Bob Cohen’s Life Becomes Musical Art
After more than a decade of playwriting, Bob Cohen has written his first musical comedy. With a soundtrack of classic songs from the 1930s and 1940s, the appropriately titled Bob’s Musical is about a widowed man and woman in their 70s who try the online dating scene until they find each other.
The musical is one of two of Cohen’s works-in-progress that are featured in a showcase of staged readings by six writers at the Cape Cod Theatre Company/Harwich Junior Theatre (105 Division St.) on Saturday, April 27 at 7 p.m. It’s a project close to Cohen’s heart: while its characters are original creations, the story of the musical is loosely based on Cohen’s own romantic experiences.
After years of writing plays for groups and stages on the Outer Cape while living in Wellfleet, Cohen met a Brewster-based artist online and moved to her home six years ago. He then joined a class at the nearby Cape Rep Theater taught by its resident playwright, Art Devine, and found its members got along so well that they continued to work together after the class was finished.
Several months ago, the group regathered for Saturday morning share-and-critique sessions as the Playwrights on Sisson Road, with a goal of getting at least one play produced in 2025. “We all still had work inside of us and writing to do,” says member Kristin Stewart. “But most of us are only going to do it if there’s a deadline, right? It’s a way to hold ourselves accountable.”
Cohen agrees the group provides the motivation he needs. “I know I’m going to be meeting with the gang, and they’re going to be looking for what I wrote that week,” he says. In addition to his musical project, Cohen is rewriting a full-length play based on his background as a social worker that incorporates information about research on Alzheimer’s disease. Like his musical, Cohen’s Discovery is a romance (“You’ve got to have some schmaltz,” he says), this time about a neuroscientist and her work with patients. “The drama of the play is about her bringing people out of dementia,” says Cohen.
Besides excerpts from Cohen’s two shows, the showcase features scenes from Stewart’s thought-provoking comedy about women planning for their deaths; Michele Clarke’s take on the life of Isabella Stewart Gardner; Kelly Eisenhardt’s retelling of events from her father’s life; and existential observations by Jim Pettibone. Art Devine is contributing a story about a DNA test and a fortune-teller’s prediction. Actors in the showcase include Lynda Sturner of Provincetown, a playwright herself, and Ian Hamilton of Eastham, drama teacher at Nauset Regional High School.
The showcase is free. See capecodtheatrecompany.org for information. —Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
Corey Farrenkopf’s Cape Cod Ghost Story
Each summer during college, Eastham librarian Corey Farrenkopf would mow cemetery lawns in Harwich and other towns, “trying not to destroy headstones,” he says. That experience formed the basis of his “dark fantasy” novel, Living in Cemeteries, which was published this month.
The novel follows Dave Gallagher, an “anxious 27-year-old” and cemetery caretaker, as he communes with Cape Cod ghosts who warn him about his destiny. The book is not “insanely dark,” says Farrenkopf: while it could be considered horror, “there’s supposed to be some levity. For instance, there are parts where I make fun of tourist culture.”
Farrenkopf worked on a draft of the novel for 10 years, spending a few hours a day writing at an old captain’s desk in his parents’ house. He says that the book might interest fans of supernatural fantasy authors like Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, and Karen Russell.
Before this first novel, Farrenkopf published close to 90 short stories. “At least half of what I write is set on Cape Cod,” he says. Cape Cod-based readers of Living in Cemeteries will recognize many of the cemeteries in the novel, including Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Harwich Port and Island Pond Cemetery in Harwich. Cemeteries in Hyannis, Lynn, and Amherst also appear in the book.
Farrenkopf has worked at the Eastham Public Library for a little over two years and is known for his prolific contributions to the library’s TikTok page. The library will host a book release party on Tuesday, April 30, at 6:30 p.m., where Farrenkopf will discuss the novel with his spouse, local author and librarian Gabrielle Griffis. See easthamlibrary.org for information. —Olivia Oldham
Hilarie Tamar Sings From the Heart
Until she moved to Provincetown three years ago, Hilarie Tamar says, she was “too scared to sing in front of people.” Although she had been singing her whole life, she says she sang only for herself, in private, afraid that someone would say something negative and tarnish her joy. “Not many people knew I sang at all,” she says.
In Provincetown, that all changed. “Here, I felt accepted and safe,” she says. “I took the risk of singing in public, and then suddenly I got booked everywhere. Now I sing all the time. It’s my job!”
Last summer, Tamar performed her hour-long cabaret “Cry Baby” weekly at the Crown & Anchor in Provincetown. She will bring it to Wellfleet Preservation Hall (335 Main St.) on Saturday, April 27, at 7:30 p.m.
Tamar’s setlist, which she describes as “a literal take on Janis Joplin’s song ‘Cry Baby,’ ” includes songs by Heart, Stevie Nicks, and Florence & the Machine. But it also has a more personal message.
“Last year, someone described my show as a TED Talk with live music and singing,” Tamar says. “During the show I would talk about overcoming past trauma and allowing yourself to feel your emotions instead of hiding them away because you’re embarrassed or because it’s not okay to cry.”
After each performance, Tamar chats with the audience. “So many people said, ‘I really needed to hear this,’ ” she says. “I had a lady come up to me and say, ‘You saved a life tonight.’ ” Tamar gets vulnerable onstage, too. “I have a song I sing, where I always start crying mid-song,” she says. “It’s ‘Praying’ by Kesha.” Ultimately, Tamar’s own vulnerability creates a safe space for her audience.
Lighting plays an important role in the show as well. “The colors start really dark,” Tamar says. “It represents the wall that we put up when we don’t want to show our emotions. As the show progresses, the colors get a little lighter, a little deeper, and by the end, I’m wearing sequins and the lighting is bright. We’ve come out from the wall that we’ve built, and we’re free to share our emotions. And of course, I end the show with ‘Cry Baby.’ ”
Tickets are $35 ($50 for VIP seating) at wellfleetpreservationhall.org. —Eve Samaha
Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb at PAAM
In “Waves,” their current exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (460 Commercial St.), Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb chronicle their pandemic experience in Wellfleet from March 2020 through May 2021. The couple often work collaboratively on photography projects, and their photographs of the Wellfleet landscape and views in and around their house were collected in a book published in 2022. The current exhibition, curated by PAAM’s Christine McCarthy, draws from those photographs.
Where their book lends itself to narrative and sequential viewing, the exhibition emphasizes details of the images, printed at medium and large scale, and introduces new associations through a limited selection of photographs.
Viewed together, the photographs evoke a mood of quiet wonder. Shot primarily during the off season in Wellfleet, the images are devoid of people. They capture the light of dawn and twilight: moments of transition and of hushed, heightened attention. The exhibition communicates the mood of the early days of the pandemic when everything suddenly grew silent, unfamiliar, and unexpectedly beautiful for those quarantined in places where long walks in nature became a part of everyday life.
While two-person exhibitions are common, a collaborative show like this is unusual. The Webbs engage in a sort of dance, intimately linked through photographs connected by mood, place, and a sense of light. Yet they’re individual artists, each with a distinct voice. Alex’s photographs are panoramas focused on the reflection of light on water. Minimal and empty at first glance, the photographs reveal surprising details upon closer inspection, like pink light hitting a water tower and birds fluttering over crashing waves. Rebecca’s photographs are more metaphysical, elucidating ruptures between different worlds: the inky reflection of trees in a puddle, the aurora-like shadow of a glass, and a window both reflecting an interior space and opening to a landscape beyond.
The exhibition is on view until May 27. See paam.org for information. —Abraham Storer
