A New Executive Director at Twenty Summers
Bill Reihl has been visiting Provincetown for decades. Some of his favorite memories from those visits, he says, are of events at the Hawthorne Barn, the setting for most of the programs of the nonprofit arts organization Twenty Summers: concerts with up-and-coming musicians, conversations with established writers and scholars, and art shows. As its new executive director, Reihl will be taking Twenty Summers into its second decade.
Over a 30-year career in marketing and advertising, Reihl worked in New York, Los Angeles, and London. Last year, he was looking for a change. “I wanted to really get involved with a local community,” he says. “And I wanted to be more directly involved in arts and culture.”
Reihl says his goals for the organization are to continue its top-notch programming and deepen its connections with other arts organizations in Provincetown, like the Fine Arts Work Center and the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. “I want to grow the organization while also keeping it small and local,” he says. He will work with Twenty Summers’s director of programming, Alice Gong. “I’m so excited about working with Alice,” he says. “She has such a strong connection to this place.”
They already have an exciting slate of artists lined up for this upcoming season, says Reihl. “I can’t say too much about that just yet,” he says. “But it’s going to be good.” —Paul Sullivan
Cape Rep’s Young Company Gets Political
This winter, the 35 teens enrolled in Cape Rep Theatre’s Young Company have learned about more than just acting. For the eight-week program, director Maura Hanlon chose two plays written in the 1930s — Dead End by Sidney Kingsley and Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets — in part because of their history and their current relevance.
Theater is often political, says Hanlon, and both plays were written as responses to the Great Depression and the decade’s challenging social and economic climate. “These plays explore issues that are still pertinent today: fighting for a living wage, young people who can’t climb out of poverty because there are so few opportunities for them, gentrification stepping all over affordable housing,” she says.
The plays will be presented at Cape Rep’s Indoor Theatre (3299 Route 6A, Brewster) on Friday, Feb. 9, and Saturday, Feb. 10.
Now in its eighth year, the Young Company, or YoCo, provides free lessons to students from all over Cape Cod. Students from the Outer Cape this season include Ashley Anderson of North Truro, Campbell Mulligan of Wellfleet, and Julian Lajoie and Ella Smith of Eastham. Lessons are taught by theater professionals and include acting, directing, voice, speech, dialect, stage management, and stage combat.
Language is also a central part of the program, says Hanlon. Kingsley’s play — which first introduced the “Dead End Kids” gang who would go on to appear in 89 films — and Odets’s take on the 1934 New York City taxicab strike offer students a chance to use colorful idioms of a bygone era, like “take a powder” and “he’s got a yellow stripe running up his back.”
Many YoCo students will return from Cape Rep to acting in high school and community theater productions. But Hanlon says that they’ll also take home lessons beyond the stage: “The skills they are learning with us make them great collaborators and creative thinkers.”
Tickets for the productions are $10 ($5 for students under 18). Visit caperep.org or call 508-896-1888 for information and showtimes. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
Stage Kiss Explores Love on (and off) Stage
Sarah Ruhl’s 2011 play Stage Kiss, which will be presented at the Academy Playhouse (120 Main St., Orleans) this month, is about the line between reality and fantasy. For director Rachel Hischak, it’s a story that hits close to home.
“I was taken aback by the fact that the play seemed to be mirroring my own experience at times,” says Hischak, who has been acting for 30 years, “especially when it depicts issues of autonomy that arise for actresses in the theater when they have to kiss their scene partners.”
Stage Kiss is the first full-length play that Hischak has directed. It’s the story of two actors with a romantic history — they are named only “She” and “He” — who are cast in a melodrama as two people in love. Both actors are married to others but slip into “a clandestine world of fantasy” as kisses blur the lines between on- and off-stage personas, and real-life partners are affected. As in her other plays (which include The Clean House and In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play), Ruhl uses comedy in an effort to make dramatic points.
Hischak says that Stage Kiss comments on complex issues regarding intimacy in the entertainment world. While there have long been strict rules for rehearsing fight choreography, actors have often been left alone to figure out staged intimacy. The #MeToo movement forced some change. But over decades working in theaters in Massachusetts, New York, and beyond, Hischak says, she’s unfortunately seen some “unsavory and murky negotiations.” Stage Kiss offers a window on that topic.
The cast includes Missy Potash as “She” and Eli Woods as “He,” with Dan Rabold, Susanna Creel, Emma Engelsen, DJ Kostka, Frederic Carpenter, and Ann Carpenter. The play runs from Feb. 8 to Feb. 25. Tickets are $25-$35 at academyplayhouse.org. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
Troubadour Davis Plucks Heartstrings
“I gravitate toward folk music,” says singer and songwriter Troubadour Davis. “I love anything with strings.” As a solo performer, he sings and plays multiple instruments, including guitar, harp, banjo, and bass. He will perform at the Truro Public Library (7 Standish Way) on Saturday, Feb. 10, at 2 p.m.
Davis, who grew up on Cape Cod, approaches songwriting from an artist’s perspective. “I try to paint a picture,” he says. “Instead of telling a continuous narrative, I try to evoke imagery.”
“Anvil,” an original song on his 2022 album Troubadour Davis, has the humble sound of a classic American folk song. Brass and guitar collaborate in a unique instrumentation. “Death Rattle,” from the same album, has a slightly more indie-rock feel, with a steady percussive beat. Davis says he will play both songs at the concert on Saturday, which will also include some of his newer unreleased songs.
His set lists often include covers too. “I like taking songs that aren’t meant to be folky and making them folky,” Davis says. He’s arranged his own version of A-ha’s ’80s pop classic “Take On Me.” “If I play that at a bar,” he says, “everyone gets all sentimental.”
“It’s great therapy to write a song,” he says. “If you’re able to work something out through music, and somebody resonates with the message, it’s one of the best feelings.”
The concert, which is part of the Truro library’s Winter Music Series, is free. See trurolibrary.org for information. —Eve Samaha
