On an island off the coast of Georgia, moths beat against the screen as George Dawes Green and his childhood friends stay up late telling stories on a cozy summer porch.
Years later, Mr. Green sits in New York city growing tired of the loud, crowded and fast-paced parties of his adopted home.
“They were just so rapid-fire — no one could possibly squeeze in a word,” he remembered. “I just got tired of cocktail parties because I had been nurtured on stories and people telling them.”
For many, the word opera evokes images of ornate costumes and talented vocalists singing to their tragic deaths. So it may surprise some to learn that Italian composer Giacomo Puccini ended his career with Gianni Schicchi, a farcical comedy. The libretto will make its way to the Island next week, when Wendy Taucher Dance Opera Theater stages a full production at Featherstone Center for the Arts in Oak Bluffs. The hour-long opera, Mr. Puccini’s only comedy, begins when a wealthy man, Buoso Donati, leaves his fortune to the church, instead of his family.
The Oak Bluffs School drama department presents the musical 1970 musical Godspell Jr. by John-Michael Tebelak with music by Stephen Schwartz next weekend. The cast and crew have been working hard since September to put together this rock musical inspired by the Gospel of Matthew. The show includes colorful costumes, story theatre and the famous songs including the hit Day by Day. The show is part of Musical Theater International’s Broadway Jr. series, which adapts famous Broadway musicals and makes them accessible to young performers and audiences.
Free Shakespeare is available this weekend, from the awardwinning drama department at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. Shaking up their usual fall program, the student thepians are performing selected scenes from the Bard and other playwrights instead of a single play.
Tonight at 7 p.m. it’s selected scenes from As You Like It, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet.
Island Theatre Workshop, Inc., celebrating its 40th year in 2008, invites proposals from directors for one-act plays to be produced in March.
New directors are encouraged to submit proposals; plays can be from 10 minutes to just under an hour. Collections of 10-minute plays and one-act plays are available in local libraries.
To apply please call 508-693-5290. Copies of plays to be considered must be submitted no later than Dec. 15 to be performed at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven in March.
In the aftermath of the Patriots Day northeaster this spring, Chappaquiddick resident Francesca Kelly climbed into her pickup truck. She drove over debris-strewn roads, finally making her way to Norton Point. The whole time, a piece of classical music played on the stereo. When she got there, she parked and watched the water rush through the breach, a dead dolphin caught in the sands nearby.
Miracles at Christmas returns this year with traditional carols and drama to add warmth to the Christmas season — but with a change of location to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown. This Island Theatre Workshop production takes you back to a traditional Christmas, combining medieval carols and St. Nicholas plays.
The holidays would not be complete without a show at The Vineyard Playhouse. Earl Hamner Jr.’s The Homecoming, adapted by Christopher Sergel and directed by M.J. Bruder Munafo, is back this year as part of the rotating repertory for The Playhouse’s annual family holiday show.
The Homecoming will run from Friday, Dec. 7 through Saturday, Dec. 22 on Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and on Sundays at 3 p.m. All shows will be performed at The Vineyard Playhouse at 24 Church street in downtown Vineyard Haven.
Storyteller par excellence Susan Klein captured the imagination of more than 40 people Saturday night at the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard on Main street in Vineyard Haven, with her program entitled Silent Night, An Evening of Christmas Stories.
The raconteuse from Oak Bluffs opened with a sound check: “We’re recording all live performances from here on — just because.” Because, Ms. Klein explained, when she was old and gray she wanted to sit back and listen to us laugh again.
Again and again, it seems, Christmas brings us face to face with the same old question. Where does a rabidly materialistic society like our own get off celebrating the man who taught poverty by reveling in a superfluity of consumer goods? Perhaps they didn’t juggle exactly the same paradox, but the monks of 12th century England labored over the same vexing question of how best to reconcile Christian piety with the pull of earthly delights.
