Public History in Performance Led by Artistic Director Trudy Williams, The Red Skies Music Ensemble (co-founded in 2010 by George Boziwick and Trudy Williams) presents original humanities based multimedia shows for the general public that animate facts and interpretations in American public history and culture that have been often overlooked, omitted, or hidden in plain sight.
Using music as the portal, the ninety-minute Red Skies shows combine a fascinating research-based narration with live music, theatrical vignettes, and large screen archival images to give audiences experiential engagement with the meanings of the artifacts, archives, special collections and exhibits of local and national libraries, museums, and historical societies.
The shows by playwright Trudy Williams and those co-authored with George Boziwick, weave inter-connections across time and medium, aiming to inspire a closer relationship of the community to shared socio-cultural history heritage, its relevance to today, and the value of access and preservation of archival material.
Performances include an audience sing-along during the show, and a Q&A at the end. Crafted for easy adaptation to any size space, formal, informal, indoors and out, shows draw a diverse cast and crew mainly locally.
Performances include, among others: The Library of Congress; New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Lincoln Center Public Program Series; American Repertory: Oberon Theater, sponsored by the Harvard Houghton Library and A.R.T. Special Programs; Yale University; The Emily Dickinson Museum; International Emily Dickinson Society, Amherst College; Long Island Museum of American Art; Hadley Historical Society/Porter- Phelps-Huntington Museum; Northampton Forbes Library; Northampton Center for the Arts; Northampton Union Station, sponsored by Historic Northampton.
Recent Performances of Trudy Williams' shows
Rhythm & Rails - Northampton and the Rail Roads: A Social History in Times and Tunes. 2025: Forbes Library 2026: Northampton Center for the Arts , Flex theater. Northampton Union Station, presented in partnership with Historic Northampton.
Cornstalk Fiddles: Soundscape and Place in 19th Century Hadley 2024: Presented in partnership with Hadley Historical Society & Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum.
2027 in development for June 2027 : Music, Magic & Mayhem: The Times and Artistry of Poet Walt Whitman and Musician/Artist William Sidney Mount.
