At the Movies With Alfre Woodard
In a career spanning six decades, Alfre Woodard’s sharply observed portrayals of emotionally complex women across independent dramas, legal and medical serials, and popular genre flicks have earned the actor and activist four Emmy and three Screen Actors Guild awards, as well as nominations for an Oscar, a BAFTA Award, and two Grammys.
Woodard will discuss her work at a fundraising event at Wellfleet Preservation Hall (335 Main St.) on Saturday, March 22 in conversation with actor and theater director Scott Cunningham, who lives in Truro. An audience Q&A and cocktail party with Woodard will follow the discussion.
While Woodard has appeared at the Hall in her former role as part-time artistic director — in the past, she’s assisted with fundraisers and collaborated with Jeff Zinn on a live play reading there in 2023 — this event will turn the focus back on the actor’s “wide, complex, and truly iconic career,” according to a press release.
“We’re absolutely thrilled to have Alfre back working with us,” says Preservation Hall Executive Director Kate Ryan. Ryan says that all proceeds from the event will support year-round programming and building maintenance.
Cunningham plans to screen clips of Woodard’s film and TV performances, including scenes from John Sayles’s 1992 drama Passion Fish and Spike Lee’s 1994 semi-autobiographical film Crooklyn and her more recent roles as a death-row prison warden in Clemency (2019) and as a vampire slayer in Salem’s Lot (2024). “It’s going to be a really fun night of Scott asking her questions, and Alfre telling stories about her time on set and stories behind the scenes,” says Ryan.
Tickets are $100 at wellfleetpreservationhall.org. —Tyler Jager
Something Old and Something New at PAAM
Dan Flonta, first violinist and founder of the Cape Cod String Quartet, admits that March on the Outer Cape doesn’t quite feel like springtime yet, whatever the calendar might say. But despite the unpredictability of the season, the quartet will perform its fifth annual concert — titled “Spring Is Here” — at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (460 Commercial St.) on Saturday, March 22 at 2 p.m.
Flonta says that it’s exactly that unpredictability and the improvisational nature of new life that inspired the program, which he will perform with second violinist Jeff Pearson, violist Sofia Nikas, and cellist Nancy Torrente. The concert will open with a string quartet arrangement of Johan Halvorsen’s Passacaglia, which was originally written for violin and viola, and which takes its theme from the final movement of George Frideric Handel’s Harpsichord Suite in G Minor. Next is Max Richter’s “Spring 2,” from his 2012 reimagining and recomposition of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
The program also includes an arrangement of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins in A Minor, followed by Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, a piece that Flonta says is simultaneously about mourning and renewal, and “Sekstur From Vendsyssel” (“The Peat Dance”), a set of traditional Norwegian tunes arranged by the Danish String Quartet.
The concert will close with Mozart’s 14th String Quartet in G Major, nicknamed “Spring.” Mozart wrote the quartet in 1782 when he was 26 years old after moving to Vienna and meeting Haydn for the first time. Haydn inspired Mozart to write his next six quartets, which are called the “Haydn Quartets” for their dedication to the older composer.
The third movement of the quartet is andante cantabile — a slow movement, elegant and vaguely remote. Usually, slow movements in a composition come second. But Mozart flipped the order, says Flonta. In performance, he says, when the third movement comes, “You have a moment.”
Each piece in the program involves memory: some dedication to or reimagining of the past. After all, spring is a season that reminds us that what is new could not exist without what came before.
The concert is a joint fundraiser for PAAM and the nonprofit Cape Cod Music Society. Tickets are $35, with free admission for children and students. See capecodmusicsociety.org for more information. —Dorothea Samaha
Robin Wessman’s Destabilizing Reality
Eastham artist Robin Wessman’s paintings, currently on view at Truro Public Library (7 Standish Way), depict familiar objects like tools, fruit, seashells, and bottles. They are rendered realistically, with fastidious care given to their shape, color, and surface qualities.
But these aren’t strictly realistic paintings. Instead, Wessman’s objects defy rules of gravity and hover in space. The effect is akin to magical realism: there’s a recognizable visual lexicon, but the normal rules governing reality are in flux.
In The Gathering, Wessman animates the still life, upsetting our notions of the genre as something static and contained. An antique baby-blue pitcher with a matte finish and rusty edges anchors the horizontal composition. Pieces of fruit levitate around it, just barely lifting off the table. The still life seems about to burst apart. Yet, the balance between warm and cool colors and the controlled manner of Wessman’s technique instill a sense of order. The viewer is left destabilized, finding both disorientation and familiarity in the image.
In another painting, Into the Blue, seashells levitate above a table by the sea. There’s a similar sense of disorientation, but a feeling of calm is conveyed by the delicate, dreamy colors of the shells and water.
The disruptions in Wessman’s paintings are never violent or aggressive. Rather, his approach is playful and subtle, an attitude that is underscored by the brightness of his palette. Many of the objects seem to radiate their own light: the interplay between light and shadow is one of Wessman’s strengths. A painting of a lamp, Just You and Me, is particularly noteworthy for a luminescence achieved through layering thin washes of paint on a white ground.
Some of Wessman’s titles, like The Poet, and his arrangement of objects that often recall faces, introduce an element of animation to the objects. In Cultivated Cookery, books and vegetables hover at different heights and in different directions as if they are speaking to each other or engaged in some sort of dance. As in Wessman’s other paintings, these still life objects are anything but still.
The show is on view until March 31. See trurolibrary.org for information. —Abraham Storer
Turning a Historic Theater Into an Enchanted Mansion
“The House Upon the Hill” is a song in Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon’s 1991 musical The Secret Garden. But that title could also describe the Academy Playhouse, an 1873 hilltop building on Main Street in Orleans that began life as a town hall.
The building’s history is a main reason why director Jennifer Almeida had dreamed of transforming it into an early-20th-century Yorkshire mansion and its grounds for the current production of the musical. “As old as it is, and as intimate as it is, our theater lends itself perfectly to this show,” she says. Characters roam balconies and candles cast shadows on high walls while a trio of musicians play close by. “The audience is truly surrounded by everything,” says Almeida.
The musical is based on the 1911 Frances Hodgson Burnett novel about orphan Mary Lennox, who moves in with her bereaved uncle, and how caring for a long-neglected garden changes the fates of all involved.
“The show embodies love and loss, and everything getting better and every character getting a chance to heal,” says Almeida, who also plays Lily, Mary’s deceased aunt. “Storms occur, but the show ends in spring with everything blooming and beautiful. We’ve rehearsed through the winter, and now crocuses are literally blooming on the hill here.”
While most of the lead roles are played by adults, young Mary and her bedridden cousin Colin are central characters in the story. Both roles are double cast with young actors who have previously been part of multiple Academy classes and shows. Other young actors and adults play ghostly “dreamers” who narrate the action through what Almeida describes as an “almost operatic” score. “Maybe it’s because of the kids,” she says, “but this show is very special.”
The Secret Garden runs Thursdays through Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 30 at Academy Playhouse (120 Main St., Orleans). Tickets are $30-$40 at academyplayhouse.org. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
Castle Hill Art Workshops for Elders
Beginning next month, the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill will offer free workshops in ceramics, poetry, collage, and drawing for Outer Cape residents age 60 and over. The workshops, which meet two days a week for six sessions each, are limited to 10 to 12 participants, who will be selected by lottery.
“There really is a lottery,” says Castle Hill Executive Director Cherie Mittenthal. “Names are drawn from a hat.” The deadline for entry is Monday, March 24 at 4 p.m.
The programs begin on Tuesday, April 1 with a poetry workshop taught by Truro-based writer Keith Althaus, author of several poetry collections including Rival Heavens (1993) and Ladder of Hours (2005). Althaus, who turns 80 this year, will publish a new volume of poems this summer.
Ryder Gordon, whose work “is defined by pushing the limits of what can be accomplished both on and off the potter’s wheel,” according to the course description, will teach a course on hand building with clay beginning Monday, April 7, the same day as the first meeting of Michael Giaquinto’s class on mixed-media collage.
Starting Tuesday, April 8, Provincetown artist Rob DuToit will teach an introductory drawing class. “We will work with the fundamentals of color, value, and composition,” says DuToit. “This class is about exploration and developing good practice.”
To apply, visit castlehill.org or call 508-349-7511. Preference will be given to those who have not previously taken a senior workshop at Castle Hill. Those selected to participate in the workshops will be notified on March 25. —Susan Rand Brown
High Energy Hip-Hop at Eastham Library
The ZYG 808 — who also goes by ZYG — prefers not to use his real name in public. His nickname has a multi-chapter backstory: “My parents wanted something to call me while I was still in utero, so they took the first three letters of the word ‘zygote,’ ” he says. “808” refers to the Roland TR-808 drum machine that was used on many hip-hop tracks in the 1980s. A musician, composer, producer, and DJ who describes himself as a “soul poet,” he was born in the Bronx but has lived in Mashpee since he was eight.
ZYG will perform at the Eastham Public Library (190 Samoset Road) on Tuesday, March 25 with singer-songwriter and rapper Jacy Howes, who grew up in Dennis and Falmouth. ZYG will perform songs from his newly released album, Build/Destroy, which he says “takes a few different genres and blends them together into something weird and cool.” The first track, “Freakshow,” he says, “walks the line between alternative rock and trap.” He describes the fifth track, “Projectile,” as “dancehall Afrobeat,” while another is “straight up trap instrumental.”
While ZYG’s instrumental tracks are deep and rhythm-rich, most of his music also has lyrics, which he says are a form of poetry. “Most songs are just poems put to music,” he says.
Music has always been a part of ZYG’s life, beginning at four years old when his grandmother gave him a drum set for Christmas. “Before I was rapping,” he says, “I was drumming.” When he was in ninth grade, he was assigned to write a sonnet, which he recorded as a rap and presented in front of his class. “When it came to me,” he says, “they were like, ‘All right, let’s see what this kid does.’ ”
These days, ZYG plays in the Grammy-nominated soul-funk jam band the GroovaLottos, where he often plays drums and raps at the same time — a skill that “took a lot of practice,” he says.
At the library, the two artists will divide their set equally — each will perform for about 45 minutes. Their styles are complementary. Like ZYG, Howes describes himself as a multi-genre artist: “Hyper-pop, pop, punk, emo, alternative — whatever I’m feeling,” he says. His tracks often feature live instrumentals, including acoustic guitar, drums, and piano.
Howes emphasizes the importance of connecting with an audience. “If there are only five people in the room,” he says, “or if it’s a sold-out show, it feels good to share your art and yourself.” He cites his song “Black Nail Polish” — about a friend painting his nails while he was asleep — as one of his favorites to perform. “Whenever I sing it, the audience sings it back to me, even if they’ve never heard it before.”
ZYG also says that he reads the “vibe” of an audience. “Sometimes, I’ll be like, Let me get a ‘yes sir!,’ ” he says. “They respond a lot of the time.”
The concert is free. See easthamlibrary.org for information. —Dorothea Samaha
