A Musical Trip to Planet Bitch
In the late 1990s, Bitch and Animal, a self-styled punk dyke duo with what Bitch says was an “otherworldly connection,” played a summer of shows in Provincetown. They were picked up by singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco and released two albums on her label, Righteous Babes Records. For this reason, Bitch considers Provincetown to be one of her “soul homes.”
“It was the first place that I felt really saw me as an artist,” she says. “And it let me see myself as an artist.”
Bitch returns to Provincetown for a summer of weekly performances at the Post Office Cabaret starting Wednesday, June 26 at 8:30 p.m. Her one-woman show, “Hey Bitch!,” features songs from her 2022 solo album, Bitchcraft. The music is pop, driven by Bitch on the electric violin, an instrument that she says is liberating — both in its auditory range and its potential for distortion and exploration of effects.
“Hey Bitch!” is also autobiographical, documenting the journey to “Planet Bitch.” She says it has been one of “naming and claiming a vision and being able to follow through with it.”
The high-school-to-college transition was the first big example. A quiet kid who grew up playing classical violin in Pittsburgh left behind what she perceived as repression and isolation in the classical music world to a become an actor at DePaul University’s Theater School.
“Something about acting school helped me enter my body,” she says. “I learned how to be in my body onstage.”
Onstage embodiment complemented other firsts during this time. In a women’s studies class, she says she experienced “feminist revelations.” She also met Animal, her first bandmate. Together, she says, they began “a journey of picking apart misogyny in our language.”
“When I hear the word ‘bitch’ it’s generally describing women who are being too much, or who are outspoken and loud,” she says.
By changing her name and claiming the word for herself, she subverted that devaluation.
“Hey Bitch!” is a show for all ages. It runs every Wednesday until Sept. 4. Tickets are $35 at postofficecafecabaret.thundertix.com. —Dorothea Samaha
Great Music on Sundays @5 Starts Nostalgic
Great Music on Sundays @5 will kick off its 26th season at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, 236 Commercial St., Provincetown, on June 23 with a nod to the past.
Pianist and music director John Thomas has organized a live “1940s Radio Show” with a “studio audience experience” for the initial performance directed by Paul Goddu. Goddu will be the announcer, and 10 singers will perform period hits and radio-style commercials for sponsors, with Sam Sewell providing sound effects.
There’s a new feature at the meeting house: air-conditioning. “It’s a game-changer,” says Thomas. “Our theme this year is ‘Music is cool’ because we’re cool, literally.”
There will be 11 concerts in the series with new and returning performers and cast members from local productions like the Provincetown Theater’s upcoming Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Thomas is also Rocky’s music director).
The lineup includes five Broadway-themed shows: favorite tunes on July 14, songs from musicals “with an international flair” on Aug. 4, a “Renaissance + Revolution” theme on Aug. 18, a tribute to composer Stephen Sondheim on Aug. 25, and a concert of finales for “Curtain Call,” the Sept. 14 show.
“New Voices of Provincetown” on July 21 features singers Brittany Rolfs, João Santos, Adrian Carlos, and Peter Toto.
On Aug. 11, it’s “Queer Voices Through the Centuries,” organized by pianist Fredrick Jodry with tenor Andrew Beard Brown and flutist Eric Maul.
Regular admission to each show is $30. Priority seating is $50. The shows are free for those 17 and under, and senior discounts are available. See brownpapertickets.com, or for more information, ptownmusic.com. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
Steve Novick at Farm Projects
In Steve Novick’s sculpture Epitaph, he uses marble, brass, and rubber to suggest a gravestone. Despite the weighty subject matter, the object feels playful. For starters, the marble is a cutting board he bought at TJ Maxx. The rectangle is curved and wobbly; instead of text on the stone, he lays down black strips of rubber; and the whiteness of the form suggests lightness, a sharp departure from the metaphorical and literal weight of tombstones.
Novick’s first solo exhibition at Farm Projects in Wellfleet (355 Main St.) runs from June 21 through July 1 with an opening reception on Saturday, June 22 from 5 to 7 p.m. The Somerville-based artist will display a group of sculptures that, like Epitaph, subverts seriousness with humor.
Modernism looms large over the work. The forms are elegant, abstract, and minimal, but he pokes fun at the self-serious nature of abstraction. His sculptures aren’t afraid to suggest everyday objects, like mushrooms or cartoon figures. And his austere materials are often found in thrift stores.
When working with a found object, Novick says he tries to intervene as little as possible. “There’s fairly minimal shaping,” he says. Duchamp — the king of the ready-made — is a lodestar for Nocik. He’s fascinated with Duchamp’s “assisted ready-mades,” where a found object is slightly modified to “push it in a certain direction or give it a different interpretation.” It’s a territory Novick has pursued throughout his career, walking a careful line between preserving the integrity of a found object and inserting his own creative vision. “I gravitate toward things that are simple but somehow incomplete,” he says. “If there’s something about it that doesn’t seem finished, it gives me something to do.”
Often, he plays around with the orientation or display of objects. He might combine elements or add a bit of paint, as he did in Handset 2, where he used black paint to cover the surface of a found block of wood. The result harkens back to a vintage telephone — or a Brancusi sculpture. Whichever way the viewer goes is up for grabs, and Novick seems to be having a lot of fun in that ambiguous territory. —Abraham Storer
The Community Compact Turns 31
The photographer Marian Roth once transformed a hot dog stand at Herring Cove into a pinhole camera. She did it with support from the Provincetown Community Compact, which, through donations and grants, has helped launch eight nonprofits, dozens of art and community projects, and 2,500 dune shack residencies. Since its 1993 founding by Jay Critchley as an umbrella organization for the annual Provincetown Swim for Life & Paddler Flotilla, it has also raised $6 million for AIDS relief, women’s health, and local nonprofits.
Roth will tell her story, with photos and videos, at the Provincetown Theater, 238 Bradford St., on Sunday, June 23 at 7 p.m. Five other storytellers — Jackie Saltalamacchia, Ernie Martin, Diana Souza, Ngina Lythcott, and Robbie Piper — will talk about their relationships to the projects the Compact has supported, from dune shack residencies to Kristen Becker’s Summer of Sass.
The event, part of the Provincetown Art Gallery Association’s Forum 24, was Compact board member Gail Strickland’s idea. She has hosted an annual story night for the past 11 years, so she knew that the Outer Cape community welcomed and responded to this medium. In the past few weeks, she has met with each storyteller to help them prepare.
“I wanted what these organizations have accomplished to be told,” says Strickland. “Their experiences will go forward for this community.”
The event is free. Far Land Provisions, Provincetown Brewing Co., and Truro Vineyards will cater a social hour at the theater at 6 p.m. A raffle will be held for three two-night stays in the C-Scape dune shack. See thecompact.org for more information. —Aden Choate
Stations of the Doublecross in Critchley’s Back Yard
“The meaning behind the name of the show,” Nick Thorkelson says of the Boston-based Fort Point Theatre Channel’s upcoming show in Provincetown, Stations of the Doublecross, “is the way in which advanced industrial civilization promises more than it delivers and double-crosses all the people who seek its bounty.”
The musical, with five original songs, will be performed on Saturday, June 22 at 3 and 7 p.m. in Provincetown resident Jay Critchley’s back yard at 7 Carnes Lane. Each song comments on a different contemporary phenomenon that has somehow double-crossed us: religion, science and productivity, work and labor, the idea of heroes and villains, wealth inequality.
The story follows a pilgrim named Cat on his journey through the five stations. Cat’s the tenant of Wolfe, a landlord who represents the seedy underbelly of late capitalism.
Thorkelson wrote the songs with fellow troupe member Mitchel Ahern. In the show, Larry Plitt plays the guitar, and Thorkelson plays the piano. Shereen Salem provides interpretive choreography for the songs, bringing visuals to Cat’s pilgrimage.
Fort Point Theatre Channel was founded in 2007. “It evolved from being a theater group to a multidisciplinary performance group,” says Thorkelson, who’s lived in Provincetown since 2019. “We’ve become much more political over the years.”
Thorkelson says Critchley’s back yard provides the perfect ready-made set for the show. Cat travels from shed to outhouse to porta-potty to Critchley’s Re-rooters Resort Grotto. On his journey, he learns to think for himself about what is actually evil and what is actually good. —Paul Sullivan
Jazz Violinist Celebrates Juneteenth in Wellfleet
“African American music is really jazz,” says David Eure, a violinist and instructor at the New England Conservatory Preparatory School and School of Continuing Education who has had an extensive career as a recording artist and performer.
Jazz violin is a rare specialty, and Eure remembers only a few Black jazz violinists on the scene in his early years of learning the instrument. He says he is excited that interest has since exploded, with musicians of color “pushing the envelope” to use violins in jazz, world music, and a mix of genres.
Eure will perform a Juneteenth concert with keyboardist Lee Adler at Wellfleet Preservation Hall, 335 Main St., on Thursday, June 20 at 5 p.m.
Eure says he plans to include upbeat songs in the program because Juneteenth is a celebration. Compositions by Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Duke Ellington, Clark Terry, Quincy Jones, and Randy Weston may be featured, along with jazz versions of Stevie Wonder hits.
“I’ll try to keep it engaging and relevant to the theme of what Juneteenth means,” says Eure.
Juneteenth, which became a federal holiday in 2021, commemorates June 19, 1865, the day when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston and announced that people enslaved in Texas had been freed by President Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation two and a half years before.
“Juneteenth is not just about that era,” says Eure. “I’m trying to look forward and say, ‘There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done, especially in this polarized political environment.’ ”
Tickets are $25. Visit wellfleetpreservationhall.org for more information. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
