’s just like bam. It’s happening so fast.”
There is a sense of urgency in these images, but the collection also is a testament to process and to the community that forms in such extreme conditions. “There’s quite a nice network of artists who are pretty tight,” Lock said. “We were on a ship together in tight quarters for three weeks, so we got to know each other really well. And I found connections across the work with my own practice.”
Mindful of the environmental stakes embedded in the work itself, Lock made decisions aimed at reducing impact when curating the exhibition. “A lot of this work I printed with their permission to cut down on my carbon footprint,” he said.
And yet, for all its focus on fragility and loss, the Arctic exerts a pull. “It was funny, I’ve been twice,” Lock said. “When I left the last time, I was like, oh, I don’t know if I need to go back. And then I got back, and all I wanted to do was go back.”
The Tremaine Gallery is located on the Hotchkiss campus at 11 Interlaken Road, Lakeville. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, 12 noon to 4 p.m.
Kerri-Lee Mayland
Joan Osofsky and Sharon Marston
Joan Osofsky is closing the doors on Hammertown, one of the region’s most beloved home furnishings and lifestyle destinations, after 40 years, but she is not calling it an ending.
“I put my baby to bed,” she said, describing the decision with clarity and calm. “It felt like the right time.”
At 80, Osofsky is stepping away from the business she built into an institution. Yet her attention is not fixed on what she is leaving behind but on what she calls “Beyond Hammertown,” a phase shaped not by legacy but by intention and possibility.
“Not defined by what I created, but by what I choose next,” she said.
Founded in a barn in Pine Plains in 1985, Hammertown grew into a singular brand with locations in Rhinebeck and Great Barrington, known for its warm, layered aesthetic that blended European and American antiques with rustic textures and modern simplicity. Often credited with helping to define a “modern country” sensibility, the store drew a devoted following from across the region and beyond. But for Osofsky, its success was never a solo effort.
“Hammertown was never just my story,” she said. “It was built alongside my family and colleagues, whose support and talent made everything possible.”
That sense of collaboration traces back to her earlier life as a teacher in New Jersey and Rhode Island. While raising her children in the late 1960s and ’70s, she launched a patchwork quilting business, selling work in shops in New York City and the Berkshires. She went on to work with friends on The Sweet Life Chocolate Engagement Calendar, published in the early 1980s and sold nationally, and led a PTA quilting project that still hangs in her children’s former elementary school.
Those early experiences of building a home, raising a family and creating by hand became the foundation of Hammertown. Even now, that instinct remains unchanged.
“I still love knitting for babies and making scarves for friends,” she said.
As news of the closing spread, Osofsky said she felt both the weight of the decision and the depth of the community it touched.
“I felt its weight and its love when I announced Hammertown was closing,” she said.
Still, her focus returns to what lies ahead. She describes this next phase as open, undefined and deeply personal — a shift away from building a business toward following curiosity wherever it leads. Writing, travel and creative exploration are all part of that vision, along with revisiting ideas once set aside.
Among them is a book she once considered publishing traditionally. Now, she is rethinking that path, reflecting a broader change in how she approaches creativity. No longer tied to a store or a brand but “just for the joy of it,” she said.
That shift also makes room for other parts of her life, including time with her granddaughter, cooking, learning to garden and spending time in France.
“I’ll be at Trade Secrets helping my dear friend Sharon from Marston House,” she said of the annual garden event in May benefiting Project SAGE. “She lives in France most of the year, and I visit her frequently — we shop the markets, share life and walk the French countryside. This has become an important part of my life.”
Other constants remain. Tennis, she said, has long provided not only recreation but connection. She hopes to spend more time on the court, possibly even competitively, while continuing her work with the Northeast Community Center and the Little Guild. These commitments she describes as deeply meaningful and essential to what comes next.
“That has meant a great deal to me beyond Hammertown.”
As she prepares for the transition, Osofsky speaks less about loss than about clarity — a desire for space, a readiness for quiet and the ability to move forward on her own terms. She describes this next phase as rooted in authenticity and an “imperfectly perfect life,” acknowledging that it carries both release and uncertainty.
“I’ll let go, but I’m not sure where I’m being led, and that is OK,” she said.
A year from now, she expects people might see a shift in her — someone lighter, less burdened.
“Still deeply connected to creative beauty,” she said, “just less tied to outcomes and more open to surprise.”
Though many have framed Hammertown’s closing in terms of legacy, Osofsky resists that perspective. For her, the present moment feels far more alive.
“Legacy is something you come to understand later,” she said. “Possibility is something you feel in the present.”
What she hopes people carry forward is not just a memory but a feeling of something less tangible.
“I hope people don’t just remember Hammertown,” she said. “I hope they feel it — that sense of warmth and comfort, like walking into a place that felt like home.”
She sees Beyond Hammertown not as retirement but as the beginning of something new and intentional. There is still more to try, more to learn, more to become. It just might be her most personal design yet.
“And that, more than anything,” she said, “feels right.”
Richard Feiner And Annette Stover
Amid the many cultural attractions in the region, the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, stands out for its award-winning productions and comprehensive educational and community-based programming. The theater’s 2026 season is one of its most ambitious; it includes two Pulitzer Prize-winning modern classics, one of the greatest theatrical farces ever written, and new works that speak directly to who we are right now as a society.
“Our 2026 season is a celebration of extraordinary storytelling in all its forms — timeless, uproarious and boldly new,” said Artistic Director Alan Paul. “This season features works that have shaped the American theater, as well as world premieres that reflect the company’s deep commitment to developing new voices and new stories. Together, these productions embody what BSC does best: entertain, challenge and connect our audiences through theater that feels both essential and alive.”
The company has several theaters within a few blocks of each other. In the Boyd-Quinson Theater, BSC’s main stage, the season features “A Chorus Line” (July 15-Aug. 8), a new 50th anniversary production of the Broadway musical that won nine Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for drama. This will be followed by Michael Frayn’s beloved door-slamming comedy “Noises Off,” in a first-time BSC production directed by Gordon Greenberg.
At BSC’s Blatt Center for the Performing Arts, the St. Germain Stage season will open with “Driving Miss Daisy” (May 27-June 21), a collaboration with Palm Beach Dramaworks directed by BSC founding artistic director Julianne Boyd and starring Ray Anthony Thomas and Debra Jo Rupp. This is followed by the world premiere of “Estate Sale” (June 30-July 25) by Keelay Gipson, an Afro-surrealist artist, professor and award-winning playwright and BSC Sparks grant recipient.
The season includes other provocative and timely new works. “The Zionists: A Family Storm” (June 16-July 3), produced in association with Miami New Drama, focuses on a family gathering on a Caribbean island where old grievances give way to new political fears. “Dead Girl’s Quinceañera” (Aug. 5-29), a collective world premiere by BSC, Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and Hartford Stage, is a dark comedy about true-crime obsession, teenage bravado and what happens when girls decide to stop waiting for answers. Another world premiere, “The Urmetazoan” (Sept. 30-Oct. 25), by playwright Alex Rugman and directed by Jack Serio, tells the story of two sisters facing an imminent goodbye as one prepares to leave Earth for deep space.
“BSC is deeply committed to our home in the Berkshires, producing as many or more shows this summer than ever before, for a devoted and engaged audience,” said Managing Director Greg Reiner. “And we are continuing our deep work within this community, showing up where it matters to bring new audiences theater that matters.”
Since moving to Pittsfield in 2006, Barrington Stage has prioritized its connection to residents and families through extensive and inclusive education and community engagement programs that help make its productions accessible to all. The company strives to make BSC an artistic home for an inclusive community of talented actors, writers, designers, directors and musical directors, as well as a home for its staff, students, interns and educators.
BSC has gained attention beyond the Berkshires, with productions that have moved on to Broadway and to major regional theaters around the country. The company believes that its work to support playwrights, and their visions of the world we live in, is central to its success in creating meaningful theater that resonates with all audiences.
“BSC’s season is a thrilling reflection of who we are right now as a society, wrestling with division and longing for connection,” Paul said. “It’s an exciting season because it’s alive and designed to bring us together in the dark to experience something unforgettable.”
For tickets and more information on the 2026 season, including additional productions, concerts, cabarets and the company’s annual gala, visit barringtonstageco.org.
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Brian Gersten
Student festival directors Trey Ramirez (at the mic) and Leon Li introducing the Hotchkiss Film Festival.
The 15th annual Hotchkiss Film Festival took place Saturday, April 25, marking a milestone year for a student-driven event that continues to grow in ambition, reach and artistic scope. The festival was founded in 2012 by Hotchkiss alumnus and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Brian Ryu. Ryu served as a festival juror for this year’s installment, which showcased a selection of emerging filmmakers from around the region. The audience was treated to 17 films spanning drama, horror, comedy, documentary and experimental forms — each reflecting a distinct voice and perspective.
This year’s program was curated by student festival directors Trey Ramirez and Leon Li, working alongside faculty adviser Ann Villano. With more than 52 submissions received, the selection process was both rigorous and rewarding. The final lineup included six films from Hotchkiss students.
For Ramirez, the festival represents both a personal and creative evolution. His interest in filmmaking began with producing sports media during his freshman year, creating highlight reels for the Hotchkiss boys varsity basketball team during its 2026 NEPSAC championship season. That early work led him into photography and eventually into narrative and experimental filmmaking. Among the films screened was Ramirez’s own experimental piece, “Paradise Waits,” an abstract, montage-driven work emphasizing editing and visual rhythm.
“What I enjoy most about organizing the festival is the opportunity to curate a program that reflects a wide range of voices and styles,” Ramirez said, “while also creating a space where student filmmakers can share their work with a larger audience.”
For many filmmakers, this was the first time seeing their work projected on a large screen before a live audience, an experience Ramirez described as especially meaningful given the time and dedication behind each project.
Now in its 15th year, the Hotchkiss Film Festival continues to build on its legacy as a platform for young filmmakers. The festival not only celebrates student achievement but also signals a promising future for the next generation of storytellers.
Natalia Zukerman
‘The Laundry Room,’ a painting by Maira Kalman from the exhibition “Shaker Outpost: Design, Commerce, and Culture” at the Shaker Museum’s pop-up space in Chatham.
With “Shaker Outpost: Design, Commerce, and Culture,” opening May 2, the Shaker Museum in Chatham invites artist and writer Maira Kalman to pair her own new paintings with objects from the museum’s vast holdings, and, in the process, reintroduce the Shakers not as relic, but as a living argument for clarity, usefulness and grace.
Born in Tel Aviv, Maira Kalman is a New York–based artist and writer known for her illustrated books, wide-ranging collaborations and distinctive work spanning publishing, design and fine art.
“I always approach my work from an aspect of love,” she said. “I fall in love with a face or a chair or a shoe. And then it is my pleasure to paint. That is how I approached the pieces I chose for the installation. They spoke to me. They SANG to me.”
Her selections for the Shaker Outpost include clothing of daily life — hats, shoes, socks, gloves — alongside objects shaped by hand and necessity. A pair of bear fur mittens, a glove form, a forged iron stake. Items that once moved through ordinary days now sit in conversation with Kalman’s paintings, which draw from the museum’s photographic archive. “As I looked at the photo archive, I gravitated to images that made me happy,” she said. “The Shaker work is so full of delicate elegance and superb utility. I love that.”
Maira KalmanPhoto by Kimisa H.
The idea of utility that is elevated to poetry is at the center of the show. Kalman described the impulse to “edit your life” after encountering Shaker design, and here that instinct becomes both curatorial method and invitation. “After seeing their work, you want to run home and throw out everything you have,” she said. “You want to edit your life. You only want what is essential. The simplicity and beauty of Shaker design are rarely equaled… They have wit and wisdom. Clarity and kindness. They are practical and they sing. You just cannot go wrong.”
The exhibition also marks a return. After more than two years at the Kinderhook Knitting Mill, the museum’s programming comes back to Chatham — if only temporarily — before the opening of its future permanent home.
The pop-up exhibition at 4 Depot Square in downtown Chatham extends beyond the gallery walls. A small, carefully assembled General Store — also curated by Kalman — offers books, textiles, notecards and handmade goods by local artisans. Like the Shakers’ own public-facing shops, it blurs the line between commerce and ethos, asking what it means to buy something made with care. It is, deliberately, a place to linger.
Kalman sees the Shakers as kindred spirits. “Even though my mother was a Russian born Jew, she could have been a Shaker,” she said. “But then all of the women in my family could have been. A sense of beauty, care, simplicity and love imbued all that they did. They were frugal and fastidious.”
That inheritance feels newly relevant. “Today we have a very fast-moving day. Never enough time,” she said. “And I think that the sense of taking time to make beauty resonates very much these days. It restores the soul.”
Kalman worked closely with her son, Alex Kalman, on this exhibit. “Working with my son Alex Kalman on this installation has been a joy,” she said. “He curates for his museum MMUSEUMM, in a defunct elevator shaft on Cortland Alley in Manhattan. He is always looking for the intersection of humor and human expression and endeavor. That is how I approach the installation at the Shaker Outpost. Everything should matter.”
Shaker Outpost: Design, Commerce, and Culture runs through July 5 at 4 Depot Square in Chatham, with subsequent installations by Paula Greif and Kiki Smith later in the year. For more information, visit shakermuseum.us.
Richard Feiner And Annette Stover
WAM Theatre’s artistic director Genée Coreno.
WAM Theatre will mark its 17th anniversary season with a lineup of mainstage productions and community programming focused on amplifying women’s voices, empowering young people and exploring the intersection of arts and activism.
The award-winning, women-owned company’s season will feature intimate storytelling, sharp comedy and historical works, alongside educational and community-based initiatives designed to engage audiences and support regional partnerships.
Artistic Director Genée Coreno said: “This season, WAM steps into a bold inquiry about influence, power, and the responsibility that comes with both, especially in moments when communities are searching for meaning. Now more than ever, we are reminded that theatre is a space to gather, to question, and to practice the kind of world we wish to inhabit.”
WAM stands for “Where Arts and Activism Meet,” and the theatre was co-founded in 2010 by Kristen van Ginhoven, now the executive director of Project SAGE in Salisbury, and Leigh Strimbeck in response to the book “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Inspired by the call to “join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as economic catalysts,” WAM’s vision is to create opportunities for women and girls through a mission of theatre as philanthropy.
This season, all WAM activities and events are united in their investigation of timely questions such as: What do we inherit? What do we believe? And what future are we brave enough to build? The season includes a full production of “Rooted,” by award-winning playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer (May 1-16); two readings in the WAM Fresh Takes series — “Amani,” by critically acclaimed playwright a.k. payne (June 14), and “Gorgeous,” by playwright Keiko Green (Aug. 16); WAM’s Summer Soirée benefit (July 26); and the fall mainstage production of “Camp Siegfried,” by Tony Award nominee Bess Wohl (Oct. 15-Nov. 1).
In addition, WAM’s 2026 season deepens its investment in the community with projects and programs in partnership with like-minded organizations, including the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and MOSAIC, the Elizabeth Freeman Center, the Lenox Library and Berkshire Community College. These activities spotlight changemakers working throughout the region to provide vital services and to engage the arts for democratic learning and expression, intergenerational dialogue and collective belonging.
To date, WAM has provided paid work to more than 500 theatre artists, the majority of whom are female-identifying. In fulfillment of its philanthropic mission, WAM donates a portion of proceeds from its mainstage productions to selected recipients. Since its founding in 2010, the theatre has donated more than $105,000 to 26 local and global organizations supporting gender equity in areas such as girls’ education, reproductive justice, human trafficking awareness and midwife training.
Managing Director Molly Merrihew said: “Artists and educators are the changemakers who nurture communities into vibrant, sustainable ecosystems fueled by collective, creative, and collaborative action. We hope you will join us.”
WAM Theatre has been widely recognized for its positive impact on cultural and community development in the region. This season is expected to deepen that impact.
Passes and single tickets are on sale now. For more information, visit wamtheatre.com.
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