Author: Michael Witthaus

Tuck Everlasting latest musical from Powerhouse

An upcoming show at Laconia’s Colonial Theatre explores the idea of eternal life, how desire to live forever can be all-consuming, and what the consequences of achieving immortality might be.

Tuck Everlasting began as a children’s novel by New Hampshire writer Natalie Babbitt that later became a movie in 2002. A Broadway adaptation was nominated for a Tony but only lasted for 39 performances. Fortunately, Bryan Halperin, who runs the Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative with his wife, Johanna, caught one and was enamored.

It was part of “a string of shows we saw for a couple of years where we really enjoyed them and they all flopped,” he said by phone recently. Halperin has learned firsthand how a show can come up short in New York but make it elsewhere. Last year he directed Captains Courageous and won for Best Musical at the New Hampshire Theatre Awards, even though an off-Broadway production of it opened and closed quickly.

“How something does on Broadway is not necessarily reflective of it as a musical property that actually moves people, and people love,” he said.

Tuck Everlasting, he continued, is an uplifting musical, and wonderful songs are just one reason. Particularly moving is a 10-minute dance sequence that traces the arc of the main character’s life. “It’s the climax of the musical, without singing, just music and dance,” he said. “We wanted to do it someday, and this was the day.”

Choreographer Meg King will oversee dancing for Powerhouse’s three-day run.

“That’s the most exciting thing for me in this production,” Halperin said. “Meg is doing some legitimate lyrical ballet dance that we don’t usually get in musicals [and] the last sequence is astounding to watch; people in the cast get tears in their eyes every time they see the dancing.”

In 2004, the Halperin family relocated from Massachusetts to the Lakes Region and opened the Winnipesaukee Playhouse, which they ran for 10 years. After, Halperin said, “we were nomads for a while, doing stuff with Hatbox and Community Players of Concord. Then we got kind of recruited out of our full-time retirement to start up again.”

Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative was formed in 2020 as a way to continue a program of performances at Belknap Mill and got its name from the historic facility. It became an independent nonprofit last year. It has also been the Colonial’s resident theater company since it opened.

“We constantly pinch ourselves that we get to do theater and rehearse in this beautiful space.” Halperin said. “For a 750-seat theater, it has an intimacy to it…. We feel very lucky that it’s our home.”

Powerhouse always looks to spur involvement in its work, for actors and people who love theater.

“To really emphasize the community building nature of community theater,” Halperin said. “It’s about collecting people into the family, finding ways for them to shine on stage no matter what role they’re in, and surrounding them with high-quality production values.”

One example is the annual performance of A Christmas Carol. Over the years, they’ve added a choir that performs prior to the show and later adds vocal color from the boxes. “That allowed more people to get involved than we could fit on the stage in character roles,” Halperin said. “We try to find ways to engage as many people as possible for each production.”

Looking back, Bryan and Johanna are still happy with their decision to move north.

“We do think about how our life changed by making that choice to leave our careers and start a theater company,” he said. “But the rewards of community and artistic expression, being in a job that our children could be involved with and grow to love as well, far exceeded our expectations. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has definitely been emotionally rewarding.”

Halperin encouraged people to come out for Tuck Everlasting.

“Everyone involved gets such joy out of singing the music and telling the story,” he said. “It’s a great Mother’s Day weekend, take the family show, kids of all ages are appropriate. I’m pretty sure you will love it if you come to see it.”

Tuck Everlasting
When: Friday, May 10, and Saturday, May 11, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, May 12, at 2 p.m.
Where: Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St., Laconia
Tickets: $18 to $22 at etix.com

Featured Photo: Nikolai Fernandez and Maci Johnson as Jesse Tuck and Winnie Foster in Tuck Everlasting. Courtesy photo.

New twist to NH Gay Men’s Chorus concerts

Every year since 1998 the New Hampshire Gay Men’s Chorus has performed a series of concerts. This year they invite the audience to go behind the scenes and see how the program is chosen, in an evening of music laced with theater called Putting It All Together. Luc Andre Roberge, NHGMC’s Artistic Director, said in a recent Zoom interview that the chorus will portray the path from brainstorming songs to turning them into a show.

“Let’s get the audience to experience what it’s like to put this whole thing together,” he said. This year they will again perform four shows, one each in Concord, Manchester, Nashua and Stratham, along with several outreach shows across the state at assisted living facilities and other places.

Selections in the upcoming concerts include Ike & Tina Turner’s version of “Proud Mary,” with the slow-groove first part performed in the program’s early set and the rocked-up “nice and rough” section in the second half. The program also has “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman, a medley from Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, and a song most will recognize from The Big Bang Theory, Barenaked Ladies’ “The History of Everything.”

The show closes with “Why We Sing,” a song that NHGMC President John McGeehan called “very meaningful” during the same interview. “Even when you don’t understand someone’s language, you can still get the emotion and the feeling and the expression through their music,” he said. “There are few things out there that are like that. I think that’s a really powerful statement to leave our audience with.”

Though it’s a musical entity, NHGMC has higher aims.

“Part of our mission statement is to share the joy of music with the residents of New Hampshire, but also to be representatives of the LGBT community, give it a positive image,” McGeehan said. “I think that’s really important, especially now.”

Roberge noted that at the chorus’s first performance, some members asked that their names not be listed in the program, while others wore dark glasses or hats to obscure their identities.

“It was a very different world in 1998 than the one we live in now,” he said. “People didn’t go about telling people that they were gay. One didn’t really even come out, certainly not in the state of New Hampshire.”

Thankfully, that’s changed. The Granite State legalized same-sex marriage in 2010. In 2018 Gov. Sununu and Rep. Chris Pappas joined to celebrate NHGMC’s 20th anniversary. Last year Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig signed a proclamation declaring New Hampshire Gay Men’s Chorus Day in the city. And one recent fact in particular stands out for Roberge. “Less than half of all our concert attendees identify as gay,” he said. “That says there’s a lot of acceptance in the state.”

Roberge was a charter member of NHGMC and became Artistic Director in 2000. He co-leads the chorus with Principal Accompanist Gary Finger. Among Roberge’s memories of his tenure, the one that stands out as his favorite isn’t musical. While in his 30s, he came out to his parents, urged by fellow chorus members who thought they should see him sing a solo rendition of “Old Man River” at an upcoming concert.

Though he had a good relationship with them that included strong support for his music, Roberge worried that telling them his truth would damage it. His mother cried upon hearing the news, but not for reasons he’d feared.

“‘How many concerts did I miss?’ was her question to me,” he said. “She was so upset that she’d missed all that time — five years with the chorus at that point.”

Immediately, she and her father left the house for a series of face-to-face visits, ultimately inviting 30 friends to the concert. “And all of them came,” Roberge said. “It truly meant it was a non-issue. It was a very moving and touching experience. Not just for myself, but for the chorus, and anyone that attended that concert.”

The wonderful affirmation still makes him smile.

“I ended up, living in the state of New Hampshire, having an excellent coming out story, with an organization that believes we need to show that we are just average people,” he said. “That’s a very positive experience that I had with the chorus.”

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical
When: Fridays, 7:30 p.m., Saturdays, 2 & 7:30 p.m., Sundays, 2 p.m. through May 12
Where: Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester
Tickets: $28 and up at palacetheatre.org

Featured Photo: Austin Mirsoltani and Rachel Gubow in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.