The English Beat Keeps On Rocking
Music fans of a certain age will remember the English Beat as a staple of early-1980s alternative radio and Friday Night Videos blocks. (The group was known as the Beat in their native U.K., but to avoid confusion with another group on this side of the Atlantic they were called the English Beat in the U.S.) The original lineup that recorded the hit songs “Mirror in the Bathroom” and “Save It for Later” disbanded in 1983, but its DNA lived on through the rest of the decade in the bands subsequently formed by the group’s members: General Public (formed by Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger) and Fine Young Cannibals (formed by Andy Cox and David Steele).
Since 2006, Wakeling, who currently lives in California, has been fronting the current lineup of the band, which continues its signature brand of ska, pop, soul, reggae, and punk rock. They will be performing at Provincetown Town Hall (260 Commercial St.) on Sunday, March 25, 7:30 p.m. as part of the Payomet Road Show series. In addition to songs from the group’s archive, Wakeling and friends will also be performing General Public songs as well as original compositions.
General admission tickets are $35 ($30 for Payomet members; $45 day of show). See payomet.org for information.
An Artist’s View of Art, Science, and Living Better
What is the relationship between art and science? How can we be “better animals” in the face of global change? And how can human beings re-envision what it means to be dependent upon and aware of living in the natural world?
As part of a lecture series sponsored by the Center for Coastal Studies, the center’s current artist-in-residence Mark Adams will discuss these and other questions at Napi’s Restaurant (7 Freeman St., Provincetown) on Wednesday, March 29, 7 p.m.
An artist and teacher who was recently named Artist of the Year by the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, Adams has also worked for many years as a geologist and cartographer for the Cape Cod National Seashore and has volunteered helping refugees in the Mediterranean and at the U.S. border. His varied experience has given him a unique perspective regarding human presence in the greater world.
“If I had a manifesto, it would be that all life forms matter and are linked by the flow of energy and nutrients; that resources move through nature in a network, a web of being; and that our actions must foster the flow of productivity,” says Adams in a statement. “Without nature’s abundance and diversity, we become prisoners in artificial lives and our experiences become more sterile.”
The event is free but registration is required. See coastalstudies.org for information. —Dorothea Samaha
Art That Calms and Stimulates
There are many components to the installation that Truro Center for the Arts resident artist fellow Myra Kooy has been working on at Edgewood Farm (3 Edgewood Way, Truro), including painted walls and canvases, cutout totems lit from within with neon lights — and, most important — visitors to the installation themselves.
Edgewood Farm will host an opening event for Kooy’s Radiant Light Sanctuary installation on Wednesday, March 29, 7 to 9 p.m. Described as a space that is “meant to calm a person’s energy field and evoke a sense of quietude,” Kooy’s display combines light and color to both stimulate and relax visitors as they walk through and become part of the artwork. Paintings from her series “In the Light of Love” will also be on view.
The event will feature music by Nadia Washington and Ken Field as well as videos of other artists that Kooy has invited to interact with the space. Kooy will also lead a meditation and breathwork session with her partner, Kate Wallace.
The event is free. See myrasight.com and castlehill.org for information.
Spring Play Dates at Provincetown Theater
Three new full-length plays and a new musical will begin the season at the Provincetown Theater (238 Bradford St.) with a bang.
The theater’s annual Spring Play Dates reading series begins on Thursday, March 23 with New York-based playwright Sarah Schulman’s Free Ali! Free Bob!, described as “a contemporary Chekhovian comedy about a group of artists and academics who find themselves thrown into disarray following the overseas arrest of their filmmaker ringleader.”
Works by Outer Cape writers and musicians will be presented over the following three weeks. On Thursday, March 30, Racine Oxtoby’s Fun Times in Babylon! tells the true story of a Hollywood scandal and murder trial in 1921. Linda Fiorella’s Beanie’s Last Stand, a play about a group of queer friends and a middle-aged DJ hiding in a dune shack from a militia, will be performed on Thursday, April 13, and the series wraps up on Thursday, April 13 with Jon Richardson’s Jack of Hearts, a musical about a group of Provincetown friends and lovers that takes place over the final weekend of the summer of 1963.
Each play is directed and performed by actors from New York and Cape Cod and will be followed by audience discussion with series curators Gary Garrison and David Drake and the playwrights. Free parking and a cash bar are available at every performance. Admission is free; preregistration is requested at provincetowntheater.org.
