fiscal sponsor and is helping shepherd field through this first year while the festival works to get its own nonprofit status, according to field Executive Producer Lizzy Aspenlieder, who is also community relations manager and a company actor at Shakespeare & Company, as well as a film and theater producer.
Runnette also has connections with several local cultural organizations, including helping to start the Berkshire International Film Festival, former development work as a board member of Jacob’ s Pillow, and sitting on the board of the Chester Theatre Company.
“ Anything is possible when you get the right people in the room, when you have curious minds in the room,” Runnette says.“ My history at least is all about telling stories and sharing stories, and there are so many important stories that need to be shared and discussed and debated.”
Here are the speakers at field, October 23 – 25, at Shakespeare & Company’ s Tina Packer Playhouse:
Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark meet Bill Goldstein: Bird’ s new biography,
written with Susan Goldmark, is American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’ s Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump. Bill Goldstein is writing a biography of Larry Kramer.
Saidiya Hartman & Jamaica Kincaid: The authors explore gardening as a creative practice and metaphor. Hartman wrote Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments and Kincaid is a celebrated fiction writer and garden essayist.
Maira Kalman: The artist and designer presents her journey through Joy, a luminous collection of prose and paintings revealing how quiet optimism persists in dark times.
Tom Hammick: The painter and printmaker shares his operatic passion. His work is praised as one of the richest imaginative British art achievements of recent eras.
Adam Moss: The former New York magazine editor and author of The Work of Art leads a live“ Artists at Work” conversation with a special guest.
Annette Gordon-Reed & Brent Staples: The Pulitzer Prize winners discuss American history politics. Gordon-Reed wrote The Hemingses of Monticello, and Staples is a New York Times essayist.
Laura Buchwald: The novelist discusses the paranormal with internationally renowned evidential psychic medium Joe Perreta.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: The physician, bioethicist, and health policy expert( see page 40) speaks with bioethicist Vardit Ravitsky.
Carol Gilligan & Niobe Way: Gilligan, author of the revolutionary psychology book In a Different Voice, joins Way, a developmental psychology professor and humanity project founder.
Gypsy Snider: The choreographer and co-founder of Les 7 Doigts started in the Pickle Family Circus at age four and creates innovative circus performances.
Bessel van der Kolk: The trauma psychiatrist and author of the global bestseller The Body Keeps the Score hosts a conversation with unannounced special guest speakers.
Book Talks at MASS MoCA’ s R & D Store, North Adams, massmoca. org
This fall at MASS MoCA, the museum will host a slew of book talks featuring several local authors and nationally known artists with regional connections.
Come experience our historic home, exhibits, gardens, working farms, and peaceful woodland trails.
LEAVE INSPIRED
1005 Hildene Road I Manchester, VT 05254 hildene. org I Open 7 days weekly 10am- 4:30pm
44 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE Fall 2026