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February 4 - 24, 2021
Hey, All! Lots of great virtual performances coming up! Check out CitySpace presents - there are two performances listed below and two more coming soon (or check out the CitySpace website for details on all four events, and reduced pricing for all four tickets). There are also reparations pricing tickets available free for BIPOC.
Also coming soon: Stagehand from Eggtooth Productions returns this month. Live from the Academy of Music and the Shea Theatre, you can watch this video game style interactive performance directly from your home computer. Check out details and tickets (for your whole virtual pod!) below.
The next issue will include events through March 4. Submit upcoming events via the link below or by emailing me before Tuesday at midnight. Any questions, comments or feedback? Email me at pioneervalleytheatre@gmail.com
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YOUR EVENT HERE
$5 per week for your poster and ticket link in top billing!
Email me to reserve your dates.
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THIS WEEK IN THEATRE NEWS:
from Howlround
Investing in Cultural Equity
by Ralph B. Peña
From the article:
The COVID-19 pandemic threatens to inflict mortal wounds to all theatres around the United States, especially small and mid-sized companies with no endowments or significant cash reserves. For many of them, survival hinges on receiving help from the government and private sources. This places an enormous responsibility on the funding community, because their actions can determine who lives and who dies.
Have you read an interesting article about theatre recently? Send it to me! pioneervalleytheatre@gmail.com
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From the New England New Play Alliance:
Virtual Theatre and Podcast
Fresh Ink Theatre presents
a reading of
Shrike
by Erin Lerch
February 7
directed by Joshua Glenn-Kayden
When the alien Legion came, Sheena lost everything. All she has left is one final, unlikely dream: the Rebellion. But when she arrives, it’s to a Rebellion shattered by the loss of its leader, pushed to increasingly desperate measures – including working with their alien enemy. As tensions mount, Sheena has to face the question: when you have nothing left, what do you fight for? Tickets: free (donation suggested).
The Vermont Actor's Repertory Theatre presents
Four Dimensional Love
February 6 and 7
directed by
Kat Redniss, Marisa Valent, and Sandra Gartner
Want to know what love is? Love is sometimes a Many Splendored Thing, or All You Ever Need, or even A Battlefield. Vermont Actors’ Repertory Theatre explores beyond romantic love to celebrate the different levels, aspects, and ways of loving during their February virtual short play festival themed Four Dimensional Love. Featured Vermont playwrights include: Jeanne Beckwith, Lesley Becker, Marisa Valent, Dvora Zipkin, and Pamela Formica. Get a Zoom link on the Vermont Actor’s Repertory Theatre Facebook page or by emailing here. Tickets: free.
tiny_Theatre presents
a reading of scenes from
Tiny Empty Nest
by David Beardsley
February 3
With their child at college and the distractions of parenting behind them, it is becoming harder for Ben and Claire Booker to ignore the empty spaces in their relationship. Ben makes a surprising proposal to get them back on track: he wants them to audition for Tiny Empty Nest, a reality television show that chronicles new empty-nesters living together in a community of tiny houses. Claire, who has cultivated skills, interests, and opportunities independent of Ben, is skeptical, but she goes along. Audition day arrives and, with nowhere to hide and a tiny house to build, Ben and Claire search for the emotional stamina they'll need to keep moving forward together. Part two on February 3. Tickets: free.
The Wilbury Theatre Group presents
The Race
by Mark Binder
now-February 7
directed by Brien Lang
Two job seekers from vastly different backgrounds vie for the same position in a large, faceless corporation. Each reveals uncomfortable truths from their past while dodging landmines from their competition and dealing with an increasingly demanding disembodied interviewer. Neither’s future is certain as the audience becomes an integral part of the selection process. Tickets: $20.
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The Wilbury Theatre Group presents
The World Premiere of
The Race
By Mark Binder
Directed by Brien Lang
Now Extended through February 7
Performances via Zoom
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PROVIDENCE, RI (January 29, 2021) – The Wilbury Theatre Group presents the world premiere of The Race by Mark Binder, directed by Brien Lang. This challenging new play, done in an emerging new performance medium, examines the common, and sometimes uncommon, obstacles of a high-pressure corporate interview dance in the Zoom era. Performances, held on Zoom, are now extended through February 7.
Two job-seekers from vastly different backgrounds vie for the same position in a large, faceless corporation. Each reveals uncomfortable truths from their past while dodging landmines from their competition, and dealing with an increasingly demanding disembodied interviewer. The audience also plays an integral part as they can communicate in a live chat, as the interview happens onscreen, and ultimately decide who is the best man for the job.
“As we were all experiencing a shift in performance during the pandemic, I asked myself ‘How do we create a vibrant theater for this moment? After so many online meetings, how do we create something theatrical and visceral?’” says playwright Mark Binder. “The Race is about two people simultaneously interviewing for the same job in the Zoomscape - Joseph Black lives in the suburbs and is on sabbatical while Joe White lives in the city, and has been unemployed for a year. Both characters need the job, but how can they connect with the unseen selection interviewer from Human Resources and the selection committee? The Race not only deals with contemporary issues around bias, politics and work, it makes the audience complicit. That the actors change roles from night to night forces us to question every assumption we make. The experience is intense."
Director, Brien Lang adds, “Mark has crafted it so that each member of our cast can play any one of the three roles and this has been a real pleasure to explore as each one of our actors has brought their own unique flavor to each very different character. We will be shuffling the cast throughout the run so our hope is that audience members will join us on multiple nights for a completely different experience”
The Race had two workshop performances with Wilbury Theater Group in November of 2020. Edge Media said of the workshop performances; “The Race is an uncomfortable, cautionary tale…thematically it touches upon life during the pandemic when in-person interviews are off the table. The Race is not only a cautionary tale [it] hints at a possible future.… It's worth a look, especially when we're all hanging out at home for the most part.”
The Race features original music by Nikita Zabinski, stage management by Allison Marchetti, and features performances by Rodney Eric López, Jennifer Mischley and Jim O'Brien.
Performances for The Race are done live and held entirely via Zoom. Patrons will receive a Zoom link to access performances after purchasing tickets prior to the performance. A Zoom account is not required. For tickets and more information, please visit www.thewilburygroup.org/the-race
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| Café Subterrain returns to UMass Theater to inspire and instigate |
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Performances (live on Zoom):
Feb. 10, 11, & 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Free
Visit the Fine Arts Center Box Office to register.
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Imagine the ideal cafe.
What do you envision? A cozy nook surrounded by books? Musicians playing softly in the corner while you drink your favorite hot beverage? A place where the owner lets their cats roam about?
That welcoming ambience, however you personally picture it, is where the denizens of Café Subterrain want to meet and connect with you, both new and returning visitors. They'll offer conversation and entertainment — and perhaps spur you to commit a small good deed to improve our world.
This second iteration of Café Subterrain will run Feb. 10-12. New guests are welcome as well as returning ones. If you are a returning visitor, we're excited to catch up.
"This is a very warm, inviting Café where you don't pay in money, you pay in actions," said director Rudy Ramirez, a first-year MFA directing student. And lest that sound intimidating, Ramirez said they're not looking for "heroic" deeds, but instead hoping to encourage moments of connection — reaching out to someone at the bus stop for a chat, or finding out about a local community garden you can support — to create community
Ramirez came up with the idea of the Café as a socially-conscious, community-building take on the immersive nightclub, Eschaton, created by a group of New York City-based artists at the beginning of lockdown.
In the Café, audience members experience performances and interactive moments. The cast includes Ramirez's UMass Theater acting students, faculty, and community members, united in being "passionate about social justice and taking a risk," Ramirez said, and rich in ideas of what resistance can look like.
This February, the actors hope to not just to welcome new audience members, but reunite with those who attended the first run to hear about how they went about accomplishing the good deeds they were encouraged to perform during the first run.
Join us in our cozy café, online over Zoom, Feb. 10, 11 & 12 at 7:30 p.m.
This event is free. Visit the Fine Arts Center Box Office to claim your spot in the virtual audience now. |
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SILVERTHORNE THEATER LAUNCHES ITS “SHORT & SWEET (tiny) NEW PLAY FESTIVAL”
On February 12, 13 and 14, the Short & Sweet Festival will finally be launched! Here’s how it will work:
On Friday, February 12, the following plays will be screened, beginning at 7:30 pm. The Group A line-up, all directed by Julian Findlay consists of Choices, by James McLindon (Northampton MA); Canvas, by Andrew Heinrich (San Antonio TX); Interventions, by Greg Lam (Milton MA); Webster’s Bitch, by Jacqueline Bircher (Brooklyn NY); Cell Phone in the Yoga Class, by Michele Markarian (Cambridge MA); A Gift, by Jonathan Prouser (Western MA); Second Look, by Nick Malakhow (Brighton MA); and People Will Talk, by Scott Mullen (Burbank CA).
On Saturday, February 13, the Group B plays, under the direction of Ben Ware, will screen, again beginning at 7:30 pm. The line-up is Jump, by Gina Femia (Brooklyn NY); Indelible, by John Bavoso (Washington DC); Four Daughters, by Ellen Wittlinger (Haydenville MA); Raghead, by Tom Coash (New Haven CT); Family Game Night, by Peter Kennedy (Williamsberg MA); Mishpocha, by Emily Bloch (Easthampton); and A Wake, by Brian Petti (Slate Hill, NY).
Following each night of plays, viewers will be asked to select their Top Four Favorite Plays! Then on Sunday, February 14, the chosen Eight Favorite Plays will be screened again, beginning at 7:30 pm.
Viewers will be able to buy individual tickets for any of the three nights of plays for $15 each, or get a Festival Pass for all three nights for $35! The links to the online screening site are provided once tickets are purchased. Details and links to the ticketing site may be found on the Special Events page at Silverthorne’s web site: https://silverthornetheater.org/
The Short & Sweet (tiny) New Play Festival is sponsored in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
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CitySpace presents
Life is a Groove: Music and conversation with Karrin Allyson and James Argiro
Two professional musicians from different backgrounds and generations, chat about the music industry and about their remarkable experiences in the business. Their talent and travels have taken them around the world, and into the concert halls, clubs, and homes of hundreds of musicians, actors, and raconteurs. 5-time Grammy nominee, vocalist, and pianist Karrin Allyson and pianist, conductor, and accompanist to music legends, James Argiro invite us into a world alive with stories and song. Join this special excursion with Karrin and James at Luthier’s Co-op.
Start off this event with Jazz Trivia by Bex Taylor of New England Public Media, get in the mood with carefully crafted playlists in your inbox, and receive delightful diversions in your mailbox.
With all the variety and entertainment, you’ll feel like you had an evening out on the town! Finally, ticket holders will reap savory specials to Easthampton restaurants to make their event experience complete.
FEBRUARY 14 6 -7 P.M.
TICKETS
Tickets are $25 per household / $80 for four events.
CitySpace offers reparations pricing with reduced or free tickets available for BIPOC.
Facebook event
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Eggtooth Productions, The Academy of Music Theatre of Northampton, and The Shea Theatre of Turners Falls present a Live Theatrical Video Game called Stagehand, sponsored by Teddy Bear Pools. The show takes place on Zoom on February 18, 19, 20 and 25, 26 and 27 at 7 pm and 9 pm each night. Tickets are available at https://sheatheater.org/
Staged as a live performance, audience members join the show from home via Zoom to experience this intimate adventure from home.
Participants will join the show through the eyes of Charlie, a stagehand helping to run a late-night rehearsal of several ghost scenes from the play Hamlet. As they’ll quickly learn, audience comments and choices can be “heard” by Charlie - and influence what Charlie opts to do next, making this immersive show similar to a first-person video game in style. As director John Bechtold offered, “We are exploring how to create interactive theater through the pandemic medium of Zoom. What stories are possible when you leverage the immediacy of interactive theater and real theater venues with the powers of a virtual connection? We hope that theater lovers, gamers, and brave adventurers will come on this adventure with us. We've created this work at a time where two jewels of the Valley - The Shea Theater and the Academy of Music - sit mostly dormant. Even in this time, however, these spaces retain the power to inspire their visitors. Stagehand makes these spaces primary characters amidst an ensemble cast of wonderful Valley performers. We look forward to inviting you in."
This is the second iteration of the show, back by popular demand. Said Linda McInerney, producer, “In our first experiment, John and the crew figured out the technology to deliver this immersive experience. That was a herculean task and we feel like we’ve got that part down. Now we get to dig into the story, the characters, and the deepening magic of the whole thing. We are also selling tickets differently. We are selling tickets by ‘pods’ that will be purchased for anywhere from one to six participants per pod. We encourage friends to purchase a pod ticket so they can attend together and share the magic. In addition, we also will offer a limited number of $10 individual tickets for the “wildcard pod”, where patrons with individual tickets will be placed together, making this show a delightful way to meet new people while social distancing. But do get your pod tickets early as there are only six pods available per show.”
Working in a new and exciting form, Stagehand offers live engagement with characters, explorable spaces, and a building full of questions waiting for answers. As a Valley-based company, Eggtooth Productions is excited to produce a show that is also a love-letter to our local theaters that we love and miss.
Tickets are $40 per pod that may be shared with up to six attendees. Invite your friends, enjoy a cocktail/mocktail and immerse yourself in a magical, mystical, intimate otherworldly experience.
Access to a computer with microphone, camera and speakers, a basic understanding of Zoom, and a good internet connection are required. Audience members should be 14 years and older.
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UMass Theater presents Women in Theatrical Design:
Anita Yavich, Jane Shaw, Jane Cox and Mimi Lien on Theater Design Today |
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March 2, 1-2 p.m.: Costume Designer Anita Yavich
March 8, 10:10-11:10: Sound Designer Jane Shaw
March 16, 1-2 p.m.: Lighting Designer Jane Cox
March 30, 1-2 p.m.: Scenic Designer Mimi Lien
Free and open to the community; registration is encouraged but not required through the Fine Arts Center Box Office.
In a series of Zoom conversations that will be free and open to a national audience, UMass Theater presents four brilliant practitioners of theatrical design who will share their thoughts on their work and how they experience their field as women.
Costume Designer Anita Yavich (March 2), Sound Designer Jane Shaw (March 8), Lighting Designer Jane Cox (March 16), and Scenic Designer Mimi Lien (March 30) will talk about their art and practice, how they have found ways to assert their voice in a male-dominated sphere, and how they view the economics of making a career in their field. The conversations will be moderated by the designers' counterpart faculty members in theater, Yao Chen, Amy Altadonna, Penny Remsen, and Anya Klepikov. Registration for the conversations is encouraged but not required through the Fine Arts Center Box Office: https://fac.umass.edu/Online/article/TheaterDepartment
In private meetings, each designer will also conduct portfolio reviews and offer career advice to the department's MFA design students.
With the exception of costume design, theater design and technical fields are dominated by men — one recent study shows that in Off-Broadway theaters, more than two-thirds of set, lighting, projection, and sound design hires from 2010-2015 were men. This series is made possible with support from Women for UMass Amherst (WFUM), a network of alumni that promotes the advancement of campus programs that provide access, support, and opportunity for UMass Amherst students, with preference to those projects that positively impact UMass Amherst women and their respective communities.
“Our guests will help give our students additional tools and impetus for challenging the sexism and bias out there,” said Theater Chair Harley Erdman. “The message is important for students of all genders who will be working in these male-heavy fields. We are thankful to WFUM for jumpstarting this idea and generously supporting it.”
More about our guests:
Anita Yavich, Costume Designer
Anita Yavich designed costumes for Broadway: Fool for Love, Venus in Fur, Chinglish, and Anna in the Tropics. Her New York design credits include Soft Power, Oedipus El Rey at the Public; The Mother at the Atlantic Theatre Company, Apologia at the Roundabout theatre, The View Upstairs at the Lynn Redgrave Theatre, Nathan the Wise, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Orlando, Venus in Fur, New Jerusalem and Texts for Nothing at Classic Stage; Thom Pain, Big Love, Kung Fu, Golden Child and Iphigenia 2.0 at Signature Theater; The Oldest Boy at Lincoln Center Theater; The Explorer’s Club at Manhattan Theatre Club; The Legend of Georgia McBride, The Submission, Coraline the Musical, The Wooden Breeks at Manhattan Class Company. Her opera credits include Aida at San Francisco Opera; Cyrano De Bergerac at La Scala, Metropolitan Opera and Royal Opera House (Covent Garden); Les Troyens at Metropolitan Opera. Current projects: Der Ring des Nibelungen at Opera Australia, Brisbane; Lempicka at La Jolla Playhouse. She has received Obie, Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and Ovation Awards.
Jane Shaw, Sound Designer and Composer
For over twenty years, Ms. Shaw has designed and composed for theater, dance, and audio drama. Theatrical work in New York includes designs at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan Theatre Club, Mint Theater, Theatre for a New Audience, National Black Theatre, Repertorio Español, New York Theatre Workshop, Cherry Lane, and the COOP. Regional work includes projects with Hartford Stage, A.R.T., Old Globe, Mark Taper Forum, Two River Theater, Asolo, Williamstown Theatre Festival, ACT, and Northern Stage. Awards: Drama Desk, Connecticut Critics Circle, Henry Award, Bessie Award, Meet the Composer Grant, NEA-TCG Career Development Grant recipient, nominations for Lortel and Elliot Norton awards. Proud Member of USA 829 and TSDCA (Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association, co-Secretary). Training: Harvard University, Yale School of Drama.
Jane Cox, Lighting Designer
Jane Cox is a lighting designer for theater, opera, dance and music. Designs in 2019 included The Marriage of Figaro at San Francisco Opera; Fefu and her Friends at Theater for a New Audience in NYC, directed by Princeton alumna Lileana Blain-Cruz; King Lear with Glenda Jackson on Broadway, directed by Sam Gold; a new musical adaptation of Secret Life of Bees (the design was nominated for a Drama Desk Award 2020); The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui, directed by fellow faculty member John Doyle; a theatrical adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates book Between The World and Me, directed by Kamilah Forbes and a revival of True West on Broadway, directed by British director James McDonald. Jane has been nominated for two Tony awards, for her work on Jitney (2017) and on Machinal (2014), four Drama Desk awards, and three Lortel awards, and in 2013, was awarded the Henry Hewes Design Award for her work on The Flick. Jane has been a company member of the Monica Bill Barnes Dance Company for twenty years is Director of the Princeton University Program in Theater.
Mimi Lien, Scenic Design
Mimi Lien is a designer of sets/environments for theater, dance, and opera. In 2015, she was named a MacArthur Fellow, the first set designer ever to achieve this distinction. Selected work includes Natasha, Pierre, & The Great Comet of 1812 (Broadway, TONY Award, Lortel Award, 2013 Hewes Design Award), John (Signature Theatre, 2016 Hewes Design Award), Appropriate (Mark Taper Forum, LA Drama Critics Circle Award), Preludes, The Oldest Boy (Lincoln Center), An Octoroon (Soho Rep/TFANA, Drama Desk and Lortel nominations), Black Mountain Songs (BAM Next Wave). Her stage designs have been exhibited in the Prague Quadrennial in 2011 and 2015, and her sculptures were featured in the exhibition, LANDSCAPES OF QUARANTINE, at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. Mimi Lien received a B.A. in Architecture from Yale University (1997) and an M.F.A. in Stage Design from New York University (2003). She is a company member of Pig Iron Theatre Company and co-founder of the performance space JACK. |
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CitySpace presents
The Writer's Imagination
Some of us look at a piece of paper and it is blank; others of us look at the landscape of a blank page and are inspired to create. For close to a year, our individual and collective imaginations have been fed by solitude, by injustice, and by the recognition that our communities of neighbors and friends are both vulnerable and resilient. How do we make sense of it? How do those who are inspired become inspired and use the power of imagination to connect us with ideas, with each other, and with the community to effect change?
“The Writer’s Imagination” features current Poet Laureate of Easthampton, poet/translator María José Giménez, former Poet Laureate of Northampton, poet/author Lesléa Newman, and award-winning author and co-owner of Book Moon, Kelly Link, in conversation with poet/translator Michael Favala Goldman. Join this conversation about identifying sources of personal inspiration, and how these authors have found ways to transform that inspiration into works that don’t just move us but resonate.
MARCH 7
6 - 7 P.M.
Tickets are $25 per household / $80 for four events (through February 14)
CitySpace offers reparations pricing with reduced or free tickets available for BIPOC.
TICKETS
Facebook event.
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