Category: Art & Theater

Ebony and ivory legends

Piano Men (and women) opens at Palace

By Michael Witthaus
mwitthaus@hippopress.com

An upcoming Palace Theatre production is more a musical canvas than a show, and it’s one that Director Carl Rajotte has painted before. Piano Men was first presented as The Four Piano Men in 2011. Conceived, written and choreographed by Rajotte, it featured songs from Elton John, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Queen, via frontman Freddie Mercury.
Since then it’s changed and evolved, with Ray Charles and Phil Collins among the ivory tinklers tributed in the show, last done in 2023. Act 1 in this year’s production spotlights old-time rock ’n’ rollers Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, then pivots to Barry Manilow. Subsequent acts focus on the original four and two women, Carole King and Lady Gaga.
The female roles will be played by the director’s sister, Michelle Rajotte, a Palace regular.
“It’s funny too, because I did a Gaga section a long time ago, maybe 2012, in a show called Royalty of Rock and Pop,” Carl Rajotte said by phone during a break from rehearsals. “She did Gaga and just fell in love with her back then.”
The actor and musician playing the Billy Joel role has a lot of experience. John Abrams performed as Joel in the national tour of the jukebox musical Movin’ Out. Abrams will also cover the Elton John material. Another Palace veteran, GE Enrique, is playing both the Stevie Wonder and Freddie Mercury roles, along with serving as the show’s Music Director.
This will be the sixth time that the Palace has done Piano Men in some form; Enrique has worked on three.
What keeps Rajotte returning to the show? “I’ve fallen in love with all these artists that we have on stage because they’re good at telling a story,” he said, “which lends itself to theater. There are lots of times in the show when it’s just the piano and the band, but we have seven talented dancers, and they tell a story through dance throughout the whole night.”
The dance ensemble includes three men and four women. Andy Kastrati was in the Palace’s recent production of Dancing Queens, as was Savannah Enoch. Julia Grubbs, who danced in Piano Men in 2020, is a CPA by day — “she can shimmy and do your taxes,” quipped Rajotte — and Rachel Muhleisen is featured on Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.” Peter Murphy and Annie Wogisch round out the hoofers.
With women having a moment in the musical world — Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Beyonce and others are dominating — Rajotte is pleased that the show is now piano men and women. “I’m really excited to bring the new stuff to the audience, the Carole King and the Gaga,” he said. “We were just finishing up Carole King’s section today. It’s just so fun to just go back to the ’60s, find that retro feel and put it on our video wall.”
He’s also happy with the current season, which will continue with Jimmy Buffett’s Escape to Margaritaville on Feb. 28 followed by Jesus Christ Superstar in late April. 2024/25’s final production, A Chorus Line, runs from May 30 to June 22.
“It’s about halfway done, and I feel like I just started,” Rajotte exclaimed in disbelief.
Perennial favorite A Christmas Carol was extended to the end of the month, a successful experiment that will probably be repeated next year. Rajotte ran the lighting board for that final weekend so his stage manager could be home for the holiday. At the end of the show Palace CEO Peter Ramsey reminded him that the season was at a midpoint.
“That hit me like a brick wall,” he said, “But, yeah, I feel like it’s been a really good season so far. Oliver was a wonderful artistic piece that we were able to bring to the stage, and Jersey Boys was a crowd-pleaser, with great music. A Christmas Carol is our tradition that everyone loves, and it was attended really great the whole run.”

Piano Men
When: Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2
& 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through
Feb. 9, and Thursday, Feb. 6, at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St.,
Manchester
Tickets: $35 and up at palacetheatre.org

Featured photo: Piano Men. Photo by Jeff Shaw.

The art is right here

The inner world of Outer Space

By Zachary Lewis
zlewis@hippopress.com

Outer Space Arts in Concord will be showing the work of Emma cc Cook and Em Kettner in a show titled “Caterpillar” until Saturday, Jan. 18. The gallery is open on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Roger Buttles opened Outer Space Arts in 2023 and has an MFA in painting and drawing from the Art Institute of Chicago. He has worked in the gallery world in San Francisco, Chicago and New York City.

“I just wanted something a little more intimate and quiet. People can sit and enjoy the work,” Buttles said. He has his own art studio in a room across the hall from the gallery. The building itself was built in 1854 and was once the residence of Col. Benjamin Grover. Buttles likes to spark conversation with the art he chooses.

“I’m always pairing two artists together to create a dialogue between their work…,” he said.
“These two artists, they didn’t know each other before, but they knew each other’s work, and they both loved it. Emma’s a Los Angeles-based artist. She does all the paintings. And then Em is a sculptor who’s in San Francisco. I actually went to grad school with Em. That’s what feels good to me, the most exciting thing about the gallery is promoting work that I love. I’ve collected both of these artists. A lot of the work that I show are artists who I’ve either collected or really do want to collect. I never feel like I’m pushing things that I don’t fully believe in,” he said.

The gallery is a labor of love that gained inspiration from a former teacher.

“The original idea of opening Outer Space is actually based on one of my mentors from grad school, Michelle Grabner. She was the chair of the painting department at the Art Institute in Chicago when I was there. She lived in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband and three kids, and she converted her tool shed and little garage into an exhibition space.”

His mentor untangled an art knot for Buttles. “I’d never seen anything like that before, and it struck a chord with me. It’s been really interesting that art can be presented anywhere, in any space. She became very known for her curating, and she ended up curating a Whitney Biennial based on what she was doing in her tool shed and that is so inspiring.” The Whitney Biennial is an exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

But someone should not need to be in New York to experience art.

“I don’t think that art and galleries should be an elitist exclusive thing,” Buttles said. “It should be inclusionary. I love at the openings when people bring their kids and they’re running around. I bring my daughters and my son, and ours are all young, obviously. I want them to be at the openings, because that’s something I was never exposed to as a kid, I wasn’t exposed to any art, so I want that exposure and education for them,” he said.

Many of the artists who exhibit at Outer Space show in those big city galleries as well.

“Em, she’s in a show at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts right now. She has a similar sculpture as this one in the show…. There’s like a gentleness and a specificity to her work that I love and you can see that in some of the ceramics on the wall. They’re very specific scenes.”

As with most things in life, it is better in person, especially with Cook’s work.
Outer Space holds about four exhibits a year; the next one will be in February or March.

Emma cc Cook & Em Kettner: ‘Caterpillar’
When: Saturdays through Jan. 18 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Outer Space Arts, 35 Pleasant St., Concord
More: outerspacearts.xyz

Featured photo: “Caterpillar” installation. Photo by Morgan Karanasios.

Not fine but fun

Relax and create at Art Escape

Here’s an idea for a first date: Break some glass. Then gather it up and fuse it into a work of art. It’s a great way to loosen up and find a creative impulse. That’s the idea at Art Escape, a Laconia walk-in studio offering everything from shattered glass and glass-blowing classes to working a pottery wheel, clay sculpture, ceramics and splatter painting.

Inviting your Bumble match to spin a clay bowl or paint and fire a ceramic fish not only has happened at Art Escape, but one such meetup led to an in-studio marriage proposal, owner Jean Cox recalled recently. Not only that; the couple later returned to celebrate their anniversary.

“This was his date’s favorite place to go,” she said. “He set it up with us ahead of time, so when she was in a paint class he walked in and said, ‘Will you marry me?’ We got it on video, it was very cool. Then they came back a year later to say, ‘Hey, we’re still married here.’”

Making art and memories is Art Escape’s mission. Cox and her husband, both Air Force veterans, opened a location near Laconia High School in 2007, and moved to Union Avenue 10 years later. The couple wanted a family-friendly studio for artistic creation, as existing spaces catered primarily to adults.

It’s become an intergenerational bridge, much to Cox’s delight.

“I’ve got a grandmother painting with her two grandkids right now,” she said. “It’s a way not only to spend time with the family, but one of the kids has a little ceramic axolotl she’s painting. Ten years from now they’ll look at it and remember doing it with their grandmother.”

Another popular attraction at Art Escape is the Splatter Room, where customers put on ponchos and shoe covers, then get their colors and a paint blaster with cups of paint. They stick the blaster in the cup, suck it up and spray it, not always aiming at a canvas. Jackson Pollock would likely be shocked, but it’s a great place to let off steam.

“You’re painting either a canvas or a shirt,” Cox said. “You literally throw paint at each other, or you throw paint at the canvas. It’s almost like family therapy if you come in with your kids … I mean, who doesn’t want to throw paint at their parents?”

When it debuted, Cox brought her two young sons in to test it out. “My son took a whole bottle of paint and threw it at me, and I was like, oh, this is how it’s going to go. We’re in there for I don’t know how long, and next thing you know, he’s like, ‘Gosh, mom, we never decorated our canvas.’ I’m like, ‘Well, let’s throw some paint on that.’”

It’s also a fun place for adults to unwind. Customers are allowed to bring food and beverages.

“Sometimes it’s a group of girls that just needs time off, since they work all week long. They just come in and hang out and bring wine. I had a group of them the other day. They brought a little charcuterie board, and wine, and stuff like that,” Cox said.

One thing it isn’t is a place for serious artists to work toward having a gallery someday.

“It’s not like fine art, it’s fun art, it’s a place to come with your grandkids or your girlfriends,” Cox said, while stressing that some of the higher-level classes that may seem daunting are surprisingly accessible.

“Everybody walks in thinking, I can’t do this, my project’s not going to look like hers, and when they leave, half the time, they’re better than mine,” she said. “They can customize them, and the projects come out so amazing. It’s nice that they’re going home with something that they can be proud of.”n front of a piece of artwork and whether you love it, or you don’t get it, or you hate it, you still have an opinion about it. It’s really interesting to me that people can get together and celebrate each other, discuss artwork, see where those ideas would come from. Part of my fun and part of my joy is making a space that’s really approachable and that is very welcoming…. So as much as it’s an experiment to showcase the artist, I also want to make sure that the patrons feel really supported and want to come in and check out and see what’s going on at See Saw,” Regan said.

Art Escape
Where: 636 Union Ave., Laconia
More: artescape.com

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The luminous and the tonal

Paintings capture the glow at NH Antique Co-Op

By Zachary Lewis

zlewis@hippopress.com

New Hampshire Antique Co-op will be presenting its exhibit “Light & Brush: Luminous and Tonal Paintings from the 19th Century ​to Present” until March.

“The show is on luminous and tonal paintings,” said Jason Hackler. He is the manager and co-owner of the Co-op. “The luminous movement, you know, was founded in the 19th century. The paintings themselves, these luminous paintings that were painted by the likes of Fitz Henry Lane, Albert Bierstadt, William Frederick De Haas, Asher Durand, some of the greats of the time.”

The artwork is electric. “The paintings really have their own inner sort of glow. I mean, some of them you feel like you need to put sunglasses on or they capture such a moment in the way they’re able to create the time of day, remember a sunrise, a sunset.”

“We’re also featuring contemporary artists, Erik Koeppel, William Davis and Dennis Sheehan. Their works capture a feeling, a time and place, and almost an emotion in a landscape. Some of the works you find very calming just standing in front of them. It’s sort of this kind of zen moment,” Hackler said.

Hackler talked about the styles’ history. “Tonal works really started in the late 19th century, where the luminous painting started a little bit earlier. There’s certainly crossovers with the two styles … we have examples of these done in like the Barbizon style, Impressionist style, and that earlier sort of Hudson River school, White Mountain school style.”

He also talked about the beginning of luminism. “The movement really started in Europe and then came to this country early on.”

Luminous art, especially the American version, is about the “wonder of nature, and the mystery of nature and our surroundings, pride of country … the early American luminous is really talking about the amazement and awe of our country, and looking at these grand scale landscapes,” he said.

One of Hackler’s favorites is a more modern piece titled “Autumn in the White Mountains.” “Erik Koeppel has one of the largest known paintings of this type. He was commissioned to do it for the Jackson Historical Society here in New Hampshire. Standing in front of the painting is pretty awesome…. The painting itself measures 78 inches by 135 inches.”

The exhibit is put forth through a community effort. “We’re fortunate to be able to network with collectors from all over the country and different ways to acquire these paintings.”

If one of these paintings lights up your world, you’re in luck. “All of the paintings are for sale. A number of paintings that have already sold … some will rotate in. There’s occasionally [a] new addition. We have a wonderful painting by Sanford Gifford. It’s a painting that’s been in the museum for a long time, which has sold, but we’ve been fortunate where he’s allowed us to keep it on exhibition. There will be some rotation in the show as some works sell. So it’s something that isn’t completely static.”

The entirety of the space is around 20,000 square feet and contains many pieces of art to get lost in. “There’s paintings and artwork throughout. The Tower Gallery holds approximately 40 paintings. The upstairs gallery has probably another 100 paintings on view,” he said.

“Each piece of each painting or sculpture or object that I have is something that I relate to. It might remind me of a certain time or place, something that was special in my life, might be an artist I have an association with, whether it’s a contemporary artist who I know and like very much or an artist from the 18th, 19th century who I’ve always admired or might have had and my art history and everything else. It’s just so enriching being surrounded in your own home with works of art,” Hackler said.

Light & Brush: Luminous and Tonal Paintings from the 19th Century ​to Present
Where: New Hampshire Antique Co-op, 323 Elm St., Milford
When: Now until March 2025. Open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Info: nhantiquecoop.com, 673-8499

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Follow the sun

Installation at 3S changes hour by hour

The art of Christina Watka relies on space and time, which is why the main gallery at 3S Artspace is ideal for her “Noticing Light” installation running through the end of the month. It’s dominated by a hanging sculpture of multicolored and shaped glass spanning two-thirds of the expansive room. The rest is taken up by “Kinship Compositions,” a display of works from metallurgy artist Margaret Jacobs.

Watka’s piece takes on different characteristics as morning moves into afternoon and early evening, thanks to large doors of latticed glass letting in outside light, along with gallery bulbs hung from the high ceiling. This dynamism is something that drives the Maine-based artist.

“That’s kind of what brought me to installation art,” she said by phone recently. “I had always been fascinated with light; it started seeping into the work I was making. The first real studio I ever committed to was on the Hudson River in Dobbs Ferry, New York. I had these west-facing windows, and I got blasted by light all the time. I could almost get a sunburn it was so bright in that room.”

3S Artspace is the ideal environment to express her current vision, she continued. “I decided to place this large installation exactly where the band of light curves around the room and then shoots through the entire thing,” she said. “It refracts and reflects … ‘kaleidoscopic’ is the best word to use. It sprays the light all around the room and completely changes it.”

Sound is another component at play in “Noticing Light,” via a series of field stones placed on the gallery’s floor. Each has a hole drilled in it. Cupping an ear while hovering over each reveals spare, ethereal music played by Andrew Halchak, who is Watka’s husband.

The stones once held up an 18th-century barn the couple own in Cape Elizabeth.

“I went through the property and hand-picked the ones that felt good,” Watka said. “Andrew is learning how to do dry stone walling — he’s just this jack of all trades. He helped me figure out how to make this idea come to life.”

The musical selections are “modern, minimal, classical compositions” provided by friends of the couple. “I’ve always been interested in … inviting people to embody themselves in a new way,” Watka said. “It’s really fascinating to have people in a gallery setting getting down on the floor to experience something different.”

It also provides a way to use her theater background. “Inviting people into spaces in a new way … to think of art and think of themselves and think of their time here in a different nuanced way,” she said. “And the music feels like an expression of time too. This very minimal thing can put you in your body, in the place in a different way.”

The looping nature of the music is similar to Watka’s other work.

“A lot of my installations are a repeated shape over and over again, and the process I have in making it is really meditative as well … but it’s also a really intimate experience,” she said. “I like inviting people to the payout if you allow yourself to be vulnerable and lay down on a gallery floor, instead of just standing and doing what you do in other galleries — looking at the wall, you know?”

Watka began working on the installation a year and a half ago. Early on, she was aware that it might arrive at a fraught moment, and welcomed that possibility. “A lot of artists are being called to making lighter work, that just brings you to where you are,” she said. “I think of that in my work all the time, making something that’s in direct response to the actual moment … it just makes sense.”

Noticing Light – Works by Christina Watka
When: Through Jan. 28.
Where: 3S Artspace, 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth
More: 3sarts.org and christinawatka.com

Featured photo: “Noticing Light” by Christina Watka. Photo by Michael Witthaus.

The Art Roundup 25/01/02

The latest from NH’s theater, arts and literary communities

• Baroque Beatles: The Concord Community Music School hosts Bach’s Lunch: “A Baroque Beatles Renaissance,” a lecture, on Thursday, Jan. 2, from 12:10 to 12:50 p.m. “Travel through time” as Cody Switzer and Emily Adams discuss similarities between the music of the English Renaissance (which includes John Dowland, William Byrd and Thomas Morley) and that of The Beatles. They will discuss how lute songs, as well as the music of Lennon and McCartney, translate well to solo voice and guitar, with plenty of musical examples and stories, according to the press release. This event is free and open to the public, “thanks in part to the generosity of the Walker Fund.” Visit ccmusicschool.org.

• History of the American poor house: Stephen Taylor presents “Poor Houses and Town Farms: The Hard Row for Paupers”on Wednesday, Jan. 8, at 6:30 p.m. at Charlie’s Barn Loudon Community Building (29 Village Road, Loudon). Early Northeastern colonies followed the lead of England’s 1601 Poor Law, which led to the establishment of alms houses and poor farms and, later, county institutions. Taylor will examine how paupers were treated in these facilities and how reformers eventually succeeded in closing them down. Call 783-0307 or visit nhhumanities.org.

• New on staff: TheBarnstormers Board of Directors announced the appointment of Jordan Ahnquist as the new Artistic Director of The Barnstormers Theatre heading into their 2025 season. In addition to working as a director and actor over the past 13 years, he worked closely with the board and artistic staff, finding new grant opportunities, enhancing patron engagement, and contributing to the theater’s growth in the role of Development Associate, according to the press release. Visit barnstormerstheatre.org or call 323-8500.

• Landscape show: Starting on Friday, Jan. 3, The New Hampshire Audubon at the McLane Center (84 Silk Farm Road, Concord) will be hosting the exhibit “Painting the Natural Landscape Exhibit” from artist Diane Crespo. It will run until Saturday, Feb. 22, according to the NH Audubon calendar. Crespo is a landscape painter living in southeast New Hampshire and she earned her BFA from New Hampshire Institute of Art in 2011, according to the event’s website. Prior to pursuing a fine art degree she painted only with pastels, and now she paints primarily in oils and pastels and commonly paints over acrylic under-paintings or tonal under-paintings with oil paint, according to the website. Her paintings can be viewed at Diane Crespo Fine Art (27 Front St., Exeter; dianecrespofineart.com). Visit nhaudubon.org or call 224-9909 for more information on the exhibit.

• On stage: The Players’ Ring (105 Marcy St., Portsmouth) will start the new year with Whispering to Dostoevsky Friday, Jan. 3, through Sunday, Jan. 19. The play was written and directed by Richard McElvain, who said in a statement, “The Players’ Ring feels like a good place to give my wacky play a first full production. … It’s a ‘big play.’ At the readings audiences gave it standing ovations with tears in their eyes. I’m very curious to see if that will be the case with a full production.” Find out for yourself on Thursdays at 7 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m.; as well as Saturdays and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets range from $26 to $29 and the show is included in subscription packages. Visit playersring.org or call 436-8123.

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