PICKENS — Berkshop Masks & Theatreworks celebrated its grand opening on Thursday with a ceremonial ribbon cutting hosted by the Pickens Chamber of Commerce.
The business offers a unique addition to downtown Pickens as owner Doug Berky has been creating and evolving his own brand of physical theater for over thirty years and is an internationally known for his mask making.
Berky’s performances combine physical comedy, mime and mask theatre along with clowning, circus arts and storytelling. In addition, he creates all of the sets, choreography, scripts and many of the costumes used in his show.
According to his biography on the company’s website, Berky began his professional training at the Dell’Arte School of Mime and Comedy in Blue Lake, California before touring for eight years with established companies including The Montanaro Mime Theatre, The Two Penny Circus and Sunshine Too, the touring theatre of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.
Berky has performed all over the world as has appeared in the award-winning NBC children’s television series, “See-Saw,” and in four television specials for Swedish National Television in Stockholm, Sweden.
He has also been the featured performer at The Eugene O’Neill Theater Cabaret Symposium and the National Council of Churches and has performed and taught as Artist-In-Residence at numerous schools and colleges including schools for the deaf, The Commedia School in Copenhagen, Denmark, Roanoke College, Furman University, and the University of Wisconsin, Racine.
His masks, many of them on display at his shop in Pickens, have been used from everything from Shakespearean productions to summer stock productions. Other mask design and constructions include professional ballet productions, music video productions, television production, individual performing artists and his own original theatre productions.
Berkshop Masks & Theatreworks is located at 317 East Main Street in Pickens and will begin with Spring classes on Mask making, juggling and acting on April 8.
For more information call 765-610-7801 or email at berkshoptheatre@gmail.com.
