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Payomet Performing Arts Center

    TRADITION

    Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going

    Kenny Neal brings the swamp blues to Truro

    By

    Kenny Neal can’t say for sure which was the first instrument he ever played. It seems to him he’s always been a musician — growing up in Baton Rouge, La., he was surrounded by instruments and the people who played them. One childhood memory stands out: repeatedly taking his father’s guitar out of its case and plucking the strings. “We weren’t supposed to touch it,” Neal says, “But we did anyway.”

    Kenny Neal will perform at Payomet Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, July 9. (Photo by Laura Carbone)

    Neal learned the blues from his father, harmonicist Raful Neal, who played regularly with Buddy Guy and Slim Harpo. When Raful performed with his band, the Clouds, young Kenny tagged along as a backup singer and dancer.

    “That was the time of my life,” he says, “jumping in the car and going to play some blues with my daddy.” Their relationship reminds Neal of the characters Andy and Opie on The Andy Griffith Show, which aired in the ’60s. “They went fishing all the time,” Neal says. “Me and my daddy went bluesin’.”

    Neal started his music career at 17, playing bass for Buddy Guy. In 1988, Neal released his first solo album, Big News From Baton Rouge!! Since then, he has recorded 15 more, the most recent in 2022. His career has taken him to venues across the world. On Wednesday, July 9, Neal will perform under the Payomet tent with the support of his band, which includes his younger brothers Frederick and Darnell on guitar and bass respectively, Michael Harris on drums, Tom Fitzpatrick on saxophone, and Jimmie Reamey on trumpet. Neal is the lead vocalist. He also plays guitar — a now-weathered 1968 Telecaster that he’s had for 40 years — and dabbles in harmonica, lap steel guitar, and bass.

    Neal, who still lives in Baton Rouge, plays the “swamp blues.” The style is a mixture of Cajun, Zydeco, New Orleans, and Mississippi Delta, he says. The result: a horn-heavy, funky, jazzy, groovy “gumbo” of sound that seems to require head-bopping if not outright dancing.

    “A lot of the old blues songs are always crying, ‘My baby gone and left me, and I’m all alone,’ ” Neal says. As a songwriter, he tries to deliver a more positive message, like in “Let Life Flow,” recently re-released as a single after he first recorded it in 2005. “Just when you think you got it all figured out,” Neal sings in a gravelly, conversational voice, “here comes something you never dreamed about. Life is so unpredictable. That’s the way it is. But one thing I know for sure: you got to let life flow.”

    Neal also often sings of the generational aspect of the blues. The final track on his Grammy-nominated 2016 album, Bloodline, is called “Thank You BB King.” The blues guitarist and singer-songwriter, who died in 2015, was one of Neal’s close friends.

    “He paved the way for all of us,” Neal says. King is mentioned in Straight From the Heart, Neal’s 2022 album, as well. “Don’t touch a string until you listen to some BB King,” Neal advises prospective blues players in “Mount Up on the Wings of the King.”

    Honoring the past is especially apparent in the title track of Bloodline. The song starts with Neal wailing on a harmonica. Then he starts to sing, his deep voice a sharp contrast to the nasal wind instrument.

    “Down in Louisiana, where the blues bloodline run deep,” Neal sings, “Grandpa was a preacher — apple don’t fall far from the tree. Daddy sang the blues, and the bloodline run through me.” The song has a gritty, down-to-earth feeling intensified by the power of its lyrics.

    When Neal plays the blues, he might interpret an old song in his own way, he says. He covers Junior Parker’s 1962 “Someone Somewhere” on Straight From the Heart. Neal “enhanced the song with big horns,” he says, but he kept its original feeling.

    “I kept the ingredients of the roux,” Neal says. A roux is a thickening agent made of equal parts flour and fat, often used in Cajun food. “Every time you cook,” he says, “the roux is made of the same ingredients. But then you can expand from that and make it your own by adding stuff to it. That’s what I do with my music.”

    His music has resonated with audiences around the world, Neal says. “Even if they don’t speak the language, they understand the music. They can feel it.” That’s what he loves about the blues, he says. “It’s what makes it worthwhile.”

    In the second stanza of “Bloodline,” Neal sings, “Grandpa died, Daddy gone. Now I’m here to carry on bloodlines.” His music is imbued with the history of the blues; his passion speaks to the next generation of music makers. Neal puts it plainly: “You’ve got to know where you come from before you know where you’re going.”

     

    Roots and Roux

    The event: Kenny Neal performs the blues
    The time: Wednesday, July 9, 7 p.m.
    The place: Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road, North Truro
    The cost: $20 to $40 at tickets.payomet.org

    UNDER THE BIG TOP

    Circus Performers Juggle Locations to Keep Flying

    Payomet’s Cirque by the Sea takes its show to Wellfleet

    By

    WELLFLEET — A live scarecrow tumbles, sways, and hangs — precarious and loose-limbed — high above a field. Farmhands wildly flip ears of corn as crops “multiply.” A unicycle seems to till soil, red scarves become a barn fire’s flames, animal puppets dance.

    The circus has come to town. This summer, Cirque by the Sea’s latest production, Roots: A Farm to Circus Show, is entertaining all ages in Wellfleet rather than at the troupe’s usual home at North Truro’s Highland Center in the Cape Cod National Seashore.

    Teamwork is key in Payomet Cirque by the Sea’s Roots: A Farm to Circus Show, which has relocated to the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater for the summer. The performers are Eleanor Getz at top, Gabrielle “Teddy” Ment in the center, and, at the bottom, Copper Santiago on the left and Trevor Pearson. (Photos by Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll)

    With their tent due to be displaced by demolition work on decrepit buildings from the long-closed North Truro Air Force Base, performers from Payomet Performing Arts Center’s circus fruitlessly searched for over a year for a new location. Potential spots proved unavailable or under construction, and Outer Cape property too expensive.

    Then, earlier this year, a welcome invitation came from Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater Executive Director Christopher Ostrom to work together on family programming.

    In what circus program director Gabrielle “Teddy” Ment calls “a dream come true,” the troupe now has an 80-by-50-foot tent alongside the main theater, taking the place of the usual WHAT For Kids shows there. The tent is 20 feet larger than the one at Payomet, with a more central Route 6 location, a dressing room, and indoor access, Ment says.

    That’s the hub for weekday circus-skills youth camps; then, three evenings a week, four professional actors perform Roots. Bleachers and chairs face the setting of a tall red barn, with hay bales and “crops” pulled in as needed. Metal scaffolding soars close to the 18-feet-high roof to anchor ropes and pulleys for the trapeze, hoop, scarves, and straps that come into daring play as the farming story unfolds.

    Dressed as a scarecrow, Getz does a daring comic trapeze act with a farmhand played by Ment.

    “The WHAT location is just perfect, and they’ve been nothing but generous,” says Ment, noting the collaboration matches the circus’s focus on community and teamwork.

    “I can’t tell you how thankful we are that WHAT came to our rescue,” says Payomet Executive Director Kevin Rice.

    Ostrom believes collaboration is the key to Cape arts organizations recovering from the pandemic. The circus relocation is part of a summer schedule that also includes WHAT producing The Pickleball Wars, a new play by Rice (who was a cofounder of WHAT in 1985) that will run from Aug. 11 to Sept. 9 on the indoor stage, and a co-production of Betrayal this fall with Wellfleet’s Harbor Stage Company.

    Roots is theatrical, too, with performers offering broad comedy, slapstick, exaggerated expressions, and rousing dances among storytelling tricks that keep youngsters’ attention while teaching them about sustainable farming. Troupe members form a human pyramid and are engaging puppeteers, manipulating pecking hens, a cavorting, sneakered pig, and a friendly cow with a pink tongue long enough to lick children in the front rows.

    Santiago and Pearson perform a complicated two-person juggling act with pins painted to look like ears of corn.

    Cirque plots feature a moral theme, usually environment-related, say Ment and actor-director Eleanor Getz — reflecting their own activist passions. Past stories addressed gender equality, climate change, and recycling; Roots is about agriculture and the farm-to-table movement.

    Cape-based juggler Trevor Pearson helped create Payomet’s circus 11 years ago. Cape resident Ment and New York-based Getz joined two years later after discovering the North Truro opportunity for the duo talents they’d developed in 2014 at Vermont’s New England Center for Circus Arts. The two now manage Cirque’s business side, and this year they brought in circus-school friend Copper Santiago, who had been performing internationally.

    In the off-season, all four have performed on the Cape and elsewhere. Ment spent some winters working at a California farm. Getz joined her in 2020, and they were inspired to create Roots. Getz wrote the script with input from Cape farmers and other troupe members but saved the theme for the right post-pandemic combination of performer skills and larger audiences.

    The story is told through offstage narration and acted out by the cast through comedy and circus acts set to music. Old MacDonald (Getz) passes on his farm and traditional wisdom about soil, pollination, compost, and seasons to his son (Pearson). But the son decides to grow only corn for high-fructose corn syrup.

    Santiago hangs with her unicycle as Pearson, playing a farmer, looks on.

    “He’s making a lot of money for a while, and then things start to devolve and he has to take a step back and look at what he’s doing and why he’s doing it,” Getz says. The message in Roots is “reminding us to cultivate the land with care and reap what we sow,” she says.

    Young children might not process all the farming details, but the message isn’t heavy-handed. It’s mimed with flair and sometimes interactive humor by the four performers, who — in overalls, white shirts, and sneakers — each use their skills to defy gravity. Pearson makes multiple balls representing plants and pins painted like ears of corn whiz through the air in rapid arcs, and he juggles them through complicated maneuvers with Santiago.

    Santiago, Getz, and Ment are all mischievous, playful farmhands. Besides juggling, Santiago’s contributions to the troupe are artful prop-making plus unicycle and aerial stunts — even hanging upside-down and climbing over the unicycle in mid-air.

    Only a rope holds “farmhand” Getz aloft in one of numerous aerial stunts in Cirque by the Sea’s Roots: A Farm to Circus Show.

    Getz and Ment amaze with their acrobatics. Getz makes a rope dance, then climbs it to hang high above the floor. Ment swings up to, around, and through an elevated hoop and later gracefully dances mid-air with only scarves holding her aloft. The two clown through a double-trapeze act, with Getz acing the added challenge of wearing scarecrow mask, hat, and costume.

    “Every year, we remember our audience is often the same and we want to show them something new, a fresh perspective,” Getz says. “This is our time to shine.”

    This fall, Cirque will bring Roots and circus lessons to area schools in an expanding outreach program that Ment dreams could inspire local-food curricula. Mirroring the farm show’s theme of “creating an ecosystem” for success, Getz notes that Truro Central School provided Roots early rehearsal space.

    “We’re really thankful for the community in Wellfleet and Truro,” she says.”They’re open to what we’re doing and help us. Hopefully, we give back a little bit.”

    Farm Story by the Sea

    The event: Payomet Cirque by the Sea’s Roots: A Farm to Circus Show
    The time: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays through Sept. 1 at 6 p.m.
    The location: WHAT for Kids Stage at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, 2357 Route 6
    The cost: $25, $15 for children, at tickets.payomet.org

    Arts Briefs

    Arts Briefs for Sept 2 through Sept 8

    By

    RP 5 is a 16-inch diameter oil on maple board by Alice Denison. (Photo courtesy Alden Gallery)

    Denison and Paradise at Alden Gallery

    Alden Gallery, 423 Commercial St. in Provincetown, presents a two-person show of works by Alice Denison and Jane Paradise opening Friday, Sept. 3 and running through Sept. 16. There will be an opening night reception from 7 to 9 p.m.

    Denison, who has been with Alden Gallery since its inception, is showing works from her Pangloss series, named after a character in Voltaire’s Candide. “Most of the new work in this show is round, which I chose for its spatial effect,” she says in a press release. The botanical paintings evoke a modernized William Morris. Paradise presents “Provincetown, From Dusk Till Dawn,” a selection of pared-down, contemplative photographs. “The quietness of Provincetown really became evident during the last Covid year, both in the physical manifestation of its streets and in my mental state,” says Paradise.

    Libra is a 16-by-16-inch painting by Angela Ales. (Photo courtesy Bowersock Gallery)

    Angela Ales, the Astrologer

    “Read the Signs,” a show of recent works by magic realist painter Angela Ales, opens Friday, Sept. 3 and runs through Sept. 15 at Bowersock Gallery, 373 Commercial St. in Provincetown. There will be an opening night reception from 7 to 9 p.m.

    Ales explores the “belt around the heavens, Aries through Pisces,” dividing the Zodiac’s dozen chapters into images that probe deep into the subconscious. “I have adopted a surrealist technique — automatism,” says Ales in a press release. “It is an extraordinary and exciting exercise whereby the process of painting becomes a search — a discovery of unfamiliar and untapped territory.” Articulated with a vibrant palette and a literal rendering of fantasy forms, her works take you on an out-of-body experience.

    DiscoLight YellowVapor is a 30-by-24-inch spray paint on canvas by Bradley Wester. (Photo courtesy Farm Projects)

    Bradley Wester Goes to the Disco

    “DISCOrd,” a show of works by Bradley Wester, opens at Farm Projects, 355 Main St. in Wellfleet, on Friday, Sept. 3 and runs through Sept. 14. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, Sept. 4, from 6 to 8 p.m.

    Using unconventional materials such as colored zip ties and silver Mylar pegboards, Wester creates looping, elliptical patterns that seem to follow their own logic. Tapping into glitter, glitz, and glam to fashion his own “queer aesthetic,” Wester creates a safe haven for self-expression. His linen panels use spray paint and stencils to catch the spots of transient light cast from a disco ball, sometimes with Styrofoam spheres attached.

    Beech Forest is a 12-by-16-inch watercolor by Miriam Dretler. (Photo courtesy Exuma Fine Art)

    ‘Access to Beauty’ at Exuma

    “Access to Beauty,” a show of new paintings by Miriam Dretler, opens at Exuma Fine Art, 283 Commercial St. in Provincetown, on Friday, Sept. 3 and runs through Sept. 16. There will be an opening night reception from 5 to 10 p.m. Dretler depicts flowers and Outer Cape landscapes using vibrant tonalities. An assortment of watercolor, oil, and acrylic works from 2020 and 2021 will be on display.

                                                                                               The Fantastical Jennifer Clifford Danner

    Glencoe is a watercolor by Jennifer Clifford Danner. (Photo courtesy Stewart Clifford Gallery)

    Jennifer Clifford Danner presents “Necessary Fantasy,” a show of her works at Stewart Clifford Gallery, 338 Commercial St. in Provincetown, opening Friday, Sept. 3 and running through Sept. 15. There will be an opening night reception from 7 to 9 p.m.

    Danner, who is Stewart Clifford’s sister, is a multimedia artist working in ceramics, oil paint, gouache, and watercolor, often on handmade paper. The underlying theme is nature — the silhouettes of sea creatures such as jellyfish, lobster, and algae against saturations of blue. She also paints portraits and narrative scenes in a simple, flat, semi-naïve style that feels out of the ordinary. Her portraits, in particular, are full of a joie de vivre that extends to all her work, including her folksy ceramic animals.

    One of the new works by John Dowd in his Labor Day weekend show at William Scott Gallery, opening on Friday. (Photo courtesy John Dowd)

    John Dowd’s Summer Show

    John Dowd’s Labor Day weekend exhibit at William Scott Gallery, 439 Commercial St. in Provincetown, has been an annual event that his followers have attended for decades, often with a frenzy of enthusiasm. His streetscape oil paintings have become emblematic of Provincetown — reproduced on posters and hung on the walls of collectors far and wide.

    “It’s awfully flattering,” Dowd tells the Independent. “That said, I never really sense the reality of what people feel — it’s just like puffing you up. Who knows what other people think about your work and why they’re gravitating to it? I just keep my head down and keep doing the work. I keep exploring and trying to get better.”

    Although elements of his paintings remain familiar, Dowd continues to experiment with light and shadow and his palette, as well as the where and how of what he chooses as subjects.

    “The studio is my favorite place to be now,” Dowd says after an all-nighter last weekend. “I don’t know if it’s because of Covid and that it’s a safe place. I’m still interested in the work and the place, and I can’t imagine ever getting tired of it. I guess I’m doing the right thing — I like it more now than ever.”

    As a longtime member and current vice chair of the Provincetown Historic District Commission — and thus partly responsible for preserving the streetscapes he paints — Dowd is wary of talking about the ways in which the town is changing, and how expensive it has become for artists to live here. “For all the doom and gloom,” he says, “I don’t know anywhere else that has as much of an arts community.”

    Dowd’s new show, “Summer Work,” opens Friday, Sept. 3 and will be on view through Sept. 16. —Howard Karren

    November 29, 2019 by Kate McConnell, part of her Almanac series. (Photo courtesy Kate McConnell)

    Kate McConnell’s Almanac

    Kate McConnell presents a show titled “Chasing Light” at AMZehnder Gallery, 25 Bank St. #3 in Wellfleet, from Thursday, Sept. 2 through Sept. 15. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, Sept. 4, from 6 to 8 p.m.

    The show consists of works from McConnell’s Almanac series — small oil studies of the ocean on gessoed paper — as well as some larger paintings. McConnell, a former book designer and graphic artist, paints the great outdoors, from the mountains to the Cape, with a particular interest in trees and fragile birds’ nests. With a loaded brush informed by a love of color, she parlays shapes that, at times, teeter toward abstraction only to coalesce back into form.

    Cemetery is an 18-by-24-inch mixed media work by Helen Kwah. (Photo courtesy Off Main Gallery)

    Trifecta at Off Main Gallery

    Robert Shreefter and visiting artists Thea Abu El-Haj and Helen Kwah are exhibiting works at Off Main Gallery, 75 Commercial St. in Wellfleet, from Friday, Sept. 3 through Sept. 23. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, Sept. 4, from 6 to 8 p.m.

    Shreefter’s collection of silkscreen prints titled “Old Geographies” explore identity and place, mining his childhood and adolescence with a wandering filigree of line. Abu El-Haj examines the color and light of Iran and Lebanon, where she grew up, as well as Palestine. Using pastels and oil paints, she creates pleasing abstractions of architectural forms rendered in sage green, burnt orange, crimson, and lavender. Kwah’s “Fingerprints: Choreography of Resistance” uses the repetition of pigmented fingerprints to create an abstract cellular network interested in how we are seen and recognize each other.

    Jardín de la Noche (Garden of the Night) is a 32-by-46-inch painting by Orestes Gaulhiac. (Photo courtesy Galería Cubana)

    Orestes Gaulhiac’s ‘Smiling Face’

    “Volver a Ver Tu Sonrisa (Returning to See Your Smiling Face),” a show featuring the celebratory optimism of Orestes Gaulhiac’s paintings, will be on display at Galería Cubana, 357 Commercial St. in Provincetown, from Thursday, Sept. 2 through Sept. 13. With a carefree palette and simplified form of cubism, Gaulhiac’s depictions of animals, kings, queens, heroes, and clowns reveal the community at the center of our differences and the importance of nature in connecting to the larger world.

    our picks for the week of Sept 2 through August 8

    Indie’s Choice

    By

    Watch Like a Hawk (Thursday, Sept. 2)

    Truro Connections — a collaboration between Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, the Truro Historical Society, the Truro Meeting House, and Payomet Performing Arts Center — hosts the Red Hawk Singers and Dancers, an indigenous performance group, on Thursday, Sept. 2, 5 p.m. The event will take place at Edgewood Farm, 3 Edgewood Way in Truro. Registration is free at castlehill.org.

    Snakes in the Grass (Thursday, Sept. 2)

    Wellfleet Preservation Hall, 335 Main St., continues its backyard concert series with the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble on Thursday, Sept. 2, 5 p.m. Founded by Ken Field, the funk-inflected brass band plays New Orleans-inspired tunes. Bring a lawn chair or blanket. Tickets are $25 at wellfleetpreservationhall.org.

    Apple of My Eye (Thursday, Sept 2-Friday, Sept. 3)

    Rebecca Bruyn teaches “Introduction to iPhoneography,” a two-day workshop at Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, 10 Meetinghouse Road, on Thursday, Sept. 2 and Friday, Sept. 3, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Bruyn will teach students how to make arresting images with their devices with an emphasis on post-production. Registration is $250 at castlehill.org.

    Under the Hammer (Friday, Sept. 3)

    The Provincetown Art Association and Museum’s 34th annual consignment auction will be on view at 460 Commercial St. starting Friday, Sept. 3. Consigners will receive 80 percent of the “hammer price,” with PAAM receiving the other 20 percent. The auction, officiated by Jim Bakker, will be held online at liveauctioneers.com, closing at 7 p.m. on Sept. 25.

    Rhiannon Giddens performs at Payomet on Friday. (Photo courtesy Rhiannon Giddens)

    Banjo on Her Knee (Friday, Sept. 3)

    Rhiannon Giddens, co-founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and recently appointed artistic director of Silkroad, performs at the Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road in Truro, on Friday, Sept. 3, 7 p.m. Giddens — a singer, fiddler, and banjo player — recently released the album They’re Calling Me Home with percussionist Francesco Turrisi. Tickets are $75 at payomet.org.

    Kindred Spirits (Saturday, Sept. 4)

    Heather Greene, CEO of Milam and Greene Whiskies and author of Whiskey Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life, will host a live and virtual book event at East End Books Ptown, 389 Commercial St., on Saturday, Sept. 4, 5:30 p.m. The event, which includes a tasting, is $5 suggested donation at eastendbooksptown.com.

    Voices Carry (Sunday, Sept. 5)

    Hyannis Sound performs online this week as part of Great Music on Sundays @5. The award-winning collegiate a capella group of male voices from across the U.S. will present music arranged by former and current members. Watch free via YouTube on Sunday, Sept. 5, 5 p.m. Visit ptownmusic.com to donate.

    Broadway Beckons (Sunday, Sept. 5)

    The Art House presents Tony Award-winning actress and singer Beth Leavel performing one night only at Provincetown Town Hall, 260 Commercial St., on Sunday, Sept. 5, 6:30 p.m. Accompanied by Seth Rudetsky on piano, the event is a fundraiser for Sandy Hook Promise. Tickets range from $50 to $150 at provincetownarthouse.com.

                                                                                   

    Branden and James perform at Pilgrim House this week. (Photo courtesy Branden and James)

    Cover Artists (Sunday, Sept. 5 – Wednesday, Sept. 9)

    Cello and tenor duo Branden and James return to Pilgrim House, 336 Commercial St. in Provincetown, from Sunday, Sept. 5 through Thursday, Sept. 9, 7:30 p.m. Their show, “Broadway Under the Covers,” celebrates music from Hamilton, Wicked, Dear Evan Hansen, Mary Poppins, and West Side Story. Masks and proof of vaccination required. Tickets are $35 at pilgrimhouseptown.com.

     

     

    Piano Men (Monday, Sept. 6)

    Jon Richardson and Todd Alsup will tickle the ivories and belt out pop hits by Elton John and Billy Joel in “Elton & Billy: Greatest Hits Live” at the Crown & Anchor, 247 Commercial St. in Provincetown, on Monday, Sept. 6, 9 p.m. Tickets are $39 at onlythecrown.com.

    Fresh Air (Tuesday, Sept. 7)

    The Eastham Painters Guild will gather at Coast Guard Beach in Eastham for its second-to-last free outdoor event of the summer, “Plein Air Painting in the Cape Cod National Seashore,” on Tuesday, Sept. 7, 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. More information at easthampaintersguild.com.

    Manchester By the Sea (Wednesday, Sept. 8 – Friday, Sept. 10)

    The Post Office Café and Cabaret, 303 Commercial St. in Provincetown, presents “Melissa Manchester: An Intimate Night” from Wednesday, Sept. 8 through Friday, Sept. 10, 7 p.m. The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter released her first album, Home to Myself, in 1971 and has released 20 since, including this year’s RE:VIEW. Tickets are $50 at postofficecafe.net.

    THEATER REVIEW

    ‘Under the Radar’ Goes Above and Beyond

    Kevin Rice’s site-specific play combines hilarity and history

    By

    I’ve never been a fan of audience participation. I like to sit in the back, avoid eye contact with the actors, and enjoy the silent anonymity of a dark theater.

    So, I was slightly apprehensive about Kevin Rice’s new play at the Payomet Performing Arts Center, billed as a “site-specific” and “audience interactive” Cold War comedy. My plan was to stay inconspicuous — “under the radar,” if you will.

    Under the Radar ends in a tour of the North Truro Air Force Station.

    Showings of Under the Radar take place at 10:30 a.m., which is a bit early for me. Upon arrival, I was handed a form by a rather gruff-looking woman in uniform enlisting me in the “762nd Air Force Radar Squadron.” The date: June 1969.

    I signed the first line, bleary eyed, before realizing that signing the second would have allowed me to be a “conscientious objector.” Too late! Speaking to the other “new recruits,” I learned that nearly everyone had done the same thing.

    The play begins with the audience seated in the Payomet tent. At first protected by that invisible veil that separates spectators from actors, we meet Major Tom Cole, a seemingly stern but actually very silly man, played by Robin Bloodworth. Bloodworth excels at physical comedy, aided by the taped, slightly bent cane on which he leans to drink his coffee, and his mock-military walk.

    We also meet Sgt. Echol Walker, or Echo for short, played by Shabazz Green. Echo is Cole’s undeniably likable complement. Their relationship is amusing: Cole keeps ordering Echo to sing Patti Page’s “Old Cape Cod,” and Echo grudgingly obliges him. At one point, “Hello, I Love You” by the Doors blasts on the radio as Cole dances dorkily.

    Left to right: Robin Bloodworth as Major Tom Cole, Shabazz Green as Sgt. Echol Walker, and Paige O’Connor as Airwoman Freed in Under the Radar. (Photos Michael & Suz Karchmer)

    Suddenly aware of the “new recruits,” Major Cole addresses us directly, breaking the fourth wall. He explains that our job will be to monitor the skies for enemy attack. Who is the enemy, he asks? Communists, a.k.a. “subscribers to the New Yorker magazine.”

    But it’s important not to worry the civilians, he emphasizes, while keeping the Ruskies at bay. “Sir, that’s the bay,” says Echo, pointing west. Then, pointing east, he declares, “That’s the ocean!” It’s an obvious joke, but it lands perfectly. As does Cole’s riff about the essential difference between Truro and North Truro. When an only medium-loud alarm goes off, the audience, naturally, barely reacts. “That was a routine alert,” Cole says. “You handled it well.”

    Here, we are introduced to Airwoman Freed, played by Paige O’Connor, who had been sitting in the wings. She is the squadron’s new Missile Man, or rather, “Missile Ma’am.” Her character is brilliant, competent, and stoic — oddly believable in an otherwise outrageous play. She is the straight woman to the outlandish Cole and unabashedly flirtatious Echo.

    Prompted by another alarm, the audience is rousted for a surprisingly informative tour of the radar station. We learn that it has all the amenities: bowling alley, golf course, library, mess hall, and movie theater. Whenever an audience member answers a question correctly, Cole shouts “Very good!” in a piercing tone.

    We are also treated to a seemingly impromptu performance of Jimmy Cliff’s “Vietnam” on an outdoor stage. Indeed, the ironic intrusions of music in Under the Radar, though perhaps not quite as artful as Stanley Kubrick’s, nonetheless evoke Dr. Strangelove.

    Shabazz Green and Robin Bloodworth have an easy rapport in Under the Radar, a new play by Kevin Rice now showing at Payomet.

    As we are marched rank and file around the station, I am thankful that my mask hides that I’m barely mouthing “One, Two, Three, Four.” Overall, however, the audience participation is gentle and, dare I say, fun.

    Towards the end, Cole’s tone gets sappy: One day, the land on which we stand may become a center for the arts and sciences. “It’s a vision worth fighting for,” he says. “Swords to ploughshares.” Just then, a bomb drops, engulfing the station in flames. End play.

    It’s impossible not to imagine the hilariously black ending of Dr. Strangelove — footage of mushroom clouds accompanied by the song “We’ll Meet Again.” Could this be a subtle poke at the Highlands Center development project that was never completed? In any case, I’m thankful for Payomet. And that North Truro didn’t get blown up during the Cold War.

    Just a Blip

    The event: Under the Radar, by Kevin Rice, directed by Daisy Walker

    The time: Wednesday through Sunday, 10:30 a.m., through Sept. 5

    The place: Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road, North Truro

    The cost: $30; students, teachers, and veterans $25

    What the Folk? (Fri.)

    By

    British folk rock icon Richard Thompson returns to the Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road in North Truro, on Friday, Aug. 27, 7 p.m. A savvy songwriter and fine guitarist, Thompson has over 50 years of material from which to draw, including work with Fairport Convention, former partner Linda Thompson, and 19 solo albums. Tickets range from $55 to $75 at payomet.org.

    Feeling Blue (Tues.)

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    Legendary jazz and R&B vocalist Catherine Russell returns to the Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road in Truro, on Tuesday, Aug. 24, 7 p.m. Russell has appeared on over 200 albums, working with the likes of Steely Dan, David Bowie, Paul Simon, Jackson Browne, Michael Feinstein, and Rosanne Cash. Tickets are $32 at payomet.org.

    MUSICIANS

    Adam Ezra Group Builds Community

    A band that is greater than the sum of its parts

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    “There is nothing that can bring people together more effectively than music,” says Adam Ezra, who will be performing with his group at the Payomet Performing Arts Center on Friday, Aug. 13. “I’ve always felt that a band on stage, when it’s done right, is like a metaphor for the connectiveness of the community. I wanted to experience that concept from day one.”

    Ezra, a folk musician who also performs as a solo artist, created Adam Ezra Group in the early 2000s as a way of maximizing that synergy. The group — which consists of fiddler Corinna Smith, drummer Alex Martin, and bassist Poche Ponce — is an eclectic collective, drawing on elements of roots rock, country, and folk.

    But Adam Ezra Group’s grassroots nature goes beyond genre. Its fan base has been organically grown — show by show, mouth to mouth — without the benefit of a major record label or mainstream radio.

    “When I started, I couldn’t get hired in a music club for anything, so I would just book shows at bars — any bar we could,” Ezra explains. “We played for five hours, often in danger of outnumbering the audience we were playing for. That was how we scraped by through many years.

    Adam Ezra Group (left to right: Corinna Smith, Alex Martin, Adam Ezra, and Poche Ponce). (Photo Michael Keegan)

    “Each time we would play, I would connect with people,” continues Ezra. “Somebody would say, ‘Hey, we’re putting together a little benefit and we’re trying to raise money for an orphanage in Uganda,’ or ‘My neighbor needs a handicap accessible ramp built and we’re trying to raise some money. You want to come out and play?’ At a certain point, our community started coming from those kinds of activities.”

    In time, those impromptu benefit performances gave way to a more organized effort. “We started a nonprofit organization called RallySound,” says Ezra. “Its mission is to empower communities.” Each year, the organization hosts Ramble, a free festival dedicated to ending homelessness among veterans in New England.

    The band keenly felt the effects of the pandemic. On March 13, 2020, as the curtain came down across the country, Ezra faced the future with uncertainty. “I was home on a Friday night, and I felt scared and isolated,” Ezra says. “I decided to livestream, just from my phone. Not so much to perform a concert as to try to feel connected — to feel a little less scared.”

    The livestreams, known as the Gathering Series, became daily, reaching over 22 million people around the world. They continued through July 25 of this year, when the group reached its goal of 500 consecutive livestreams.

    Although he won’t continue the daily livestreams, Ezra says he’s not abandoning the Gathering Series completely.

    The series has changed the way the band releases its music. Lately, it has been issuing one song at a time, more or less monthly. “I’ve gotten used to really giving it all out to the fans in real time —whatever is on my mind, whatever I’m experiencing,” says Ezra. “We wanted the music that we’re releasing now to be inspired by that concept.

    “We call it the Album Project, but it’s really the opposite of an album,” continues Ezra. “I love the journey that an album can take you on, and there was something a little sad about walking away from that with this music, but there was also something else that happened. It freed us from having to put each song in context. We got to go into the studio and arrange and create one hundred percent for the song.”

    The results so far have been a diverse collection. Recent additions include “Switching to Whiskey,” a classic country tale of drowning one’s sorrows; “Devil’s Kiss,” a rocker with a Springsteen touch that speaks of the Covid scourge; and “Alive,” a contemporary folk cut that addresses, Ezra says, “some of the hard days we’ve all experienced the last year and a half of isolation — the loneliness and the attempt to find the resolve to get through this scary chapter.”

    As satisfying as the band’s streaming and studio experiences have been, Ezra says that nothing beats the emotional connection of performing his songs in front of a live audience.

    “It reminds me that I’m not alone in things that I feel,” Ezra says. “I’m reminded of that every single night that I get to be on stage and share my music with others.”

    Synergy Through Song

    The event: Adam Ezra Group in concert

    The time: Friday, August 13 at 7 p.m.

    The place: Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road, Truro

    The cost: $38 at payomet.org

    Off the Grid (Wed.)

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    Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road in Truro, presents “Under the Radar,” a new interactive play by Kevin Rice opening Wednesday, Aug. 18, 10:30 a.m., and running for three weeks. “The audience is inducted into the Air Force and treated as newly arrived airmen and airwomen, about to begin a 12-month tour of duty in North Truro,” according to the press release. Directed by Daisy Walker, the play stars Robin Bloodworth, Shabazz Green, and Paige O’Connor. Tickets are $30 at payomet.org.

    Perfect Harmony (Thurs.)

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    Heavenly three-part harmonies and choruses distinguish Americana band The Lone Bellow, performing at the Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road in Truro, on Thursday, Aug. 5, 7 p.m. The band has released four critically acclaimed albums including 2015’s Then Came the Morning. Tickets are $48 at payomet.org.

    Soul Staple (Sun.)

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    Legendary gospel and soul icon Mavis Staples returns to the Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road in Truro, on Sunday, Aug. 1, 7 p.m. On the eve of her 80th birthday, Staples says that “I sing because I want to leave people feeling better than I found them.” Tickets are between $55 and $75 at payomet.org.

    MUSICIANS

    Ray Benson’s Back in the Swing

    He and Asleep at the Wheel are making up for lost time

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    A semi-centennial is a long time coming, but Ray Benson had to wait a bit longer to start celebrating.

    Asleep at the Wheel — the Western swing band that Benson formed back in 1970 — turned 50 last year, but the Covid-19 pandemic put the world on hold. And so, Benson and his band will be making up for lost time when they perform at the Payomet Performing Arts Center this Friday.

    For Benson, who came down with Covid in March last year, isolation was more than just a forced vacation. “I had what would be considered a mild case,” he says. “It wasn’t any fun, but I wasn’t in any danger of dying.” The down time had its upside: it gave Asleep at the Wheel a chance to get into the studio and record its three-song EP Better Times.

    What Benson and the band play is dance music with a twang: a blend of pop, jazz, blues, and folk that came out of the American Southwest in the ’30s and ’40s. Groups such as Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys combined big band brass, country fiddle, and steel guitar, singing songs about San Antonio and Tulsa. It’s music that Benson developed a fondness for at an early age.

    Ray Benson is the front man for Asleep at the Wheel. (Photo Mike Shore)

    “I played in a square dance band, and I really loved fiddle music,” Benson says. “Through high school, I played in a jazz band — a bossa nova band. I played tuba in a Dixieland band and marching bands. I just liked playing music, so when I discovered Western swing when I was about 15, it was like, ‘Oh, cool.’ That was all of those things.”

    In the late ’60s, when psychedelia and flower power were in full bloom, Benson and his childhood buddy Reuben Gosfield (who became known as Lucky Oceans) decided to go against the grain. “We wanted to do roots American music,” says Benson. “This was 1969. For us, roots American music was stuff from the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s.”

    A trip to Boston to visit Benson’s sister brought them in contact with a kindred spirit, Leroy Preston, and a country band was born. At the invitation of a friend, they moved to a farm in Paw Paw, W.Va., woodshedding and playing their first gigs. “We were at these funky little honky tonks, playing for 50 dollars a night for the whole band,” Benson says.

    While Benson and his buddies were still getting their act together in Paw Paw, out on the West Coast a group called Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen had already gained a national reputation, playing Western swing and hillbilly boogie for Berkeley hippies. Benson, who first met Cody back in ’69, cites the band as a major influence. “They were the prototype for Asleep at the Wheel,” Benson says.

    Cody invited Benson and his band to come out to California, which they did in 1971. With a new audience and new manager, the move gave them greater exposure. They also caught the ear of Van Morrison, who praised the group in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine and reached out to them. “I was living in a chicken coop in Oakland, Calif.,” says Benson, “and he called our manager down here and said, ‘I really like your band. You want to open some shows?’ ”

    The band started getting recognition and results. In ’73, Asleep at the Wheel released its first album, Comin’ Right at Ya, a mix of country weepers and up-tempo swing. Shortly after that release, the band was on the move again. This time to Texas, the wellspring of Western swing.

    Benson says that Willie Nelson got the band to Texas. “When we met Willie, he suggested that we open shows for him,” says Benson. “That was a hundred bucks a night that we were happy to get.”

    Relocating to Austin, the band began to see Western swing in a new light. “We realized how great the music was, but we didn’t realize that it was still revered here in Texas, and Oklahoma, and Louisiana,” Benson says. “So, the first record came out, and we had a song, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys’ ‘Take Me Back to Tulsa,’ and it was a small hit down in Texas and Oklahoma. We were living in California. We came down here and, wow, Bob Wills was like Elvis Presley for that generation.”

    Prior to that epiphany, Western swing had just been part of the band’s mix, but from that point on, it became Asleep at the Wheel’s thing.

    “We were picking up old 78 rpm records to learn the music, and meeting the old guys that were still around,” Benson says. “That was part of our musical journey — to meet these guys who we listened to on these old records.”

    Not long after the group’s Texas transplant, they found themselves on the country charts, first with their cover of Louis Jordan’s “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie,” then with a top 10 hit, “The Letter That Johnny Walker Read,” co-written by Benson, Preston, and Chris Frayne.

    Six decades, 10 Grammys, and 25-plus albums later, Asleep at the Wheel is still swinging, and Benson still calls Austin home. It’s where he holed up during the pandemic, where he recovered from his bout with Covid, and where Asleep at the Wheel recorded Better Times. The title cut was written by Benson in anticipation of the day when the band and the nation would come out of semi-isolation.

    “I’d been watching a lot of these ’40s black and white movies, and it seemed the same thing as after World War II,” says Benson. “We’ll be together again after this thing is over.”

    And so we are. Let the better times begin.

    Reinventing the Wheel

    The event: Asleep at the Wheel in concert

    The time: Friday, July 23 at 7 p.m.

    The place: Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road, Truro

    The cost: $48 at payomet.org

     ‘Saddle Up!’ at Payomet

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    Payomet Performing Arts Center’s Cirque by the Sea presents “Saddle Up!,” an original family-friendly “Wild West adventure telling the story of an aspiring cowgirl’s dreams to work on a ranch to support her family,” according to the description. “When she discovers the local ranch has a ‘men only’ policy she disguises herself to fit in with boys.” Payomet’s professional circus artists bring juggling, acrobatics, and live music into this comedic tale about fitting in to forge ahead. It runs through Friday, July 30th. Tickets are $15 for children, $25 for adults at payomet.org.

     

    Band Together

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    The Chandler Travis Philharmonic, described as “the missing link between the Kinks and Sun Ra,” plays at the Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road in Truro, on Saturday, July 10th, at 7 p.m. The seasoned nine-piece ensemble boasts horns, string bass, guitar, accordion, and mandocello. Tickets are $20 at payomet.org.

    Feeling Liberated

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    Welcome the holiday weekend with easy reggae vibes from Toussaint the Liberator at the Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Road in Truro, on Saturday, July 3rd, at 4 and 7 p.m. Toussaint plays djembe drum with impassioned vocals reminiscent of Dennis Brown. Tickets are $20 at payomet.org.

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