Dance, Opera, Kids Classes Part of Yard Festival

Yard Arts! this weekend kicks off its third year of presenting dance, theater, music and opera on Martha’s Vineyard, which runs from July 13 to Sept. 21.

This year is a bittersweet one for The Yard, its first summer season without founder Patricia N. Nanon, who passed away in February. Her legacy continues with those at The Yard committed to her vision of nurturing and supporting the art of choreography and the growth of individual artists, thanks to her generous gift last year of the Chilmark land and buildings The Yard calls home.

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Edgartown School Theatre Celebrates Science Fiction

Edgartown School Theatre

Celebrates Science Fiction

Starting tonight, Friday, Feb. 8 and running through Sunday, the Edgartown School Theatre Department will present Starmites, a musical science fiction adventure.

Directed by Donna Swift and Beth Carr, the show is about a girl who is transported into one of her favorite comic books to help battle evil and restore order to Earth and Innerspace.

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Opera Hits High Notes With Good Gags
Holly Nadler

Susanna, a Neopolitan countess of the early 1800s, has a segreto, a secret: she smokes. Her husband, Count Gil, an obsessively jealous man — but a perfectly nice fellow in every other way — sniffs tobacco in the palace and draws a logical but preposterous conclusion: Susanna is having an affair with a man who smokes. The pair is at loggerheads, and more than willing to sing about it, courtesy of the great Enrico Wolf-Ferrari. Thus unravels the 15-minute intermezzo comic opera, Il Segretto di Susanna, to the merriment of all.

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Aye! Pirate Island Promises Treasure
Lauren Martin

The hit television series Lost tracks the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious island, winks Heather Capece in a sly marketing maneuver. The family play she is directing, Pirate Island, premiering this weekend at the Vineyard Playhouse, toys with the same theme, only with shipwreck survivors washed up on a deserted island.

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Sing? Dance? Act Silly? It’s Blowout Variety Night

It’s another blowout variety night! See what happens on Monday, July 21, at 8 p.m. at Katharine Cornell Theatre (second floor of Tisbury Town Hall) on Spring street in Vineyard Haven.

This annual extravaganza welcomes the audience on a first come, first seated basis; there are no reservations. And there’s a special ticket price, just for you: $9.99.

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Everyone’s a Critic, Playwrights Hope
Sam Bungey

Since last week’s assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, a leading figure in Islamist fundamentalist organization Hezbollah, Liz Dembrowsky, director of New York theatre company White Trash Intellectuals, does her day job with a police officer in the room, for security.

A speechwriter for United Jewish Communities, a non-governmental organization that raises funds for Israel’s poor, she also spent her 30th birthday last week writing a press release on a suicide bombing that occurred in Dimona, Israel. For Ms. Dembrowsky, it’s all good training.

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Dancers from Island and Beyond Ready for Built on Stilts Tonight

The Built on Stilts Community Dance Festival celebrates its 12th year with seven nights of free performances August 15 to 19, 23 and 24 at the Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs.

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Play Written by Students Tops High School Lineup

A series of events are scheduled this weekend and next week as culminating activities of the year for the visual and performing arts departments at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.

Between the Lines, an original play written for the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild Competition, will be performed at the Grange Hall at 7:30 pm. today, Friday, May 16 and Saturday, May 17 in West Tisbury.

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End Days: Wacky Comedy Works Wildly Well in Post-9/11 World
Holly Nadler

Rachel Stein’s dad, Arthur (Adam Heller), after 9/11, had a freak out beyond everyone else’s freak out, but he had a certifiable right to it: One of the infamous planes flew into his office at the Twin Towers. While Arthur somehow muddled into a stairwell and was shepherded out by a fellow with a flashlight, the 65 employees who worked under him were not so lucky. Since then — and the action of the play takes place in 2003 — Arthur has not changed out of his pajamas and he’s starting to, well, stink.

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Four Plays in One Program: ITW Raises Curtain on Two Weekends

Island Theatre Workshop’s second annual one-act festival opens Friday, March 14, at the Katharine Cornell Theatre.

Three directors will offer a program of four plays, all of which look at life with both humor and sadness.

Lee Fierro will be presenting two shows: Aria da Capa, by Edna St.Vincent Millay, and Extensions, by Murray Schisgal.

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