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WHAT

    THEATER

    A Warning Against Fascism Returns to the Stage

    'It Can’t Happen Here — Again,' adapted from Sinclair Lewis, comes to WHAT on July 19

    By

    A theatrical warning about fascism and liberal complacency was performed on 21 stages across the country one week before the national election of 1936. The play was It Can’t Happen Here, adapted by Sinclair Lewis and John C. Moffitt from Lewis’s novel of the same name. It was seen by nearly 400,000 people.

    It Can’t Happen Here hit the stage of the Repertory Theatre of Boston in 1936.

    Renditions included a Yiddish performance in New York, a Spanish version in Tampa Bay, and a Seattle production where a nearly all-Black cast took the stage — the only white characters were the villains.

    The plot: Sen. Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip defeats President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 election on a populist anti-immigration platform, garnering the support of the nation’s “forgotten men.” Once in power, Windrip effectively dismantles Congress and establishes authoritarian rule.

    The plot sounded familiar to author James Carroll, a founding member of the national group Writers for Democratic Action (WDA).

    In an homage to the 1936 production, WDA — which originally formed to oppose Trump’s re-election in 2020 — is helping organize staged readings of a new adaptation of Lewis’s play in 19 states, including at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. The title is It Can’t Happen Here — Again.

    A poster from the Federal Theatre Project Collection for the original productions in 1936. (Images courtesy Library of Congress)

    The performances, with one exception, will be on July 19, the day after former President Donald Trump’s nomination at the Republican National Convention. (There will be a July 18 reading in Milwaukee, the site of the convention.)

    The Wellfleet reading, at 4 p.m., will have six actors, Laura Esterman, Dennis Cunningham, Brenda Withers, Sallie Tighe, Robin Bloodworth, and John Rothman, directed by Jeff Zinn. Nationally, performances will happen in libraries, parks, and churches in addition to local theaters. Carroll hopes informal readings will also occur in living rooms and back yards.

    “The beauty of it is it’s totally democratic,” Carroll says. “All it takes is five people reading from scripts. The point is: Trump got nominated last night. Now what?”

    The original play couldn’t be reproduced exactly for copyright reasons, according to Carroll. Instead, the adaptation’s authors — Carroll, Wesley Savick, and Rachel DeWoskin — used the original script as a starting point.

    The three writers collaborated over Zoom. The completed script is in conversation with the past. “It’s the fascists of 1936 against the foil of our own personal fascist in 2024,” Carroll says.

    The adaptation moves quickly through the thick plot of Lewis’s original play by weaving in historical and contemporary fascist threats. The dialogue bounces between the actors, who will rapidly take on a variety of fictional roles from the original play, like Windrip, as well as real ones like Roosevelt and, of course, Trump.

    The new adaptation will serve as an homage to the original play, urging audiences to take action and vote.

    The succinctness of the adaptation may help avoid the pitfalls of longwinded past rewrites, according to Zinn. The readings will run 30 to 40 minutes. “Getting the right tone and finding the irony in some of the lines is something to pay attention to and tease out,” Zinn says. “It’s rapid fire, as I envision it.”

    At WHAT, the reading will conclude with a 45-minute talk led by Carroll, who will ask for reactions to Trump’s nomination and offer an organizing “toolkit” with resources for the upcoming election.

    “We should take this man at his word,” Carroll says of Trump and his rhetoric. “We must go to the barricades, only in our case our barricades are the ballot box.”

    Carroll hopes that the July readings will “generate interest, especially after Labor Day, among high school students and college students.” WDA plans to do another round of readings on Oct. 27, exactly 88 years to the day from the original productions and a week before the 2024 election.

    Lewis’s work has had a resurgence since Trump’s political rise. In 2017, the original novel briefly became an Amazon bestseller. WHAT staged an adaptation in October 2016. “This is familiar territory for us,” says Christopher Ostrom, the producing artistic director at WHAT. He adds that, while in 2016 the play felt like “a cautionary tale,” today the plot seems “more like vivid history being painted in front of us.”

    Lewis and Moffit’s original adaptation was seen by nearly 400,000 people across the country in less than four months.

    Zinn added an extra part to Carroll’s script, expanding the play to have gender parity among the actors and reassigning the lines in the script accordingly.

    Actor John Rothman says he was looking for a way to make a difference. “I’m extremely concerned about the next election and what the stakes are,” he says. “There’s always the question: what can you do?”

    Rothman acknowledges that in Wellfleet, where nearly 80 percent voted for Joe Biden in 2020, the performance may be preaching to the choir. It will be more about mobilizing the audience than convincing them, he says.

    “This is not inevitable,” Rothman says, adding that he believes live theater is particularly important now. “People need to feel that we’re in this together.”

    It’s Happening Here

    The event: A staged reading of It Can’t Happen Here — Again
    The time: Friday, July 19, 4 p.m.
    The place: Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, 2357 Route 6
    The cost: Free, advance registration recommended at what.org

    THEATER

    Vaguely Creepy Things

    At WHAT, Smart asks why one would choose machines as caregivers

    By

    It’s so annoying, isn’t it? Aging parents, needing help, expecting you to just drop everything and take care of them when you’ve got so much going on. What’s an American daughter to do?

    Enter Jenny, the problem-solving digital assistant, represented by a glowing orb, at the center of Mary Elizabeth Hamilton’s Smart, ably directed by Jess Hayes at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater through June 23. Jenny is an AI-powered, Siri-style helper that Elaine (Kea Trevett) orders from Amazon with the hope that it can help manage the care of her ailing mother, Ruth (Christine Farrell).

    Christine Farrell, left, plays Ruth, an elderly woman who has had a stroke in Smart. Kea Trevett, at right, is her daughter, Elaine. Jenny, their digital helper, is the blue orb on the cluttered coffee table. (Photos by Michael & Suz Karchmer)

    In the play’s opening scene, Ruth appears mobile and alert, but it soon becomes apparent that she’s suffering from the effects of a stroke. She has trouble finding words (“Where are my cleepers?”) and stashes her hated morning oatmeal under sofa cushions when her daughter’s not looking. Elaine, a real estate agent, is struggling as a caregiver, ashamed of her mother’s decline and of the condition of the house they share, which overflows with crocheted throws, piles of discarded shoes, and an endless assortment of glass and porcelain knick-knacks.

    Scenic designer Ant Ma has created an intricately detailed set that is not merely cluttered but in total disarray, a stark reminder of the mother’s condition. We feel Elaine’s fatigue as she wearily surveys the living room, but we also empathize with Ruth, who is losing her memory but holding tight to the things she loves and can still recognize.

    “Spying on me,” is how Ruth regards Jenny at first, an observation revealing that, while she has trouble forming complete sentences, Ruth hasn’t lost her mind. She wants little to do with the orb on the coffee table until Elaine, desperate to show her mother how the device might be of use, orders Jenny to play some Lady Gaga. As her mother howls in protest, Elaine challenges Ruth to ask Jenny to play music that is more to her taste (she’s partial to Antônio Carlos Jobim).

    Unknown to Elaine, Jenny’s programmer, Gabby (Blair Baker), is listening in to the family’s interactions with the device to optimize its performance. We see her at a sparse modern workstation behind a transparent living room wall. As Gabby works to perfect Jenny’s responses, she develops a crush on Elaine.

    Blair Baker, left, plays Gabby, the creator of Jenny.

    When Elaine leaves her mother home alone to manage an open house, Gabby shows up and sparks fly between the two women. Elaine returns, and a romance with Gabby blooms, though Elaine remains unaware that her new girlfriend knows more about her than she’s letting on. When Elaine finally learns the truth about Gabby’s monitoring of the household, she asks, “Are you saying you’re like my phone — this vaguely creepy thing that’s just too useful to give up?”

    While it might strain credulity to think that AI researchers are listening in to every household equipped with Alexa or Siri, the relationship between Elaine and Gabby is beautifully rendered by Trevett and Baker. It’s a counterweight to the fraught dynamics between Elaine and Ruth.

    Both of these young women are strikingly lonely; insomniacs, they trade stories of playing Minecraft, eating jellybeans, and obsessing about Tupperware orders in the middle of the night. “My life’s not that interesting, just complicated,” Elaine tells Gabby. Their shared sense of alienation and drift is one of Smart’s ironies, given that Elaine purchased Jenny to ease her mother’s isolation, not her own. But while Ruth, played with tenderness and vulnerability by Farrell, comes to delight in Jenny’s quiz games and the ability to order her favorite hard candies with a voice command, the smart device proves to be just another object in her overstuffed living room. Like the porcelain cats and empty Amazon boxes, Jenny can’t spoon-feed Ruth her oatmeal or give her a hug.

    Smart was developed at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project. It is billed as a play that asks audiences to consider “how and why we let technology into our homes, and the unexpected changes tech can bring.” While it suggests one kind of AI risk, this is not fresh territory. The more vexing questions posed by the play have to do with why so many Americans struggle to put vulnerable family members first, whether they are elders or children.

    Trevett does an admirable job showing us how trapped Elaine feels, but it’s painful to watch her infantilizing her mother one moment, neglecting her the next, and threatening to put her in a home or “have an army of aides coming in here.” Ruth gives as good as she gets, reminding her daughter that they share a home not only because of her own growing frailty but also because “you don’t have anything else.”

    While Smart breaks no new ground in its handling of tech-related privacy concerns, Hamilton’s focus on challenges related to elder care invites us to weigh the distinction between AI used to boost customer engagement (or write theater reviews) and AI used as a stand-in for caregivers. Why is Elaine so eager to believe that technology can replace human kindness or touch? Is it simply that she’s self-absorbed, valuing her own independence over familial interdependence? Or shackled to work and unable to find a feasible, affordable solution?

    For most Americans scrambling to find and pay for the care of vulnerable loved ones, the answer is probably both. As the AI revolution continues, its effects will matter less than our rationale for using it in the first place, revealing how smart or desperate we’ve become.

    High Tech

    The event: Smart, a play by Mary Elizabeth Hamilton
    The time: Through June 23, Thursday to Saturday at 7 p.m.; Sunday at 3 p.m.
    The place: Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, 2357 Route 6
    The cost: $42.50; seniors, $38.50; students, $17.50 at what.org

    THEATER REVIEW

    Thrilled by a Betrayal

    In a notable coproduction, WHAT and Harbor Stage do Pinter proud

    By

    There is something uniquely sublime about Harold Pinter’s dialogue: direct and unfancy yet veiled, charged, and evasive. It’s a challenge and a boon for actors, whose delivery is key. And in his 1978 play Betrayal, loosely based on a long-term affair Pinter had while married to actress Vivien Merchant, the words are as shrouded and trenchant as ever.

    Left to right: Brenda Withers, Jonathan Fielding, and William Zielinski in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, now playing at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater. (Photos by Michael & Suz Karchmer)

    Betrayal is currently playing at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater in a coproduction with the Harbor Stage Company. And though WHAT’s producing artistic director, Christopher Ostrom, served as scenic designer, the play feels very much like an intact and intimate Harbor Stage show imported to the vast Julie Harris Stage. Harbor Stage’s artistic director and co-founder Robert Kropf directed, and his fellow Harbor Stage co-founders Brenda Withers and Jonathan Fielding star as the extramarital lovers, Emma and Jerry. The third member of the play’s triangle, Emma’s husband, Robert, is played by Harbor Stage regular William Zielinski, and the role of the waiter is played by Ari Lew, who starred in Bread and Butter, a play by Withers that premiered at the Harbor Stage this summer. Lighting designer John Malinowski has worked regularly with both companies.

    The result of this merging of resources is thrilling, an unforgettable theater event for the Outer Cape. Pinter’s iced-over emotions seem even more alienating within the unadorned WHAT space. It’s hard to imagine that these private moments between three members of the British cultural elite, a publisher, his wife, and his oft-noted “best man,” a literary agent, would feel the same in the compact quarters of the Harbor Stage — even though that’s exactly where WHAT originated. The Harbor Stage Company grew out of that shared WHAT experience.

    Betrayal is notable for being a play told in reverse chronology, much like Kaufman and Hart’s Merrily We Roll Along and the Sondheim musical adapted from it. The effect — to travel from the sour present to the passionate past — is not as gimmicky as it sounds. Pinter’s transitions are seamless, and the backward trajectory is an especially revealing way of showing how the layering of betrayals over time causes bitterness and despair. Kropf flashes the chronology shifts on the stage’s backdrop, and they follow as logically and precisely as a surgeon’s scalpel into the characters’ stories.

    I saw Betrayal at a 2000 Broadway revival, with Juliette Binoche, Liev Schreiber, and John Slattery, and watched the 1983 movie adaptation, with Ben Kingsley, Jeremy Irons, and Patricia Hodge, and I can comfortably assert that the WHAT–Harbor Stage production is superior to both. The movie may have more punch, but in comparison it’s overwrought, and the Broadway revival had less edge. As usual with great plays, adapting them for the screen makes the settings too realistic and takes away from the beauty of the language, especially Pinter’s. (Kingsley’s hammy performance doesn’t help.)

    Jonathan Fielding and Brenda Withers in Betrayal.

    In contrast, Zielinski is pitch-perfect as Robert. His scenes with Fielding, when he knows his best friend is cuckolding him and then when he doesn’t, are chilling, mostly because of his nonplussed reactions and the subtlety of his zingers. He’s less competitive and resentful than the other Roberts I’ve seen, and it serves the play well.

    As Emma, the woman both men try to possess, Withers is silky and stoic, with a touch of ennui. There is, as always, a twinkle in her eye that conveys her allure, but she’s clearly the grown-up when confronting Jerry’s bravado. Fielding, as the most transparent of the three leads, is thoroughly convincing and, ultimately, pathetic, particularly when you see him set the affair in motion with heartfelt determination.

    Kropf directs with impressive restraint. On the mostly bare stage — a couple of plastic chairs are the only props — he keeps the characters moving in ways that are so emotionally exact as to be invisible. Despite the modernist design and fractured chronology, Betrayal is actually a fairly realistic and straightforward play. There are no absurd twists or fourth-wall-breaking interruptions.

    The lack of sentimentality is crucial to establishing the right tone for the play. This is a story of privileged, successful people. They’re not drowning in sorrow, and melodrama would be inappropriate. They simply coast, somewhat recklessly, into a destructive situation and make the best of it.

    If you want to see top-quality theater locally, go see Betrayal. It will be a night to remember.

    Three on a Match

    The event: Betrayal, by Harold Pinter
    The time: Through Oct. 14, Tuesday through Saturday at 7 p.m.
    The place: Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, 2357 Route 6
    The cost: $42.50; seniors, $38.50; students and partial view seats, $17.50

    THEATER REVIEW

    WHAT Presents a Feminist Fantasia on the Reign of Terror

    Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists is a four-woman romp

    By

    The French Revolution that began in 1789, like the American one before it, is not known for its women fighters. The Enlightenment manifesto of the uprising is notably entitled the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Women are not a part of it.

    The four women of The Revolutionists, now playing at WHAT: Hannah Hakim as assassin Charlotte Corday, Christina Leidel as playwright and feminist Olympe de Gouges, Andréa Bellamore as Haitian freedom fighter Marianne Angelle — the only fictional character in the group — and Paige O’Connor as the infamous French queen, Marie Antoinette. (Photo by Michael & Suz Karchmer)

    Olympe de Gouges, a playwright who remains obscure to most Americans, was an outspoken feminist of that era. Her own manifesto, the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, challenged the inequality of the other Declaration’s democratic principles. She was also an avid abolitionist and supported freeing the enslaved Africans in the New World French colony of Saint-Domingue, which would become independent Haiti in the early 1800s. She supported Marie Antoinette as a constitutional monarch. She was a part of the relatively moderate Girondist movement during the Revolution, as was Charlotte Corday, the woman who in 1793 assassinated Jean-Paul Marat, a leader of the more radical Jacobins. The murder of Marat had the unfortunate effect of turning him into a martyr, and the Jacobins gained power and initiated the Reign of Terror, in which tens of thousands of Girondists and others were guillotined, including Corday and de Gouges, and, along with them, Marie Antoinette.

    Playwright Lauren Gunderson, in her self-described “feisty” 2018 comedy, The Revolutionists, places de Gouges at the center of the maelstrom of Parisian political life in 1793. In Gunderson’s play, de Gouges’s writings and musings come alive as a vaudeville spectacle in which she, Corday, and Marie Antoinette (neither of whom de Gouges ever actually met) — joined by a composite fictional character known as Marianne Angelle, the wife of a Haitian Creole revolutionary — conspire and argue about what to do as activists. That spectacle has now arrived at the Outer Cape: through Sept. 17, the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater is presenting The Revolutionists on its Julie Harris Stage.

    The meta-conceit of The Revolutionists is that the four women in it are enacting a creative mix of history and fantasy that is largely in de Gouges’s head, even though their onstage encounters are presented as real. The unfinished play that de Gouges is writing throughout The Revolutionists with the quill stuffed in her cap, entitled France Saved, or the Tyrant Dethroned is indeed, a historical document, one which was used to justify her execution. Yet all of what we witness onstage at WHAT is an act of 21st-century revisionism — a way of giving women’s roles in the Revolution the aura of consequence they have historically been denied. There’s a sub-theme about the power of words versus the necessity of action, but sororité over fraternité is the heart of the matter.

    To further her self-conscious update on history, Gunderson uses contemporary ways of speaking and thinking as a deliberate, winking anachronism. As a result, the play is often quite funny, despite its serious subject and the grave outcome. The costumes in the WHAT production, by Carol Sherry, emphasize the play’s cartoonish fantasy elements, exposing the panniers, or side hoops, that supported 18th-century dresses. And director Megan Nussle heightens the squeals and gestures and speed of the dialogue and action, making it unequivocally comic. Likewise, the aural and visual representations of the guillotine in J. Pizzuti’s set have a fanciful horror-flick vibe.

    The best things about The Revolutionists at WHAT are its four lead performances. Olympe de Gouges, as played by Christina Leidel, is a self-doubting, openly conflicted woman, despite her courage and idealistic ambitions. De Gouges’s feminism was way ahead of its time, but Leidel plays her as a dreamer, not a trailblazer. She relies on the support of her sisterhood, even though it’s largely imaginary.

    As Marianne Angelle, Andréa Bellamore is regal, compassionate, and wise: she’s something of a straight player in this clownish quartet. By providing a proud, sober complement to Leidel, she makes many of the playwright’s laughs possible.

    In contrast, Hannah Hakim’s Charlotte Corday is explosive and monomaniacal in her determination to kill Marat. And she’s kooky: there are touches of Linda Blair and Squeaky Fromme in her frantic murderousness.

    Paige O’Connor as Marie Antoinette nearly steals the show. Though her program bio describes her as a recent alum of N.Y.U. and Second City, she plays the doomed queen with the expert comic timing of a seasoned vet. Her sassy smile is infectious, and her Marie Antoinette makes glorious fun of herself, dropping red ribbons with innocent abandon. What better way to rehab the reputations of women in revolutionary France than to portray the hapless Marie, its symbol of misunderstood decadence, as a dainty smart-ass?

    Women in Revolt

    The event: The Revolutionists, a play by Lauren Gunderson
    The time: Though Sept. 17, Wednesday through Saturday (and Tuesday, Sept. 13) at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 4 p.m.
    The place: Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, 2357 Route 6
    The cost: $25-$40; seniors $22.50-$36; students $15; plus $2.50 fees, at what.org or 508-349-9428

    Arts Briefs and Listings

    Arts Briefs for July 30 through August 5

    By

    Now Screening: ‘Clay,’ Short Film on Potter Steve Kemp

    Steve Kemp
    In the short film “Clay,” potter Steve Kemp checks out the sand ripples at low tide in Cape Cod Bay. (Photo courtesy Michael Cestaro)

    Michael Cestaro was born and raised in Eastham, graduated from Nauset Regional High School in 2004, and left for college in Boston and a life in California until just recently. “I’ve been working in film and cinematography for 12 years,” Cestaro says. “I do mostly online video marketing. I’m trying to do weddings and such.”

    When his parents downsized, Cestaro bought the house he grew up in, and moved back in with his own family. But his corporate work didn’t fully satisfy him. “I hit this time in my life when I needed to create something and stop judging myself,” he says. “I wanted to do something without consideration of its commercial value.”

    He was intrigued by the idea of shooting pottery being made and thought of the Kemp Pottery store on Route 6A near the rotary in Orleans, which he would pass when picking up his daughter from child care.

    “My first conversation with Steve Kemp was two and a half hours long,” Cestaro says. “In the way that Steve speaks, it’s almost like commandments, but in such a friendly, nice way. I really fell in love with Steve. He’s such an enlightened artist.”

    Cestaro ended up shooting the film “Clay,” with Kemp working at a wheel, casting his signature sand ripples out on the flats, and talking about the practice of art that sustains him.

    It’s a gorgeous, engaging 13-minute film that is well worth the time it takes to screen it online at upabovecreative.com/clay. There’s no charge, but Cestaro, who financed the film himself, is hoping to raise money to turn this into a series on local artists. —Howard Karren

    Beachy by Mary Giammarino
    Beachy, by Mary Giammarino. (Photo courtesy Four Eleven Gallery)

    Mary Giammarino Featured at Four Eleven Gallery 

    “Poetry & Science,” an exhibit of new paintings by Mary Giammarino, will open Friday, July 31, at Four Eleven Gallery at 411 Commercial St. in Provincetown, and run through Aug. 6.

    Giammarino’s plein air paintings are driven by light and color in the classic tradition of Provincetown impressionism. Four Eleven Gallery is open for two people at a time, Thursday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment (617-905-7432).

    Catalan Sun 7 by Michael Page
    Catalan Sun 7, by Michael Page. (Photo courtesy Hutson Gallery)

    Wellfleetians Page and Witkowski at Hutson Gallery

    The Hutson Gallery, at 432 Commercial St. in Provincetown, is putting on two exhibits: “Catalan Sun,” featuring new work by Michael Page, and “Same Not Same,” with new pieces by Luanne Witkowski. The shows will open on Friday, July 31, and remain on view through Aug. 13. The gallery is open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Tuesdays.

    Page’s work is inspired by his recent travels to Morocco, Jordan, Italy, and Spain. He does his painting on the ground, not on an easel, using palette knives and nontraditional materials such as rags or sandpaper. Witkowski’s show consists of collagraph and intaglio monoprints inspired by nature.

    Virtual Marx Brothers, Presented by WHAT

    Marx brothers
    The brothers Marx, on the Horse Feathers gridiron. (Photo Paramount Pictures)

    Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater and Marc Strauss are streaming five classic naughty pre-Code Marx Brothers film comedies on five Mondays in August at 7 p.m. The series begins on Aug. 3 with The Cocoanuts (1929), continues with the anarchic Broadway adaptation Animal Crackers (1930) on Aug. 10, Monkey Business (1931) on Aug. 17, the hilarious football romp Horse Feathers (1932) on Aug. 24, and, as a finale, the brilliant Duck Soup (1933) on Aug. 31.

    All five films star all four Marxes — Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and handsome young Zeppo (forever shtick-less) — and each will be introduced by Strauss, who will lead an online discussion post-screening. Tickets for the films, at what.org, are $10 each or $30 for the series.

    Inside Story 1 by Jan Donley
    Inside Story 1 is a work of digital art by Jan Donley. (Photo courtesy Stewart Clifford Gallery)

    Provincetown Exhibits for Chris Roddick and Jan Donley

    Stewart Clifford Gallery, open daily at 338 Commercial St. in Provincetown, is presenting new work by two artists, Chris Roddick and Jan Donley, from Friday, July 31, through Aug. 12.

    Roddick’s show, “At the End of the Cape,” features scenes of Provincetown using different media and techniques. It will have an opening reception on Friday, July 31.

    For the works in her show “Rooted in Place and Time,” Donley creates layered digital images using an iPad. Her opening reception will be held on Saturday, Aug. 1.

    Sandra Jones Campbell
    Leisure Float With Dreamboat, by Sandra Jones Campbell. (Photo courtesy William Scott Gallery)

    New Works by Sandra Jones Campbell and Deborah Martin

    William Scott Gallery, at 438 Commercial St. in Provincetown, is showing works by painters Sandra Jones Campbell and Deborah Martin through Aug. 5. Call 508-487-4040 for hours or to make an appointment.

    In her show, “Summer,” Campbell draws on her collection of vintage black-and-white photographs to depict nostalgic summer scenes in a style drawing on German impressionism. Martin’s show, “Narrow Lands,” focuses on homes of the Outer Cape in states of disrepair or decomposition.

    This season, a portion of proceeds from sales at the gallery will benefit Cape Cod Arts Relief, in support of artists affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

    Cheyenne Jackson
    Broadway, TV, film, and recording star Cheyenne Jackson joins Seth Rudetsky on Sunday, Aug. 2. (Photo courtesy Cheyenne Jackson)

    Seth Rudetsky Hosts Cheyenne Jackson 

    The virtual Seth Concert Series, in which Seth Rudetsky chats and accompanies stars of Broadway, continues on Sunday, Aug. 2, at 8 p.m. (encore presentation on Monday, Aug. 3, at 3 p.m.) with Cheyenne Jackson. Tickets are $25 at thesethconcertseries.com.

    Jackson, a Provincetown habitué and out and proud singer-songwriter, is best known for the long-running Xanadu on Broadway, as well as playing a Liberace boy toy in HBO’s Behind the Candelabra, and recurring roles on American Horror Story, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and 30 Rock.

    West End Rooftops by Jim Broussard
    West End Rooftops is an oil on panel by Jim Broussard. (Photo courtesy Alden Gallery)

    Jim Broussard Shows at Alden Gallery 

    The Provincetown streetscapes and dunescapes of local painter Jim Broussard, formerly at Shirl Roccapriore’s Oils by the Sea, have found a new home at Alden Gallery, 423 Commercial St. in Provincetown, open daily noon to 5 p.m.

    Broussard will have a solo show of new oils from Friday, July 31, through Aug. 13, with scenes from winter, spring, and summer, on Commercial Street and out by the dune shacks, and some with rooftop bird’s-eye views.

    Bakker Gallery Presents Arthur Cohen Retrospective

    An exhibit of iconic works by the late painter Arthur Cohen will be on view at Bakker Gallery, at 359 Commercial St. in Provincetown, from Friday, July 31, through Aug. 22. The art featured represents the whole of Cohen’s career, with images of both Provincetown and New York City. The gallery is open Thursday through Monday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., or by appointment (508-413-9758). There will be no opening reception.

    MacMillan Pier, by Arthur Cohen. (Photo courtesy Bakker Gallery)
    MacMillan Pier, by Arthur Cohen. (Photo courtesy Bakker Gallery)

     

     

     

     

     

    Arts Briefs and Listings

    Arts Briefs for June 18 through June 24

    By

    Encaustic Show at Bowersock Gallery

    The 12-by-12-inch encaustic Across the Cape, by Emma Ashby, is part of the “Mesdames of Wax” exhibit at Bowersock Gallery in Provincetown. (Photo courtesy Bowersock Gallery)

    The ancient medium of encaustic jumps into the 21st century with the live-stream opening of the “Mesdames of Wax” from the Bowersock Gallery in Provincetown. Enjoy the work by encaustic artists Catherine Nash and Emma Ashby on the gallery’s Facebook page on Thursday, June 18, at 5 p.m. Nash’s often three-dimensional work combines found objects with hues of blue, while Ashby creates encaustic landscapes and beach scenes.

    The opening will be followed by a Q and A with the artists, moderated by curator Steve Bowersock. The works will be on view at the gallery at 373 Commercial St. in Provincetown from Friday, June 19, through Thursday, July 2.

    Dawn Derow’s Live-stream Cabaret

    Dawn Derow will perform a virtual concert on Thursday, June 18. (Photo courtesy Dawn Derow)

    Dawn Derow returns to Tin Pan Alley’s Home Edition virtual stage for a concert on Thursday, June 18, at 7 p.m.

    Derow, who grew up in Eastham, has made a name for herself performing her cabaret act in New York City clubs and at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall. She also sings classical opera, which she studied at the Boston Conservancy.

    The live-stream concert and song requests can be accessed for free (with online tips encouraged) via Tin Pan Alley’s Facebook page.

    Wellfleet Drive-in Gets Its Show on the Road

    The big screen returns to life in Wellfleet. (Photo courtesy Wellfleet Drive-in)

    The Wellfleet Drive-in is back up and running, with a few notable changes under phase two of the state’s reopening guidelines. Patrons must stay in their cars — no lawn chairs allowed — and cars must park in every other space. Masks must be worn when visiting the rest rooms or the temporary snack station near the Dairy Bar, since the permanent one is under repair. According to the Wellfleet Cinemas website, the Dairy Bar and mini-golf are due to reopen at the end of the month.

    With the movie industry largely on hold, movie fare will be a mix of classic favorites and recent releases. Due to limited space, online reservations are recommended.

    The indoor Wellfleet Cinemas next door will not reopen until phase three of the state’s plan in late June or beyond, but the flea market is open weekends from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

    Together and ‘Apart’ at Frederick Studio Provincetown

    The acrylic on canvas Broken Melody, by James Frederick, is part of the show “Apart.” (Photo Frederick Studio Provincetown)

    Frederick Studio Provincetown will present a virtual opening of the show “Apart” on Friday, June 19, at 7 p.m. The Facebook live-stream will include a tour and presentation by artist James Frederick.

    The abstract work in the show by Frederick is inspired by the pandemic and the human need for intimacy even when separated by distance. The artist often paints alla prima, or wet-on-wet, sometimes adding details in oil pastel or ink, blurring the lines between objects and giving the work a sense of immediacy.

    Jessie Mueller Joins Seth Rudetsky Online

    Jessie Mueller returns to Provincetown via a live-streaming engagement. (Photo Jacqueline Harris)

    The Tony-winning Broadway star Jessie Mueller (Beautiful: The Carol King Musical and Waitress) will sing a selection of songs with host and interviewer Seth Rudetsky accompanying her on piano in an online engagement that live-streams on Sunday, June 21, at 8 p.m., with an encore on Monday, June 22, at 3 p.m.

    Link up to the performance by purchasing tickets ($20-$25) at thesethconcertseries.com. Future performers on the Seth Concert Series are Lea Salonga on June 28 and June 29, Melissa Errico on July 5 and July 6, and Audra MacDonald on July 12 and July 13.

    On the Margins With Juno Morrow

    Juno Morrow will give a virtual reading from her book Marginalia on Thursday. (Photo courtesy Juno Morrow)

    Marginalia are the marks, doodles, scribbles, and notes made in the margins of books. But in Juno Morrow’s Marginalia, the term also takes on the meaning of being on the margins of identity. Morrow will give a virtual reading from the book, presented by East End Books Ptown, on Thursday, June 18, at 5 p.m. This free event in honor of Pride month will take place via Zoom; pre-registration is required at eastendbooksptown.com or Eventbrite.com.

    Morrow’s book, which is interdisciplinary in nature, combining photographs, drawings, words, and artifacts, speaks to what it means to have a complex and multifaceted identity — queer, trans, and/or mixed race.

    ‘Talk Back’ Film Series Tackles Social Issues

    Mike Anderson (Keith Stone Griffith) plays a black senior at a New England liberal arts college in 1 Angry Black Man, screening online. (Photo Align Pictures)

    Wellfleet Preservation Hall is presenting a series of three films that deal with topical social issues and are meant to inspire discussion. The films can be rented anytime through July 10. Tickets can be purchased at wellfleetpreservationhall.org. Zoom roundtable discussions will be scheduled on dates to be announced.

    The films are: 1 Angry Black Man, about a black college senior at a New England school who experiences a wrongful arrest ($4.99 for a 48-hour rental); 16 Bars, a documentary about the inmates in a Richmond, Va., prison ($4.99 for a 72-hour rental); and the indie drama The

    Surrogate, about a Brooklynite in her 20s who is initially excited to be the surrogate birth mother for her best friend and his husband ($10 for a 72-hour rental).

    WHAT to Present ‘Thin Man Thursdays’

    Myrna Loy and William Powell are Nick and Nora Charles, here with Asta, in After the Thin Man, part of an online screening series presented by WHAT. (Photo MGM)

    Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater will present the six films of the “Thin Man” series, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, the suave married couple who drink cocktails and solve crimes with the help of their wire-haired fox terrier, Asta, online via Zoom on Thursdays at 7 p.m. from June 18 through July 23. Each screening will begin with an introduction by series curator Marc Strauss, who will lead a discussion at the end. Tickets to the series (one movie or all six) are $20 at what.org.

    The films are: The Thin Man (1934) on June 18; After the Thin Man (1936) on June 25; Another Thin Man (1939) on July 2; Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) on July 9; The Thin Man Goes Home (1944) on July 16; and Song of the Thin Man (1947) on July 23.

    WHAT Cancels Season

    By

    WELLFLEET — The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater announced on May 5 the cancellation of its 2020 summer season, in recognition of “the need to take a proactive stance to slow the spread of Covid-19.”

    The announcement was made by Christopher Ostrom, executive director, in a release that was emailed on Tuesday as the Independent was going to press.

    “WHAT is committed to resuming operations only when it is deemed safe and in the best interest of our community,” the release continued. The company’s management “remains engaged with state and local officials and their community partners in developing strategies for moving forward and re-opening in the safest manner possible.”

    The cancellation will be covered thoroughly, along with a review of other Outer Cape theater and performance groups and their summer plans, in next week’s issue.

     

    THEATER

    Chris Ostrom Previews WHAT’s 2020 Season

    A diverse selection of challenging theater awaits local audiences

    By

    With coronavirus jitters everywhere, as well as talk of cancellations, from the Olympics to South by Southwest, it’s hard to be optimistic about the months to come. But Christopher Ostrom, the producing artistic director of the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, is feeling confident and proud. The 2020 season will be his third in charge of WHAT, and the company is now in a good place, financially and creatively. Morale is high.

    WHAT’s producing artistic director, Christopher Ostrom, stands before posters of productions from years past in the theater’s upstairs lobby. (Photo Howard Karren)

    Last year was the 35th anniversary of its founding. “It was a very ambitious season in terms of the volume and scale of the productions,” Ostrom says. “We wanted to honor the legacy.” The historical comedy Lenin’s Embalmers pushed the envelope, the farcical whodunit Murder for Two dazzled with energy and charm, and the September pairing of Ionesco’s absurdist classic Rhinoceros and the comedy Orson’s Shadow — about Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, and critic Kenneth Tynan putting on a production of Rhinoceros — both respected WHAT’s legacy for theatrical heft and showcased some fine performances. “Yule for Fuel” returned, WHAT for Kids! was renewed, and overall there was a sense that WHAT, with its extravagant and hard-to-fill Julie Harris Stage, was no longer, like Broadway, a “fabulous invalid.”

    “It’s been a great adventure,” Ostrom says. “This year we’re still honoring the legacy of what this company has stood for. Yes, it’s still relevant. How do we keep the experience meaningful?”

    To start, Harold Pinter’s Betrayal will play from June 12 through July 3. The 1978 play is the story of a husband and wife and of the affair between the wife and the husband’s good friend, which ruptures their relationships and leaves them bitter and cold. What makes Betrayal out of the ordinary, even for Pinter, is that it’s told going backwards in time: it starts at the end of the affair and ends at the beginning, with all three characters full of desire and hope. The effect is heartbreaking. “You feel their loss,” Ostrom says. “If it were told chronologically, you wouldn’t feel that.” Dana Greenfield, who did The Rose Tattoo at the 2018 Tennessee Williams festival, directs.

    From July 10 through July 31, in the heart of the summer, WHAT will present The Who’s Tommy, Des McAnuff’s Broadway musical adaptation of Pete Townsend and the Who’s 1969 rock opera, about the “deaf-dumb-and-blind boy” who’s a pinball wizard, teen idol, and emotional cripple. “The album was 50 years old last year,” Ostrom says. “The stage show is 30 years old this year. We’re finding a new way to look at a classic. RJ Tolan, who directed Lenin’s Embalmers,has reconceived the piece as being more about the family unit. He sees it as a chamber piece. On the surface, Tommy is a departure for us: this flashy Broadway musical. But if you go back to the album, take away the Broadway-ness of it, it was very personal for Pete Townsend — a way for him to work out his demons and find his humanity.”

    Hillary and Clinton arrives on Aug. 7 and runs through Aug. 28, and comes straight from Broadway, where it played last year with Laurie Metcalf and John Lithgow as you-know-who … sort of. Even though it’s set during the New Hampshire primary in 2008 (in which Hillary defeated Barack Obama), the play, by Lucas Hnath, is fictional, and not about the Clintons in the news. “It really has nothing to do with politics,” Ostrom says. “It’s about the dynamics of a marriage and how we struggle to find an identity within a relationship.” Daisy Walker directs.

    From Sept. 4 through Sept. 25, The Mountaintop takes the stage. Katori Hall’s play is about Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night alive, at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where he chats up a young woman who brings him room service. He has just given his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in support of a local strike by sanitation workers, and he spends the night wondering about his legacy. “It was on Broadway, with Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson,” Ostrom says.

    Fade closes the WHAT season, with a run from Oct. 2 through Oct. 18, directed by Katherine M. Carter. “Fade is the story of a young woman who was raised in Mexico with a tremendous amount of privilege,” Ostrom says. “She gets hired on a TV show as a writer to make sure there aren’t any Mexican-American stereotypes. She befriends the only other brown face around — a janitor, who helps her write scripts.” The play, by Tanya Saracho, “deals with race and class without being preachy. It was a production of Trinity Rep in Providence. Tanya was a student at B.U. with me. You could tell she was going to take off and do incredible things.”

    The last three plays are by “three young American playwrights from very diverse backgrounds,” Ostrom says. “It’s a meaty season, in that there are weighty topics in it. But it’s delicious, succulent. It came about very organically — I didn’t set out to produce a season that’s topical. I wanted it to be very eclectic. As soon as people have figured out what you do, you’ve failed. I want to keep people curious about what’s happening here.”

    Season packages are now available at what.org and the box office: (508) 349-9428, or Thursday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. at 2357 Route 6 in Wellfleet.

     

    Arts Briefs and Listings

    Arts Briefs for March 12 through March 18

    By

    The diamondback terrapin seen here is the focus of one of the talks at the Cape Cod Natural History Conference on Saturday. (Photo Terri Munson/Mass Audubon)

    Cape Cod Natural History Conference at 4Cs

    Organized by the Mass Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, the 25th annual Cape Cod Natural History Conference will take place on Saturday, March 14, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Tilden Arts Center at Cape Cod Community College, 2240 Iyannough Road in Barnstable.

    The conference features presentations from environmental organizations across Cape Cod (including three talks by scientists and naturalists from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown) on a variety of natural history topics, including white sharks, sea turtle rehab, salt marshes, coyotes eating seals, butterflies, and barn owls.

    Due to public health concerns, this conference has been cancelled. All Mass Audubon offices and sites are closed through the end of March. For more information, visit massaudubon.org.

     

    The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Der Fliegende Holländer will be live in HD at WHAT on Saturday. (Photo Metropolitan Opera)

    Catch the New Met Dutchman at WHAT

    The Metropolitan Opera has a new production of Richard Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer (“The Flying Dutchman”), directed by François Girard, with Evgeny Nikitin as the mysterious seafarer, and you don’t have to go to Lincoln Center to see it. It will be live in HD on the big screen at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater on Saturday, March 14, at 12:55 p.m. at 2357 Route 6.

    This performance has been cancelled by the Metropolitan Opera. For information about refunds, visit what.org, or call (508) 349-9428.

     

    L.M. Feldman
    Playwright L M Feldman will be at a staged reading of her new play, Amanuensis, or The Miltons, on Tuesday at the Provincetown Theater. (Photo courtesy Provincetown Theater)

    A Feminist Fantasia at Provincetown Theater

    Playwright L M Feldman, a rising talent on the national theater scene, will preview her new play, Amanuensis, or The Miltons, at a staged reading on Tuesday, March 17, at 7 p.m. at the Provincetown Theater at 238 Bradford St. This is the third of four Winter Play Dates at the theater. Admission is free and open to the public.

    John Dennis Anderson, Colin Delaney, Vanessa Rose, and Anne Stott will perform in a “gleeful, fantastical family saga of three sisters in search of their place in history,” according to the theater’s announcement, and Feldman will be around for a talkback after the reading.

    Due to public health concerns, the Winter Play Dates series has been cancelled. Visit provincetowntheater.org for more information.

     

    Florelle and René Lefèvre star in Jean Renoir’s 1936 classic caper, Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, screening at the Waters Edge Cinema on Wednesday. (Photo Rialto Pictures)

    Classic Crime Unfolds in Provincetown

    Filmmaker Jean Renoir, son of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste, hit his artistic peak in the 1930s, directing such all-time classics as Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game. Along the way he and screenwriter Jacques Prévert came up with Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, an utterly charming caper about a couple on the lam.

    The film will screen at the Provincetown Film Art Series on Wednesday, March 18, at the Waters Edge Cinema at 237 Commercial St., 2nd floor of Whaler’s Wharf in Provincetown. It will be introduced by series curator Howard Karren, who will lead a discussion afterward. Admission is $12-$8 or series pass.

     

     

     

     

    Arts Briefs and Listings

    Arts Briefs and Listings for Feb. 13 through Feb. 19

    By

    Snowy owl
    Snowy Owl: Queen of the North, followed by a discussion with Mass. Audubon’s Norm Smith and naturalist Joel Wagner, will screen at WHAT on Saturday. (Photo Robert Holden)

    ‘Sea Change’ Film Series Returns

     The “Sea Change” environmental film series is back for its eighth season at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater at 2357 Route 6, presented in collaboration with the Mass. Audubon Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and WCAI.

    Three films will screen, followed by talks with scientists and naturalists. The first, Snowy Owl: Queen of the North,about the majestic Arctic birds that can be seen on the Cape in late winter, is scheduled for this Saturday, Feb. 15, at 7 p.m. Mass. Audubon’s Norm Smith and naturalist Joel Wagner will lead a discussion afterward.

    The Serengeti Rules will be screened on Saturday, March 21, at 7 p.m., with a panel of scientists, and Damsels and Dragons will be screened on Saturday, April 25, at 7 p.m., followed by a discussion with insect experts.

    Tickets for the screenings are $12 at what.org.

    Ruby Rose Fox
    Ruby Rose Fox onstage. She’ll perform Leonard Cohen songs at Wellfleet Preservation Hall on Saturday. (Photo Sheila Orlando)

    Ruby Rose Fox Channels Leonard Cohen

    Experimental pop folk artist Ruby Rose Fox will perform “Me & You & Leonard Cohen,” an intimate and stripped-down interpretation of the late poet-songwriter’s ballads, on Saturday, Feb. 15, at 7:30 p.m. at Wellfleet Preservation Hall at 335 Main St. Tickets are $22 in advance at wellfleetpreservationhall.org and $23 at the door.

    The Boston-based Fox, whose last name was formerly Cohen, first performed at Wellfleet Preservation Hall in 2018 to a sold-out crowd. She has always considered Canadian legend Leonard Cohen to be her muse.

    24 Hour Plays, Provincetown
    Members of the Provincetown Playwrights’ Lab for the 2019 “24 Hour Plays” are (clockwise from left);  Frank Vasello, Dian Hamilton, John Shuman, Candace Perry, Judith Underwood, and Nathan Butera (with Carlo). (Photo courtesy David Drake)

    Faster, Playwright! Kill! Kill!

    The need for speed endures: The 24-Hour Plays is back for its 10th-anniversary edition, with seven playwrights writing brief one-acts, and seven directors and 21 actors rehearsing and performing them, all within the space of 24 hours.

    The event is presented by the Provincetown Theater, in conjunction with the Provincetown Playwrights’ Lab, and produced by Frank Vasello and Nathan Butera, with Ellen Rubenstein as stage manager.

    The seven playwrights this year are Lucy Blood, Linda Fiorella, Tamora Israel, Bob Keary, Jody O’Neil, Fermin Rojas, and Kate Wallace-Rogers.

    Performances are on Saturday, Feb. 15, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 16, at 2 p.m. at the Provincetown Theater at 238 Bradford St. Tickets are $20 at provincetowntheater.org or (508) 487-7487. Shows typically sell out; buying in advance is recommended.

    Four Eleven Gallery
    Susanna on a Winter Day is an 18-by-24-inch oil on canvas by Laura Shabott, part of the “Free Expression” exhibit opening at Four Eleven Gallery in Provincetown on Saturday. (Photo courtesy Four Eleven Gallery)

    ‘Free Expression’ Show at Four Eleven

    Four Eleven Gallery in Provincetown is offering a new exhibit of paintings, “Free Expression: Art About Loving, Living, and Creating,” opening on Saturday, Feb. 15, from 3 to 6 p.m. at 411 Commercial St.

    Gallery artist Pete Hocking is curating the show, which will feature work by Naya Bricher, Liz Carney, Madelyn Carney, Janine Evers, David Foley, Mary Giammarino, Helen Grimm, Jenny Humphreys, Paul Rizzo, Laura Shabott, Julie Smith, and Hocking himself.

    Winter hours for the gallery are Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. The exhibit will be on view through Feb. 29.

     

    Music and Theater Highlights

    CONCERTS

    Diana DiGioia: Monday, Feb. 17, 7 p.m., with open mic, at Coffeehouse at the Mews, 429 Commercial St., Provincetown. $5 donation benefits WOMR and Provincetown Theater.

    Feed Your Love Open Mic: Wednesday, Feb. 19, 7 p.m. at Wellfleet Preservation Hall, 335 Main St. Free.

    Ruby Rose Fox, “Me & You & Leonard Cohen”: Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m. at Wellfleet Preservation Hall, 335 Main St. Tickets $22 in advance at wellfleetpreservationhall.org, $23 at the door.

    Bert Jackson: Rowena Myers Waking Up Winter With Music Series, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2 p.m. at Snow Library, 67 Main St. in Orleans. Free.

    Jonathan Hawkins and Jon Richardson, “Love Songs: a show for those in (or out of) love”: Saturday, Feb. 15, 7:30 p.m. at Crown & Anchor, 247 Commercial St., Provincetown. $29-$39 at onlyatthecrown.com.

    Jazzical Cats: Fred Fried, Peggy Gerber, and Michael Ryle: Winter Music Series, Saturday, Feb. 15, 1 p.m. at Truro Public Library, 7 Standish Way. Free.

    Eve Yvonne Makilya and Jim Brosseau: Winter Music Series, Saturday, Feb. 15, 1 p.m. at Eastham Public Library,190 Samoset Road. Free.

    Outermost Contra Dance: music by Rose Clancy and Jacqueline Schwab, Friday, Feb. 14, 7 p.m. (6 p.m. potluck) at Wellfleet Preservation Hall, 335 Main St. $10 donation.

    Gregg Sullivan: Winter Music Series, Saturday, Feb. 15, 5 p.m. at Truro Vineyards, 11 Shore Road, Truro. No cover.

    PIANO BARS

    Mike Flanagan: Thursday, Feb. 6, 7-10 p.m. and Friday, Feb. 7, 8-11 p.m. at Tin Pan Alley, 269 Commercial St., in Provincetown. No cover.

    Jon Richardson: Friday-Saturday, Feb. 14-15, from 9 p.m. at Crown & Anchor, 247 Commercial St., Provincetown. No cover.

    THEATER

    Assassins, by Stephen Sondheim: Opens Thursday, Feb. 13. Shows Thursday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2:30 p.m., through March 1 at Eventide Arts, 713 Route 6A, Dennis. Tickets $25 at eventidearts.org.

    IMPROVincetown: Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m. at Pilgrim House, 336 Commercial St., Provincetown. Tickets $20 at pilgrimhouseptown.com.

    Jimmy Tingle’s 2020 Vision: Friday, Feb. 14, 8 p.m. at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, 2357 Route 6. Tickets $15 at what.org.

    Snow White: Opens Saturday, Feb. 15. Thursday and Saturday, 7 p.m.; Friday and Sunday, 2 p.m., through Feb. 23, at Academy Playhouse, 120 Main St., Orleans. Tickets $20, students $10 at apacapecod.org.

    The 24-Hour Plays: Saturday, Feb. 15, 7 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 16, 2 p.m. at Provincetown Theater, 238 Bradford St. Tickets $20 at provincetowntheater.org.

    Winter Vacation Magic with the Amazing Richard & Co.: Wednesday-Friday, Feb. 19-21, 2 p.m. at Cape Cod Theatre Company/Harwich Junior Theatre, 105 Division St. in Harwich. Tickets $15 at capecodtheatrecompany.org.

    DRAG

    Drag Bingo with Tiki Bronstein, Wednesday, 9:30 p.m. at Atlantic House, 4-6 Masonic Place, Provincetown.

    Drag Karaoke at Governor Bradford, 312 Commercial St., Provincetown: Dana Danzel, Friday-Saturday, 9:30 p.m. No cover.

    Valentine’s Drag Bingo with Mackenzie, at Pilgrim House, 336 Commercial St., Provincetown. Saturday, Feb. 15, 6 p.m. $25, fundraiser for the Provincetown Business Guild.

     

    Arts Briefs

    Arts Briefs and Listings for Jan. 30 through Feb. 5

    By

    Metropolitan Opera's Porgy and Bess
    The set of the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of George and Ira Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, which will be screened live at WHAT on Saturday. (Photo Metropolitan Opera)

    Catfish Row Sings Out at WHAT

    The Metropolitan Opera’s new production (by James Robinson) of George and Ira Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, set on Catfish Row in Charleston, S.C., with Eric Owens as Porgy and Angel Blue as Bess, will be screened live in HD on Saturday, Feb. 1, at 12:55 p.m. at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater at 2357 Route 6.

    James Robertson conducts. Also in the cast: Golda Schultz, Latonia Moore, Denyce Graves, Frederick Ballentine, Alfred Walker, and Donovan Singletary.

    Tickets are $30, seniors $27, students $12 at what.org.

     

     

    The Train
    Burt Lancaster (center) in The Train, screening at Waters Edge Cinema on Wednesday. (Photo United Artists)

    The Train Screens at Film Art Series

     John Frankenheimer’s 1964 World War II drama, The Train, starring Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, and Jeanne Moreau, the story of a mission to save priceless art from the Nazis, will screen on Wednesday, Feb. 5, at 7 p.m. as part of the Provincetown Film Art Series at the Waters Edge Cinema at 237 Commercial St. (Whaler’s Wharf), 2nd floor, in Provincetown. Admission is $12-$8 or by series pass.

    The series is hosted by Howard Karren, who will lead a discussion after the screening.

     

    Peter Trull Photographs in Eastham

    Peter Trull photograph
    “This Instant,” by Peter Trull, is at the Eastham Public Library with an opening next Thursday, Feb. 6. (Photo Peter Trull)

    Photographer Peter Trull will have a show of his work, “This Wild Cape,” with an opening reception on Thursday, Feb. 6, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the Eastham Public Library at 190 Samoset Road. The photographs will be on view through the end of the month. Admission is free and open to the public.

    “I was there, I observed, and I captured the moment on camera,” writes Trull in an announcement for the exhibit.

     

    Music and Theater Highlights

    CONCERTS

    Bespoke Trio: Winter Music Series on Saturday, Feb. 1, 1 p.m. at Eastham Public Library, 190 Samoset Road. Free.

    Sarah Burill: Saturday, Feb. 1, 5-7 p.m. at Truro Vineyards, 11 Shore Road in Truro. No cover.

    Celtic Roots: Saturday, Feb. 1, 1 p.m. at Truro Public Library, 7 Standish Way. Free.

    Jazz at Lincoln Center: “The Best of Count Basie and Duke Ellington’s Black, Brown and Beige,” on Digital Concert Network, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2 p.m. at Provincetown Public Library, 356 Commercial St. Free.

    Denya LeVine and Julie Charland: Celtic songs and sea shanties on Thursday, Jan. 30, 11:15 a.m. at Wellfleet Council on Aging, 715 Old King’s Highway. Free.

    Kathy Phipps: Monday, Feb. 3, 7 p.m., with open mic, at Coffeehouse at the Mews, 429 Commercial St., Provincetown. $5 donation benefits WOMR and Provincetown Theater.

    Sonny and Perley: Rowena Myers Waking Up Winter With Music Series, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2 p.m. at Snow Library, 67 Main St. in Orleans. Free.

    Gregg Sullivan: Friday, Jan. 31, 5-7 p.m. at Truro Vineyards, 11 Shore Road in Truro. No cover.

    PIANO BAR

    Mike Flanagan: Thursday, Jan. 30, 7-10 p.m. and Friday, Jan. 31, 8-11 p.m. at Tin Pan Alley, 269 Commercial St., in Provincetown. No cover.

    OPERA

    Porgy and Bess, by George Gershwin. Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center, Saturday, Feb. 1, 12:55 p.m. at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, 2357 Route 6. $30, seniors $27, students $12 at what.org.

    DRAG

    Drag Bingo with Tiki Bronstein, Wednesday, 9:30 p.m. at Atlantic House, 4-6 Masonic Place, Provincetown.

    Drag Karaoke at Governor Bradford, 312 Commercial St., Provincetown: Dana Danzel, Friday-Saturday, 9:30 p.m. No cover.

     

     

    Arts Briefs

    Arts Briefs & Listings for Jan. 9 through Jan. 15

    By

    Jim Rohrer photograph
    This untitled 2011 photograph by Jim Rohrer is part of an exhibit of his work, “Cryin’ Holy!” at the Wellfleet Council on Aging with an opening on Saturday. (Photo courtesy the artist)

    Jim Rohrer Photographs at Wellfleet COA

    A show of work by photographer Jim Rohrer, “Cryin’ Holy!: Looking for Salvation,” will be at the Wellfleet Council on Aging at 715 Old King’s Highway through Feb. 7, with a reception on Saturday, Jan. 11, 3-5 p.m.

    “As a photographer, I’m drawn to expressions of faith as a subject,” Rohrer says in the show’s announcement. “They have inherent beauty; they cry out to be heard or seen, heard, or understood.”

    The photographs in the exhibit were shot on film in the U.S. and Ireland between 2005 and 2017 and were archivally printed and framed. They are for sale by the artist.

     

    Broto: Art-Climate-Science Conference Offers Early-Bird Discounts

    Broto: Art-Climate-Science will hold its third annual brainstorming conference on May 16-17 at the Provincetown Commons at 46 Bradford St., and tickets for the upcoming weekend event are on sale now through Jan. 31 at discounted rates at broto.eco.

    Featured at the conference will be several speakers, artists, and workshops (and even a party to cap it off) featuring multidisciplinary approaches to the climate crisis. Among the guests are poet Don McKay; Nicholas Paul Brysiewicz,director of development at the Long Now Foundation; Hilairy Hartnett, associate professor at Arizona State University’s School of Earth & Space Exploration and co-director of ASU PlanetWorks; conceptual artist and philosopher Jonathon Keats; Richard Gifford, a U.N.-certified climate change teacher at the Provincetown Schools, and students of Provincetown Schools; Lance Gharavi, associate professor at Arizona State University’s School of Film, Dance, and Theatre; Julia Buntaine Hoel, director of the SciArt Initiative; independent curator Marnie Benney; visual artist and filmmaker Jullian Ruddock (2A Earth Core: The Hominin Project); and Peter ter Weeme, executive vice president at Elevator Strategy.

    All-Access Packages for admission are now $210 (regular price $300), and access to Day 1, Day 2, and Saturday night’s gathering can be bought separately. It makes sense to buy your tickets now: as with all aspects of climate change, time is of the essence.

    Ken Fulk (Photo Provincetown Film Society)

    Two-Day Trans Fund-raiser in San Francisco

    The Provincetown Film Society, Saint Joseph’s Arts Society, and designer Ken Fulk are hosting a Celebration of the Trans Filmmaking Community tonight and tomorrow in San Francisco.

    On Thursday, Jan. 9, at 7 p.m. at Saint Joseph’s Arts Society at 1401 Howard St. in San Francisco, PFS and Ken Fulk are holding a Coming Out 2020 party to fund the year-round Trans Actors Mentorship & Scholarship Program, which includes a financial stipend, hands-on professional training, and a residency in Provincetown. Honey Mahogany will be the emcee, and writer-director Silas Howard and Ann Thomas, founder of Trangender Talent agency, will be honored. There will be an auction and dancing to the sounds of DJ Blacklow.

    The following day, Friday, Jan. 10, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Saint Joseph’s, there will be a full day of free panel discussions and workshops with producers, writers, artists, and industry representatives. The forum is entitled “Changing the Cultural Narrative: Trans Stories in U.S. Entertainment Media.” Enjoy a special performance by the Trans Chorus of L.A.

    Find out more at provincetownfilm.org. Donations welcome.

     

    Artpeacemakers image
    This dove was made collectively by the kids of Nauset Integrated Preschool, with assistance and guidance from teacher Nancy O’Connell. (Photo courtesy Artpeacemakers)

    Cape Kids Make Art to Honor MLK

    The “MLK Day Kids’ Art Show for Racial Justice,” an exhibition of artworks created by children of the Outer Cape community in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., is sponsored by Artpeacemakers and will be at Wellfleet Preservation Hall at 335 Main St. from Saturday, Jan. 11, through Jan. 25. It’s free and open to the public.

    Though King’s birthday is Jan. 15, the federal holiday celebrating his legacy always falls on the third Monday in January, which this year is Jan. 20. The kids’ art exhibit is scheduled in conjunction with Preservation Hall’s annual MLK Day walk and potluck, also sponsored by Artpeacemakers, on Monday, Jan. 20, at 2 p.m.

    Jacob Parkington, a third grader at Wellfleet Elementary School, created this drawing in tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. (Photo courtesy Artpeacemakers)

    Metropolitan Opera’s New Wozzeck Onscreen

    The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck — directed by South African artist William Kentridge; conducted by the Met’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin; and featuring baritone Peter Mattei in the deranged title role — can be seen live in HD on Saturday, Jan. 11, at 12:55 p.m. at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater at 2357 Route 6.

    Berg’s Weimar-era adaptation of Georg Büchner’s tragic play is given a 21st-century apocalyptic re-imagining by Kentridge, replete with video projections.

    Tickets are $30 are what.org, seniors $27, and students $12.

    The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck features William Kentridge’s apocalyptic set. It will be live in HD at WHAT on Saturday. (Photo Metropolitan Opera)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Not-So-Great War

    With a run starting tonight at 7:15 p.m. at the Wellfleet Cinemas, the Golden Globe-winning World War I film 1917, directed by Sam Mendes, explodes onto the screen. (Photo Universal Pictures)

    1917 Film
    (Photo Universal Pictures)

     

     

    Music and Theater Highlights

    CONCERTS

    Cold Chocolate, with Tom Leidenfrost: Saturday, Jan. 11, at 4 p.m. at Wellfleet Preservation Hall, 335 Main St. Tickets are $15 at wellfleetpreservationhall.org, $16 at the door; kids 13 and under, $10 online, $11 at the door.

    Feed Your Love Open Mic: Wednesday, Jan. 15, 7 p.m. at Wellfleet Preservation Hall, 335 Main St. Free.

    Laina Nickerson, Barnstable High School student on ukulele: Saturday, Jan. 11, at 1 p.m. at Truro Public Library, 7 Standish Way. Free.

    Kate Wallace Rogers: Monday, Jan. 13, 7 p.m., with open mic, at Coffeehouse at the Mews, 429 Commercial St., Provincetown. $5 donation benefits WOMR and Provincetown Theater.

    PIANO BAR

    Mike Flanagan: Thursday, Jan. 9, 7-10 p.m. and Friday, Jan. 10, 8-11 p.m. at Tin Pan Alley, 269 Commercial St., in Provincetown. No cover.

    OPERA

    Wozzeck, by Alban Berg, live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center, Saturday, Jan. 11, at 12:55 p.m. at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, 2357 Route 6. $30, seniors $27, students $12 at what.org.

    DANCE

    Outermost Contra Dance, beginners to experts welcome, on Friday, Jan. 10, at 7 p.m. (potluck at 6 p.m.) at Wellfleet Preservation Hall, 335 Main St. $10 suggested donation.

    DRAG

    Drag Bingo with Tiki Bronstein, Wednesday, 9:30 p.m. at Atlantic House, 4-6 Masonic Place, Provincetown.

    Drag Karaoke at Governor Bradford, 312 Commercial St., Provincetown: Dana Danzel, Friday-Saturday, 9:30 p.m. No cover.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    HOLIDAY

    Fuel for Love

    By

    (Photo Michael and Suz Karchmer)

    Having returned to the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, the annual Yule for Fuel benefit concerts — host Stephen Russell and Chandler Travis, above, at last weekend’s jamboree — will have a new lineup this Saturday, Dec. 14, at 7:30 p.m.: Richard Archer, the Beat Greens, Susan Blood, Broadway Central, Dennis Cunningham, Indira Ganesan, Candace Hammond, Gregory Hischak, the Bert Jackson Quartet, Tom Leidenfrost, Fred Magee & the Fabulous Rudolphs, Larry Marsland, Rose Martin with Summer Town, Dick Morrill, the Off-Track Bettys, and Jordan Renzi. It’s a fund-raiser for the Lower Cape Outreach Council’s fuel assistance program; tickets at what.org.

    OBITUARY

    An Actor Who Pushed Boundaries, Gabriel Kuttner Dies at 45

    Among his memorable roles was Finbar in last year’s ‘The Weir’ at Wellfleet’s Harbor Stage

    By

    Actor, director, producer, and teacher Gabriel Kuttner, a well-known presence on Outer Cape stages for more than a decade, died at his home in Amherst on Oct. 5, 2019 of an accidental drug overdose. He was 45.

    Gabe Kuttner in "Fully Committed."
    Gabe Kuttner in “Fully Committed,” playing one of 40 parts. (Photo courtesy New Repertory Theatre)

    Kuttner’s credits were copious: the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, Harbor Stage Company, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Lyric Stage, New Rep, Stoneham Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Israeli Stage, and Publick Theatre, among others. He was a founding member of Orfeo Group, and twice won IRNE awards. He taught at Boston Conservatory, Salem State University, and Northeastern University.

    Gabe was born in Washington, D.C. on April 7, 1974 and moved to Brookline with his family, where he attended public schools.

    “He struggled in school,” said his father, writer and teacher Robert Kuttner, this week. “He found himself as an actor, first at an intensive summer program for high school juniors at Boston University, and then he auditioned into a year at the O’Neill Theatre Center in New London as a freshman in a program usually for college juniors. The visiting director at the O’Neill that year was from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and he invited Gabe to audition for LAMDA. He was the only American accepted in his class.”

    He spent eight years in London, the last five performing and directing. He mounted a production of Sam Shepard’s “Shaved Splits” at the Edinburgh Festival and did TV commercials and narration for the BBC. He lived for two years on the royalties from a T-Mobile commercial and a Swiffer commercial.

    “He had an uncanny ear for accents,” said his father. “At LAMDA he was rated ‘native’ for several regional English, Irish, and Scots dialects.”

    Gabe returned to the U.S. in the early 2000s and embarked on an expansive acting and directing career in Boston and on the Cape. His most memorable work included “Heisenberg” at both the Boston Public Theatre and in Provincetown and “Fully Committed,” a one-man tour de force that requires the actor to play more than 40 parts, all with different voices.

    “Gabe and I met on a production of Tracy Letts’s play ‘Bug’ at WHAT,” said Harbor Stage founder Bob Kropf. They played brothers in a production of John Kolvenbach’s “On an Average Day.”

    Kropf and Kuttner in "On an Average Day."
    Bob Kropf and Gabe Kuttner in “On an Average Day.” (Photo Chris Burke)

    “Gabe was all about making things actually happen,” Kropf said. “Having artistic control. Pushing boundaries, and going all the way, artistically. Whenever we worked together, it wasn’t like work. It was like comrades getting together to crack something open. More like musicians jamming. It was loose and easy and mysterious and free — a like-mindedness with regard to this strange vocation.”

    “In addition to being a gifted actor, he was very entrepreneurial,” said director Jeff Zinn, who worked with Kuttner at WHAT. “He had been a creator of the ‘Shit-Faced Shakespeare’ project. The idea was that a small troupe of actors would do a Shakespeare play and one of them would get shit-faced drunk and perform and the others would be onstage as a kind of human bumper room.”

    “He would change things up as an actor,” said Kropf, “always inventing and responding in the moment. He was wildly alive on stage.”

    One of Kuttner’s last roles on the Outer Cape was in Conor McPherson’s “The Weir” at Harbor Stage in 2018, directed by Kropf. He played Finbar Mack.

    “Gabe reached a kind of artistic pinnacle with this role,” said Kropf. “Anyone who was lucky enough to see it knows exactly what I mean. It was staggeringly real and funny and sad and true. He showed up with a suit he’d found. He wore it on day one of rehearsals through to the opening. It was exactly right. He was the guy, from the first read. He was always the first actor off book. He wanted to be able to play and explore and make the most of every second of rehearsal.”

    Kuttner in "The Weir."
    Kuttner, center, with Stacy Fischer and Dennis Cunningham in “The Weir” in Wellfleet in 2018. (Photo courtesy Harbor Stage Company)

    “One of his most poignant and dazzling performances was in 2015 in ‘God’s Ear,’ a play about a couple who have lost a son,” said Gabe’s father. “One of his last was ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ including an outdoor performance at the Arnold Arboretum before an audience of about 1,500.”

    The Arboretum will be naming a tree in Gabe’s memory, and next summer’s season at Wellfleet’s Harbor Stage will be dedicated to him.

    Gabe leaves his father, Robert Kuttner, and stepmother, Joan Fitzgerald, of Boston and Truro; a son, Alexander Kuttner; a stepdaughter, Lula Taylor; his wife, Lori Taylor; a sister, Jessica Kuttner, and her husband, Jack Stewart; his stepsister and brother-in-law, Shelly Fitzgerald and Vincent Lorenzo; his uncles, John Trotter and Gordon Levy, and aunt, Darlene Levy; and three nephews and a niece.

    There will be a memorial service on Saturday, Nov. 2 in Boston.

    Kuttner in "Pride and Prejudice."
    Gabriel Kuttner, center, as Charlotte Lucas in “Pride and Prejudice” at the Arnold Arboretum, with Zoe Laiz and Lydia Barnett-Mulligan. (Photo Nile Scott Studio)

    “Underneath his antic joy, he was fragile,” said Gabe’s father. “His own pain was part and parcel of his capacity to go very deep into the human soul, which made him such a great actor and loved friend to a large community. If Gabriel hadn’t died of an accidental overdose of adulterated cocaine, he might have died from getting eaten by a shark as he surfed 100 yards off Ballston Beach, ignoring the warnings; or from missing a turn on the triple black diamond ski slopes that he loved; or from weaving his motorcycle down Route 6 in a hailstorm. He lived a life of joyous, generous, exuberant excess.”

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