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. 

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.

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.’”

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.

‘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.

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. 

December shows spread holiday cheer

Local theaters are aiming to turn that humbug into a humdinger with holiday performances through December.  

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

‘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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

‘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.