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April 22 - May 12, 2021
Are you planning any theatre events this summer - either in-person or virtual? I want to hear about them! (And so does the Valley Advocate!) In the meantime, get your tickets for WAM's production of The Light by Loy A. Webb - details and tickets in the links below.
The next issue will include events from April 29 through May 19. 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
Art at Work
by Chris Myers
From the article:
“What does freedom mean to you?”
This is the question I ask to digitally gathered cohorts on the first day of an eight-week course called Intro to Anticapitalism for Artists. There’s a somewhat giddy silence followed by what I perceive as a small shock: the realization of an absence of surety. I hold for around thirty seconds before it’s apparent nobody is going to answer.
Have you read an interesting article about theatre recently? Send it to me! pioneervalleytheatre@gmail.com
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The Smith College Department of Theatre New Play Reading Series is pleased to present Cordova Bend by Marty Bongfeldt on Thursday, April 22 at 7:30pm live on Zoom. Register at bit.ly/cordovabend.
When best friends Maggie and David have their first fight, the road back to peace is as twisted as the bend they live on. David tells it one way, but Maggie remembers something else. Only one of them knows the truth of what happened on Cordova Bend.
Directed by James Barry
Stage managed by Madison VanDeurzen
Featuring James Barry, Clarissa Po, Georgia Fowler, Tara Franklin, José Espinosa, Cole Seitz, Wren Gilbert, and Katherine Heyman.
About the author
Marty Bongfeldt is a New England based playwright, director and performing artist. She is the recipient of the 2019 Denis Johnston Playwriting Prize for her full-length play, “In Session (or My Life is Hell);” and the 2018 Denis Johnston Playwriting Prize for “Four Collected Plays.” Her short play “ALWAYS” was named a winner in the 2019 Radius Festival and received a production with the Berkshire Playwrights Lab. Ms. Bongfeldt has been a member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA for over 30 years. As a teacher, choreographer, and theatre director, Ms. Bongfeldt has helped develop educational theatre programs and produced theatrical productions in Texas, New York City and throughout Connecticut. As an actress, Marty has performed, professionally, throughout the United States in both musicals and straight plays, including originating roles in several astounding musicals that never saw the light of day after their NYC workshops. Currently, Ms. Bongfeldt resides in Northampton, MA where she is pursuing her MFA Theatre/Playwriting at Smith College under the mentorship of Len Berkman.
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Facing the Future: Climate Change Theater- an online short play festival
on demand, anytime on Earth Day: Thursday, April 22
Online
Facebook event
Tickets
Watch the trailer
The LAVA Center is proud to reprise our second online short play festival, “Facing the Future: Climate Change Theater.”
In plays penned by 13 playwrights from 3 continents, characters from cerulean warblers, insects, brown bull catfish, and fire to a wide age range of humans plus a couple of time-traveling aliens confront questions of our collective survival.
The plays are written by Lindsay Adams, Sara Becker, Kay Bullard, Patricia Crosby, Colette Cullen, Stephen Fruchtman, Nina Gross, Jan Maher, Rex McGregor, Michael Nix, Candace Perry, Vanessa Query and Karen Shapiro Miller.
The plays are directed by Colette Cullen, Ezzell Floranina, Jan Maher, Rex McGregor, Michael Nix, Joshua Platt and Vanessa Query.
Twenty-eight actors from as near as Greenfield and as far as Dublin, Ireland and Auckland, New Zealand bring it all to life via Zoom.
The performers are Anna Baskowski, Sara Becker, Amanda Bowman, Leona Burke, Adelaide Carey, Ken Chisolm, Rachel Cronin-Townsend, Chris Devine, Jacob Frank, Stephen Fruchtman, Derek Good, Tracy Grammer, Thom Griffin, Nina Gross, Mary Chris Kenney, Alain Lamoureux, Gloria Matlock, Bob McNeil, Becky Minard, Leah Rantz, Lesleyann Reilly, Kimberly Salditt-Poulin, Sumaiya Sannah, Ovella Snow, Charlotte Swinburne, Laurel Turk, Nancy Winokoor and Trevor Young.
This program is made possible in part by generous support from Greening Greenfield.
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UMass Theater creates Monuments of the Future as part of its Festival
Individual Monuments Performances:
Atlas — April 22, 7:15pm
Connection — April 23, 12pm
Scribe — April 26, 12pm
Truth — April 27, 8pm
Innovation — April 28, 7pm
Loss — April 29, 12pm
Defiance — April 30, 11:30am
Finale with all Monuments — May 2 at 7:30pm
In-person, outdoors
Free, open to the community
Visit our Rights of Spring festival website for information or register directly at the Fine Arts Center Box Office. |
Visitors to campus during our Rights of Spring Festival may come upon enigmatic, expressive figures gliding deliberately through the space, brilliantly displayed in the mid-day sun or merging with the shadows at dusk. These apparations are part of a series of performances known collectively as Monuments of the Future that will be part of both the opening and closing of the festival.
Originally conceived by Professor of Scenic Design Anya Klepikov and now directed by MFA Directing student Rudy Ramirez, this series involves a handful of student and faculty performers, and a cadre of skilled designers and technicians to create an interactive performance collaboration across disciplines.
Each Monuments performance, which runs about 30 minutes, has a different theme that speaks to what the creators want to memorialize. There's Defiance, which won't give up in the face of tremendous obstacles; Innovation, which expresses hope and curiosity; and the Scribe, which remembers what has been lost; and more, which visitors will see as they visit the campus and our festival.
Theater can happen anywhere, and we hope that as both our invited and surprised audiences encounter our Monuments, they take a moment to experience, and also to celebrate an artistic offering which has blossomed out of the privations of the pandemic and is available to anyone who has never made it inside of our building.
Details about the Monuments series are shared on our website, which offers direct links to register for the performances. |
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| UMass Theater Rights of Spring Festival opens this Thursday! |
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Let's Imagine out loud!
With that rallying cry, the UMass Amherst Department of Theater embarks on its Rights of Spring festival, a mix of virtual and live, outdoor, socially-distanced events scheduled to take place from April 22 to May 2. Both online and in-person events are open to the off-campus community, although capacity is limited for some and registration is required for in-person events.
What better antidote to the isolation and disconnection of this particular winter than to gather to celebrate who we are and what’s important to us — Join UMass Theater for a series of events meant to inspire, amuse, entertain, and spark hope for what’s to come.
The beauty of festivals, says Professor Judyie Al-Bilali, who conceived the idea for the Rights of Spring, is that they serve as a way for a culture to rehearse, renew and if necessary, revise its core myths — to examine its values such as liberation, community, and heroism. All of the events that make up a festival, collectively, tell a story about the people who participate in it. This festival, coming after a hard year of massive social upheaval, serves as a statement from a culture that’s redefining what’s important.
The festival kicks off with an Invocation that includes Earth! an outdoor installation celebrating our planetary home, as well as the first installment of Monuments of the Future, a series of collaborative performances which will also close the festival. In between, you can listen to audio plays that feature contemporary takes on myths, hear from local civil rights leaders, participate in a coven ritual, take in a piece of devised theater that celebrates joy, view graduate student exhibits of gorgeous scenic, lighting, and costume design, and much more. The full listing of event is here.
Collectively, these events and the other pieces on the schedule are focused about creating community by any means available — in Zoom rooms, in conversations, through a unified appreciation of beautiful work. They represent a redefining of what we fit under the definition of theater — those aforementioned Zoom rooms, performances created by teams creating from scratch, scenic installations that spread out across the campus, web-based design presentations that encompass beauty, environmental awareness, and the wonder of old-fashioned story-telling.
Events run April 22 to May 2, and include elements presented live in-person and online, as well as pre-recorded online. All events are open to the community.
A full listing can be found on our festival website.
In-person events will require advance registration and adherence to UMass COVID protocols for masking and social distancing for attendance. |
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From the New England New Play Alliance:
Virtual Theatre
and Audio Plays
Hibernian Hall presents
an online reading of
Seeing Violet
by Peter Snoad
April 22-24
directed by Vincent Ernest Siders
A cowrie shell. A silver coin. An antique scroll. Unearthed fragments from a family's hidden past trigger a quest for the truth and force a reckoning in the present. Tickets: free.
Fuse Theatre presents
an online reading of
Affinity Lunch Minutes
by Nick Malakhow
April 24
Watch this live reading of an excerpt from Affinity Lunch Minutes and participate in a discussion of the themes and issues it raises, namely racism in predominantly white institutions, assimilation in white academia, and private school culture. Tickets: pay what you will, donations appreciated. Please note: Times on the web site are Pacific Time.
The New Ideas Festival, Alumnae’s annual juried festival, enters its 33rd year with an exciting lineup of dramatic and comedic short plays from both emerging and experienced theatre artists.
Another Day
by Emanuelle Delle Piane
translated by Kristine Greenaway
directed by Kit Simmons
The Equivalent of Sensation
by Arianna Rose
directed by Cassidy Sadler
Lost Season
by David Beardsley
directed by Catherine Hume
Consumption
written and directed by Jen Frankel
Motherhood
by Lawrence Aronovitch
directed by Leslie Ann Walcott
Tickets: $10-$25.
The Depot for New Play Readings presents
an online reading of
Three Mothers
by Lynn Hoffman
April 25, 2:00 pm
directed by Anne Flamang
Three Mothers explores the lives of three women at pivotal moments in their personal lives through the lens of the disappearance of Michael and Alex Smith and the media sensation their disappearance created. During the nine-day search for the missing brothers, these three mothers’ lives intersect unexpectedly to create a collage of viewpoints about life, death, and the ever-changing role role of motherhood in America. The reading is free. To receive a Zoom link, please email depotreadings@gmail.com.
Boston Theater Marathon XXIII: Special Zoom Edition features readings of 10-minute plays by New England playwrights in collaboration with New England theatres. Audiences are encouraged to lend their support to area theatre companies and to the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund, which provides financial support to theatres and theatre artists in need. The readings begin at noon each day, with the exception of Sundays. A question-and-answer session follows each play. This week's plays:
Out Damn Spot
by Nina Mansfield
April 20
sponsored by The Hub Theatre Company of Boston
War Dog
by James McLindon
April 21
sponsored by Centastage
Skin to Skin
by Cassie M. Seinuk
April 22
sponsored by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company
Tadpole to Toad
by Kyla Schultz
April 23
sponsored by Fresh Ink Theatre Company
Scentsation
by Hortense Gerardo
April 24
sponsored by Umbrella Stage Company
1 BDRM Zen Escape
by Bill Lattanzi
April 26
sponsored by Actors’ Shakespeare Project
Albert (a musical)
book by Mark Evan Chimsky
music by Zev Burrows
April 27
sponsored by Boston Conservatory at Berklee
Tickets: free, click “purchase tickets” to join the production.
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THE LIGHT
An Online Fresh Takes Play Reading
by Loy A. Webb
Directed by Colette Robert
Featuring
Elle Borders as Genesis
Brandon G. Green as Rashad
A surprise proposal gift puts the future of Genesis and Rashad's relationship at risk when they are forced to confront a devastating secret from the past. THE LIGHT is a 70-minute, real-time rollercoaster ride of laughter, romance, and despair that uncovers how the power of radical love can be a healing beacon of light.
Available for streaming Sunday, April 25-Sunday, May 2, 2021
Tickets $15, $25, and $50
For more information about the 2021 Season and WAM Theatre’s programs, events, and artists, please visit www.WAMTheatre.com.
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UMass Theater's COVEN-19 witches return in a new ritual for spring
COVEN-19, Or, Magicks for Unprecedented Times
Free, open to the community
Click the date to register for a performance of this live, online event:
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The springtime signifigance of May Day and Beltane is the creative jumping-off point for a new edition of COVEN-19, Or, Magicks for Unprecedented Times, running April 29, 30 and May 1 live online at UMass Theater as part of our Rights of Spring festival.
COVEN-19, pun very much intended, is a community of artistic witches who are called upon to own their individual and collective power, make meaning out of utter chaos, and manifest tangible, seismic change.
As in October, the community will fuse witchcraft and theater into an online, immersive format that aims to heal some of the collective hurt and grief of the past year. However, this will be a different performance, as this spring's ritual will be performed in honor of Beltane, or May Day.
"For me personally, magic is a source of healing and introspection," dramaturgy grad student and co-creator Maegan Clearwood says, and she originally proposed this project as a way "to be with other like-minded people and figure out how to make the world a better place."
In keeping with that ethos, this is a devised piece, meaning that rather than working from a script with a single leader, the company built the work by exploring questions and themes together. "It's a really nice opportunity just for us to experiment with ways of making theatre that are egalitarian and collaborative," says fellow grad student and co-creator Percival Hornak.
The time is ripe for magick-making!
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COVEN-19 is part of The Rights of Spring, a theater festival presented by the University of Massachusetts Department of Theater to rebuild connections with each other and celebrate what matters in life. As winter thaws out, there is no better time to safely gather and spark joy together. Events run from April 22nd to May 2nd and are free to the general public with performances in person and online.
This event is free. Visit the Fine Arts Center Box Office to claim your spot in the audience of this and other Rights of Spring Festival events. |
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| The Renaissance Reborn: In Conversation With Carl Cofield and Ty Jones
Join us as we celebrate the 20th Anniversary of The Classical Theatre of Harlem and the 100th Anniversary of The Harlem Renaissance!
April 29th & 30th, 8pm on Zoom
Registration is FREE!
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After a year of theatres shuttered due to COVID-19, join us in conversation with the Classical Theatre of Harlem's Carl Cofield (Associate Artistic Director of The Classical Theatre of Harlem, Chair of NYU Grad Acting), and Ty Jones (Producing Artistic Director of The Classical Theatre of Harlem) for a conversation about the rebirth of the Harlem Renaissance and the past, present, and future of The Classical Theatre of Harlem, followed by a Q&A.
This conversation will be moderated by Yale School of Drama's Anthony Holiday and is produced by Completely Ridiculous Productions.
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I MET GOD (AND THE DEVIL) IN AN UBER by Daniel Rendón ‘21
Directed by Ron Bashford
Senior Honors Project in Playwriting & Acting for Daniel Rendón
Release date: May 14, 2021
The Amherst College Theater & Dance Department is proud to present I Met God (and the Devil) in an Uber, an original drama by Daniel Rendón ‘21, directed by Ron Bashford, with scenic design by graduate design assistant Lauren Thompson ‘19, costume design by Lorelei Dietz ‘20, lighting design by resident lighting designer Kathy Couch and sound design by Julian Brown ‘23.
How much pain and suffering can we take as human beings before we reach the end of the line? What is the price of being good? What is the price of being bad? In Daniel Rendon’s new play, Santiago, a down-on-his-luck Uber driver, is pushed to find the answers, but will he?
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rendón’s play was adapted into a teleplay. “Because of COVD, we decided last summer to re-work Dan’s play script into a teleplay. Seven student actors, working both remotely and in-person in a controlled environment, have been introduced to acting for the camera through this process. It’s been a wonderful adventure transforming our theater stage into a TV studio and learning how to shoot with remote participants. Hats off to the resourcefulness of all of the students involved, especially our wonderful in-person student crew,” said faculty director, Ron Bashford.
I Met God (and the Devil) in an Uber will be released for streaming on May 14, 2021. For more information, visit https://www.amherst.edu/go/performance.
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