American Roots and Rock at Payomet
The Adam Ezra Group is a case study in how seismic shifts in the music industry have radically altered the way musicians and fans find each other. Absent the backing of a major record label, the Boston-based band has built a devout following through savvy use of social media and streaming platforms, high-octane live performances, and a mission to use music as a vehicle for social change. The group brings its distinctive blend of folk, country, and rock — interlaced with strands of Celtic fiddle — to the Payomet Performing Arts Center in North Truro on Saturday, Sept. 14 at 7 p.m.
Ezra’s vocal power and exuberant stage presence evoke Bruce Springsteen in the 1980s. With Poche Ponce on bass, Corinna Smith on fiddle, and Alex Martin on percussion, the band’s sound is decidedly all-American. (In fact, the group won the New England Music Award for “Americana Act of the Year” in 2023.)
The group has toured with the Wallflowers and collaborated with Jon Oates (formerly of Hall & Oates) in the studio. One of the songs co-written by Ezra and Oates, released this summer, acknowledges the alienation many Americans feel: “This emptiness inside us/ can easily divide us/ But if we hold each other now/ Mercy and kindness/ Just may remind us/ To hold each other now…”
The band maintains a busy touring schedule and hosts the Ramble, an annual festival in north central Massachusetts that raises funds to house homeless veterans in New England. Last year’s Ramble raised $143,000 for the New England Center and Home for Veterans.
“Our success is not measured by how many millions of impressions we make out in the world,” Ezra told concertgoers at the festival in August. “Our success is measured by our ability to help one person at a time.”
Tickets are $22.50 to $25, plus fees, at payomet.org. —Katy Abel
Bella Hay Captures the In-Betweenness of Life
“Ripe,” a series of photographs by Bella Hay, is on view at 3 West Main, a new art venue in Wellfleet. The photos are candid glimpses of Hay’s summer experience.
“I’m 21 and my friends are either 21 or older,” says Hay, adding that most of her friends have finished college and now live on the Outer Cape. She describes the show as being about the gap between school and doing something definitive with your life.
She captures this in-betweenness in her photos. “This time of year is anxiety-inducing for people my age,” she says. One photograph depicts a friend fixing the cover of a Sun Lite trailer. The late afternoon sunlight shines brightly on the side of his body as he readies the trailer for nightfall. Another photo shows the same friend in a close-up view from below, lit by the sun. The tree canopy rises above him and the trailer.
In First Burn, two wooden chairs are stacked on top of each other at strange angles in a fire pit, signaling the end of another beautiful summer. Layer II depicts a sea-foam green basket with an empty Budweiser can and other trash inside. The sunlight highlights its ripped white rope handles and the wood frames stacked behind it.
Born and raised in Wellfleet, Hay lived in Costa Rica for six months after graduating from Nauset Regional High School in 2021. She attended the University of Vermont for a year and took a documentary film workshop through the New York Film Academy. Hay has shown her photos at Zone7A in Provincetown. She says 3 West Main director Kai Potter approached her after seeing that show and noting her work on social media.
There will be an opening reception for the exhibition on Saturday, Sept. 14 at 6 p.m.; the show is on view until Sept. 25. See 3westmainwellfleet.com for information. —Pat Kearns
Poetry and Friendship, in Person
Key West-based poet Kurt Eidsvig and Provincetown resident Sheila Sinead McGuinness have been close friends since meeting in an M.F.A. program at Montana State University in the early 2000s. “There’s still a camaraderie,” says Eidsvig, who grew up in Plymouth. “We root for one another and cheer each other on.”
Eidsvig and McGuinness will reunite for a poetry reading at the Provincetown Public Library on Saturday, Sept. 14. “It’s a thrill to be able to read with Sheila in Provincetown after all this time,” says Eidsvig.
Eidsvig will read from his new collection, Drowning Girl, which is inspired both by his own experiences and by the Roy Lichtenstein painting of the same name. McGuinness’s recent work has its roots in the genealogical research she began during the Covid lockdown, when she found out that she has deeper Provincetown roots than she was initially aware of: during the mid-19th century, her third great-grandparents worked in the fishing industry in Provincetown.
“So lately, my aim has been to write about ancestors,” says McGuinness, adding that she’s particularly inspired by the homes floated over from Long Point in the first half of the 1800s.
The reading will take place on Saturday, Sept. 14 from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Provincetown Public Library (356 Commercial St.). Admission is free. See provincetownlibrary.org/events for more information. —Hazel Everett
Bringing a Radio Star to a Provincetown Stage
Tanya O’Debra describes her one-woman show Radio Star as a “1940s radio detective spoof.” She wrote it in 2009 for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which features performers from all over the world. O’Debra assumed that with a radio show, she wouldn’t have to “bring all sorts of costumes” with her to Scotland. Instead, she found, she had to bring a multitude of props.
O’Debra will bring Radio Star to the Provincetown Theater in three performances from Thursday, Sept. 12 to Saturday, Sept. 14. The show is directed by Gregg Bellón and features original music by Andrew Moreyellow.
A playwright based in New York City, O’Debra voices all 10 characters in the show. Onstage, behind her prop table, she produces live sound effects.
“For match strikes, I use a piece of sandpaper,” she says. “I have high heels for my female characters and flat shoes for the men.” Her props range from simple objects to more complicated ones. “I have a door with c
hains and locks on it,” O’Debra says, and she describes a dummy she made from a pair of rice-filled footy-pajamas. “When people fall,” she says, “I drop the dummy from a height.”
Something about sound “puts you in a place,” says O’Debra. “It sparks the imagination in a way that seeing stuff doesn’t. It takes a minute to get into, but once you’re in the world, it’s very clear what’s happening.”
While O’Debra says that Radio Star has a “standard mystery detective plot,” she recommends it for mature audiences only. “It’s filthy,” she says. “That’s a very important detail. It’s very dirty.”
General admission tickets are $35, plus fees, at provincetowntheater.org. —Eve Samaha
