WILLIAMSTOWN -- To hear lifelong Williamstown resident Ralph Renzi tell it, the Williamstown Theatre Festival didn't just spring to life 55 years ago, it sprinted.
"I figured it would succeed, but not to the extent it has," Renzi, 88, said during a recent telephone conversation from his Williamstown home. "But once it started, well, it just became the topic of conversation. Even people who weren't interested in theater were talking about it. It's as though the town had been waiting for this to happen."
Renzi should know. He was there at the beginning. Indeed, the idea for the festival surfaced during a conversation between Renzi, a former Berkshire Eagle reporter who was, by then, news director at Williams College, and David C. Bryant, chairman of the college theater program and director for a summer theater in Boston.
"Why don't you do it here?" Renzi asked Bryant. So, Bryant did, with $9,000 in the festival's pocket, a company of 25 actors, the blessings of a few good individuals and the Board of Trade, and a generous donation from songwriter Cole Porter.
The Williamstown Theatre Festival officially begins its 55th season tonight at 8 with A.R. Gurney's "Children." There will be a pre-performance feast at 5:30, remarks at 7 and a post-performance reception on the lawn outside Williams College's ‘62 Center for Theater and Dance.
The festival has come a long way from the 10-plays-in-10-weeks traditional summer stock it produced 55 years
The theater's impact on Williamstown is palpable. The festival brings with it a summer-long roster of 360 staffers. On top of that are the actors, designers and directors of each of the productions.
"They all shop in our stores, they eat in our restaurants, they go to the movies. The energy level really rises tenfold when the festival comes to town," remarked Mikki Brown who, together with her husband, Tom, run The Browns, a men's and women's clothing store on Water Street.
"The festival brings a life and liveliness to the town that is really helpful," said Michelle Gietz, owner of the funky toy store Where'd You Get That? next door to the popular Tunnel City Coffee at the foot of Spring Street.
"The actors, the other people from the festival are open, fun; open to visitors and locals," she added. "I'd say that, from a retail standpoint, the festival is really critical. I'd like to see them here the year round"
"The pace is the same the year round. If it's not the theater, it's the students," said Paul Lovegreen, who owns Tunnel City. "But there is a different feel here during the summer. There's more bustle, more diversity. It's fun.
"From a business point of view we all do better in the summer."
WTF isn't the only game in town during the summer.
"You've got not only the festival, but the college is very active with conferences and various sports camps," said Paul Goff, who owns Williams Shop, Inc. and Goff's Sports at the top of Spring Street.
"And, of course, you've also got the Clark [Art Institute] and Williams College Museum of Art with their big summer shows.
"I would say the summer crowd is a bit more diverse."
That diversity takes in the nationally known actors who come to Williamstown to perform and who often patronize the shops along Spring Street and Water Street when they are not performing or rehearsing.
"It definitely spices things up when you see some of the actors in the shops or along Spring Street," Goff said by telephone. "It definitely spices things up when a Gwyneth Paltrow comes in the store."
Or a Kathleen Turner. The actress was in Williamstown two summers ago to direct "Crimes of the Heart." She was living in an apartment above The Browns and visited the store every now and then.
"They knew [who she was]," Brown said referring to customers who were in the store during one of Turner's visits. "They were very respectful, very discreet but you knew it just made their day."
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