News Letter
PROVINCETOWN THEATER 238 BRADFORD STREET President’s Message Chairman
of the Board Board Members Karen Billard
|
| From President, Tim McCarthy:
The fall is just around the corner. So please start thinking of things
you’d like to see at the theater and let the producers know we are here and for rent.
And don’t miss Take Me Out! It opens on July 8th. |
| From Brian O’Malley, MD, Chairman of the
Board: Become involved in your theater! We are very pleased to report that the Provincetown Theater, and the Provincetown Theatre Company, are financially solvent. The outstanding quality of our recent Spring Playwrights’ Festival made the two weekends a great box office success, assuring the availability of funding for a Fall Festival. The major reasons why we have been able to do so well, last season and this, are two-fold. We have had great productions, month after month, largely the work of our star tenant, Counter Productions. Without all this art, we would have no reason to be. But the other side, is that, in response to the severe reductions in donations, sponsorships and grants that all not-for-profits have seen, we have evolved into an organization where much depends on the volunteers. That begins with us on the Board of Directors. This is a real working board; each of us has responsibilities for various elements of the functioning of this complex endeavor. There are a number of committees that include non-Board members. The time demands and obligations are fewer. Programming, Fundraising and the PT (building) committees can always use engaged members. And then, there are all sorts of volunteer opportunities, both with us and our resident Provincetown Theater Company, and with any of the fine local production companies, including Counter Productions, which bring us all the magic on the stage. The point is this. We need you to be involved. We all need all the help we can get, to keep this place bright. Encourage theater-going friends to be Members. Volunteer your time here. Join a committee…you might wind up on the Board! This theater belongs to all of us who care about it. And the responsibility is so much lighter, the more of us join in the effort. Get involved, anything you do will help. The only thing that doesn’t help is doing nothing. No one can do it alone, but together, we can continue to make it play. |
|
| The Spring Playwright Festival Exceeds
Expectations! by Roger A Chauvette, Festival Coordinator Well, to tell the truth, members of the Playwrights’ Lab were just not sure how all their efforts and creativity would translate to the Provincetown stage. After the first night presentations, all of us were pleased that the audience was large enough to put us in the black. By the last night, we were exhilarated to see how the short plays had found an audience. Of course, we were also fascinated to see how each audience reacted differently to different lines of dialogue. The exceptionally large number of cast members worked like clockwork, setting up, acting their parts and then picking up their props and clearing the stage. In some ways the whole choreography reminded me of those early medieval morality plays that rolled into the village square, presented their "tableau" and then rolled on only to be replaced by the next wagon. Some cast members and even a playwright or two carried out different functions. Sasha Mallery Curran wrote her short play, And Heaven Is still a Mystery, directed and acted in it, and then went on to play the elderly mother in Paul Pilcher's Original Sin. Playwright John G. Keller also wrote, directed and acted in his play, His Grandfather's Clock. Brian Carlson gyrated as a piece of a mobile in Lee Roscoe's somewhat abstract play only to return as the young love interest of Griff Griffin in Original Sin. Bob Seaver appeared as a mysterious "Curator" in Lee's The Mobile and returned as a blustery Corporate executive in Andy's Metamorphoffice. Without the benefit of a program and a description of the storylines, an incidental viewer might have been thoroughly confused by Candace Perry's lovers growing younger scene by scene in Last Guacamole at Cha Cha Cha, or Andy Reynold on all fours barking like a dog in Metamorphoffice, or Michael Mellor about to slam a grandfather clock onto the floor in His Grandfather's Clock. Experienced actors mixed with novices seamlessly with young Jefferson Thomas smartly mastering a dialogue with Nielle Roselip as they moved from last guacamole to last guacamole while discussing their 19 year old daughter, their nine year old, and finally the newlywed with a pregnant mom. The audience was treated to a housing shortage in a radio play inside the stage version of Sasha's And Heaven Is Still a Mystery tale. Where else but in community theater would you see Dr. David Andrzejewski, a vet, in white tights colliding (deliberately) with Denise Gaylord, a personal trainer, in red, and Deborah Peabody, a health care worker and peace activist, as they reacted as pieces of a mobile? Actor and poet Peter Scarbo Frawley had the audience in his hand from the opening of Sasha's ...Mystery play when he opened his bag and took out a pair of heels. (He has appeared in nine movies so far.) Also delivering fine performances were experienced actors Braunwyn Jackett and Jane Macdonald in Metamorphoffice, Connie Tavanis in Original Sin, and Eric Dray in Sasha's ...Mystery. Last, but far from least, kudos to the fine directors who lent their expertise to the short plays. Adam Berry not only directed His Grandfather's Clock, but he also coordinated all the sound needs for the six plays. Bob Costa directed Last Guacamole and performed the role of the waiter. Lee received help with direction and choreography from Bart Murell. Tom Gladwell, quite well-known to New Yorkers off Broadway brought the best out of his partner Andy and the cast of Metamorphoffice. Scott Hayes served as an intermediary with the PTF Board and also mysteriously had that ceiling full of lights going on and off on cue. A festival of short plays requires more actors and more directors than a single play would have required and even more set design. All of the activities and story-telling came together nicely. This coming summer the Playwrights’ Lab resumes and already, our eyes are on the Fall Festival. A whole new set of creative challenges will appear live, on stage, in Provincetown. Watch for the dates and the selections to come... better yet, become a part of the Lab yourself and next Fall, you might also become one of the celebrated playwrights!
|
|
INTRODUCING MEMBER OF THE BOARD : Karen
Billard Karen Billard is a designer and artist who is committed to forwarding the central role the arts play in the quality of community and personal life. She believes the arts have untapped value for education and health, and never-ending variety of creative expression across art forms. Since moving to the Cape almost five years ago, she has worked with a number of groups in communities from Bourne to Provincetown to support and expand opportunities for creative expression. Karen accepted a position on the Board of Directors of the Provincetown Theater Foundation after being impressed by the quality of programming through the Provincetown Theater Company and other tenants at the theater, including Susan Grilli’s Counter Productions. This spring, through the Cape Cod Poets Theater, she helped organize The Provincetown Poetry and Literary Arts Festival which boasted fourteen events over six days in eight Provincetown venues. For the last few years she has been a member of the Philanthropy Day committee of the Planned Giving Council of Cape Cod, which organizes and runs a half-day professional development seminar for those engaged in non-profit work. She sits on the Falmouth Cultural Council, is a former member of the Jazz in the Garden committee for the Falmouth Historical Society and is an active member of the Falmouth Artists Guild and the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod. As an artist and designer she works in a variety of media. She has recently formed Kusala Design through which she designs jewelry and tassels, costumes for theater productions, and websites and graphics. Kusala means “right action” in Sanskrit, an intention she tries to bring not only to her own design work but into every aspect of her life. She combines her beadwork with hand weaving, kumihimo braiding, polymer and precious metal clays to create unique jewelry and tassels - some of which are on display at Color Obsession Gallery in South Cape Village in Mashpee where she works as the gallery’s marketing coordinator and designer of their website. She also teaches classes in tassel making and beadwork. She is trained as a Patternmaker, and worked in the fashion industry in New York. As a fiber artist and portrait artist Karen has exhibited and sold her work in galleries and decorator showcases in Westchester County, NY. She is a former member and Vice President of programming for the Handweavers’ Guild of Westchester. She has designed special occasion dress wear, women’s sportswear and costumes for several amateur productions. She received critical notice for her costume design work on the Cotuit Center For the Arts’ production of Sullivan and Gilbert in June of 2008, and Much Ado About Nothing in June 2009. She is currently designing costumes for HJT’s upcoming production of Pinocchio, and previously for Falmouth Theater Guild’s Cabaret. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Special Education from Brooklyn College and post-graduate credits from NYU in Deafness Education. Karen lives in Falmouth with her husband, Jeffrey, and daughter, Emily, two dogs and two cats. Her son, Alex, lives in Amherst, MA, and her daughter, Rachel, lives in Philadelphia where she is completing her undergraduate degree at Drexel University.
|
|
|
| Note from Editor! I always
do my searches on GoodSearch.com
|
|
| Counter Productions opens its summer season with TAKE ME OUT
July 8th!
For more information about the work of this company and how to become involved, visit www.counter-productions.org or email susan@counter-productions.org.
|
|
| Other News
SAVE THE DATE – SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 5th Tickets will be $150 to attend; the raffle alone for those unable to be present will be $100.
Ruthie’s Boutique! The Provincetown Theater is thrilled to announce that we have been chosen as one of the charities to benefit from this year’s boutique proceeds. PLEASE tell all your friends to donate and shop at Ruthie's Boutique, 14 Center Street,
Provincetown.
News! For a trial period, our membership is only $10 per person. Stop by the theater to fill out a form, or mail your information and check to: Provincetown Theater Volunteers Invited! Volunteers who would like to organize some significant event, workshop or classes, submit your proposals to the Board of Directors of the Provincetown Theatre Foundation via the Office Manager.
A member of our theatre family…
“And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” |
|
|
| The Provincetown Theater Foundation Board Members: Tim
McCarthy, President
|
“I
regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a
human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”
|
Site Last Updated: September 8, 2010
Visitors: 2,035,883
© 2010 Hosting • Design • Development: Community Internet Cape Cod Web Hosting
