Join us for an online conversation with the creators of NightWood: Chris Bocchiaro of Clerestory Light, scenic designer Megan Kinneen, and sound designer and composer Greg Hanson. Joined by The Mount’s Susan Wissler and Edith Wharton Writer-in-Residence Molly Rideout, they will discuss the origins, inspirations, and challenges of this year’s show. We also hope to get a sneak peek of their plans for 2021!

Chris Bocchiaro, Creative Director/Lighting Designer

Chris is a Boston-based lighting designer with a passion for movement theater, opera, and the synthesis of old and new technologies. Chris approaches each project as a unique emotional arc to be explored, and he strives to capture that arc through light. Chris has recently designed for Apollinaire Theatre, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Hub Theatre Company, the Lyric Stage, Boston Opera Collaborative where he is a resident designer, and imaginary beasts – an award-winning movement theatre troupe where he is an artistic associate.

Megan Kinneen, Scenic Designer

Megan’s work draws from her training in theater design, architecture and illustration. Her interests lie in finding new, non-verbal ways to present historic buildings and cultural heritage sites through artistic augmentations and interpretations. Additional design work includes projects with Actor’s Shakespeare Project, ART Institute, Hub Theatre, Revels North, Apollinaire Theatre, and The Crane Estate at Castle Hill.

Greg Hanson, Sound Designer/Composer

Greg Hanson is a New York City-based sound designer, audio systems designer, audio engineer, and musician. An accomplished musician and composer, Greg has extensive experience in immersive theater, live production, and audio recording. He serves as the Head of Audio and in-house Sound Designer at the McKittrick Hotel, home of Sleep No More, in NYC’s Chelsea neighborhood.

Molly Rideout, Moderator

Molly is a writer and bookmaker and The Mount’s 2021 Edith Wharton Writer-in-Residence. She is exploring the lives of the working class of Lenox and Lenoxdale. Her fiction-nonfiction chapbook, Transient, was published in 2019 by Antenna Paper Machine, and her micro-story public art is installed across Wisconsin, Iowa, and Ohio. She now makes her home in North Adams, MA, where she works with MASS MoCA’s Assets for Artists program.

Susan Wissler, Executive Director

Before her current position, Susan practiced law in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. She joined The Mount in 2001 as Vice President and became Executive Director in 2008. Highlights of Wissler’s twenty-year career include the return of Wharton’s books to the library and the retirement of The Mount’s debt. In 2018, Wissler edited deceased French scholar and author Claudine Lesage’s Edith Wharton in France.

The Mount is a Massachusetts Cultural Council UP designated organization welcoming participants of all disabilities. Please contact The Mount at 413-551-5100 or by email, info@edithwharton.org, to discuss accommodations needed to participate fully in this event.