Author: Michael Witthaus

Behind the scenes

Bedford Off Broadway presents Blame It On Beckett

In the theater, a dramaturg is a person tasked with combing through stacks of plays in search of any that might be worth doing. Bedford Off Broadway’s Blame It On Beckett, running through March 17, explores what happens when an aspirant to that role collides with the cynical incumbent dramaturg of a nonprofit theater company.

Heidi Bishop, played by Abby Lefebvre, is the wide-eyed newly minted MFA disrupting the scattered coffee cup office world of Jim Foley, a role inhabited by Larry Watson. Jim brushes off Abby’s entry as “a meeting with Mary Poppins,” but when smitten company president Mike Braschi (Jeff Robinson) hires her as an intern, Jim’s life begins to change.

The play’s title is reference to the author of Waiting for Godot, and a dig at innocents like Abby who view theater as life’s highest calling while mistaking him as an exemplar.

“You’re too young to like Beckett,” Jim tells her early on, adding that she only thinks she does because a college professor filled her head with silly ideas.

Further, Jim has decided, via years of reading mediocre works, that there are no worthy new playwrights. Anything worth doing will come from a recognized name or someone with connections. “This office is where great theater goes to die,” he believes, and the dramaturg’s only job is to reject submissions as quickly as possible.

This is advice that Abby decidedly doesn’t heed. From there, the play rollicks forward.

The final character in the play’s quartet of actors is Tina Fike, played by Karyn Russell Merriman. Tina is the company’s star, a veteran playwright whose presence leaves Heidi tongue-tied. Tina and Jim’s connection is seemingly the reason he enjoys his job, as the two thrust and parry while completing her latest work — its success will be critical to all concerned.

Written by John Morogiello and directed by Joe Pelonzi and Declan Lynch, Blame It On Beckett is filled with funny lines. Many are Jim’s; Watson stands out as the play’s star. Nonprofit theater only exists, he complains at one point, to make do-gooders feel better about wasting their money, adding he’d like to see a play written by the NRA.

Jim’s back-and-forth with Abby is hilarious. Asked if her degree intimidates him, he replies, “The only thing that threatens me is that sweater.” However, Abby’s blend of guilelessness and ambition will complicate things for Jim and cause some serious moments in Act Two.

As it’s a play about an obscure job in a niche part of the theater world, some of Blame it On Beckett’s best touches are meta and self-referential. For example, one of the rejected scripts mentioned in the play was written by Morogiello. Another funny moment has Jim telling Abby that no one would ever consider turning their office discussion into a play (like the one they are currently acting in).

Another wonderful element is the many subtle references to Godot, like the company’s “big-name bait” Literary Manager who never comes to the office, the many cigarettes Jim futilely tries to light, the director of Tina’s play, and the employee who’s on maternity leave whom Abby hopes to replace. Like the invisible character in Beckett’s play, none arrive (or ignite). Of course, there’s also the mountain of scripts on Jim’s desk with no hope of seeing a spotlight.

It all adds up to a sophisticated romp that’s snarky, sharp and at times touching. However, the show is aimed at mature audiences, something Director Pelonzi stressed in a recent phone interview.

“There are definitely adult themes,” he said. “To be honest, though, we did clean up some of the language, because there are certain things that we can’t say on stage here. But it’s still pretty edgy. It’s definitely a lot edgier than the normal shows we do in Bedford.”

Blame It On Beckett
When: Friday, March 15, and Saturday, March 16, 8 p.m., and Sunday, March 17, 2 p.m.
Location: Bedford Old Town Hall, 3 Meeting House Road, Bedford
Tickets: $15 ($12 seniors/students) at brownpapertickets.com
Note: Not appropriate for children

Featured photo: Larry Watson and Abby Lefebvre in Blame It On Beckett. Courtesy photo.

Takeoff time

Birds, In Theory celebrate debut album

Legend has it that Michael Clarke joined The Byrds because he looked like Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, not due to his drumming skills. The similarly named Birds, In Theory, a local band celebrating their debut album at The Shaskeen on March 9, has a close but slightly different story.

Its drummer, Nick Matsis, admits that he had more enthusiasm than talent when he joined high school pals Tim Dacey and Shawn Murray to form the pop punk band Eagle Jesus. The name changed, to a riff on the conspiratorial belief that birds are fake creatures created by NASA, when Dave Maloof came on as drummer post-pandemic and Matsis moved to bass.

The band’s sound coalesced with a seasoned new member behind the kit, offering a sonic fury favorable to fans of Green Day, Blink-182 and Bowling for Soup. It was a change that delighted Matsis.

“I can’t drum to save my life and that guy is a machine,” Matsis said self-deprecatingly by phone recently. “I taught myself drums playing Rock Band on the Xbox.”

A song from the forthcoming record Aviary jokes about this, along with the dichotomy between the band’s more and less polished musicians. “Guys, Where Are We?” includes a few moves that Maloof and lead guitarist Dacey handle with ease; rhythm guitar player Murray and bassist Matsis, not so much.

“That’s the only song we really changed time signatures in,” Matsis said. “We would get lost playing it at first because me and Shawn aren’t great at changing time signatures, and Tim and Dave are classically trained. So they’re like, ‘Guys, what are we doing? Where are we?’”

Other standout tracks include the slow-burning breakup song “Cover Story” and “Tourniquet,” which builds into a rager and showcases Dacey’s shredding blended with Matsis’ chugging rhythm guitar, and Maloof and Murray locked in on rhythm. This new freedom enhanced the making of Aviary.

As a trio, “we just couldn’t get as fancy as we wanted in the writing process,” Matsis said. “Dave, he’s a big Travis Barker fan; he can get in there and play anything as fast or complicated as he wants. Having that in the recording room was amazing, because he was getting that stuff done in one or two takes…. It made it so much easier.”

Birds, In Theory cites a variety of influences. Matsis is a big fan of Balance and Composure, particularly the Pennsylvania band’s 2011 LP Separation. “Shawn’s more into pop punk and indie, Tim used to be in a death metal band,” he said. “Dave’s into anything from Blink-182 to instrumental prog metal. It’s definitely a range.”

Their lyrical mood is informed by bands like The Wonder Years and Car Seat Headrest. “‘Tourniquet’ is about watching someone you thought you knew kind of change over time, and ‘Reflections’ deals with not wanting to take your emotions out on the people around you and just trying to communicate that it’s not them,” he explained. “A lot of our songs are more down, emotionally charged. Maybe not in the most positive way, but we like to make them fun.”

With a new record to celebrate, they’ll top the bill at The Shaskeen, but they’re also part of many multi-band events in the area.

“We’re lucky that we’ve been close-knit with a lot of people over the last few years and we played so many shows,” Matsis said, “That’s fun for us because we like playing with our friends and seeing our friends play.”

Beyond that, “My only hope is more new bands come around,” he continued. “This is actually our first time playing with Promise Game, so that’s exciting … I just hope the kids keep coming out and making music because there’s only so many 31-year-olds like us that can still get out there.”

Birds, In Theory w/ Promise Game, Cozy Throne and Oziem
When: Saturday, March 9, 8 p.m.
Where: Shaskeen Pub, 909 Elm St., Manchester
Tickets: $10 at the door, 21+

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Art in Nature

NH Audubon in Concord showcases artist Jackie Hanson

Starting Tuesday, March 12, the artwork of New Hampshire native Jackie Hanson will be on display at the Susan N. McLane Audubon Center at 84 Silk Road.

“It is a really nice space,” Hanson said, describing the venue. “Great natural light, plenty of wall space — I feel like I need to make a few more pieces before I hang the show.”

Hanson, a 2022 Bachelor of Fine Arts graduate from New England College (after the New Hampshire Art Institute merged with the school) was thrilled to be asked by the New Hampshire Audubon to exhibit her collection titled “Human/Nature.”

“I do a lot of landscapes and other nature-based things,” Hanson said. This will be her third showing since September.

“I had my art hang at two different public libraries last year,” she said. “The first one was Nashua Public Library. That was in September and October. Then my work went to Amherst Town Library in December.”

The NH Audubon describes this collection on their website as “immersive landscapes that feature both well-known and overlooked vantages.”

Hanson likes to pick and choose how to express an image.

“This show will all be in soft pastel,” Hanson said, “which is kind of like a chalk. That’s what that series of work is, but apart from that I also like to use watercolors, acrylic, wash … I like to jump around in different mediums. I find that if I do switch now and then, then I am better at all of them when I switch again.”

The collection for this show is solid. “I believe I have around 15 or 20 pieces. The biggest one that I have is called ‘Annie C Maguire Shipwrecked Here 1886.’” The painting measures 30 by 62 inches installed.“It is a four-panel, I guess quadriptych, of a panoramic view at Portland headlight in Maine. I named it that because there is a rock that you can see that they have to repaint it every few months because of the tide, but it says the name of a shipwreck that happened there.”

Hanson, as the NH Audubon points out, enjoys the vantage points less traveled.

“I have done a few pieces in this way, where I went to an iconic landscape in New England and I kind of turned away from the classic view, which in this case would be the lighthouse,” Hanson said. “I had it behind me and I was taking a view of the little cove next to it instead. And you can actually see the place that most people stand to take their photo of the lighthouse in my painting.”

Hanson grew up in an artistic family; her mother is an artist and has “always been doing artwork,” she said. “My family and my mom have shaped my idea of what’s beautiful in the world. So I like to promote that with other people, to look for beauty in everyday moments. ”

“I have a full-time job and it can be tricky,” she said; Hanson makes the most of her time, though, “painting at night and on the weekends. As we get into the warmer months, I do a lot of art and craft fairs on the weekends. You can find me all around the state and sometimes into Maine or Massachusetts, bringing my art and prints and cards and stickers of my art to different places. I like to do pop-ups, making it accessible to everyday people to have artwork in their homes. That’s a lot of how I get my art income. I do have my work at a store in Contoocook called Maple Street Mercantile as well.” The majority of her pieces will be for sale at the McLane Center.

Be on the lookout for future shows from Hanson.

“I just finished up an unrelated series that’s in mostly acrylic but some mixed media that’s botanicals, mostly house plants. I wanted to make sure that they had a distinctly feminine aesthetic.” As she sees it, “a lot of the high art world and some of the academic art world doesn’t think that things considered feminine are necessarily worthy…. So, a lot of pink, a lot of vibrant colors. I was thinking: art by a woman for women.”

Human/Nature
Where: McLane Audubon Center, 84 Silk Farm Road, Concord
When: March 12 through May 17; the gallery is open Tuesdays through Fridays 11 a.m to 5 p.m.
An artist reception will be held Saturday, March 23, from 2 to 4 p.m.

More info: “Looking Back: Owl’s Head” by Jackie Hansonart. Courtesy Photo.

Flight into flyover country

Palace performs The Prom

A quartet of Broadway actors in need of a reputation reboot and a gay high school student looking to disrupt the status quo in her small town are at the center of The Prom, a musical that’s at turns heartwarming and hilarious. The latest production from the Palace Theatre, it will run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through March 24.

Creative Director Carl Rajotte decided to do the show after watching a Netflix adaptation of it with Palace staff during the pandemic.

“We just all loved it,” he said in a recent phone interview. “People cried, we all laughed; we thought this should be something that we put in our season once we reopened.”

The story begins as diva actors Dee Dee Allen and Barry Glickman are finishing opening night of Eleanor: The Eleanor Roosevelt Story. The musical is immediately panned by the critics for missing the point. Both actors are slammed for being narcissistic and out of touch. Dee Dee is played by Michelle Rajotte, seen most recently in Dancing Queens. Jay Falzone plays Barry; it’s the ninth production for the Palace veteran.

Crestfallen, the two decide to combine altruism and public relations and look for a cause. With help from Trent Oliver, an underemployed Juilliard graduate (Richard Gomez), and Angie Dickinson, an actress who wants to move beyond 20 years in the Chicago chorus line (Katie Harvey), they learn about Emma (played by Palace newcomer Juliana Chimenti), whose attempt to take her girlfriend to the prom caused the whole thing to be canceled.

To the soundtrack of the un-self-aware anthem “Changing Lives,” the four hatch a plan to love-bomb the prom back into existence. Hopping on the bus with Trent, who’s in a non-union touring company of Godspell, they head to Indiana and an incredulous reception. The object of their crusade (mixing in Godspell is a lovely touch) is among the most bewildered.

Of course, the well-meaning bunch is undeterred. Like four bedazzled bulls in a China shop, they push their Big Apple agenda, as it were (“I’m a liberal from New York who’s come to save you!” Trent shouts at one point), on a cornfield community. Gratefully, life lessons outnumber caricatures, and The Prom’s heart shines through in the end.

The Prom’s greatest strength is taking a serious topic and leavening it with outsized humor, while weaving in compelling subplots to move the action along. The Broadway-loving (and Emma ally) high school principal who has a lifelong crush on Dee Dee, and Barry vicariously living his dashed high school prom hopes through Emma, are among the entanglements that carry things forward — along with great songs.

Ultimately, it succeeds because of what’s stumbled upon in an errant pursuit of redemption.

“It’s a comedy but it has so much heart too, it’s so charming,” Rajotte said. “Elites from the big city come thinking that they’ll bowl over the small town and they begin to learn where the soul of this place is, and they learn about themselves as well in the process.”

In preparing for the show, Rajotte was surprised to learn that playwright Jack Viertel got the idea for The Prom from a real event. “In Mississippi in 2010, a girl went to her school and asked to bring her girlfriend, and she wanted to wear a tux and they ended up canceling the whole prom,” he said. “That kind of hit me hard; that’s why this show is just so important.”

A few years back, Rajotte helped with a prom for teenagers in the Palace’s Youth Theatre program; it opened his eyes. “I thought … we’ll put some music up, dance a little bit,” he said. “But then I talked to the kids; one came to me, and this hit me like a brick wall. He said, ‘thank you so much for doing this…. I love it here more than school because I’m able to dance and be myself, and no one will make fun of me.’”

The moment reminded him why the show’s message matters. “Being inclusive and taking a moment to step in someone else’s shoes for a second before you judge … see it from another point of view and see how much someone can be hurt because of that,” he said. With The Prom, “we’re trying to get that message across, of course, with a ton of humor.”

The Prom
When: Fridays, March 8, March 15 and March 22, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays, March 9, March 16 and March 23, at 2 and 7:30 p.m., and Sundays, March 10, March 17 and March 24, at 2 p.m.
Where: Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester
Tickets: $28 and up at palactheatre.org

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Making the pieces fit

Slim Volume on the rise

Blending elements of alt country and harmony-rich classic rock, Slim Volume is a breath of fresh air on the local music scene. At the core of the four-piece band is the songwriting team of Trent Larrabee and Jake DeSchuiteneer, who met as coworkers at SNHU’s Manchester campus, bonded over a shared love of ’60s bands, and found their mojo at Strange Brew Tavern’s open mic night.

With the addition of Mike Morgan on guitar and, soon after, drummer Jonny Lawrence, they picked a name and began playing whatever bar, basement or party would have them, polishing their sound while writing a growing list of original songs. Their sound isn’t easily pinned down — the Jake-written “It’s Been Sweet” echoes “Take It to the Limit” from the Eagles, while Trent’s composition “Talk it Over” is a lovely slice of dream pop wrapped in Tom Petty jangle.

Ever present, however, is the pair’s lush harmonizing. This comes through in the covers they choose. A mid-February listening room show at The Livery in Sunapee included no fewer than four Beatles tunes — “The first song we learned together was ‘This Boy,’” Trent said from the stage — and “Dream” from the Everly Brothers.

Other influences include Wilco and Pavement, along with contemporaries.

“A lot of local bands inspired me the most,” Trent said in a recent phone interview. He specifically cited Evan Benoit and his band Badfellows, now called Happy Just to See You, and Great White Tourist. “Just the whole Manchester music scene from 2015 to 2017 was super influential on me because I was still living in a Beatles/Bob Dylan paradigm that I had not really broken out of yet.”

The duo’s vocal connection began with Trent teaching himself Ricky Skaggs’ “You’ve Got a Lover” and Jake deciding to come in on top of the vocal. “I remember we noticed that it worked, and Trent being like, ‘You should do more of that type of thing,’” Jake recalled. “My voice does things Jake can’t and he does things mine doesn’t really do,” Trent agreed. “They definitely complement each other in that way.”

Trent had played in a few other bands before meeting Jake, who was just starting to explore taking his interest in music to another level. Working together on Trent’s 2021 solo album Billions of Musics helped Jake’s songwriting to grow. It’s led to a collaborative process that usually starts with one or the other writing a nearly complete song and then taking it to the band for fine tuning.

“I was inspired by the fact that Trent seemed to be finishing songs [that] had something to say and were interesting from start to finish,” Jake said. “That kind of helped me to see my way toward doing more, because a lot of what I’d done at the time was just writing stuff on my own, with really no intention of any audience hearing it.”

They’ve released one EP, Staring at the Sun, and a handful of singles. They have two more finished EPs, set to drop later this year. Each represents a different side of the group, Trent said. “One is more indie rock, and the other is our indie soul folk kind of sound. So that’s going to be a great display of, I don’t want to say the polarities of our music, but the range and spectrum of what we do.”

They’re also at work on their first full-length album with, noted Trent, an embarrassment of riches facing them.

“We have so much material, it’s really become a problem,” he said. “We can keep doing singles and EPs forever, but putting 10 or 12 songs together is really more important. It’s helped us focus [and] filter songs through the lens of what’s going to be good on an album, what’s going to fit together sonically, and what’s going to be the most accessible to an audience.”

Jake agreed. “I think we’re really starting to circle the target on what our sound, Slim Volume original music sounds like,” he said. “It’s a little bit indie rock, a little bit folk rock, sometimes it’s a little pop, sometimes it’s soulful. I think the album is gonna really show in a cohesive way what that range is.”

Slim Volume
When: Saturday, March 2, 5 p.m.
Where: Twin Barns Brewing, 194 Daniel Webster Hwy., Meredith
More: slimvolumeband.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Music Roundup 24/02/29

Local music news & events

• Broadway bash: Four actors who’ve all starred in Phantom of the Opera gather for The Four Phantoms In Concert. The show, soon to be a PBS special, has both solo and group numbers from Brent Barrett, John Cudia, Franc D’Ambrosio and Ciarán Sheehan. It includes an appearance by Kaley Ann Voorhees, who played Christine in Phantom’s Broadway production. Thursday, Feb. 29, 7 p.m., Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord, $48.75 and up at ccanh.com.

• Hammer time: He’s popular enough to fill hockey rinks, but Tom Segura’s dark humor isn’t for everyone. He told mLive.com in October his current tour is “bigger and blacker than anything I’ve ever done, but that name has already been used; Come Together gets the point across. Let us all come together for a night. ” Friday, March 1, 8 p.m., SNHU Arena, 555 Elm St., Manchester, $35.50 and up at snhuarena.com.

• Mixed media: Standup comedy preceded by jazz music is on tap at a show topped by Kenny Rogerson, billed as “the funniest man you’ve never heard of,” along with Steve Scarfo and Jayson Martin. Rogerson is well-known to regional fans; he’s appeared in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and has made appearances on Letterman, Conan O’Brien and Comics Come Home. Saturday, March 2, 7 pm., Rockingham Ballroom, 22 Ash Swamp Road, Newmarket, $25 at eventbrite.com.

• New Englander: No soundtrack of 1970s Boston is complete without Jonathan Richman, who yearned to “drive past the Stop n’ Shop with the radio on at night” on “Roadrunner” and wrote a love song to Government Center. These days, he’s a crooner who eschews his oldies for an ever-changing setlist of music that “works well in quiet places,” backed by Tommy Larkins. Sunday, March 3, 7 p.m., Nashua Center for the Arts, 201 Main St., Nashua, $39 and up at etix.com.

• Rap deconstructed: For anyone interested in the songwriting process of hip-hop, Cody Pope and Brian G will break it down during an Inside the Music presentation. Sure to come up in the discussion is the duo’s work in progress, a follow-up to 2021’s Meet Me In Gate City, and thoughts on their creative influences, which include Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Gang Starr and Kool G Rap. Monday, March 4, 7 p.m., Nashua Public Library, 2 Court St., Nashua, nashualibrary.org.

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