Author: Michael Witthaus

Colby-Sawyer showcases Italian program

By Michael Witthaus

[email protected]

Having a community conversation was Theatre Kapow’s goal when its season began last fall. This continues with Every Brilliant Thing, a play that will spend a weekend at BNH Stage in Concord, then move to Winnipesaukee Playhouse two weeks later for three final performances.

About a child trying to encourage their mother, hospitalized after a failed suicide attempt, with a list of “brilliant things” that are worth living for, it’s technically a one-person play. However, an in-the-round crowd plays a big role, even for a theater company that’s always strived to bring it close to the action.

“Throughout … the audience is relied on quite heavily to make the story actually happen, to get the character through each scene to the next point,” Director Emma Cahoon said by phone recently. This begins when attendees enter the venue; each gets a card with a numbered “thing” written on it to call out when prompted. Bolder souls can choose bigger roles.

Playwright Duncan McMillan, she continued, tells a story about how depression can be contagious without tools to take it on. His message: People can’t go it alone, they need help. To that end, the National Alliance for Mental Illness, Capital Art Therapy and the Jason R. Flood Memorial Fund are all community partners for the production.

“He tells a story about a person discovering how important it is to talk to other people, in a way that requires the audience to be in conversation with the piece the whole time,” she said. “So the function of the storytelling is proving the narrator’s point [that] I could not get through this on my own … I had to turn to other people.”

Though the material can be dark, it radiates hope with happy thoughts of “ice cream, water fights, and knowing someone well enough to get them to check your teeth for broccoli.” There’s also an improv comedy mood; an exchange between the main actor and a volunteer co-star could go anywhere, after all.

In a Jan. 28 blog post, Eric Gutterson, a longtime patron who’s served as test audience for rehearsals, said the play evokes “laughter, sadness, joy, longing, and a sense of togetherness,” adding that it “doesn’t shy away from being real. There are dark tones, but you come up for air early and often with frequent moments of comic relief.”

Matt Cahoon co-founded Theatre Kapow with his wife Carey; Emma is their daughter and this is her second directing role. Matt, who’s also Academic Dean and Theatre Director at the New Hampton School, has taught Every Brilliant Thing to his students. He called the feelings Gutterson described in line with his company’s mission.

“Sometimes contemporary theater can feel like you’re taking your medicine, because you’re having to have these difficult thoughts,” he said by phone. “But there’s also a lot of sugar that goes with that medicine.”

The decision to make conversation a focus of their season was deliberate, in anticipation of a contentious election and its aftermath. Matt thinks Every Brilliant Thing transcends that.

“In a polarized and often isolating world, the play’s format… emphasizes shared vulnerability and collective healing,” he wrote on their website.

“There’s a stripped down, base human aspect to all of us,” he continued in conversation. “With the audience for this show, we’re not Republicans and Democrats, we’re not even men and women or old and young. We’re just humans in the space together … here’s an entry point for every single person who lives and breathes on this planet into this play.”

Though she was 6 when her parents founded the company, Emma Cahoon wasn’t always certain that it was her destiny. During her rebellious middle school years she even planned on being a nurse. Last May, however, she graduated from BU with a BFA in Theatre Arts. She’s in it for the long haul now, and comfortable with that knowledge.

“Everything I said I was going to do that wasn’t theater was, in some ways, theatrical,” she said. “I never imagined myself not in a caretaking or community-based position, and when I got over that period of time, I was like, ‘Yeah, actually, this is what I wanted to do.’ Then I went to school for it, and here we are.”

Every Brilliant Thing

At BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Friday, Feb. 7, and Saturday, Feb. 8, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 9, 2 p.m.

At Winnipesaukee Playhouse, 33 Footlight Circle, Meredith
Friday, Feb. 21, and Saturday, Feb. 22, 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 23, 2 p.m.

Tickets: $25 and up at tkapow.com

Starring Peter Josephson on Feb. 7, Feb. 9, Feb. 22, Carey Cahoon on Feb. 8, Feb. 21, Feb. 23.

Content Transparency:
Verbal descriptions of depression, self-harm, suicide and suicidal ideations.
There will be some warm and inclusive audience participation.

Featured photo: Emma Cahoon. Photo by Sarah Coleman.

Colby-Sawyer showcases Italian program

By Michael Witthaus

[email protected]

Every year for more than two decades, students from Colby-Sawyer College in New London head to Italy for a semester at the Florence School of Fine Arts. The city serves as the study abroad program’s laboratory and studio. For the first time, an upcoming exhibition will show some of their works, along with those of the artists who run the school.

“Florence is filled with antiquities, art objects, museums and cathedrals; it’s very inspiring,” Jon Keenan, a professor who also runs the Davidow Fine Art Gallery at Colby-Sawyer, said in a recent phone interview. “These students are translating their experience of their studies there, and we’re able to exhibit it.”

Keenan got the idea during a visit last year with Florence School of Fine Arts founder Melania Lanzini, and photographer Charles Loverme, Lanzini’s husband, who runs the school with her. “I’ve been working with them pretty much since they started up,” he said. “We were saying, ‘We should have an exhibition, to highlight and celebrate our relationship.’”

Lanzini and Loverme will both display works.

“Melania does a lot of lithography and collage work,” Keenan said. “She’s combining both traditional and contemporary approaches, working with some found objects, as well as depicting scenes in and around Florence and the area that they live in.”

In an artist statement, Loverme described the work he’ll bring to the exhibit: “For the past two decades, Italy has been both my home and my muse. Living in the historic center of Florence for 20 years, and now amidst the rolling hills of Chianti, I’ve found inspiration in the juxtaposition of city and countryside. This series explores these contrasting worlds.”

His black and white images primarily capture what Loverme calls “the timeless geometry of urban life, the interplay of light and shadow [that] highlights the city’s elegance,” while his color work focuses on rural subjects that “draw the eye to the small, overlooked details of the natural world — fallen leaves, scattered fruit, and the quiet poetry of decay.”

Representing Colby-Sawyer are Brian Cal-Mallo, who’s both a painter and photographer, printmaker Alex Jenkins, and Sota Morishita, a photographer. All are studio art and graphic design majors who studied in Florence during the summer program in 2024.

“Though varied in their chosen media, each artist shares common ground in finding inspiration in the contrasts of beauty in Florence, the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance, and the Tuscan region,” Keenan said. “This exhibition reminds us not only that art is a joy to experience but also a universal language and a vibrant expression of our shared humanity.”

The exhibit will open on Jan. 30 with the three student artists in attendance.

“We always do a nice reception to celebrate the audience and create community through the arts,” Keenan said. “We’re going to have lots of great food and beverages.”

It runs through April 2, and Loverme will visit on the final day for a meet and greet, and to discuss his work.

Funded by William H. and Sonja Carlson Davidow, the latter a 1956 Colby-Sawyer graduate, the gallery opened six years ago. Keenan was involved in the conception and execution of the state-of-the-art facility where it resides, which also has a black box theater and multiple facilities for students to create in.

It sits amidst natural beauty, with Mt. Kearsarge in view, and Keenan hosts six events a year in the gallery.

“My goal is to create community, bring people together through the arts,” he said. “This venue is the ideal place to do that — to provide learning for the public, and to support the arts. Whatever we can do to keep it happening is our privilege.”

Opening Reception: The Florence School of Fine Arts & Colby-Sawyer College Art Project

When: Thursday, Jan. 30, 4-6 p.m.
Where: Davidow Fine Art Gallery, 541 Main St., New London
More: colby-sawyer.edu

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.