Built on Stilts, the annual dance festival held at the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs, opened last night to begin its eight day run with a bit of drumming, belly dancing and a group of five-year-olds taking the stage fresh from their yearlong “Stiltshop” choreography class. What’s on the schedule for tonight is anyone’s guess, though, as the show never repeats itself.
Short plays, like short stories, have never caught on with the popular culture to the extent to which they so richly deserve. And yet they offer such a better return, really, for the public’s entertainment dollar. More stories, more sets of characters, more writers, directors and all of the other creative elements that go into live theatre for the same single ticket price.
You know about A Streetcar Named Desire. You also know about The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Rose Tattoo and on and on. The work of Tennessee Williams is celebrated on stage and screen, but if for some reason you haven’t seen or read his work, the time is now.
Strong characters with Russian accents, a story line set in an era unfamiliar to teenagers, an elaborate set design with complicated lighting cues and music that covers the waterfront — it’s no wonder the high school drama department started work on this play last spring.
But they did and the hard work was evident at Chess the Musical, which opened last night at the high school Performing Arts Center and shows again tonight and on Sunday this weekend.
The results of Imp Camp will be on display once again today beginning at noon at the Edgartown School.
For those out of the loop, Imp Camp is an improv retreat for kids under 18 where they not only learn the craft, they take it to the stage. How’s that for hands-on camping?
Today’s performance includes songs from the Lion King, scenes from All I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, My Homework, and Bears, Beware; Goldilocks Is in Your Town.
Transformed into what appears to be a room of curiosities, the Yard’s black-box theatre this week evokes a sense of wonder. A guitar leans against a funky metal chair, a streetlight stands in one corner, a piano is angled in the other and a lamp with no shade illuminates the stage.
But there’s a softness to the lighting that smooths what might be rougher edges of junk and turns it into a collection of life’s treasures.
Jameison Sennott was three years old when he first heard Stevie Wonder’s I Just Called To Say I Love You and picked out the melody on keyboard. Soon after, he climbed on to the bench of his aunt’s piano and played a rendition of Chopsticks. In high school, he found out he had perfect pitch.
He never thought of the era when he wrote TV comedy as the Golden Age. For him that honorific was reserved for the earlier epoch of Sid Caesar and Carl Reiner. But Marty Nadler, staff writer and producer in the 70s and 80s of Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Chico and the Man, The Odd Couple, Perfect Strangers, Valerie, and Amen, was part of a time in Hollywood entertainment that, hands down, is considered Most Funny.
The Vineyard Playhouse hopes to raise $1 million this summer in the first phase of a $5 million capital campaign that encompasses the renovation, restoration and expansion of the historic theatre on Church street in Vineyard Haven.
The restoration already has begun. With Community Preservation Act funds and private donations, the playhouse has installed new wood clapboard siding and windows on three sides of the building, and a new fire-safety sprinkler system.
