Production Manager at Jacob’s Pillow Is Killed in ‘Tragic Accident,’ Center Says

Jacob’s Pillow canceled weekend programming as staff members grieved the death of Kat Sirico, who was moving staging platforms that toppled, the authorities said.


The Doris Duke Theater at Jacob’s Pillow, which reopened last month after being destroyed in a fire in 2020. An employee was killed while moving platforms outside. Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times

By Aishvarya Kavi
Aug. 2, 2025

A production manager who was helping to move platforms used for staging at Jacob’s Pillow, a celebrated dance center in Becket, Mass., was killed after the load toppled on Friday afternoon, according to the center and the authorities.

The person killed, identified by Jacob’s Pillow as Kat Sirico, was rolling a dolly with the help of an intern to transport the platforms for theater staging across the property, the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office said in a statement on Saturday.

What happened was determined to be a workplace accident, according to the statement, and criminal charges were not expected to be filed. … The two people moving the platforms lost control of the dolly they were using when they began rolling it down a slope, according to the district attorney’s office.

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The center had recently recovered from the destruction of the Doris Duke Theater, which burned down in November 2020. The theater reopened last month.

Aishvarya Kavi works in the Washington bureau of The Times, helping to cover a variety of political and national news.