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Stage
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Tuesday, 02 March 2010 |
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The Music Hall unveils $13.5 million capital campaign in new space
The Music Hall seeks funding to continue restoring the historic venue, plus open a new space nearby on Congress Street, featuring a storefront theater and education center. Although they’ve secured
an impressive $9 million
already, they're seeking another $4.5 million to meet their target.
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Wednesday, 24 February 2010 |
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This week, we learn that “Peter Pan” will take Prescott Park visitors to Neverland this summer, actors are invited to audition the parts of zombies, robots and more traditional roles in 'How to Survive the Strange,' and Carpe Diem presents the final week of 'Gumshoe Diaries' at WEST.
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Tuesday, 02 February 2010 |
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Set a century ago, Pontine's production—based on Sara Orne Jewett's acclaimed novel—tells of the hardships, the loneliness of
life and the frequent deaths in a fishing village on the Maine coast,
where friendships were as precious as gold and an afternoon in another
person’s company was something to be celebrated.
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Tuesday, 02 February 2010 |
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Despite all of the stories that have been written, songs sung, and
poems composed, we never seem to tire of love. It’s high-stakes poker
where the odds are always stacked against us. When left holding only a
single high card, or maybe even a pair, we continue to barter with our
emotions, always refusing to fold. Our relentless pursuit is exquisitely explored
in Joi Smith and Danica Carlson’s production, “Love,” at the Players’ Ring.
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Wednesday, 27 January 2010 |
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comedian Bob Marley discusses Maine accents, his new plow, ice fishing and more as he prepares for a gig in Salisbury
Marley estimates this show will be PG-13, but he does feel obligated to shield his young children from the
“Boondock” films, which are replete with violence and vulgar language.
His eldest daughter, especially, has become curious to see her dad on
the big screen. “She says, ‘You were in movies? I wanna see it!’ And
I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’”
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Wednesday, 27 January 2010 |
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Invented and installed in 1908, the Rochester Opera House’s auditorium
floor raising and leveling mechanism is believed to be the last of its
kind remaining in the world. And now the 100-year-old device is working
like new. “It was a miserable pleasure to work on,” said repair team member Jay Jordan,
who had to slide into a tiny crawlspace under the floor on a skateboard
to access a damaged gear, among an array of broken gears, twisted rods and compromised bearings.
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Wednesday, 27 January 2010 |
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Those interested in producing a show at The Players’ Ring are invited
to attend an annual Producers’ Meeting at the Portsmouth theater venue
on Monday, Feb. 8, where area playwrights are encouraged to pitch their
scripts and be a part of The Ring’s 2010-2011 season.
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Saturday, 23 January 2010 |
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‘A Winter’s Tale’ revives the age-old tradition of storytelling in Portsmouth
After listening to “The Moth” for a couple of years, Michelle Moon decided the
Seacoast had all the necessary ingredients to host a similar concept.
The area is filled with creative, interesting people and warm,
welcoming venues, she said. And storytelling has been widely celebrated in Portsmouth since colonial
times. Before electricity, playing music and telling stories were the
primary forms of evening entertainment—especially on dark winter
nights. Audiences can rediscover the experience at the first installment of “A Winter’s Tale,” with a lineup of eight local storytellers.
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Saturday, 23 January 2010 |
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This year’s New Works Festival will open with a staged reading
of “Dead and Buried,” awarded the Pestolozzi Award for best
full-length play. The story of a young woman’s quest to learn something about her birth mother, a woman she never knew, is the third win for playwright James McLindon.
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Thursday, 14 January 2010 |
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Steinbeck writes about real people in low situations—people scraping to get by financially, socially and emotionally— and from the music to the
collapsible set to the costumes, director Meredith Freeman-Caple brings us back to a time when
every day was a hand-to-mouth existence.
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Thursday, 24 December 2009 |
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The family-oriented festival of mimes, dancers, jugglers and magic travels from Portland to Portsmouth during for holiday performances.
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Wednesday, 09 December 2009 |
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Seacoast Rep celebrates new Durham property and Portsmouth lobby makeover
A holiday festival on Sunday, Dec. 6, marked the grand opening of
the Seacoast Repertory Theatre’s newly acquired Mill Pond Center in
Durham, while the Rep’s theater lobby and reception area in Portsmouth
recently received a long-awaited makeover thanks to the generosity of
local businesses. The renovated space was unveiled on the opening night
of their production of “A Christmas Carol” on Dec. 4.
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Wednesday, 02 December 2009 |
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December shows spread holiday cheer
Local theaters are aiming to turn that humbug into a humdinger with holiday performances through December.
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Friday, 28 August 2009 |
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Gay Bride of Frankenstein recently selected the cast for its New
York debut, but not before a publicized controversy over the casting
director’s use of Twitter during the first round of auditions.
Executive producer Billy Butler wrote many of the songs for the
rock musical during the RPM Challenge, a local initiative that
encourages people to record an album in a month every February. The
production sold out shows at the Players’ Ring in Portsmouth last fall
and has since become an official selection of the New York Musical
Theatre Festival. It opens Sept. 28, and runs at The Barrow Group
Theatre through Oct. 11.
Another round of auditions was held last week because the
casting director for the New York production, Daryl Eisenberg, was
sending out cell phone Twitter messages about the actors during the
first audition. Some of the messages were unflattering and many people
complained. The incident and the etiquette of Twitter were covered by
the New York Times and other publications and Web sites.
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Saturday, 22 August 2009 |
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ACT ONE presents ‘Mid-Life Crisis Cabaret’
The latest offering from Poolyle Productions has an unusual
rating. The play, called “Mid-Life Crisis Cabaret,” is rated GP 30:
“you must be over 30 to understand what the heck we’re talking about!”
Starring Pat Spalding, Gordon Carlyle and Susan Poulin, the show
takes place on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 22 and 23, at West End Studio
Theatre in Portsmouth. The comedic musical deals with issues known all
too well to audience members entering their “not-so Golden Years,” such
as insomnia, hip replacement, antacids and memory loss. But it also
includes subtle wisps of wisdom.
The play is part of ACT ONE’s third annual Festival of Fun,
which presents comedies, concerts and stories at W.E.S.T. through Nov.
6. The final installment of the festival’s main stage series, “Over the
River & Through the Woods,” runs through Sept. 5. For more
information, visit www.actonenh.org.
“Mid-Life Crisis Cabaret” takes place at 2 and 8 p.m. on Aug. 22
and 2 p.m. on Aug. 23. Tickets are $18, or $16 for those 65 and over.
West End Studio Theatre is at 959 Islington St., Portsmouth. For
tickets, call 603-300-2986.
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Friday, 14 August 2009 |
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"Rocky Horror Show" at the Rep
Throughout July and
August, on every Friday and Saturday at midnight, the costume-clad
faithful make their way around Bow Street to queue up for “The Rocky
Horror Show.” Some have traveled here many times during the 15 years
that Seacoast Repertory Theatre has been staging this show, and like
salmon returning home to spawn, it signifies summer’s return to the
Seacoast.
On one particularly balmy Saturday, fellas in fishnets and gals
in G-strings stood in line. Feathers filled the lobby and satin
spilled onto the sidewalks. Some were seeing the show for the first
time, and others came armed with experience and wit. After all were
seated, the host established the ground rules—no toast, no rice, no
toilet paper and no aiming squirt guns at the actors. And, like any
good ritual, the host called for the virgins who were greeted with
invectives from the crowd. With that, the show began.
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Friday, 07 August 2009 |
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youth theater group has successful summer with “Charlie Brown” and “Hair”
Summer
is an especially competitive time for theaters, but the youth members
of BlackBox Theatre Productions, performing at Prescott Park and the
Seacoast Repertory Theatre in Portsmouth, aren’t worried. In fact,
despite the fact they’ve been performing on Mondays and Tuesdays—nights
not generally associated with theater—BlackBox has added extra dates to
accommodate high ticket demand.
The youth theater group’s production of “You’re a Good Man,
Charlie Brown,” a staple of many high schools and theater camps, sold
120 tickets its opening night at the Rep in July. There’s no way to
tell exactly how many people attended the Prescott Park performances of
“Hair” last month, but the park was pretty full. And the first
performance of “Hair” at the Rep sold out the theater, with another
coming up on Monday, Aug. 10.
So, what’s their big secret?
The answer is simple: it’s a troupe filled with talented,
impassioned young people—none older than 21—who are completely in love
with what they’re doing. Those qualities make for shows that must be
experienced to be fully appreciated.
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Friday, 10 July 2009 |
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the Ring kicks off Late Night series with “Evening Broadcasts II”
The Players’ Ring in Portsmouth will launch its 2009 Late Night
summer season with a one-weekend staging of “Evening Broadcasts II”
from Friday to Sunday, July 10 to 12. The production promises bullet
wounds, plane crashes and blunt instrument damage, but it’s not as
violent as it sounds.
The play, a follow-up to last year’s “Evening Broadcasts,”
includes three short works for two characters and a corpse. Director G.
Matthew Gaskell shared writing duties with fellow local playwrights
Jacquelyn Benson and Michael Kimball. Gaskell instructed each writer to
come up with a story involving two men and one woman—with the
stipulation that one of the characters had to be dead.
The show begins with Benson’s “Articulo Mortis,” a “Poe-like
tale of horror” involving a reporter who requests to be hypnotized at
the moment of her death. Next comes Gaskell’s “Hunger Strike,” about a
pair of plane crash victims debating what their survival is worth. The
evening concludes with Kimball’s “The Brownwater Legend,” a comedy
involving cowboys and gunfights. All three plays star local actors
Gaskell, Matthew Schofield and Tana Sirois.
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Friday, 10 July 2009 |
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‘Gypsy’ at the Seacoast Repertory Theatre
“Gypsy” is a
show that has an extraordinary number of familiar songs (“Everything’s
Coming up Roses,” “All I Need is the Girl,” “Together Wherever We Go”)
and even a time-honored punch-line (“How do you like them egg rolls,
Mr. Goldstone?”). It’s about the childhood of burlesque
dancer/actress/writer Gypsy Rose Lee (Christine Dulong), known to her
family as Louise, and her overbearing mother Rose (Shannon Lee Jones).
Rose is anyone’s worst nightmare of a stage mother. She takes
advice from talking cows that appear to her in dreams and guide her to
one hideous act after another. Her efforts are initially fixated on
Baby June (Elle Shaheen), who has a singing, dancing vaudeville act
with Baby Louise (Ally Foy). Things start looking up when candy
salesman Herbie (Ed Batchelder, adorably well suited for this role)
agrees to return to his former profession and represent the girls in
their act. When Teen June (Marissa Sheltra), age 13, elopes with a boy
from the act (largely to escape Rose’s smothering grip and start a
legitimate acting career on her own), Rose turns her attention to
Louise.
Louise doesn’t have the singing and dancing skills her baby
sister did, but that doesn’t stop Mama Rose. But when the troupe
accidentally gets booked at a burlesque house, Rose is forced to admit
that vaudeville is dead. She finally agrees to Herbie and Louise’s
biggest dream: to go home and build a quiet life for themselves where
Louise can go to college.
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Wednesday, 01 July 2009 |
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Hackmatack Playhouse is perfect for ‘Our Town’
Someone
played a piano in the rehearsal barn while people waited for the show
to start, sitting on benches under shady trees. Children worked the
concession stand offering homemade strawberry shortcake.
The Hackmatack Playhouse in Berwick, Maine, is an old red barn
with a faintly dusty smell, antique farming tools and exposed beams.
It’s the perfect setting for “Our Town,” a play about the simple life.
The first show of the season, it runs Wednesday through Saturday until
July 4.
This New England classic drama by Thornton Wilder is set in
Grover’s Corners, a composite of several average New Hampshire towns in
the Mount Monadnock region during the early 1900s. Through three acts
of daily life and death, the play touches on how industrialization and
immigration change things, but it really focuses on how some things
stay the same.
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Thursday, 25 June 2009 |
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Locals can enjoy live performances of plays in high definition and
surround sound through a new partnership between The Music Hall and one
of the world’s leading theater producers of Shakespeare, international
classic drama, and contemporary playwrights: the National Theatre of
London.
The Victorian theater will be one of more than 100 venues around
the world to broadcast the series, which kicks off on Thursday, June
25, with Nicholas Hytner’s new production of “Phèdre.” The other shows
in the pilot season include Shakespeare’s “All’s Well That Ends Well”
on Thursday, Oct. 1 at 7 p.m., and “Nation,” about two teenagers thrown
together by a tsunami, on Sunday, Jan. 31 at 2 p.m. Broadcasts will
also feature behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with artists.
Consumed by passion for her young stepson Hippolyte, and
believing her absent husband Theseus to be dead, Phèdre confesses her
darkest desires. When Theseus returns, alive and well, Phèdre, fearing
exposure, accuses her stepson of rape. The result is disastrous.
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Wednesday, 17 June 2009 |
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Larry McCullough presents solo dance works in Portsmouth
When
dancer Larry McCullough steps in front of the crowd on June 19 and
begins to move his body, it will mark his first public performance in
10 years—and his first ever on the Seacoast. The 60-year-old Eliot,
Maine, resident has danced professionally in New York, Toronto, London,
West Berlin and elsewhere, but he has not met a live audience since
moving to the Seacoast in 2001.
“This is my first real public solo evening, and the whole evening is solo dance works,” McCullough said.
He will offer three performances at West End Studio Theatre in
Portsmouth during the weekend of Friday to Sunday, June 19 to 21,
debuting contemporary works collectively titled “Endangered Species.”
McCullough wrote and choreographed the entire production, and he will
perform it alone beneath the theater lights, aided only by inventive
costumes and a classical music score.
McCullough is founder of the Pinetree Institute, a center for
arts and human development based at Pinetree Farm in Eliot. The
institute sponsors workshops, seminars and arts performances that aim
to integrate the arts with personal development and sustainable living.
The idea that art—specifically the art of dance—can help people go
green is central to McCullough’s new work.
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Wednesday, 10 June 2009 |
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The Hackmatack Playhouse of Berwick, Maine, comes back to life in June for its 37th summer season.
The playhouse is named after the Hackmatack tree, which loses
its leaves each winter and looks dead, unlike most coniferous trees.
Like the tree, the Hackmatack Playhouse reemerges every summer. The
country theater seats 218 people in a renovated barn.
Executive producer Michael Guptill said the playhouse is a unique,
quaint theater with a “down home atmosphere” that offers home-made
desserts.
The colors of the upholstered seats are arranged so that, from
the stage, one can read the initials of founder S. Carlton Guptill, the
initials of the playhouse, and the year ’72, marking the first season.
Before and after the show, audience members occasionally get escorted
onstage to take a look.
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Wednesday, 10 June 2009 |
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‘Julius Caesar’ at The Players’ Ring
The Players’ Ring
in Portsmouth is in the midst of its annual Shakespeare offering, and
this year they give us “Julius Caesar.” This show might have the same
title and text as any other “Caesar” you’ve seen, but that’s where the
similarities end. One of Shakespeare’s few historically factual plays,
“Caesar” is based on the Roman leader’s assassination by his Senate.
The last stab is administered by his beloved friend Brutus—the only
person not acting out of envy or ambition, but out of fear for what
Caesar has become.
This play may be the single most brilliantly executed and
relevant performance I’ve seen in the last six years. Director
Christine Penney turned this 410-year-old play into a commentary on
modern politics with brutal, stark truthfulness. She is as fearless as
she is talented, and the payoff for the audience is as gratifying as it
is scary.
It’s a gender-blind production, meaning Penney didn’t cast
characters based on their sex but on how well they fit the role. The
play is set in modern times, and Caesar is played by a woman (Joi
Smith). It makes not only for an extremely interesting take on the
piece, but also allows Penney to sneak in some comments about our
present society.
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