Play Reading Series Spotlights Young Queer Voices
Sheila Callaghan’s 2015 play Women Laughing Alone With Salad is about three women living in an image-obsessed culture. Its title was inspired by a popular online meme, and that connection made it a good fit for the organizers — who have never known life without the internet — of a new monthly theater gathering at the Provincetown Commons (46 Bradford St.).
The B Plot Reading Series was created by Eden Allegretti, who since April has been the Provincetown Theater’s marketing and communications associate, and Peter Toto, who has been the theater’s artistic and production associate since mid-2022. Their idea is to represent young queer people with their own voices and spark conversations about issues they face.
Callaghan’s play, to be presented on Wednesday, Dec. 6, dovetails with their mission. “There’s this trend in stock images of very joyful women eating salad, and it’s used to promote wellness culture,” says Toto. “But it really gives women body dysmorphia.”
“It’s a really cool, bizarre feminist play with a lot of dark comedy,” says Allegretti.
The play is the third that the two have presented in their new series. In October, Madison Wetzell’s Mediocre Heterosexual Sex touched on gender, sexuality, and power dynamics in the bedroom. In early November, Beth Hyland’s Fires, Ohio referenced climate change in a story of a family system breaking down.
Although it wasn’t planned, the internet became a throughline for their first three productions. “We were born with the internet in our hands, so we don’t really know the world without it,” Toto says. “It’s how we were raised.”
The name of the series references a story’s secondary plot (or “B-plot”) because it’s intended to offer free, accessible plays complementing the Provincetown Theater’s mainstage season. Allegretti and Toto say they’re grateful for support from the directors of the theater and the Commons for this first-ever partnership and for the enthusiasm that brought around 50 people of all ages to both readings and talkbacks.
Readings will continue over the winter, with a program of 10-minute plays planned for January. See provincetowntheater.org/2023-season and provincetowncommons.org for information. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
Reimagining Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite
More than 60 years ago, Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s big band adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite was released to worldwide acclaim. Now, the acoustic roots group Mr. Sun takes up the torch with its American string band arrangement of Ellington’s modern classic. It will perform the suite at Wellfleet Preservation Hall on Tuesday, Dec. 5 at 6 p.m. as part of Payomet’s “Open Arms to Open Arts” series.
The ensemble is composed of Joe K. Walsh on mandolin and vocals, Darol Anger on fiddle, Grant Gordy on guitar, and Aidan O’Donnell on bass. “The Ellington and Strayhorn interpretation of the Nutcracker feels both serious and playful,” says Walsh. Ellington and Strayhorn didn’t use all the movements of Tchaikovsky’s suite — just their favorites. They changed the names, too: “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” became “Sugar Rum Cherry,” and “March” became “Peanut Brittle Brigade.”
Walsh says he sees a commonality between Ellington and Strayhorn’s musical sensibility and that of Mr. Sun’s. In Mr. Sun’s adaptation, “Sugar Rum Cherry” becomes “Sugared Rum? Spare Me!” and “Peanut Brittle Brigade” becomes “Pea Shooter Parade.”
“We’re a band that’s really ambitious while also having a sense of humor and never taking ourselves too seriously,” says Walsh.
Mr. Sun undertook the project out of a sense of curiosity. “I don’t know of another string band trying to do big band stuff,” Walsh says. The project began with asking questions like “What happens if you replace the trumpets and the trombones with a collection of mandolins?” Each band member selected tunes to arrange, and Walsh says the undertaking was “way more challenging than most of us realized it would be.” After “months and months of chipping away,” he says, the group completed the project.
In “Sugared Rum? Spare Me!” the famous Sugar Plum Fairy theme is clearly recognizable, played in duet by guitar and mandolin. Then the fiddle whisks it away, moving the music to a more jazzy, improvisatory full-ensemble jam. The tune — while based on Tchaikovsky’s delicate melodies — manages to be cheeky.
“Pea Shooter Parade” starts with the classic slow march, then almost immediately accelerates into a fantastical dance tune. Mr. Sun takes this number far away from its origins — and even from Ellington’s more recent interpretation — with its distinct Americana style.
The ensemble will release the record Mr. Sun Plays Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite on Dec. 1. Tickets for the Wellfleet Preservation Hall performance are $30 to $35 at tickets.payomet.org. —Eve Samaha
Naomi Alderman Looks at The Future
Naomi Alderman is a harbinger of the new science fiction. Her worlds aren’t far-off galaxies; like those of her mentor, Margaret Atwood, her worlds are versions of our own, ones that accommodate a different butterfly flapping its wings.
The Provincetown Public Library will present a virtual discussion with Alderman on Thursday, Nov. 30 at 3 p.m. as part of the library’s partnership with the national Library Speakers Consortium.
Alderman will focus on her new novel, The Future, a meditation on Big Tech and its uses and abuses. Inspired by the secret lives and doomsday bunkers of Silicon Valley billionaires, it follows protagonists Martha and Zhen as they navigate the chaos spurred by a new software program.
The Future builds on Alderman’s oeuvre of analyzing power and her curiosity about religion, sexuality, and the deep breath between submission and control. Her 2017 novel The Power (which was adapted as an Amazon Prime Video series this year) tells the story of a genetic mutation in young women that literally electrifies the world order. From imagining the hidden lives of Orthodox Jewish lesbians in Disobedience to professing an alternative life of Jesus Christ in The Liars’ Gospel, Alderman hasn’t shied away from controversy. In fact, invoking controversy is perhaps her greatest power. By breaking down the known, she considers the hidden and reconstructs the possible.
The virtual discussion is free, and registration is required. See provincetownlibrary.org for information. —Aden Choate
Holiday Songs, Stories, and Gifts at Cape Rep
Don’t think of Sing Out! at the Cape Rep Theatre (299 Main St., Brewster) as just a musical revue, says producing artistic director Janine Perry. Think of it as a holiday party, too.
“We serve hot cider and ask people if they want it spiked,” says Perry. “We sing to them and tell them stories, we have gifts that we give out, and we try to make it as if they were coming to our house for a theatrical entertainment for the evening. We have a lot of fun with it.”
This is the first time in six years that Cape Rep has produced this type of holiday gathering. With Covid concerns largely behind them — and the availability of frequent musical director Scott Storr — Perry says that this is a way to close the theater’s season on a festive note. With a simple set and Storr on stage at a baby grand piano, the production will include songs, readings of seasonal stories, and an NPR-style audience-participation guessing game that Perry refers to as “Wait, Wait … It’s Christmas.”
Perry emphasizes, though, that this is a “holiday show” rather than a “Christmas show,” one that aims to capture the varied emotions of this time of year. The program includes a medley of songs about winter: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,” Broadway tunes “Try to Remember” and “Seasons of Love,” and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”
The cast includes company regulars Trish LaRose, Wendy Watson, Anthony Teixeira, Jared Hagan, Maura Hanlon, Nick Nudler, Brian Lore Evans, and Kirsten Peacock. Songs were chosen by Storr and the performers, Perry says, with multiple chances for harmony as well as solos.
“Harmony is really important for a show like this because of its emotional content,” she says. “It’s people coming together to do something.”
Sing Out! It’s the Season will be presented Thursday, Nov. 30; Friday, Dec. 1, and Saturday, Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m., and on Sunday, Dec. 3 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 to $40 at caperep.org. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
