The production features Gretchen Egolf (BSC's Private Lives, A Picasso) and Myra Lucretia Taylor (Broadway's Nine), under the direction of Tyler Marchant, who directed the popular BSC Stage 2 and Off-Broadway play Freud's Last Session.

Performances play to July 9. In the play, "The lives of two extraordinary women intersect: May N'Kame, a member of the African elite who is the mother of a murderous dictator, and Dr. Cora Gage, a world-renowned eye surgeon who lost her son tragically years before. In this thriller-like political and psychological drama, the two women start sharing a terrible secret, at the core of which is their gnawing feeling of guilt over the fate of their respective sons. The power and passion of two strong women in an all-too-possible modern day situation is examined, as we see both women's political and personal agendas that go way beyond treating a patient...or being one."

Going to St. Ives has sets by Brian Prather, costumes by Kristina Sneshkoff, lighting by Scott Pinkney and sound by Allison Smartt. Michael Andrew Rodgers is production stage manager.

Blessing's play A Walk in the Woods was produced on Broadway and London's West End. It was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His Off-Broadway productions include A Body of Water, Primary Stages; Going to St. Ives, Primary Stages (Outer Critics Circle Award, Best Play, Obie for ensemble performance); Thief River, Signature Theatre (Drama Desk nomination, Best Play); Cobb, Lucille Lortel Theatre (Drama Desk Award, Best Ensemble); Chesapeake, New York Stage and Film at Second Stage; Eleemosynary, Manhattan Theatre Company, and Down the Road, the Weissberger Group at the Atlantic Theatre.

For information, visit www.barringtonstageco.org. *

Barrington Stage Company, a professional award-winning Equity regional 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."