Nightmares and Dreams: Immigrant Voices is a short play written and performed by a group of Vineyard women, ranging in age from 15 to 50, from Latin American countries about their experience immigrating to America in general and Martha’s Vineyard in particular. This original work will be performed free for the public in the regional high school library next Friday, April 9, at 6:30 p.m., as the closing program of the spring session of Adult and Community Education of Martha’s Vineyard.
PigPen Theatre Company comes clean with Mountain Song, an original play about a carpenter trying to find his daughter’s wedding. It’s a revue for all ages, incorporating original music, custom-made puppets, and creative visual effects.
The Built on Stilts dance and performance festival is now accepting registrations for 2010. Application deadline is July 1. Festival dates are Thursday, August 12 through Sunday, August 15 and Saturday, August 21 through Monday, August 23. Please see builtonstilts.org for guidelines and registration forms.
Criticism comes from some unexpected places when you’re a playwright attempting to star in your own play. That much is true for New York playwright Sam Forman, whose play The Rise and Fall of Annie Hall opened in preview last night at the Vineyard Playhouse (official opening night is Saturday). He’s seen the central role of Henry played by others in the three years since the play was written, and he has heard the actors lodge lighthearted complaints about the challenges posed by the dialogue. But before now, he’s never experienced it firsthand.
A new session of after-school improv classes for all ages with IMP theatre company will begin Feb. 5. Classes take place at the Edgartown School and are open to students from across the Island.
The Vineyard Playhouse opens its popular summer series of new work — the Monday Night Special — with the reading of a new play by actor, director and playwright Thomas Kee, Inside My Hidden Room, on Monday, June 14 At 7:30 p.m. at the playhouse, 24 Church street in downtown Vineyard Haven.
Unbeknownst to most, the story of The Little Mermaid predates the 1989 animated classic by more than 150 years. The real story is a bit more complex and a great deal darker than the Disneyfied version we all know and love, and this weekend students at the West Tisbury school will offer their own interpretation.
Once on This Island Jr., is an adaptation of a Broadway musical based on the novel My Love, My Love, by Rosa Guy, which is in turn an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, first published in 1837.
For a young, pretty girl growing up in pre-women’s lib Arkansas, a sure way out of a small hick town was winning a beauty contest. But what if the girl happens to have a mind? A good, questing mind? Once she wins the contest, is she going to be content cutting ribbons and crooning Wayne Newton hits in piano bars? Maybe not.
Story will be fending for itself this summer on the stages of Martha’s Vineyard. Stripped like the economy (and because of it), this season promises something much more seductive than blockbuster pretense, jaw-dropping set design, or celebrity leads: a glimpse at the so-called creative process.
