Highlights: a new aid fund in Provincetown; classes and shows with Broadway veterans; joining a chorus; awards; and a Ghost Light concert series
BARNSTABLE PATRIOT – Struggling members of the Provincetown performing-arts community can get some financial help, thanks to their fans and fellow performers.
Applications are now open for grants of up to $1,000 per person through the Provincetown Performing Arts Fund, created with help from the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod and The Palette Fund. More than $25,000 has been raised to help since June, when Provincetown entertainers Jonathan Hawkins and Jon Richardson created the fund to help support people facing loss of income due to COVID-19-related shutdowns.
In a typical summer, visitors would have close to two dozen choices of entertainment each night in Provincetown, according to one business owner. But most options are shut down this year. Those eligible for the arts fund aid include performance artists, musicians, DJs, theater professionals, and technical production staff (stage managers, lighting designers and others) who all have had work cut this year.
The original goal of $10,000 for the fund was met in August and soon was increased to $25,000, with the latest goal now $30,000. Funds were raised through individual donations, private in-home concerts, and a weekly show poolside at the Crown & Anchor resort (in cooperation with manager Rick Murray), which has featured a diverse lineup of local and international performers including John Cameron Mitchell, Varla Jean Merman, Dina Martina, Zoe Lewis & The Social Distancers, Qya Cristál and Edmund Bagnell.
In announcing the fund, organizers thanked the generosity of the local community, and noted how important the arts are to Provincetown and to Cape Cod’s year-round economy.
To seek help: https://www.provincetownperformingartsfund.com/apply-1. Applicants must be 18 or older, and be a full-time Provincetown resident or have worked in the Provincetown performing arts industry for three full summer seasons.
To donate: https://artsfoundation.org/provincetown-performing-arts-fund/.
Broadway veterans offer master classes
Cape Playhouse has set up a fall semester for various ages of master classes — in performing, comedy, dance, scripts and more — taught by veterans of Broadway and the Dennis stage.
Actor Andrew Keenan-Bolger (“Newsies,” “Tuck Everlasting”) and Tony Award-nominated director Marcia Milgrom Dodge (“Ragtime”) are among seven teachers who will each offer one or two sessions through the Cape Playhouse’s new Star Studio online program. Sign-up has begun, and classes run Saturdays Oct. 3-Nov. 21 for what officials describe as a roster of options “bringing the stars to your home … to a screen wherever you are.”
The class choices: Oct. 3, Keenan-Bolger, on how to nail a Broadway audition; Oct, 10, Rema Webb, actress and founder of On Broadway! training institute for New York City youth, on comedy and improvisation for kids; Oct. 17, playhouse regular and eight-time Broadway performer Jennifer Cody, on dissecting and performing monologues; Oct. 24, Ben Chavez on audition choreography for the “Disney’s Aladdin” musical, in which he recently toured; Oct. 31, “Land the Laugh — Finding the Humor in Your Song,” with Chad Burris (Broadway’s “Frozen” and “Mean Girls”); Nov. 7 and 14, Milgrom Dodge with an interactive read-through and dissection of the “Ragtime” musical script; and Nov. 21, Kay Trinidad on the music and choreography of “Hadestown,” in which she has starred.
Courses cost from $65 to $90, and have space and some age limitations. For information and to register: CapePlayhouse.com.
Kuhn, White, Leavel added to concert series
Three more Broadway stars — Judy Kuhn, Lillias White and Beth Leavel — have been added to the live virtual concert/interview “Seth Concert Series” hosted by Sirius XM host Seth Rudetsky.
The series, produced by Mark Cortale of Provincetown patterned after the “Broadway @” series he and Rudetsky created there a decade ago, streams live at 8 p.m. Sundays, with 3 p.m. Monday rebroadcasts. The shows have run all summer to a worldwide audience.
Joining Rudetsky Sunday will be Jeremy Jordan (“Newsies,” “American Son,” TV’s Supergirl”). On Sept. 20 will be Kuhn (“Fiddler on the Roof,” “Fun Home,” “Chess”); on Oct. 4, White (“Barnum,” “Fela!,” “The Life”; and Oct. 11, Leavel (“The Prom,” “The Drowsy Chaperone,” “Bandstand”).
Tickets to the shows are $20 (early bird) and $25 at www.thesethconcertseries.com.
Join the singing
Cape Cod Chorale will continue this fall, but in a virtual way, and is seeking new members.
The choir, in its 38th season, will begin rehearsals at 7 p.m. Monday via Zoom, then will meet that way every other week. The sessions will include practicing musical skills, working on vocal technique, rehearsing particular songs, and socializing.
No audition is required. The ability to read music is not essential, but helpful. Artistic director Danica Buckley (sopranocon@yahoo.com) can help determine your voice part (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) if needed. Information: www.capecodchorale.org. To join or get details on membership: Nancy Muccini at nmuccini@yahoo.com.
Local musicians, author win awards
The Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra has been awarded first prize in the Orchestral Performance, Professional Division in the 2019-20 American Prize Competition. The honor, which officials described as “a much-needed boost to keep us going among a new set of challenges,” goes to the musicians, music director Matt Scinto, and composer Francis Snyder, whose co-commission with the Edward Gorey House in Yarmouth Port was one of the selections chosen. The orchestra is due to release a virtual performance on Oct. 2.
‒ Lisa Tetrault, author of 2014′s “The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898,” has been named the 2020 recipient of the Katharine Lee Bates Historian Award presented by the Falmouth Historical Society and Museums on the Green. Tetrault is an associate professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh who specializes in the history of U.S. women and gender. She will be presented the award during her 7 p.m. Sept. 23 virtual presentation on “When Women Won the Right to Vote: History, Myth and Memory,” about the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on Aug. 18, 1920.
Music returns virtually in Ghost Light Series
As a way to show the arts are still important during a pandemic, a live music program filmed on stage at the Wang Theatre in Boston will be broadcast starting Sept. 25 on NECN.
The every-other-week “Ghost Light Series” will feature artists who include five-time Grammy Award winner Keb’ Mo’; two-time Grammy winner singer/songwriter Lori McKenna; folk legends Noel Paul Stookey, Tom Rush and Jonathan Edwards in a joint program; singer/songwriter Will Dailey; The Mammals; Chris Smither; The Restless Age; Kemp Harris; Livingston Taylor; and Jay Psaros.
Each half-hour show will feature a performer in the empty theater, illuminated only by its Ghost Light — with no amplification or spotlights. The artists will play and share stories about, say organizers, “what it is like to be a musician at a time when you are cut off from your audience.”
A Ghost Light is a centuries-old theater tradition of keeping a single lamp shining when everyone has left the building. The legend, say Wang officials, “is that this light protects actors, patrons and theaters from bad luck and ghosts.”
“We will not go dark. We are still here, and as long as we are here, we will try our best to bring people live music,” said Joe Spaulding, Boch Center president and CEO, in announcing the series. “The Ghost Light Series allows us to give artists a voice in this uncertain time and show the incredible talent in New England and beyond.”
Guests watching at home or online will be asked to donate to support the Boch Center and the Folk American Roots Hall of Fame: bochcenter.org/donate.
By Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll
