Calling All Classical Musicians
Open Mic Classical was founded in 2015 by clarinetist Monika Woods and violist and sculptor Robert Marcus to create a community of classical musicians of all ages and experience. The organization also promotes work by underrepresented composers and pieces that feature nontraditional instruments.
Classical musicians of any age and skill level on the Outer Cape are invited to sign up to perform at a special edition of Open Mic Classical at the Provincetown United Methodist Church (20 Shank Painter Road) on Sunday, May 21, at 3 p.m.
The program is a collaboration with Red Door Chamber Music, a Provincetown-based organization dedicated to presenting music by underrepresented composers. Works by three Cape Cod composers will be showcased at the PUMC event: Truro-based pianist Michael Holt will play his Prelude in C minor; Provincetown’s John Thomas will play a piece for piano; and three musicians from Red Door Chamber Music from will perform two works by Brewster-based Bruce Abbott (Homage to Georgia O’Keeffe and an arrangement of George Gershwin’s Three Preludes for Piano.)
The program will also include time for other musicians to perform in five-minute slots at the event. Information on signing up is available at www.openmicclassical.org, by emailing [email protected], or calling 774-353-0244. Sign-ups are open until 2 p.m. on the day of the event.
The event is open to the public. Tickets are $15, with free admission for participating musicians and children. —Eve Samaha
Tsukamoto Returns to Preservation Hall
Guitarist and songwriter Hiroya Tsukamoto returns to Wellfleet Preservation Hall on Saturday, May 20 at 7 p.m. to perform songs with acoustic guitar from his new album, Little River Canyon.
Tsukamoto wrote his latest songs at home during the pandemic. “I thought I didn’t have any inspiration,” he says. “But in a way, I was able to focus on just music itself,” adding that he explored different guitar tunings. “It opened up new territory for me.”
Tsukamoto recorded Little River Canyon in March 2022 at a recording studio near the canyon of the same name in northeast Alabama, which he discovered on a road tour. “It’s a beautiful river and waterfall,” says Tsukamoto.
Tickets are $20 general admission ($21 at the door), and $12 for children 13 and under. See wellfleetpreservationhall.org for information. —Dorothea Samaha
Bringing ‘Failure’ Home to Cape Cod
The more than 300 episodes of Patrick Hinds’s “True Crime Obsessed” podcast, which recaps (and skewers) true crime documentaries, have more than 200 million downloads across several platforms. Despite his success, Hinds is returning home to Cape Cod this weekend to talk mostly about his failures.
In advance of the September publication of his book Failure Is Not NOT an Option, Hinds will bring his “traveling book party” to Cape Cod Theatre Company (105 Division St., West Harwich) on Saturday, May 20, at 7 p.m. Hinds performed at the Harwich Junior Theatre while growing up in South Yarmouth.
In a statement accompanying the book, Hinds describes himself as “kind of an expert” on failure: “the chubby, poor, gay son of a lesbian who wrote pornographic letters to Jesus,” whose life has been “a series of fiascos, missteps, and just plain bad ideas.” At the book party, Hinds will read from his memoir and host a meet-and-greet with attendees. “It’s my hometown show,” he says. “I’m going to be super-emotional.”
Tickets are $35, or $50 including a pre-reading VIP reception; proceeds will benefit the theater. See capecodtheatrecompany.org for information. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
Honoring Queer Filmmaking Talent at PIFF
As part of its 25th anniversary celebrations this year, the Provincetown International Film Festival has announced that Bruce LaBruce, the pioneering (and often controversial) Canadian queer filmmaker known for such films as Hustler White (1996) and Gerontophilia (2013), will be this year’s “Filmmaker on the Edge.”
“If anybody deserves the Filmmaker on the Edge award, it’s this year’s honoree, Bruce LaBruce,” says PIFF advisory board member John Waters in a statement accompanying the announcement. “He’s been pushing the limits of gay correctness, punk attitude, and political mayhem for about 40 years and has somehow managed to keep his celluloid troublemaking spirit intact both above and below the limits of underground and commercial filmmaking.”
In addition, PIFF Executive Director Anne Hubbell announced that Emmy, Tony, and Grammy Award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated actor, singer, director, writer, and producer Billy Porter will be honored with the festival’s Excellence in Acting Award. Porter will discuss his work with film scholar and critic B. Ruby Rich in conjunction with a screening of the new film Our Son, in which Porter stars with Luke Evans, on June 16 at Town Hall.
Other honorees include writer, director, and actor Julio Torres and comedian Megan Stalter, who will receive the “Next Wave Award” in recognition of their work in independent film.
This year’s schedule will include over 100 films, including many from first-time filmmakers, and runs from June 14 to 18. See provincetownfilm.org/festival for full schedule and information.
Ruth Ozeki on Journaling About Writing
For as long as Ruth Ozeki has been writing novels, she’s been recording her process. The result — a document she’s been keeping since 1997 — is now hundreds of pages long.
“It’s not like Virginia Woolf’s diaries or anything like that,” Ozeki says. “It’s really just a place where I dump thoughts and ideas and ask questions and complain — and if I feel triumphant, gloat. It’s become more like a friend.”
As part of her residency at Twenty Summers this month, Ozeki will lead a session called “Journaling and the Writing Process” on Friday, May 19. The event is an opportunity to hear excerpts from and the philosophy behind her “process journal,” which Ozeki also describes as “a to-do list, a brainstorming page, and sometimes a shopping list.”
During her residency, she will also begin diving into a project about her Japanese grandfather, who immigrated to Hilo, Hawaii in his teens as an indentured servant on a sugarcane plantation. He later became the first official photographer for Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park before becoming an early target of arrests following the attack on Pearl Harbor. A young park ranger recently accessed a dossier of his original documents and contacted Ozeki. “I’ve been reading all of this archival material, and it’s fascinating,” she says. “But I haven’t really had time to dig into it yet.”
The residency will provide that time, as well as space to return to writing. Between the publication of her most recent book, which won the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction, and teaching, Ozeki says it’s been a while since she’s been able to write more than “little essays and little stories.” She’s also ready to return to the Outer Cape after visiting in September for the Provincetown Book Festival.
“I’m really psyched to be coming back,” Ozeki says. “I can’t think of any place where I’d rather be at this particular moment.” See 20summers.org for more information. —Sophie Mann-Shafir
Sian Robertson Takes the ‘Scenic Route’
Self-taught artist Sian Robertson’s intricate assemblages are maps of the imagination. Using an X-Acto knife and a vast collection of vintage road maps and atlases, Robertson cuts, tears, rolls, layers, and reassembles cartographic fragments into a dizzying array of combinations. Some of the resulting pieces are mazelike tangles, with routes that twist and loop and double back on themselves. Others emphasize the formal qualities of their medium and reconfigure the fragments into complex designs and patterns, as in 2022’s Counties, in which dozens of individually cut out maps of state counties are detached from their contexts and layered into a composition that resembles a textured fabric quilt. Despite their small size, there are practically infinite conceptual landscapes to be explored.
Robertson’s work is on view at The Commons (46 Bradford St., Provincetown) in an exhibition titled “Scenic Route” that opened Tuesday, May 16. The show features both freestanding and wall-mounted pieces, including newer works in which Robertson pushes the boundaries of dimensionality by creating freestanding objects incorporating multiple sections.
A native of the U.K., Robertson has lived on the Outer Cape for nearly 25 years. In addition to her work as an artist, she is also the bookkeeper for the Independent. There will be an artist reception at the Commons on Saturday, May 20 at 4 p.m., and the exhibition will be on view until May 28. See provincetowncommons.com for more information. —John D’Addario
