Category: Art & Theater

A tough year is remembered for great art

The New Hampshire arts world wasn’t greeted by upheaval as 2025 dawned, but it came soon enough. After DOGE took a sledgehammer to the federal budget, canceling grants already budgeted, the New Hampshire House voted away the state’s Council on the Arts in the spring, though one employee managed to remain.

All this chaos didn’t keep New Hampshire’s arts community from producing moving works, from theater to visual art and classical music. On the latter front, however, the search for a successor to outgoing Symphony NH Music Director Roger Kalia was interrupted, as funding issues roiled the organization. Five finalists announced at the end of March and were due to perform for the public during the 2025-2026 season. However, two of the performances have been postponed to the 2026-2027 season. Along with that, Executive Director Deanna Hoying took a personal pay cut, and some staff were moved to reduced hours, according to a patron letter on Dec. 18.

“We are scaling back certain production elements [and] launching a bold plan to strengthen our internal capacity and build sustainable revenue for the future,” the letter continued.

“I hate the word pivot, but we have to pivot again,” Hoying said in a Dec. 23 phone chat. “It’s not like COVID, but we need to meet where our revenue is. Our Christmas Pops concert had lower ticket sales. Charitable gaming is down, giving is down, so we have to re-scale ourselves to see what our community needs. What gets our audience excited? The patrons that have stuck with us are extraordinarily important, I need to say that, but we don’t have the margins some larger organizations have.”

In Portsmouth, the multidisciplinary 3S Artspace marked its 10th year with a special installation, Christina Watka’s “Noticing Light.” Watka leveraged the big gallery space’s wall of windows and plentiful light. “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.

Theatre Kapow’s season-long “community conversation” continued with a production of Every Brilliant Thing in Concord and Meredith. Director Emma Cahoon said of the challenging, interactive play that “throughout, the audience is relied on quite heavily to make the story actually happen.”

Cahoon also directed Romeo & Juliet for Saint Anselm College’s Shakespeare on the Green series, a collaboration with Manchester dance troupe Ballet Misha, led by Amy Fortier, that’s become a summer highlight. The pairing, Cahoon said, provided “a third, middle ground” to unify Shakespeare’s dance and drama.

Other solid productions in 2025 included Clint Eastwood’s movie The Bridges of Madison County redone as a musical in April by Manchester Community Theatre Players, October’s immersive whodunit Southern Fried Murder, part of Majestic Theatre’s 35th season, and Bedford Off Broadway’s regional premiere of the delightful comedy Icehouse in November.

In early December the semifinalists for the New Hampshire Theatre Awards were announced; the awards ceremony takes place Jan. 31 at Concord’s Capitol Center for the Arts. Actorsingers, Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative, The Village Players, Nashua Theatre Guild and Milford Area Players all received multiple nominations.

The Currier Museum of Art exhibited five large figures from Ann Agee’s “Madonna of the Girl Child” series in March. The works were a feminist attempt to reclaim the Madonna figure, Agee said, as a symbol of not just motherhood but equality, showing that women and girls deserve the same hopes, dreams and opportunities as their male counterparts.

In the cinema world, the Jewish Film Festival in March offered a rich and varied slate of 15 movies at locations across the state. They included Debra Messing’s documentary October H8te, the Tribeca Audience Award winning comedy Bad Shabbos, and Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, about the singer/songwriter who penned “Society’s Child” and “At Seventeen.”

Granite Orpheus, a movie that took a decade to complete after most of it was shot in 2015, showcased Concord against the backdrop of the classic Greek myth amidst that year’s Market Days celebration. Inspired by the ’60s film Black Orpheus, it featured many local musicians, and offered a look back at a city then in transition. Granite Orpheus will be screened at BNH Stage in Concord on Saturday, Jan. 24 at 7 p.m.

The gallery scene remained lively throughout the year. Glimpse Gallery in Concord hosted regular events featuring local artists. In Nashua, ArtHub returned in a new downtown location, after the pandemic torpedoed its original plans to open. The city also hosted its annual sculpture symposium, with artists working for three weeks as the public watched.

Manchester’s Mosaic Art Collective hosted the Halloween-centric” Exquisite Corpse.” It explored the idea that “art happens at the point of juxtaposition” and included a wide range of fun activities to go with what Gallery owner Liz Pieroni termed the many works of “creepy, weird art.”

It all added up to an arts community that remained resilient in a challenging year.

Upcoming arts happenings in 2026

Theater
Actorsingers Company’s production of the Stephen Sondheim/Andrew Furth musical comedy Company runs Jan. 9-11 at Nashua’s Center for the Arts.
Theatre Kapow’s What The Constitution Means to Me, written by a teenager who won a national debate competition on the topic, runs for two weekends beginning Feb. 6 at Winnipesaukee Playhouse in Meredith and Concord’s BNH Stage.

Visual Art
“Third Space,” at 3S Artspace through Jan. 25, transforms their Main Gallery “into a sanctuary of creativity, connection, and comfort during the holiday and winter season,” and includes works by papercutting polymath Dylan Metrano.
“Embellish Me: Works from the Collection of Norma Canelas Roth & William Roth” is at the Currier through March 15.

Classical Music
Symphony NH Music Director finalists perform with Adam Kerry Boyles’ Bernstein’s Legacy March 7 and Tianhui Ng’s New Hampshire Passions April 18. The Symphony is also planning a chamber concert led by its musicians on March 28 at Keefe Auditorium.

Featured photo: Granite Orpheus. Courtesy photo.

Nashville’s Celts bring Christmas show to New Hampshire

Unlike many purveyors of his genre, Ric Blair, who leads The Celts, wasn’t born in Ireland, though he has family roots there and in Scotland. Rather, the music found him, while he was studying jazz and classical at Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, and it took hold.

A friend persuaded Blair to take a day off from the rigors of studying and check out a traditional Irish band playing a show downtown.

“We walked in the door, and people were literally dancing on the tables,” he recalled by phone recently. “And immediately every cell in my body was like, ‘This is what I’m supposed to do.’”

Celtic music would weave its way into the Christian music albums Blair released starting in the mid-1990s. Around 20 years ago he launched an early iteration of Christmas With The Celts in churches around the country. The shows were a unique blend of ancient carols, traditional holiday songs, and modern tunes given an Irish twist.

In 2011 PBS broadcast a Celts performance filmed at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, and their holiday show became a national phenomenon. Since then the group’s name has changed a few times. First it was the Ric Blair Band, then The Celts, then the Nashville Celts. A few years ago they finally switched back to The Celts.

“We don’t know who we are; we like to keep the customers on their toes,” Blair said with a laugh. “Upon the advice of our booking agency, we made it official. They were like, ‘People are easily confused — is it country or is it Irish music with the Nashville Celts?’ We said, ‘Well, it’s a little bit of both. Just tell them the Celts.’”

These days the show offers a bit of everything, like traditional Irish dancers, some of whom are recruited locally. An area youth choir is usually at every tour stop, and there are plenty of jokes. “The quick Irish wit is a big thing in Irish culture,” Blair said, along with “the ability to laugh and not be so overly sensitive that we can’t laugh at ourselves.”

The music, of course, remains front and center, and it’s the most eclectic element of a Celts performance. For the holiday show there are songs not normally associated with the traditional Irish canon, like John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)” done with a reel.

“I’ve always been a Beatles fan, like millions and billions around the world, and it just seemed to me to be a good song to kind of unify everybody,” he said. “The people that were around when The Beatles first started, and the children that don’t know who they are.”

Every year, Blair and his band strive to add new touches and fresh numbers to a show that for many fans is now a holiday tradition. He hinted at a new addition that doesn’t come from anyone’s Christmas carol book but seemed to him to be ripe for the Irish touch and a seasonal role. It’s a well-known hit from an English rocker popularized in a late 1980s movie and an accompanying music video.

“There was just a moment that hit me, where I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is a perfect Christmas song,’” Blair said. “Just because of the lyrics, as far as getting to the message of Christ’s birth. It’s so fun to perform.”

Some of the best moments come when The Celts perform carols that are hundreds of years old. Even those are done in a decidedly untraditional manner.

“We have a song called ‘Wexford Carol’ that goes back to the 1600s, or 1500, even earlier than that. We’ve composed almost an EDM version of that.”

The band coming to New Hampshire for two shows, the first Dec. 19 at Derry’s Stockbridge Theatre and the second Dec. 23 at the Colonial in Laconia, consists of Blair, bassist Jimmy Sullivan, David Rollins on drums, and two fiddlers, each doing double duty. Grace Broadhead also sings, and Kira Doppel is a dancer.

Finally, multi-instrumentalist Patrick D’Arcy was a founding member of Flogging Molly and is a longtime collaborator of Blair’s, who called him “one of the best pipers in the world.” D’Arcy was lurking during the interview, and Blair deferred to the native Dubliner when asked why Irish music is so popular with American audiences.

“Because it’s so brilliant,” D’Arcy exclaimed, and continued. “They love it, and it’s not anything to do with their culture or family history. It’s way more an international thing now [even if] it will always be from Ireland. And it represents a return to simpler things as well. I think people like that at Christmas.”

Christmas With The Celts
When: Friday, Dec. 19, at 7 p.m.
Where: Stockbridge Theatre, 5 Pinkerton St., Derry
Tickets: $33 and up at pinkertonacademy.org
Also appearing Tuesday, Dec. 23, at 7:30 p.m., Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St., Laconia, $43 and up at etix.com

Featured photo: Celts Christmas. Courtesy photo.

Uncommon cutlery at North East Artisan Knife Show

There’s a world of difference between knives bought at the mall, even ones with hard to pronounce brand names, and the cutlery to be found at the upcoming North East Artisan Knife Show. One might need to be replaced a year or two after it’s purchased, while the handmade blades on offer at this event should last a lifetime — or more.

Happening Dec. 13 at Jewel Music Venue in Manchester, the show is the creation of Shannon Cothran — people call him Bear. For 10 years his one-man company Old World Ironworks has made heirloom-quality knives for camping, hunting, woodworking, historical reenactment and food preparation.

The latter is a guiding philosophy for Bear.

“I try to focus predominantly on kitchen knives, things that are going to appeal to home chefs, food enthusiasts,” he said by phone recently. “I like the idea that I can make something someone may find beautiful … to use to create something that sustains, nourishes and brings joy.”

More than 75 vendors will be on hand at the all-day gathering, showing off wares that cover a wide range of uses. For example, Benjamin Williams’ Rock Maple Forge, in Burlington, Vermont, makes not only historically accurate seax knives used by English Saxons in the ninth and 10th centuries, but also hardwood-handled kitchen cutlery and other blade types.

Apprentice Alex’s Anachronistic Armory is a Manchester forge that, as the name implies, preserves the past with absolute precision. Alex Silverman has smithed for the past seven years, along the way competing on the History Channel reality series Forged in Fire in 2022.

“He really hyper-focuses on … reproducing swords, daggers, hunting spears, things like that, in the quality and style that you would have seen carried historically by your everyman,” Bear said. “It’s a very realistic look at something that we’ve glorified in modern media and zeitgeist.”

Another forge at the show will be Anger Knives of Johnson, Vermont. It’s run by Nick Anger, a bladesmith, woodworker, chemist and metallurgist who specializes in customer Damascus steel knives that are both functional and lovely. His other interesting pieces include an axe and a trident, but neither is made for cosplaying.

That’s because most pieces at the show will cost hundreds of dollars, though Bear is bringing a few entry-level items and expects others to as well.

“We have a run of patterns designed that we then either water jet or plasma, then we do the hand grinding, finishing and hand hilting,” he said of the ready-made pieces. “So you’re not paying for the forge time as well.”

The show will be fun even for those who might not be ready to jump into collecting. It’s an opportunity to learn about the process of creating these sharp-edged works of art, from the creators. That said, Christmas is near, and this is the place to find a special tool that stands apart from everything else in an ordinary arsenal of kitchen tools.

“This is going to be an opportunity to meet some incredible artists who are working locally, an opportunity to support a local economy, and the chance to grab something that may or may not ever be able to be picked up again,” Bear said. “A lot of these pieces are one of a kind.”

Though there are plenty of events with knives, like Renaissance Faires, gun shows and hunting and fishing, this will be the first time they’ll have the spotlight in the region.

“Aside from a few shows that are predominantly collector-focused, with a lot of antiques or military and a smattering of artisan knives in there,” he said, “we don’t really have, to the best of my knowledge, any shows in New England that are specific to artisan knives.”

Bear particularly enjoys the artisan knife community’s eclectic makeup, and its sense of purpose.

“It transcends social class,” he said. “At any artisan knife show, you will be in a true American melting pot. Because these are tools that have defined human history and are ubiquitous across time, culture, language, everything. One of the things that brings us together is the human ability to make tools. You get to see people who are making tools that go beyond function into art.”

North East Artisan Knife Show
When: Saturday, Dec. 13, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Jewel Music Venue, 61 Canal St., Manchester
Tickets: $10 at gopassage.com ($5 youth, $20 family of four)

Featured photo: Symphony NH Brass, 2024. Courtesy photo.

Symphony NH holiday shows, and conductor news

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Symphony New Hampshire. The venerable orchestra will be represented in a variety of forms at five upcoming area events. After that, the work of finding a new leader continues.

A brass quintet will perform two holiday concerts, in Manchester and Concord, and the Symphony’s string quartet is at Canterbury Shaker Village’s holiday festivities. Nine Symphony New Hampshire musicians will join Mannheim Steamroller at their Concord show and, finally, there’s a full orchestra Holiday Pops concert in Nashua on Dec. 13.

With the new year, the search for a new musical director again heats up, as five candidates vie to succeed Roger Kalia. The first, Tiffany Chang, launched the season with a program called “Unexpected Stories.” It included a symphony by Jean Sibelius that was a favorite of Chang’s.

Symphony NH Executive Director Deanna Hoying recalled that she urged Chang to do the Sibelius piece.

“She had something else in mind, but when I said, ‘Show us who you are through your programming,’ she was like, ‘Oh, this might give me an opportunity,” Hoying said by phone recently. “It was a wonderful [one] for her too — not only to learn, but get in front of an orchestra and do this piece that she’s always wanted to do.”

Each of the remaining four candidates will take the stage at Keefe Auditorium in Nashua to support their bids to lead the orchestra, beginning with Filippo Ciabatti. On Jan. 17 he’ll conduct the orchestra in a program called “From Fire to the Stars.” It includes works by Jessie Montgomery, Manuel de Falla and Mozart. Each musical director candidate will participate in a pre-concert talk one hour before their concerts.

Hoying said the season has been challenging. A Halloween concert was canceled due to poor ticket sales, and adjustments are ongoing: “It’s tight; I’m not terribly surprised. I’m hearing that from a lot of organizations, both here and around the country. As the economy is shifting, people are more thoughtful about how [they] spend that discretionary income.”

Christmastime, though, seems to be bringing a welcome respite.

“People are very nostalgic for classic holiday music, and I think people spend their entertainment money differently now than during the rest of the year,” Hoying said. “I am encouraged to see some good [and] pretty stable numbers right now, for really all of the shows, and that makes me happy.”

Hearing “Sleigh Bells,” “Silent Night” and “Winter Wonderland” performed by a classical brass group or a violin quartet is a great recruiting tool, Hoying continued. The same is true of an inspirational Pops Christmas concert.

“People may not come to see you doing Beethoven, but they will come and see holiday things,” she said. “That’s a wonderful entry point.”

Symphony NH Holiday Appearances

Jingle Brass – Manchester
When: Thursday, Dec. 4, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $34 and up at palacetheatre.org

Jingle Brass – Concord
When: Saturday, Dec. 6, 3 p.m.
Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $34 at ccanh.com

Mannheim Steamroller Christmas (joined by Symphony NH musicians)
When: Friday, Dec. 5, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Chubb Theatre, 44 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $63.50 and up at ccanh.com

Christmas at Canterbury
When: Saturday, Dec. 6, 4 p.m.
Where: Dwelling House Chapel, Canterbury Shaker Village, 288 Shaker Road, Canterbury
Tickets: $50 at shakers.org

Holiday Pops
When: Saturday, Dec. 13, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Keefe Center for the Arts, 117 Elm St., Nashua
Tickets: $35 and up at symphonynh.org

Featured photo: Symphony NH Brass, 2024. Courtesy photo.

One-man Christmas Carol back for final bow

By Michael Witthaus
mwitthaus@hippopress.com

For three decades in the United States and the past 15 years in Nashua, the great-great-grandson of Charles Dickens has performed his beloved novel, A Christmas Carol, as a one-man show, bringing 26 characters from the holiday classic to life, each given distinct and unique touches and mannerisms.

Alas, this year marks the show’s final trip ’cross the pond. A farewell tour begins Nov. 28 at Nashua’s Center for the Arts.

“It’s just been an incredibly wild ride … such fun,” Gerald Dickens said during a recent Zoom call from his English home in Abington, Oxfordshire. “But, for a number of reasons — family considerations at home and all sorts of things — I thought 30 years is a pretty good number to hang up the top hat on.”

When he first performed it in 1993, Dickens believed it would be the only time.

“It was an absolute one-off … I insisted I’d never do it again,” he said of the reading, held to commemorate the novel’s 150th anniversary. He used an annotated script that the author had worked from in the 1860s, a time when he was doing more touring than writing.

Dickens’ notes about his characters made them come alive for his descendant.

“You get to the first description of Scrooge,” he recalled, rising to the role. “It says, ‘he was a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner. He was hard and sharp as flint, secret, self-contained.’ At the end of it, you’ve just turned into him — you can’t help it.”

One reason that so many Dickens works have been adapted for stage and screen is probably that he was an aspiring actor for many years before starting his career as a writer.

“He was a passionate theatrical man,” Gerald Dickens explained. “He auditioned at the Covent Garden Theater in London, the leading theater in the country at that time. Well, he didn’t audition. He had an audition scheduled, but he was ill on the morning of it. He didn’t have a voice, so he couldn’t go. So, yeah, that’s what he wanted to do.”

Giving readings allowed him to re-indulge that passion, he continued. “He absolutely loved … that direct contact with his audience that, of course, you don’t get as a novelist.” His final completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, came in 1865. “For the rest of that decade, he didn’t write anything. He was purely on the road, touring and performing.”

Dickens had a particular affinity for New England. On a U.S. reading tour in 1867 and 1868, he made Boston’s Parker House Hotel a home base, and performed at the adjacent Tremont Temple. Gerald Dickens has also appeared at that venue.

For the past several years, Gerald Dickens’ annual Christmas Carol tour has been sponsored by collectibles maker Byers’ Choice, whose caroler figures are de rigueur holiday decorations in many American homes. To commemorate the farewell tour, the Pennsylvania company released a special edition caroler in his likeness.

In a recent blog post, Dickens wrote about “the huge sense of honour — no, I shall write honor in deference to my hosts” he felt seeing his miniature likeness. It wears a gray frock coat over a red and gold waistcoat, along with a top hat and green knitted scarf. One hand holds a wooden cane that represents Tiny Tim’s crutch, the other a gold pocket watch chain.

“They’ve done a really great job with it,” he said. It’s likely they’ll be available at his Nashua show, he added, and if not, they can be ordered direct from the company, perhaps containing a special touch. “I have no doubt they’ll have me sat in a little boardroom somewhere, signing hundreds of copies.”

He’s eager to begin the farewell tour.

“I love coming to Nashua,” Dickens said. “Over the last three years, I’ve been able to perform in the beautiful Center for the Arts there … what a facility; a great, great theater … a real treat.” For anyone with any preconceptions about the show, he shared this message.

“It’s not a stuffy, dusty old Englishman doing a lecture,” he said. “There’s a lot of chance for the audience to join in, shout out and get involved in the story. We have a lot of fun with it. There’s a lot of laughter, and a few tears. It’s a bit scary sometimes, joyous other times. You get to see me dance. No one else in the world ever sees that.”

A Christmas Carol with Gerald
Dickens – Farewell Tour
When: Saturday, Nov. 28, 7 p.m.
Where: Nashua Center for the Arts, 201
Main St., Nashua
Tickets: $24 and up at etix.com

Featured photo: Gerald Dickens. Courtesy photo.