Category: Art & Theater

A night of show tunes is a friendly competition

The Lakes Region-based Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative has won Best Community Musical honors for three years in a row at the New Hampshire Theatre Alliance Awards, most recently for The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Their upcoming Just Duet fundraiser is a chance to learn why, as a group of mostly Powerhouse company members belt out Broadway songs.

It’s the fourth year for what is a friendly competition, though its title is a misnomer.

“Last year you were allowed to bring in a ringer for one of your songs and make a trio, and this year you can supersize,” Powerhouse producer and co-founder Bryan Halperin said in a recent phone interview. “Two teams can work together on a song, to create a quartet.”

So, not just duets, but it’s a lot of fun. During the evening, a range of songs will be performed. There are Disney musicals like Beauty & the Beast, Frozen and The Lion King, along with Beetlejuice, The Book of Mormon, Hamilton, Into the Woods, and the new-ish Suffs. For Mel Brooks fans, there’s The Producers and Young Frankenstein.

Not all singers are Powerhouse veterans.

“Some of the teams,” Halperin said, “pulled in a friend who hasn’t done something with us yet. For the most part it’s our regulars, but it’s open to anyone who wants to apply, and we do have some new people this year.”

For the first three years, the husband-and-wife team of Joel and Laura Iwaskiewicz took first prize, but that won’t happen this go-round. That’s because the couple are hosting the competition. They will also perform, singing and dancing their way through “There Once Was a Man,” from The Pajama Game.

The two won last year for their rendition of Singin’ in the Rain’s “Moses Supposes.” Their performance was carried by dazzling dance breaks, Joel recalled in a Zoom interview.

“There’s always been some element of choreography we’ve challenged ourselves with,” he said. “That’s kept it really fun, but I think it also maybe gives us a little bit of an edge.”

Joel and Laura met as performers. “It feels as cliché as a musical theater romance can get,” he said. “I was a guy, she was a doll; things just took off from there.” Asked if the invitation to host this year’s Just Duet might be a strategy to prevent them from getting another win, he chuckled.

“I mean, we don’t run the show, but we can confidently say there will be a new champion.”

Proceeds from the benefit show will be split between Powerhouse programs and the Colonial Theatre Investment Fund, which provides general support for upkeep, improvements and repairs at the venue. “This is one way Powerhouse gives back to the Colonial,” Halperin said. “It’s our home base, and we try to take really good care of it.”

An overall winner will be chosen by scores on a 10-point scale from guest judges Eric Hoffman (Laconia City Council), Heather Bishop (Lakes 101.5 Radio), Katherine Switala Elmhurst (Belknap Mill) and Jared Guilmett (Colonial Theatre Advisory Board), along with audience voting (there’s also an Audience Choice award).

Voting can also be done by donation, either with cash at the event or though the Powerhouse wesite. “If people want to support the cause or their favorite duo but can’t make it, they can still contribute online,” Halperin said, “and buy votes for the team of their choosing.”

The Powerhouse season continues May 1 with the New Hampshire premiere of The Magician’s Elephant. Also upcoming is the 2026 Play Festival (May 30-31), with 14 original works from a winter playwright workshop, and a June 27 concert version of 1776 to mark the semiquincentennial, with music provided by the Lake Street Symphony Orchestra.

With Shrek: The Musical (Aug. 7-9), Big Bad (Sept. 12-13) — the wolf giving his side of Little Red Riding Hood — and a pair of Peter Pan origin stories in October, it’s a busy year.

“We’re just trying to pack our schedule with stuff that keeps people engaged, both performers and the audience,” Halperin said. “We’re excited about what we’re working on.”

Just Duet: Broadway Style
When: Saturday, March 21, 7 p.m.
Where: Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St., Laconia
Tickets: $25 at etix.com

Featured photo: Joel and Laura Iwaskiewicz. Courtesy photo.

Old House & Barn Expo returns

The Old House & Barn Expo at Saint Anselm College on March 14 and March 15 might at first glance seem like any trade show. There are more than 50 exhibitors, selling everything from wall stencils and paint to rugs and cabinets. Services for homeowners to help bring historic buildings into the modern age while preserving their history are also on offer.

Upon closer inspection, though, it’s much, much more. There are hands-on activities such as plaster repair, and one-on-one sessions with house doctors. An 18- by 18-foot timber frame structure will be built during the event, with ongoing hourly talks about its repair, assembly and disassembly.

There are lectures, 25 in all, held in the nearby Dana Center, that include topics both practical and inspirational, like “Mural Talk: When Walls Take Us Back in Time,” given by Lisa Curry of Canvasworks Design. More pragmatic is Justin Paynter of ReVision Energy talking about integrating solar power and heat pumps into old homes.

The biennial show is the creation of the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, a 41-year-old nonprofit that is focused on the rescue and revival of important landmarks, and supporting old home and barn enthusiasts in similar efforts. The show, they believe, is the largest of its kind in New England. It was launched 20 years ago; this is the eleventh expo.

“The Preservation Alliance loves this opportunity to get people together,” the organization’s president, Jennifer Goodman, who also helped launch the expo, said by phone recently. “We’re excited that there are a lot of new topics, exhibitors and presenters, in addition to longtime favorites.”

Other hour-long sessions focus on building a modern kitchen into an old house, understanding character-defining features of a dwelling before starting work, and sustainability in historic preservation. A session called “House Histories” is a guide to researching the evolution of an old structure.

There are two panel discussions on the final day, “Celebrating Semiquincentennial Farms: Stewardship and Legacy,” led by former New Hampshire Agriculture, Markets & Food Commissioner Steve Taylor, and “Details Make the Difference,” with a panel that includes a representative from the League of NH Craftsmen.

Speaking of details, there’s a session on architectural millwork led by specialist Brett Hull. “It helps you date a house … so people understand the history,” Goodman said. “What the evolution over time looked like, the different eras and architectural styles, how it was made and used.”

The expo is a multi-generational event.

“It attracts young people looking for their first house as well as older people who might want to find solutions for aging in place,” she said. They’ll find answers to questions about energy efficiency, how to lower operating costs, even paint color and garden design.

There will be experts available to help people figure out how to program new uses into old spaces, build an addition to an older property, or how to use new technology to help with old house care — though old tech isn’t left out. An “Artistry in Iron” session focuses on the history and reuse of antique stoves.

The expo happens every other year and alternates with the Alliance’s statewide historic preservation conference, Goodman said. “That’s more geared toward community leaders who are saving old farms and reviving their local meeting house or trying to find a new use for an old church.”

Goodman has been with the organization for more than two decades. When asked what drew her to it, she replied, “I love the people and places involved in the preservation movement, so it’s been exciting and fulfilling to get to work with people and work on projects that are really special to the character and economy of the state.”

The work is vital, she continued: “I really believe in historic preservation as a tool to save and revive beautiful homes, beautiful barns, beautiful places and communities around the state. I really believe in how the tool is a really important factor in resource conservation and keeping communities vital economically.”

Old House & Barn Expo
When: Saturday, March 14, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sunday, March 15, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Where: Sullivan Ice Arena, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Saint Anselm College, Manchester
Tickets: Weekend pass $20 ($12 for students, seniors and veterans); day pass $12 ($7 for students, seniors and veterans)

Featured photo: NH House & Barn Expo. Credit Steve Booth.

‘Bloom’ pairs art and floral arrangements

A four-day event at Manchester’s Currier Museum of Art pairs paintings and sculptures with floral arrangements done by members of the New Hampshire Federation of Garden Clubs. “Bloom – A Floral Palette” also offers hands-on artmaking and tours led by floral designers. It culminates with a catered party and awards ceremony.

“Bloom” is something that NHFGC has long wanted to do, Winnie Schmidt, the organization’s President, noted recently.

“Many of us have attended this type of an event in places like the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and right now there’s one going on in Worcester, Mass., at their art gallery,” she said in a phone interview. “We’ve seen them all over, and for years we’ve wanted to bring it here.”

Arrangers include winners of past events like the Philadelphia Art Show and the Rhode Island Flower Show, along with some who are in the milieu for the first time but just as passionate. “These are ladies who absolutely love to do floral design,” Schmidt said. “From Salem up to Littleton and Ashland.”

Floral designers are tasked with addressing the question of how art and arrangements work together, Schmidt continued. They should, she said, “complement, harmonize, showcase or unite with a piece of art or in the theme [and] demonstrate creativity, originality, use of bold color choices, textures and unexpected materials.”

Museums are a brave new world for NHFGC, which is part of a national group of garden clubs. “Most of us are digging-in-the-dirt garden clubs, but a good number of us are also interested in floral design,” she said. “It’s a mixture of both outdoor gardeners and floral designers, so it’s a very eclectic group.”

Floral designers picked works from the Currier collection on a first-come basis, a process that worked well, Schmidt said. “You have to remember this, we’re inventing this as it goes — none of us have done this before. So our mantra is, ‘We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re having a good time doing it.’”

Attendees at the Bloom Bash on the evening of Saturday, March 14, are encouraged to dress in their favorite floral fashions in an early celebration of spring. The event will offer light hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar, capped by an awards ceremony in the Currier’s Winter Garden to celebrate the designers.

Currier Director and CEO Jordana Pomeroy will choose the arrangement that she feels best represents the intersection of design and art. A Committee Award will be chosen by Currier Board of Trustees member Bill Stelling; Sally Shea, who organized a similar effort called “Petals to Paint” for many years, and a dozen NHFGC presidents, including Schmidt.

Finally, there’s a People’s Choice Award.

“Everyone who attends will be able to vote for the arrangement that they feel best exemplifies the show,” Schmidt said. “All those things will be given out at the Bloom Bash on Saturday night, so it’ll be like a culmination — ‘We did it, let’s celebrate and party and have a good time.’”

That said, it will be a party that’s more about marking an achievement for everyone involved, rather than to pick winners.

“It’s not a floral design contest,” Schmidt said. “The National Garden Club has a handbook on floral design arrangement that is probably 1,000 pages thick. This is not what this is.”

More than anything, the hope is that the long weekend of commingling flowers and arts inspires another one, and another after that, she stressed.

“It’s our inaugural one, but the one that we were at in Connecticut last weekend was celebrating their 44th, and I hope someday we will be celebrating our 44th annual here in Manchester.”

Bloom – A Floral Palette
When: Thursday, March 12, through Sunday, March 15
Where: Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St., Manchester
Tickets: Weekend pass $50 adults, $20 members (does not include Bloom Bash on Saturday, March 14, 6 p.m., $50)

Daily admission $30 adults, $15 members, includes museum access, arrangement viewing, artmaking and tours.

Featured photo: “Cross By the Sea, Canada” by Georgia O’Keeffe one of the pieces floral designers will take inspiration from for “Bloom.” Images courtesy the Currier.

Two films chronicle ’60s-’70s urban renewal

To bookend an exhibit that’s run for the past several months, the Manchester Historical Association will screen two films that together offer a view into a city in transition. One is a 1978 PBS documentary, The Amoskeag Transcripts, the other a collection of footage from an MHA project that never came to fruition.

“The Lost Films of Amoskeag” will be shown on Saturday, Feb. 28, at the Millyard Museum. This follows “Amoskeag Revisited: A Fifty-Year Retrospective,” which opened in September. That exhibit looked back at a Manchester urban renewal project that saw demolition of mill buildings and the filling in of canals in a once-thriving but by then largely abandoned area.

Both of the 30-minute films are illuminating. Particularly moving is the work of Tobe and Alan Carey, two brothers who in 1968 walked around the Millyard with movie cameras capturing the area before it was leveled. It’s a nice counterpart to The Amoskeag Transcripts, which aired on WGBH a few years after the renewal work ended.

“It’s almost like looking at old home movies,” MHA Executive Director Jeff Barraclough said recently. “Now, really for the first time, they’re available to be shown … I mean, we’ve seen some photographs, but to see it on film and see people walking through, it’s very exciting.”

Stored in MHA’s archives, the footage was rediscovered in July, just in time for the current exhibit, which recalls a similar one 50 years ago at the Currier Gallery of Art. “Amoskeag, A Sense of Place, A Way of Life” was designed by architectural historian Randolph Langenbach, and opened after the renewal project was completed.

That exhibition used historic images, Langenbach’s before and after photos, and millworker recollections along with salvaged machinery and equipment. At the time, it helped raise awareness of the area’s historical importance, while the Millyard Museum’s current exhibit is examining its lasting impact on Manchester.

Langenbach’s Currier exhibit “began to change people’s perceptions [and] created a newfound respect for the Millyard; it was something that began to be recognized as important and almost celebrated,” Barraclough said. “Eventually, [people] came to respect that this was the lifeblood of the city of Manchester for over a century.”

The WGBH documentary was adapted from Dr. Tamara Hareven’s book, Amoskeag: The Oral History of a Factory City, as well as drawing from Langenbach’s Currier exhibit. The two were married at the time, and later divorced. Hareven passed away in 2003.

A memorial tribute from a colleague at University of Delaware offered clues to Hareven’s interest in the Millyard. “She reached into the 19th century and then traced its modern impact through her in-depth interviews and her analysis of the historic patterns of women’s work to support their families in industrial New England,” Professor Barbara Settles recalled.

Langenbach now lives in California. He attended the Millyard Museum opening in September.

“He’s sadly not in good health, but was able to come back out,” Barraclough said, noting that Langenbach was a Harvard architectural student when demolition began. “He took it upon himself to go in, and not only photographed the Millyard both before and during some of the demolition, but he was able to save certain pieces of architectural fragments.” Those included windows, doors and cornice pieces. “He was able to store them away so that they were salvaged. Some of those items have been given to the MHA, and we use them in our permanent display at the Millyard Museum that talks about the history of the Millyard.”

Barraclough looks forward to opening up a time capsule for museum patrons, who can watch the movies with admission.

“I think it’s just going to be a fun program,” he said. “We hope we’ll have a good turnout and people will come and get to watch these films, one of which has never been seen, one that hasn’t been seen in almost 50 years; it’s a great way to spend the morning.”

The Lost Films of Amoskeag
When: Saturday, Feb. 28, at 11 a.m.
Where: Millyard Museum, 200 Bedford St., Manchester
Tickets: Free with admission ($12 adults, $10 seniors & students, $6 ages 12-18, no charge under 12). RSVP at 622-7531 or history@manchseterhistoric.org
More: manchesterhistoric.org

Featured photo: The Amokseag Transcripts

One-act plays in Nashua

An upcoming weekend of short plays in Nashua gives aspiring playwrights, directors and actors an opportunity to dip their toes — and pens — in the water. The yearly Celebration of One-Acts has six works, each ranging from 20 to 45 minutes long, the fruits of a community-wide call that went out last August.

All six one-acts will be performed each of the three days. Evening shows happen Friday, Feb. 20, and Saturday, Feb. 21, and a Sunday matinee closes out the event, presented by Nashua Theatre Guild. Catherine Sweet, the show’s producer as well as a writer of one play and an actor in another, promises lots of variety.

“It’s been a blast to watch six directors bring six very different original pieces to life,” she said recently. “I know each writer is proud to see their work on stage — I know I am! Every performance you will get to see six original, completely unique shows. You’ll be crying one minute and laughing until your stomach hurts the next.”

Sweet, also an NTG Board member, wrote Here Come the … Baby? Directed by Miah Rhodes, the play centers on best friends Carol (Liz Ronai Fontanella) and Susan (Pamela Thornhill) and their conversation at a family wedding, where “they excitedly spill some hot tea, trying to weave together the tangled web of gossip, as one does.”

“Humor and heart” guide Tess Hodges’ What Comes Next. Directed by Paige Lucier, it reads like a twist on the ’90s movie Ghost. As four people, including Sweet as Saidee, cope with the death of a loved one in offbeat ways, the deceased, Sarah (Morgan Mierzwa-Winters), watches from above with her “personal well-dressed grim reaper,” played by Emily Soleil.

Such Dreams as Stuff is Made On, written by Dan McGeehan and directed by Colleen Deitrich, stars Chris Hoffman, Lindsay Garneau, Bryan Hebert II and Max Von Markgraf. Its description sounds caper-ish: “How far would you go to prove that your house was the best place on the block to rob? A couple gets some sage advice straight from the experts.”

Written by Kade Shea and directed by Katie Sibley, My Better Half looks at the dating travails of May (Milo Kruczynska), who’s ended a relationship and is uncertain about the new one she’s in with the lovely Megan (Danielle Chisholm). When best friend Anna (Nicole Straussberg) becomes May’s roommate, she has a moment of truth.

Too many adverbs and plenty of laughs characterize Story Time by, written by Brian Daly and directed by Vicky Sandin, who just finished directing Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson, Apt. 2B for Community Players of Concord. In the comedy, three students conspire to frustrate a pompous writing teacher by interpreting his class outline very literally.

The elements of New Adventures in Air Travel, written by Bruce Kalter and directed by Steve Kalter, will be familiar to anyone who’s ever booked a budget flight and regretted it later. There’s an internet video with a plane full of passengers asked to pay an upgrade fee to fly around turbulence from a while back — it sounds a bit like that.

Alyson Galipeau is in the cast of the farce about paying “optional” travel costs that most would consider essential. In a recent email Galipeau said she was thrilled to be on the stage. Also an NTG Board member, she sees the Celebration of One-Acts as “a great way to showcase the talents of our community and give regional writers a chance to shine.”

It’s also a great way to recruit reluctant thespians.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity for new actors to give theater a shot,” she said. “The plays are shorter in duration, which can be less daunting for people who want to try acting but might feel overwhelmed by learning the many lines of a full production.”

She’s enjoying rehearsals for her play, about the cleverly named Icarus Airways.

“Steve Kalter finds new ways to insert jokes and humor,” she said. “My castmates are particularly good at acting via facial expressions. It’s been difficult not to break character and laugh witnessing these expressions. I think the audience will crack up as much as we have been.”

A Celebration of One-Acts
When: Friday, Feb. 20, and Saturday, Feb. 21, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 22, at 2 p.m.
Where: Janice B. Streeter Theatre, 14 Court St., Nashua
Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 at the door, nashuatheatreguild.org

Featured photo: New Adventures in Air Travel rehearsal. Courtesy photo.

Sherlock tale re-told in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson — Apt. 2B

The game is afoot, and the many tropes made famous in tales of the world’s greatest detective are extant in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B. The Community Players of Concord production, directed by Vicky Sandin, runs for three shows, Feb. 13 through Feb. 15, at Concord Civic Auditorium.

As with all Sherlock mysteries, there’s a twist. In what she calls “cheerfully desecrating the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,” playwright Kate Hamill reimagines the famous sleuth as a woman, along with her sidekick. In the process, she looks at their stories through a fresh and funny lens.

This is Sandin’s second Hamill production for Community Players. She previously directed her adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in 2023.

“I just know the vibe that she’s going for,” Sandin said by phone recently. “Kate Hamill and I are very tight in my eyes.”

Despite gender bending, familiar pieces are in place in Hamill’s play.

“What she did was modernize the canon,” Sandin explained. “Anybody who’s a Sherlock fan or who has read the stories will recognize tidbits from Conan Doyle’s original stories; she’s put those in there into the play as well.”

As Sherlock (a girl’s name too, but don’t call her Shirley), Suzanne Watts shines.

“This part was written for her, it’s just her all over,” Sandin said, adding that audiences will love her RP, Queen’s English accent. “I’ve always been so impressed by her acting charms, so I really wanted to work with her.”

Watts evokes the frazzled demeanor of television lawyer turned “cop-sultant” Elsbeth, with a distinct difference. “Our Sherlock is very much like that in the sense that she is able to put things together like Elsbeth and arrive at the solution sooner than everybody else,” Sandin said. “But she is not modest about her talent.”

Julia Kehr plays Ms. Watson, an American who’s moved to London for what one critic termed “an adult gap year,” who becomes Sherlock’s codependent flatmate. Sandin worked with Kehr in Pride and Prejudice. “She’s a very funny, comic, physical actor, and I just love watching what she brings,” she said.

Together they crack cases, all while Holmes is nagged by a crime she can’t quite name. “She’s solving all these little mysteries with Watson and she’s finding out that there’s a larger force at play … Holmes goes a little mental,” Sandin said. “When she figures out who’s doing all of this, it’s from the canon, but it’s not how you expect it to turn out.”

Travis Laughlin, who played the arch Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, is bumbling Inspector Lestrade. It’s a world away from his Masterpiece Theatre character, said Sandin. “There’s a whole level of amusement and laughter he’s brought to this part that I never knew existed … he is just laugh-out-loud funny.”

Rounding out the versatile cast are Heather McFadden playing Irene Adler with what Sandin termed “a lot of sexiness and suave,” Players veteran Karen Braz as Mrs. Drebber, Griffin Stuart as Texas tech billionaire Elliot Monk (the play happens amidst 2021’s late pandemic jitteriness), and Linda Pilla as grieving widow Mrs. Hudson.

Apart from the two Americans, everyone on stage uses different accents, but Pilla’s is genuine. “She was actually born and raised in Scotland, and in his books Conan Doyle made Mrs. Hudson a Scotswoman,” Sandin said. “She brings her native brogue from Glasgow … and does a wonderful job.”

As rehearsals have progressed, Sandin’s casting decisions have been reinforced.

“They know these characters more than I do,” she said. “They’ve started to interpret them in ways that are refreshing and new, which bring ideas on how to enhance the characters that they’ve built … that, to me, is the funnest part.”

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson –Apt. 2B
When: Friday, Feb. 13, and Saturday, Feb. 14, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 15, at 2 p.m.
Where: Concord City Auditorium, 2 Prince St., Concord
Tickets: $22 and up at communityplayersofconcord.org

Featured photo: Suzanne Watts (Sherlock), Julia Kehr (Watson). Courtesy photo.