Category: Art & Theater

Sidewalk chalk colors Nashua’s Main Street

As the colors of autumn foliage begin to fade, the streets of downtown Nashua will brighten, as a community-wide effort will turn patches of sidewalk into the pages of a coloring book. On Oct. 11 the city’s Great American Downtown booster group will host Coloring Main Street, inviting artists and art lovers to fill in a life-size coloring book.

From Main Street Bridge to the public library and City Hall, chalk outline murals will be ready for coloring. The project was sparked by Great American Downtown Executive Director Alyssa O’Mara, who assumed the leadership role at the organization in June. She envisions the “inherently temporary” art form as a good way to unify the community for a day.

O’Mara talked about Coloring Main Street, and Great American Downtown’s future plans, in a recent email interview.

If the Coloring Main Street templates were a coloring book, how many pages would it be?

Fun question! I’d say at least 15 pages. We’ve given the artists creative freedom to design their sections of sidewalk however they’re inspired. Each will complete two to three separate pieces, with some areas intentionally left open so our attendees have room to kneel or sit while coloring them in. Students from the Nashua High School Art Honor Society will also be working in pairs on their sections.

What are some of the pictures that artists will fill in, and where are they located?

Each artist was asked to create something positive and family-friendly, with full freedom over the subject matter. Some designs include animals, spooky Halloween themes, flowers, and more. Styles range from simple, kid-friendly outlines to more intricate designs that older children and adults will enjoy coloring. The murals will be spread along Main Street, from the Pearl Street area down to the bridge and over by the Nashua Public Library.

What was the inspiration for doing this event?

When I started in this role in June, I was already attending meetings of the Downtown Business Roundtable, a group of local business owners working to promote each other. We often collaborate by providing outdoor music for their Third Thursday events. During one of my first meetings as Executive Director, we were brainstorming ideas for fun, unique, family-friendly programming. What began as a chalk walk suggestion from Liz Hannum, Director of Economic Development, quickly evolved into this coloring book concept. One of my favorite things about downtown Nashua is its public art, and this felt like a wonderful opportunity to create a new kind of canvas for the community.

How is the event funded?

When City Arts Nashua closed in 2024, they generously donated funds to Great American Downtown specifically for arts programming. From that donation, GAD is compensating the professional artists and covering supplies. Student artists are volunteering their time, and downtown businesses will also be putting out colorful chalk for attendees to use.

How does the event further Great American Downtown’s mission?

GAD’s mission is to provide coordination, collaboration, and partnerships that unify Nashua around a common vision for an attractive, vibrant downtown that truly reflects the character of our city. Downtown Nashua already showcases murals by Positive Street Art, sculptures from the International Sculpture Symposium, historic theaters like the Janice B. Streeter, and the new Center for the Arts with performances and gallery exhibits. This event adds to that legacy in an especially interactive way. Coloring Main Street invites our residents and visitors to become the artists themselves, while also bringing people together in celebration of creativity. Street art is inherently temporary, especially when created with chalk, but the experience lasts. That’s what we’re really working for.

Anything you’d like to add?

This is the first of five events we’ll be hosting between now and the end of November. Next up is the Main Street Monster Mash on Saturday, Oct. 25 … immediately following the library’s story time and Halloween celebration. Kids can enjoy trick-or-treating on Main Street, a Howl-oween Puppy Parade with prizes for the best costumes (in partnership with the Humane Society for Greater Nashua), and a special surprise performance by the ActorSingers. We’re thrilled to keep building on Downtown Nashua’s reputation as a hub of arts, culture and community fun.

Coloring Main Street
When: Saturday, Oct. 11, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Where: City Hall, 229 Main St., Nashua
More: linktr.ee/downtownnashua

Mosaic Arts hosts ‘Exquisite Corpse’ group exhibition

The Surrealist movement believed that art happens at the point of juxtaposition. “Exquisite Corpse,” an exhibition that opens Monday, Oct. 6, at Mosaic Arts Collective, will explore that idea. The show’s name comes from a game beloved by artists that begins with a folded piece of paper that each participant draws on, leaving a small trace on the next segment for another creator.

“Hidden hands shape unexpected creations,” the Mosaic call for submission said of the show, which runs through Nov. 2 and has an official reception Saturday, Oct. 11, at 4 p.m. The exhibition, it continues, “celebrates the strange, the uncanny, and the beauty that emerges when fragments of imagination collide.”

One of the early submissions came from the husband-and-wife team of Karl and K.D. Schmitz, who rent studio space at Mosaic; it combines painting and poetry. Gallery owner Liz Pieroni is also part of a group effort, but not all submissions are collaborative. More than a few have a touch of the eerie and spooky — fitting, considering how October concludes.

“We do like Halloween, I think the artists like it too, and in general I think our community gets very much into the spirit,” Pieroni said during an interview at Mosaic, located on a second floor to the left of the Palace Theatre. “It seems to be one of our higher-selling shows, which is always kind of surprising…. A lot of people come in collecting creepy, weird art.”

In a nod to the macabre, the Oct. 11 opening has been dubbed Calling Hours.

“We’ll have a tarot card reader, who we’ve had the past couple years as well, she’s phenomenal,” Pieroni said, adding that Roots and Rhythm, a dance studio located at street level, plans an appearance. “An ‘Exquisite Corpse’ performance perhaps.”

Additionally, See Saw Art, a micro gallery situated inside the Mosaic space and run by Rochester Museum of Fine Arts co-founder Amy Regan, is part of the event.

“She’ll also have an opening, of kind of creepier, interesting themes as well,” Pieroni said of that show.

On Oct. 12 there will be a family-friendly event at Roots & Rhythm that includes a workshop for parents and children that Pieroni described as “a create-an-Exquisite Corpse activity.” The drawing game has always been a favorite of youngsters, who particularly delight in discovering what a group will make together sharing only the tiniest of prompts.

Along with the month-long exhibition, Mosaic will host an Artist Talk event with Karen Jerzyk on Oct. 22, from 5:45 to 7 p.m. Jerzyk is described as “a surrealistic photographer who combines elements of sci-fi and fantasy with elaborate environments to create visual narratives.” Her work includes an album cover for Manchester pop punk band Donaher.

Beyond that, Pieroni is a driving force behind a recently launched Second Saturday art walk, happening next on Oct. 11. Participating are Creative Framing Solutions, Art House Studios, Dew Collective, Studio 550, Bookery, Woodstacker Brewery, The Terracotta Room, Arts Build Community, the Palace and newest addition Gallery At The Block.

As the gallery celebrates its third anniversary, Pieroni feels optimistic despite the many challenges faced by organizations like Mosaic. Strong community support, volunteer engagement and notably the acquisition of their first grant, have set up a sustainable future and reinforced her original mission.

“Three years has been forever and no time at all,” she said. “It’s been a wonderful ride and it’s also been challenging at times. I’m glad we’re still here and I think we’re here for the long haul. I’m beyond happy for sure. There’s just been an amazing amount of support for what we’re doing.”

Exquisite Corpse
When: Monday, Oct. 6, through Sunday, Nov. 2; opening reception Saturday, Oct. 11, 4-8 p.m.
Where: Mosaic Art Collective, 66 Hanover St., Suite 201, Manchester
More: mosaicartcollective.com

Homegrown indie film Granite Orpheus premieres

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

Watching Granite Orpheus is akin to stepping on board a time machine, but that wasn’t the plan when a group of upstart filmmakers and actors set to work over Concord’s long Market Days weekend in 2015. The movie, which has its official premiere Sept. 26, retells the star-crossed lovers’ tragedy amidst the milieu of the Capital City.

Ongoing construction along Main Street juxtaposed with the annual three-day street fair and music festival gave Rick Broussard the idea for the project. He and John Hession run Resurrection Films, a company focused on energizing New Hampshire’s film community. The two began building a script and recruiting actors.

“Downtown was in this kind of weird upheaval; half the street was in construction, the other half was basically complete,” Broussard recalled. “It seemed like a transitional moment, and it reminded me of a movie I’d seen in my college days — when I was pretending to go to college — called Black Orpheus. It’s this classic Greek myth set in Rio during Carnival.”

With Bryan Halperin and Gina Carballo cast as Orpheus and Eurydice, and a motorcycle-riding Yarrow Farnsworth as Hades, they filmed what Halperin called “a love letter to Concord,” with shots of Bicentennial Square, the Train Yard, Pitchfork Records and other landmarks.

In a scene that opens Granite Orpheus, the beloved but now defunct Pat & the Hats play in Penuche’s basement.

“One of those little local miracle bands,” Broussard said. “You just knew that they could do anything and go anywhere, but the limitations of fame and time and space don’t let everybody great become great; but they were a great band.” Their involvement was the spark for bringing Brian Coombes of Rocking Horse Studio on as the film’s Music Director.

The team wanted to use the downtown bar for a scene reminiscent of the Yardbirds’ appearance in the ’60s art film Blow Up. “It’s a very underworld kind of feeling,” he said. “Our Orpheus has to ascend the stairs out into Bicentennial Square, a beautiful plaza full of stonework, sculptures and such, and a fountain. And there’s a band playing out there.”

David Shore’s Trunk O’ Funk, one of a few annual event bands routinely at Market Days, was performing its set during the scene.

“We tried to get as many [festival performers] into the movie as we could because … this was Concord’s portal into Hades. Every place has a different one.”

An initial three-day filming schedule grew.

“We originally said we’ll just cut it off and work with what we got,” Broussard said. “But what we got was all these great additional talents like Bryan and everything that he brought to bear. Friends of John Hession’s who were talented musicians, had a motorcycle gang, and also had great attitudes … it was too big.”

The effort continued for another week.

“Nobody said no, so we just kept working on it,” Broussard said. A year later, they set about cleaning up the footage, hoping to feature it at the next Market Days. Around that time, life got in the way. He and Hession both “went through at least four personal familial crises, and a global pandemic.”

A decade later, they finally got back to work on Granite Orpheus. Early last May, a final scene was filmed at Red River Theatres. Halperin arrived with two pieces of good news: “I had saved the unique black shirt they’d given me years ago, and luckily, I haven’t changed too much in 10 years.”

The crew was further buoyed by the response to a casting call for extras.

“We got about 40 people from our little mailing list,” Broussard said. “Some of them were very talented, and wind up getting featured to a degree [in the Red River scene]. It was a connection of what we had done, and what we needed to get to pretty much the end of the movie.”

For Broussard, the delay was a blip.

“Ten years later was not really that long, particularly when you’re talking in classical Greek terms,” he said. The upcoming premiere will include a post-film discussion with the crew and actors. There will be more screenings of Granite Orpheus, including at Pembroke City Limits, date to be determined, and the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester.

He likens the project to Rocky, and not because he believes it’s Oscar-bound.

“It’s going to win by not getting knocked down, it’s not going to knock out everybody else,” he said, adding, “I am perfectly happy to show it to any audience and take their feedback and feel content that we did a great job.”

This faith guides Broussard and Hession’s film company, giving it a higher purpose.

“We need to seek art as desperately as Orpheus sought Eurydice, despite being doomed to crushing disappointments and failures almost every time,” Broussard said. “It’s for those brief glories, and I guess for the permanent illusion that we can all be artists in our lives and in our afterlives, that we carry on. Because it’s one of those myths that won’t die.”

Granite Orpheus

When: Friday, Sept. 26, 7 p.m.
Where: Colonial Theatre, 609 Main St., Laconia
Tickets: $20 at etix.com

22nd annual event continues its growth

The first Granite State Comicon, in 2003, was a modest affair that helped celebrate the recent opening of Double Midnight Comics.

“There hadn’t been a comic book show in Manchester in a while,” store owner Chris Proulx recalled recently, so he and his cohort decided to do one.

The one-day, one-room, no-celebrity comic book and gaming show turned out to be a big hit, and the event has experienced steady growth ever since. This year’s Granitecon, as it came to be known, is spread across the city, anchored by a slate of activities at DoubleTree by Hilton and the SNHU Arena. There’s even a Granitecon Lager, brewed by Great North Aleworks.

It begins with a preview night on Friday, Sept. 19, that includes Just Cos’ Wings, where cosplayers eat chicken wings and discuss their shared passion, and a D&D-themed show from local troupe Queen City Improv, both at the DoubleTree. Next is the 8-Bit Karaoke Bash, Granitecon’s official kickoff party, at nearby Shaskeen Pub.

The retro video game-themed title was chosen as a nod to the 40th anniversary of the Nintendo gaming console. The event is an annual fixture.

“People love karaoke, and it’s always a great turnout,” Proulx said. New to Granitecon this year is an afterparty at Harpoon Brewery, in the just-opened Queen City Center.

Among the big first full day events is an afternoon Q&A with voice actor Will Friedle to mark Batman Day, followed by an evening screening of 2000’s animated film Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker at the Rex Theatre. It’s their second collaboration with the Rex. In 2024, the 40th anniversary of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was honored there.

Born in New Hampshire, TMNT is a part of every Granitecon. This year, there’s a gaming panel discussion about the next release of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness RPG with designers Kevin Siembieda and Sean Owen Roberson, along with comic book artists Steve Lavigne, Jim Lawson and Luis Delgado.

Another Granite State-centric event is a free one, a screening of Jumanji at dusk on Sept. 20 in Veterans Park. The event is sponsored by the City of Manchester.

“I had been in touch with the department of economic development, and they were like, ‘We’d like to sponsor something,’” Proulx said. “I replied, ‘It’s Jumanji’s 30^th anniversary, and it was filmed here.’”

One of the things Proulx is looking forward to is Big Dumb Robot Con, where robot builders have the chance to show off their movie-themed work. “This is the second year, and we’re giving these guys some room,” he said of the SNHU Arena meetup. “They love to build robots and talk to people about how they build their robots.”

There’s now an educational component to Granitecon. It includes panels on topics like working in game publishing (Sunday, Sept. 21, noon), the process of creating a graphic novel (Saturday, Sept. 20, 2 p.m.) and a forum that covers how to bring gaming to novels (Saturday, 11 a.m.). The idea came from Doug Shute, founder of Victory Condition Gaming.

“He brings in all kinds of different developers,” Proulx said. “Whether it’s role-playing games or board games … they want to share their expertise, and he’s built that up to taking over half the ballroom at the hotel. We’re trying to figure out how to continue to grow that.”

Far from its humble beginnings, Granite State Comicon is an event that now attracts guests from around the world.

“When we first started, we’d have been excited if somebody came from New York,” Proulx said. “Now, there are people coming from Australia, Europe and South America…. That’s really cool.”

The ripple effect is filled hotel rooms, and folks coming from out of town who are looking for great places to dine. Proulx attributes a lot of this success to the event’s inclusive spirit.

“We don’t do any gatekeeping,” he boasts. “We’re like, ‘If you’re a fan of wrestling, if you’re a fan of video games, come on in.’ Everybody’s nerdy about something.”

Granite State Comicon

When: Friday, Sept. 19, from 3 to 8 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 20, and Sunday, Sept. 21, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Downtown Manchester, including DoubleTree by Hilton, SNHU Arena, Shaskeen Pub and Rex Theatre
Tickets: $20 to $125 at granitecon.com (day-of tickets sold at DoubleTree by Hilton, 700 Elm St., Manchester)
Full schedule and more: granitecon.com

Granite State native publishes tongue-in-cheek book

By Michael Witthaus

mwitthaus@hippopress.com

Microplastics Are Your Friends! is a new book that at first glance looks aimed at younger readers, but it decidedly is not children’s literature. Playfully illustrated, the colorful 30-pager is subversively hilarious as it depicts what might happen if the people behind a really bad idea tried to sell it as something to celebrate.

The central premise, delivered by a white-haired narrator named Professor McTegan, who looks a lot like Doc from Back to the Future, is that while microplastics contribute to all manner of maladies, they serve a higher purpose. Each teaspoon of deadly pixie dust in our brains is the only defense against a race of human-hunting demons called The Shalhoub.

Standing up to these “vicious hell beasts that will not rest until we’re completely eradicated from this mortal coil” is worth the cost of things like dementia and low fertility rates. Besides, forgetting the present to reminisce about the past is a good thing, right? And, the Professor adds, “look at our friends, solving the overpopulation problem for us!”

Prof. McTegan’s “odyssey of discovery as he explores the benefits of having microscopic bits of plastic inside you” came from the imagination of Mister Shushy, the nom de plume of a former standup comedian. He began with the idea of RFK Jr., or someone similar, deciding to sell microplastics as a positive and commission a children’s book.

“It is the kind of off-the-wall weirdo humor that I like,” he said by phone recently. His Mister Shushy’s Nightmare Box Substack contains examples of this, like Ask Cherk, an advice column run by an oversexed “debonair alien gonzo journalist” as well as the too-close-to-the-truth short story Flow Ryda Man, which includes equally funny context.

While he was a comic, the author appeared at the Shaskeen’s Wednesday night event and also ran a regular showcase at the Dover Brickhouse for “the majority of its lifespan,” he said. Despite successes like opening for Frank Santorelli, Mike Racine and others, however, he decided to leave. It turned out to be decent timing.

“I quit stand-up in, like, 2019, and then the pandemic happened,” he said. His day job also contributed to the decision. “I’m talking on the phone to people all day, and it’s mentally exhausting…. I didn’t have the mental energy to do that for eight or nine hours and then go out and do open mics.”

Zoom shows held no appeal, so he laid low for the next five years, but the November election changed that.

“Something snapped in me,” he said. “It was, like, I need a creative outlet, I need to not be just doomscrolling. It’s easy to be sick to your stomach and depressed if you’re just looking into this little infinite box in your pocket. So I started writing.”

The name of the demonic race to whom microplastics are Kryptonite was inspired by Dune, but the actor famous for Monk and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is there intentionally, and not altogether flatteringly. Don’t take it the wrong way, though.

“It’s a deep abiding love for Tony Shalhoub that he’s included in the book,” the author said.

While he works to get Microplastics Are Your Friends! into bookstores, the easiest way to read it is on a Kindle. For those who want a physical book, it can be ordered at Gibson’s in Concord and Manchester’s Bookery. He’s also working to get it into Eight Legged Octopus in Dover, Water Street Bookstore in Exeter and Jetpack Comics in Rochester.

It’s stocked in a store in the Massachusetts town the author now calls home, with a fun touch — in the nonfiction section. “Somebody has a great sense of humor,” a delighted Mister Shushy said, adding that while it’s technically a kids’ book, the real audience should be obvious.

“Sorry in advance if you’re upset,” he writes in an opening disclaimer. “But also, like, you saw a book with the title Microplastics Are Your Friends! and still bought it for your child, so hopefully this ends up being a teachable moment for you.”

Microplastics Are Your Friends! by Mister Shushy, Illustrated by Lucas D

Available on Amazon Kindle. Physical copies can be ordered at independent bookstores like Gibson’s in Concord and Bookery in Manchester. Works by Mister Shushy are compiled on mistershushy.substack.com. Follow him on Instagram @mistershushy.