About Bazaar Productions and The Berkshire FRINGE
What We Do
Bazaar Productions is a not-for profit arts organization dedicated to presenting affordable, cross-disciplinary and dynamic new works of theater and dance by emerging artists to the Berkshire community. Our mission is to make great theater accessible to the widest demographic possible while cultivating the support of a diverse audience base. We strive to make high quality theater and dance available to the general public by providing affordable or free tickets for all of our performances and events. For not much more than the cost of a movie ticket, our audiences can partake is some of the most experimental, boundary breaking, fresh and original theater today. We focus on work that blends genres, creates new styles, and delves into traditions underrepresented in the mainstream. Bazaar Productions also seeks to expand awareness, increase support, and provide recognition to emerging artists from across the United States.
Who We Are
Bazaar Productions and The Berkshire Fringe comes to you from the imaginations and elbow grease of its three co-artistic directors:
Sara Katzoff, Timothy Ryan Olson and Peter Wise.
Artistic Director Biographies
Sara Kathryn Katzoff Graduated cum laud from Simon’s Rock College after spending her junior year at The Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater. Having received specialized training in ensemble dynamics and generating new material, Ms. Katzoff wrote, directed and performed The Scissor Tango Variations as part of her senior thesis. As a performer Ms. Katzoff has toured nationally with Landis & Company, regionally with A Mixed Company and along the Pacific coast with The Dell’Arte School. Recent performance credits include My Children.. My Africa! (Rattler Productions) 900 Dreams (Spencertown Academy), Othello (Infamous Genius Theater Company), Shotgun Wedding (Dell’Arte Company). Ms. Katzoff is a member of the Actor’s Equity Association and has trained as a company member with Mission Improvible!, Shakespeare Sedona, The National Theater of The Deaf, and Shakespeare & Company. She has been a guest artist at the Norman Rockwell Museum, P.S 60, The Flying Cloud Institute and a mask-making instructor at Simon’s Rock College. Ms. Katzoff lives in Brooklyn and works as an actor, designer, and non-profit maverick!
Timothy Ryan Olson graduated summa cum laude from Simon’s Rock College where he studied the theater and dance. He spent a year in Amsterdam studying the Dutch language and researching the Holocaust. He received his MFA in playwriting from the Actor’s Studio Drama School, where he was granted a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship in the Arts by the United States Board of Higher Education. He was a guest artist at Simon’s Rock College where he taught Method Acting to the advanced theater students. He spent a challenging year teaching drama to first and second graders in an after school program run by NYU’s Metro Center. Mr. Olson has sung and acted in a few off-off Broadway productions including A Christmas Carol (Personal Space Theatrics), Short Stories 4 (Native Aliens Theater Collective), Miss Milligan’s Third Grade Class Presents "Animal Farm" (Geek Ink), and Best Sex of the XXth Century Sale at Theater for the New City. His one act play, Cleaning House, was recently produced by NativeAliens as part of Short Stories 5.
Peter Wise grew up playing music in Stockbridge, MA and went to school in Rochester, NY at the Eastman School of Music, studying with John Beck. The first student to complete Eastman School’s World Music Certificate Program, Peter has particular interest in the music of the Balinese Gamelan (Indonesia), and the Mbira tradition of the Shona people in Zimbabwe. Currently living in Brooklyn, he plays music in and around the New York City area with groups such as Alarm Will Sound, the Anechoic Chamber Ensemble, the Philadelphia Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra, and more. He has also been seen playing with the Berkshire Bach Society, on initial work at Tanglewood for Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, and as a collaborative creator and performer of Sara Katzoff’s The Scissor Tango Variations at Simon’s Rock College of Bard. Peter has participated in two years of the Bang on a Can Summer Institute of Music at MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA) with guest composers Steve Reich and Louis Andriessen. When he finds a moment to stop banging on things, Peter works as Marketing and Financial Associate at Bang on a Can, a non-profit organization based in Brooklyn that commissions and presents adventurous music. Peter can be heard on the Cantaloupe Music label.