Provincetown artist Laura Shabott, playwright Patrick Riviere, and the executive director of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival were relieved to learn that they had been selected for grants from […]
Theater
DRAG DESK
Varla Jean Merman Just Wants to Make You Laugh
After three decades in the drag business, Jeffery Roberson is still learning new tricks
The day after the debut of his new summer show at the Crown & Anchor last month, Jeffery Roberson — the beating heart of Provincetown drag, better known as Varla Jean […]
CIRCUS
Behind the Buzz
This summer’s Cirque by the Sea production takes sweat, cooperation, and creativity
The mosquito has a monologue. The bees perform synchronized aerials. And the praying mantises fight to the death. What’s the Buzz?, the latest production from Payomet’s Cirque by the Sea, […]
COMEDY
Nothing Is Off Limits for Judy Gold
Onstage and off, she’s fierce about family, politics, and being funny
The astonishing thing about the opening night of Judy Gold’s annual run at the Post Office Café & Cabaret wasn’t that she killed it. She did kill it, resoundingly, but […]
THEATER
The Past Resembles the Present in Sacco & Vanzetti’s Divine Comedy
Kevin Rice’s new play addresses America’s history of scapegoating immigrants
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants who joined the early-20th-century anarchist and labor movements in Massachusetts. In 1921, they were convicted of killing a paymaster and a guard […]
SPEECHLESS
The Telling Sound of Silence
In his autobiographical play, It Goes Without Saying, mime Bill Bowers says a lot
In the quiet valley town of Missoula, Mont., sprawled at the feet of five mountain ranges, Bill Bowers’s parents — both descended from generations of ranchers and farmers — did […]
THEATER
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
An adaptation of a Willa Cather short story explores connections to place and community
The Willa Cather short story that Brenda Withers has adapted as a play is set in a 19th-century Nebraska farm community, but in the Harbor Stage Company’s production of The […]
THE DRAG BUG
If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It
Mackenzie takes her act to Lower Cape Pride
Mackenzie Miller, Provincetown’s self-declared “neon hype girl,” was born in the great state of Alaska, in Big Lake, an hour north of Anchorage. There, in the “arctic tundra,” she says, […]
PERFORMANCE
Grief and Laughter in Equal Measure
Sam Morrison found inspiration in Provincetown and catharsis in comedy
Six years ago, a chance meeting on Commercial Street changed the world of comedian Sam Morrison. The encounter marked the start of a relationship that Morrison recounts in his one-man […]
FRONT LINES
War Reporting as Breakthrough
A conversation with Phil Klay on the challenges and dilemmas of depicting violence
Phil Klay’s short story collection, Redeployment, about the experiences of American soldiers fighting in Iraq and returning home, won the 2014 National Book Award for fiction. His second book, Missionaries, […]
SHIPSHAPE
Nauset High Drama Group Readies ‘the Big Reveal’
Anything Goes will spotlight school’s new state-of-the-art stage
Cole Porter’s 1934 musical Anything Goes begins in a bar with a few of the colorful characters who will be sailing on the ocean liner S.S. American from New York […]
THEATER
Angels in America’s Glorious Conclusion
Part II: Perestroika soars in Provincetown
Here’s the thing about Perestroika, the three-and-a-half-hour second half of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: it’s a period piece, set in 1986, when the AIDS epidemic was spreading its lethal […]
DRESS REHEARSAL
Provincetown Puts on Something Rotten
Students take the stage in middle-school musical about a musical
The script might be about the first-ever musical, but this year’s performance of Something Rotten Jr. by Provincetown Schools middle-school students is definitely a story reflecting plenty of experience and […]
SERIOUS HUMOR
Ren Q. Dawe Is ‘Here to Pee’
A cross-country trans comedy tour is on its way to Provincetown
The comedy tour “Here to Pee,” which began in March, represents comedian Ren Q. Dawe’s most ambitious project to date: a tour through all 50 states, featuring an all trans […]
THEATER
A Place to Be Brave, Loud, and Ridiculous
Cape Rep’s Young Company teaches more than just theater
BREWSTER — Rehearsal starts with a circle. It’s Tuesday evening, and 20 teenagers from the Cape Rep Theatre’s Young Company face each other on the stage. Though they’re empty-handed, they […]
