1/2 Tix Enters 9th Year With Barrington, Berkshires, Williamstown; Opens 6/17

Barrington Stage Company and the Berkshire Visitors Bureau are excited to provide ½ Tix again in 2010, a program administered through a partnership between the two organizations. Now celebrating its ninth year, the ½ Tix program offers half-priced tickets to residents and visitors in the Berkshire community. Patrons can buy same-day, half-priced tickets to cultural events at area ½ Tix Booths June 17 through September 5, 2010.

Participating cultural venues in the 2010 ½ Tix Program are: Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Choral Festival, The Berkshire Fringe, Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Capitol Steps at the Cranwell Resort, The Colonial Theatre, Jacob's Pillow Dance, Mac-Haydn Theatre, Shakespeare & Company, Tanglewood, Theater Barn, and Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Several new changes have been implemented this year. The Pittsfield Visitor's Center and the Pittsfield ½ Tix Booth have a new home for 2010 in the Ben & Jerry's located at 179 South Street in Downtown Pittsfield. A fifth ½ Tix Booth will also open in the new Lenox Visitor's Center located in the Lenox Town Hall ( 6 Walker Street , Lenox). The other three ½ Tix Booth locations are the Adams Visitors Center (3 Hoosac St., Adams), the Southern Berkshire Visitors Booth (362 Main St., Great Barrington) and the Chatham Bookstore (27 Main St., Chatham, NY)

There is also a slight increase in the per ticket handling charge, now $3.00 instead of the previous charge of $2.50 per ticket. As the ½ Tix program continues to grow and expand, this small increase is necessary to help sustain the day-to-day operations of the program and to continue to provide half-priced tickets in the Berkshires.

The five ½ Tix booths will operate from June 17 through September 5, 2010 from noon until 4:30pm Tuesday through Sunday (closed Monday). Patrons seeking information about daily performance availability and general ½ Tix information should call the ½ Tix Hotline at 413-743-1339. Tickets are sold on a first-come, first-served basis and all transactions are cash only. All tickets are subject to availability and all participants are subject to change. For questions about ½ Tix, please contact Laura Roudabush, Director of Marketing at Barrington Stage, 413-499-5446 x109 or lroudabush@barringtonstageco.org, or Linda Beach, Operations Manager at the Berkshire Visitors Bureau, 413-743-4500 or lbeach@berkshires.org.

Barrington Stage Company, a professional award-winning Equity theatre located in the heart of the Berkshires, in Pittsfield , MA , was co-founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd. Barrington Stage's mission is three-fold: to present top-notch, compelling work; to develop new plays and musicals; and to find fresh, bold ways to bringing new audiences into the theatre-especially young people. Barrington Stage garnered national attention with William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin's Tony Award-winning musical hit THE 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE, which began as a workshop at Barrington Stage in February 2004, was produced in its world premiere to critical acclaim that summer, and later transferred to Broadway's Circle-in-the-Square Theatre where it played more than 1,000 performances. For more information, log on to www.barringtonstageco.org.

The Berkshire Visitors Bureau is the official, nonprofit Regional Tourism Council for Berkshire County . More than 1.5 million visitors access Bureau services and publications, including the Berkshires Official Visitors' Guide and berkshires.org, each year. Representing more than 700 area businesses, the Bureau organizes a collaborative marketing program. Membership is open to any business that benefits directly or indirectly from Berkshire tourism.

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