Some follow-up to two news stories from last week that made the QOL:
• The Manchester Police Department has “made an arrest in the vandalism of the Moka Pot” in downtown Manchester, according to a Sept. 25 department press release. “Twenty-year-old Tyler Inman of Allenstown has been charged with Criminal Mischief and Falsifying Evidence in connection with the incident,” the release said. “Given the nature of the alleged conduct, the case will be prosecuted in coordination with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office,” the release said.
• After closing on Sept. 21, the Queen City Bridge was reopened, according to a press release dated Sept. 24 from Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais’ office, posted on the Manchester Department of Public Works’ Facebook page. “[E]ngineers cleared the bridge for reopening following the additional testing and evaluation conducted in response to concerts identified during the recent inspection,” the release said. In a statement in the press release, Ruais said, “The City also appreciated the cooperation and patience of motorists who were impacted by the closure and detours.” Tim Clougherty, director of Public Works, also had a statement in the press release, saying, “The additional inspection and testing were conducted to ensure that the condition of the bridge was fully understood before it was returned to service.”
Family summit
Tickets are on sale now to the 14th Annual Strengthening Families Summit slated for Tuesday, Nov. 3, at the Grappone Conference Center in Concord and held by the NH Children’s Trust (described on its website as an organization “leading the drive to strengthen families and communities, through education, advocacy, and collaboration that prevents child abuse and neglect.”), according to a press release. The summit runs from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and includes a continental breakfast and a lunch as well as a keynote speech by Tim Rourke, “a national consultant and strategist focused on behavioral health policy, systems transformation and expanding equitable access to care,” according to nhchildrenstrust.org, where you can purchase tickets.
Potato & Hawk
Current and future voters can get the basics on voting and what to expect to see on election day in New Hampshire in the roughly five-and-a-half-minute video “Ed and Cate Go to the Polls,” a civic education project by the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office and KartoonEDU. The video, launched in September at Nottingham Elementary School, features Ed, a potato (the state vegetable), and Cate, a red-tailed hawk (the state raptor), according to a Sept. 4 press release. “In the video, Ed and Cate educate voters on each step of the voting process on election day, highlighting the many checks and balances in place that ensure our elections are safe, secure and accessible,” the release said. The video also includes an up-close look at ballot counting devices. Find a link to the video via the NH Secretary of State’s Facebook page or under the “Notices” section at sos.nh.gov, where you can also find voting information.
An artist reception for photographer Becky Field for the exhibit “Finding Home: Portraits and Memories of Immigrants” will be held Thursday, Oct. 1, from 6 to 7 p.m. at Proctor Academy, 204 Main St. in Andover, in the Brown Gallery, according to a press release. To view the exhibit or attend the reception, email campus curator Molly Leith at leithmo@proctoracademy.org, the release said.
The Forum Pub, 15 Village St. in Concord, will honor the late actor Tim Curry with “Tim Curry Evening and Rocky Horror Sing-along” on Saturday, Oct. 3, from 6 to 11 p.m., according to the Forum Pub’s Facebook page.
The Wilton Folk Cafe Coffeehouse at the Wilton Collaborative Space, 21 Gregg St., 2nd Congregational Church Hall in Wilton, will present Coastwise Radio, a six-piece American roots acoustic band from Massachusetts, on Friday, Oct. 2, at 7:30 p.m., according to a press release. Doors open at 7 p.m.; reserve seats by emailing strumma@aol.com or calling Sandy at 603-654-1245.
“Swordplay!,” a presentation that will “focus on sharp, pointy weapons with re-enactor Anne Kraemer,” is slated for the Oct. 8 Beer for History program at the American Independence Center’s Folsom Tavern in Exeter, held on select Thursdays from 6 to 8 p.m., according to a press release. Tickets cost $25; see aicnh.org.
Fittingly given their moniker, when Five For Fighting’s 2000 single “Easy Tonight” stalled in the charts, its leader decided to be bold in choosing a radio follow-up from their album America Town. The result was the biggest hit of their career, a milestone that’s still reverberating today.
“I figured if I was going to go down, might as well go down swinging with a song I truly believe in,” John Ondrasik said in a recent Zoom call from his home in Southern California. The tune was “Superman (It’s Not Easy),” and it turned a then-obscure singer-songwriter with a hockey penalty for a band name into a star.
Piano ballads weren’t much of a thing at the time, but he was undeterred after their first try did just well enough to earn a second shot.
“The record company said, ‘Well, what song would you want to put out?’ and I said, Superman,” he recalled. “Because I had a sense that it could hit the heart.”
He was right, and when 9/11 happened the next year, the song became part of the national vocabulary.
On Friday, Sept. 25, Ondrasik, backed by four top-shelf string players pulled largely from Broadway pits, performs at BNH Stage in Concord. He plans a stripped-down evening of music drawing from a catalog that includes “100 Years,” “The Riddle,” “World” and of course the song that launched him.
It’s his second New England fall run in as many years, following a 2025 stretch the native Californian still marvels about.
“I haven’t had a lot of experience with the fall turn,” he said of New England’s foliage. “It was just stunning. So we said, let’s do another run, and instead of doing three weeks we’re doing five or six.”
How Ondrasik went from solo singer-songwriter to a name that gets him lots of free hockey tickets is a fun story.
When he signed a major label deal in the mid-’90s, a suit there told him Elton John and Billy Joel types didn’t fly in the era of boy bands, grunge and Lilith Fair. He needed something else on the marquee. Ondrasik had just watched Wayne Gretzky’s enforcer, Marty McSorley, rack up two five-minute fighting majors at an L.A. Kings game.
A bit miffed at the exec’s suggestion, he tossed off the phrase half-sarcastically, expecting it to be rejected, only to hear an enthusiastic reply. “I’m like, ‘you’re crazy,’” Ondrasik recalled. Those early years bore out his belief, as he was sometimes mistakenly booked as a metal act, and looked like a piano man lost in the mosh pit.
He’s come to like it over time. “There’s some silver linings to the name … it also keeps the focus on the music.”
The string-quartet format grew out of full-orchestra symphony dates Ondrasik couldn’t take to smaller markets, so 15 years ago he scaled the arrangements down to four players, and he still alternates between that in the fall and winter months, taking a full rock band on the road in summer. It lets him dig into catalog deep cuts like “Devil in the Wishing Well” and “Two Lights,” and reframe hits like “100 Years” and “Chances” in a more intimate, storytelling setting. His favorite part of the night happens when he hands it over to the band. “I kind of just walk off stage and let them jam,” he said. “They always get a standing ovation.”
The current lineup includes Tony-winning violinist Katie Kresek, Melissa Tong, Chris Cardona and Peter Sachon. The band is drawn from a rotating pool of about eight or nine Broadway and session veterans Ondrasik met through longtime producer Greg Wattenberg and Dave Eggar, who’s both a master cellist and piano player.
“They love rock ’n’ roll, and, frankly, not playing the same piece of music eight days a week in a pit,” he said.
Opening the Concord show is Lace & Lee, a folk duo Ondrasik is happy to gush about, as it includes his daughter, Olivia. She joins him onstage most nights for a song of her own.
“Touring with [her] is pretty wonderful,” he said. “The whole quartet, everybody just enjoys them, and I think the audiences too are in for a treat.”
Five For Fighting with String Quartet When: Friday, Sept. 25, at 7:30 p.m. Where: BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St., Concord Tickets: $67 and up at ccanh.com
Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church will hold its annual Greek Food Festival
By John Fladd jfladd@hippopress.com
On Saturday, Sept. 26, the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Concord will hold its annual Greek Food Festival, the last of the region’s Greek festivals for the year. Constantine Newman is the priest at Holy Trinity.
“It’s a one-day festival,” he said. “We feature a lot of good Greek food, all of it homemade, favorites like the lamb kebabs and the chicken kebabs, moussaka, pastitsio, Greek meatballs and spanakopita. On the line we’ll have gyros and the ladies have a whole setup of Greek pastries that they’re selling.”
The Greek Food Festival is Holy Trinity’s biggest fundraiser of the year, Newman said. “This helps us get through the year. But it’s also a lot of fun, too. It’s not just a monetary thing, but it’s nice for showcasing Greek culture and food and just having a nice time together.”
While months of preparation go into the Festival, he said, there is always a last-minute scramble to get everything ready in time for the big day. “Some of the things we can prepare ahead of time. Some of the things though, you can’t really freeze them well, so we do them in the last week. Of course, all the meat that we get has to be cut and trimmed and then put on the skewers. It has to be marinated, so that can only be done in the last week. [In the days before the Festival] we will be doing the moussaka, the baklava, the galaktoboureko, and then all the meat stuff.” All the meat will be finished on the grill, he said.
For many Greek food enthusiasts, the acid test of a festival is the spanikopita — spinach and feta cheese sandwiched in many layers of buttered, paper-thin phyllo dough. Margaret Gegas is the head of the Spanikopita Committee. She said a really good spanikopita has only a few ingredients but they have to be of the best quality. “We put in a lot of fresh spinach — not frozen — and we use a good amount of feta cheese crumbled in each pan and olive oil. Every layer of phyllo is buttered. We put in the pita — maybe 25 sheets each of phyllo dough. At home, some cook might put dill, and they may put a lot of dill, or a lot of spearmint, but we do not alter that flavor because one may not like dill, one may not like spearmint, so we just stick to the recipe we have with scallions, and it blends very well with spinach and olive oil.”
Even more important, Gegas said, is to have a bone-deep understanding of the particular oven it is baked in.
“It is a lot of work,” Gegas said, “and baking it correctly is crucial. [Our spanikopita] are baked in a convection oven so they have to be watched carefully.” She said even if somebody used the exact same techniques and ingredients but tried to make the same recipe in their home oven, their timing and temperature would be off. After years of experience, Gegas and her team know that in the church’s ovens a batch of spanikopita should take exactly one hour.
“They go in,” she said, “but we.check them and change the position [of the pans] in the oven, just to be sure all the air is circulating correctly with each pan. We’ve made 35 pans this year.”
The Spanikopita Committee does not monitor the internal temperature of the pans while they bake, Gegas said. “It’s by eye and timing. We time them. … So after an hour, we know how it should look. It’s about the browning; if they’re not brown on top, they’re not ready. So it all works out together — the baking and the color.”
Greek Food Festival When: Saturday, Sept. 26, from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Where: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, 68 N. State St., Concord More: holytrinitynh.org
Featured photo: Kids’ activities at a previous festival. Courtesy photo.
According to Garrett Bethmann of the Canterbury Shaker Village Museum, our modern conception of the Shakers — devout Protestants who lived in self-contained communities across the United States in the 1700s and 1800s — is intimately tied in with the objects they made. “I think the first thing [people think of] is certainly the more stereotypical artifacts and objects that feel very classified as Shaker and very much kind of have that Shaker aesthetic of clean lines, very efficient-looking use, very simple … look to them. So, you know, that’s kind of where you get into your furniture, your oval boxes, your brooms.”
On Saturday, Sept. 26, the Shaker Village Museum will present an interactive look at some of those objects, called “Artifact Speed Dating — Canterbury Shaker History in 10 Objects.” This event is part of “We Want More History!,” an initiative by the Organization of American Historians to present historical education at events on the same day at “libraries, parks, museums, and other civic spaces” across the country, according to the initiative’s website. “It responds to heightened public interest in history and historical interpretation. Historians and educators are positioned as scholars and teachers committed to the public good through evidence-based, contextualized understanding of the past, in order to promote excellence in scholarship, encourage wide public discussion, and advocate for history. It ensures that national commemorations reflect the full, complex story of the people and places that make up the United States.”
Which is where the Shakers and their objects come in.
Shirley Wajda, the Shaker Museum’s curator of research and collections, will lead an exploration of different Shaker objects and how we can determine when an object was made or used.
“It will be a lecture,” Bethmann said, “that allows people to see objects close up. It will be in the spirit of, ‘Check this out! Here is a little bit of history, information and context.’ It will be an interactive lecture.”
“The importance of establishing dates for particular artifacts,” Bethmann said, “is to be able to identify when a certain object was used … because that can be insightful as to how they used it and what they were using it for.”
By looking at objects the Shakers owned, Bethmann said, we gain a deeper understanding of the world around them and what kind of technology was available to them.
“I think the objects that can grab people’s attention,” he said, “are the objects that are less associated with Shakers [in particular]. For instance, one thing I always find cool when I’ve walked around the [Shaker] Village is in one of our areas we have a telephone. Seeing a telephone, electrical wires, and seeing an object that is more tied to a modern America or to kind of a contemporary outlook that doesn’t necessarily include our antiquated and kind of folkloric romanticism of them, I think people will always find those types of objects interesting because they find themselves saying, ‘Huh, really? I didn’t think this type of society would be into that type of technology or that type of innovation.’ In fact, Shakers in general were relatively welcoming and inclusive of innovative technologies and things that made their lives easier. Objects like that are more closely associated with American culture, and not Shaker-specific, and can be attention-grabbing for [modern] people.”
The objects themselves are being kept under wraps until the actual event, Bethmann said. “We’re not going to talk about the specific items because that would be a spoiler.”
Artifact Speed Dating — Canterbury Shaker History in 10 Objects Where: Canterbury Shaker Village, 288 Shaker Road, Canterbury, 783-9511, shakers.org When: Saturday, Sept. 26, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Tickets: General admission tickets are available through the museum’s website for $20, or $10 for museum members. More: shakers.org and wewantmorehistory.org.
A few weeks ago, New London Barn Playhouse presented a four-day run of Wakeman, the first staging of a musical about a woman who presents as a man to fight in the Civil War. Audience response to the powerful work seemed to promise that it wouldn’t be the last. One imagines a future Tony acceptance speech thanking New Hampshire for giving it a chance.
An hour’s drive away in Derry, another potential Granite State creative triumph is quietly taking shape.
The unassuming exterior of StudioLab, in an industrial park near Tupelo Music Hall, masks the wizardry going on inside. It includes LED panel walls that use the same kind of technology Lucasfilm popularized for The Mandalorian, with LiDAR renderings that create photorealistic sets.
It’s where Rob Livie, an Emmy-winning veteran of corporate video and motion graphics, is building Resonance, a 1980s-set science-fiction series. Born from memories of living in the shadow of the Cold War, it’s something he’s imagined since his days as a teenager drawing comic books with apocalypse-themed mushroom clouds.
Last year, Livie launched Human Originals, a story studio and production company “dedicated to creating original worlds and characters that resonate on a deeper level,” beginning with Resonance. Livie’s leap of faith meant leaving Connection, Inc., the company he’d worked for since 2017, and setting up shop in StudioLab, with its state-of-the-art equipment.
He’d connected with the facility during his time providing services to Events United, a production company owned by Tim Messina, who operates StudioLab. When Livie pitched Messina his long-held idea, he didn’t hire him outright but offered whatever help he could: studio space, crew, and a network built over years in corporate production work.
A LiDAR-generated warehouse, with windows looking out at a gritty New York City street, opens the film. Livie has shot the first 10 minutes. “A proof of concept,” he called it. “We’re using this to try to find a champion for the project, whether that’s an executive producer, a showrunner, or an actor. Someone that helps create a snowball effect.”
That footage got a public airing at the recent Granite State Comicon, where organizer Chris Proulx urged Livie to “show people what’s being done here in New Hampshire.” The screening was followed by a live Q&A with the mostly local cast and crew. The latter is a crucial element of Resonance.
Livie is emphatic about using a Granite State cast, though some hail from the region, like the Springfield, Mass., actor on screen when the film opens. The net’s been widened when necessary. For example, James Hilliard is a California-based actor and former Connection colleague of Livie’s who also emceed the Comicon panel.
The show’s premise leans hard into Cold War-era anxiety as well as New Hampshire’s own strange corner of UFO lore. Its inciting incident is pegged to Sept. 26, 1983, the actual date a false alarm on a Soviet missile-defense system nearly triggered a retaliatory nuclear strike. It was averted only because the officer on duty didn’t believe the data.
In Resonance, that glitch becomes the moment the aliens crash to Earth. While Area 51 exists in the show’s mythology, it is used for misdirection; the actual black ops site is a fictional Area 52, located in New Hampshire. It’s a wink at the state’s own abduction lore, rooted in the 1961 Betty and Barney Hill case near Exeter.
A shelf in Livie’s office has comic books and a primitive 8mm movie camera he used to make stop-action animation as a teenager. He plans to shoot a future episode entirely on period-appropriate equipment like this, aiming for a lived-in era feel rather than pastiche. “I don’t want to yell that it’s the ’80s,” he said. “I just want to show it.”
Livie’s ambitions carry well past the screen. He’s sketched out an interactive extension of his story, with walkable, LED-enhanced sets. There’s also a theme-park vision of Resonance that’s spread across five locations in New Hampshire and tied to the show’s five alien worlds.
What’s next is the unglamorous, essential work of packaging: a finished script, a pitch deck, a show bible and an informal advisory network. There’s also a Keene-based CEO helping with the business plan and veteran line producers helping him suss out a budget, all assembled mostly over email.
It’s the stage where most independent projects quietly die for lack of know-how. Whether Resonance breaks through is an open question. But after decades spent, as Livie puts it, “adjacent to Hollywood, but not within Hollywood,” he has a 10-minute opening and a local team that believes in it, along with a story that starts, as he envisioned, close to home.
Made in New Hampshire Follow the progress of Resonance at humanoriginals.com
Featured photo: Granite State Comicon. Courtesy photo.
Find Shakespeare at a brewery, spooky tales, murder mysteries, updated classics and more theater this season
By Michael Witthaus mwitthaus@hippopress.com
From Fiddler on the Roof to Blithe Spirit, Sister Act and Seussical, the fall theater season has lots of familiar notes. Look closer, though, and there’s a twist. Horror movie musicals, gourmet dining with Poe as a palate cleanser, murder mystery meals, an international tragedy recast for its basic humanity — all are there.
Moreover, these shows are happening in unexpected places, like Tupelo Music Hall, best known for classic rockers and standup comics, but also a hub for the nomadic Lend Me A Theatre company. A musical version of Stephen King’s high school bloodbath Carrie will be performed in an actual gymnasium, a nice touch.
That’s not to say opera houses, glittering theaters, arts centers and playhouses aren’t in on the action. They are, but they’re balanced by offbeat, inventive venues like a historic house in Portsmouth and a former pop-up lemonade stand that’s now a brick and mortar dry bar, not to mention a winery. Here’s a rundown of upcoming performances, grouped thematically.
‘Immersive experiences’
Theatre Kapow is well known for blurring the line between cast and audience in its provocative productions, and an upcoming evening of dinner theater is no different. Attendees should dress up and perhaps wear a mask, but most of all come hungry.
On Oct. 23 the Concord company takes over Gnomies, the dry bar that now occupies the former home of Area 23, for an evening built around four Edgar Allan Poe poems and three of his stories, woven through a menu designed by master chef Susan Reidel.
It’s the first time Theatre Kapow has collaborated on an experience like this, which began with a conversation between Reidel and the company’s artistic director, Carrie Cahoon, a few months ago. “My dream is to have these immersive experiences with food and performance,” Reidel told her.
Recalled Cahoon, “One of us said, ‘Oh, what about Edgar Allan Poe?’ I realized that’s perfect.”
The roughly two-and-a-half-hour evening will have actors performing from all four corners of the room as the meal unfolds in courses. Cahoon, who is directing but not performing, has spent weeks living inside Poe’s language before rehearsals even start.
“It’s just such a wonderful physical experience to say it,” she said. “It’s so expressive and so powerful, and really does set this macabre, creepy, dark tone.” The stories, she’s quick to note, aren’t relentlessly grim — Poe’s social satire gets room to breathe, even as, true to form, almost nobody survives to the final course.
The masquerade element was Reidel’s idea, and Cahoon quickly embraced it.
“That brings you into it in a whole other way and really helps create the mood,” she said. It’s not a haunted-house jump-scare kind of dark, she’s careful to add, but something more elegant — a “dark night” with “a storm coming.”
The language is more American than most people assume; Poe, despite his gothic reputation, was born in Boston. It’s a great way to pull audiences out of their seats and into the room and, timed to Halloween, it’s a one-night experiment that could easily become a tradition.
Here are more shows in this vein:
• As Time Goes By
The Players’ Ring ( Players’ Ring Theatre, 105 Marcy St., Portsmouth) Tickets: $33 at playersring.org. When: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m., through Sunday, Oct. 11. A blend of retro nostalgia, mad-science time travel, and comic chaos that mashes up Leave It to Beaver, Back to the Future and Groundhog Day through looping timelines, baffled lovers, cosmic frustration and surrendering to the inevitable. Written by G. Matthew Gaskell, directed by Jamie Bradley.
• Majestic in Wonderland
Majestic Theatre (Majestic Studio Theatre, 880 Page St., Manchester) Tickets: $25 per person, $45 per couple, at majestictheatre.net. When: Friday, Sept. 25, and Saturday, Sept. 26, at 6:30 p.m. 21st Annual Auction & Performance Fundraiser, with the company’s Adult, Teen, & Youth actors performing along with the Ted Herbert Music School Faculty & Students and special guests. Silent auction prizes include tickets and passes to art and cultural venues, electronics, gift baskets, dining gift certificates, art and more. Special themed raffles, and refreshments each evening.
• Soap Opera (Episode 5)
New Hampshire Theatre Project (West End Studio Theatre, 959 Islington St., Portsmouth)When: Wednesday, Oct. 7, at 7 p.m. Tickets: $20 at portsmouthnhtickets.com. A monthly episodic improv series centers on the Beaver family dynasty and their maple syrup matriarchy. Identical twin sisters are inheriting the business from their grandmother and aunt, who are also identical twins. Questions entertained in the free-wheeling show include whether to modernize or stick with tradition, i.e., should they “boldly go beyond just breakfast,” plus the mystery of the Great Pancake Social of 1987.
• A Victorian Frightful
New Hampshire Theatre Project (Langdon House, 959 Islington St., No. 3, Portsmouth) When: Thursday, Oct. 15, at 7 p.m. and Friday, Oct. 16, at 4 p.m. Tickets: $35 and up at nhtheatreproject.com. Eerie songs and stories inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu are performed in a historic mansion by storyteller Diane Edgecomb, Genevieve Aichele, Kathleen Somssich and musical storyteller Tom Megan. An interactive presentation explores the Victorians’ deep interest in death along with their fascination with tarot, fortune-telling and spiritualism, with seasonal historical refreshments served, such as soul cakes and mulled cider. Guests are encouraged to dress in Gothic Victorian attire.
• Masque & Macabre: Edgar Allan Poe
Theatre Kapow (Gnomies, 254 N State St., Unit H, Concord) When: Friday, Oct. 23, at 6 p.m. Tickets: $135 (includes dinner) at tkapow.com. An intimate evening of candlelight, live theater, beautiful food and a touch of the macabre. Over the course of approximately three hours, Poe’s stories and poetry will unfold around diners experiencing an elegant five-course dinner inspired by his dark and unforgettable works.
• The Edgar Allan Poe Afterlife Radio Show
Winni Players Community Theatre (Winnipesaukee Playhouse, 33 Footlight Circle, Meredith) When: Thursday, Oct. 29, and Friday, Oct. 30, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 31, at 2 p.m.Tickets: $18 at winnipesaukeeplayhouse.org. A live, old-time-radio-style show conjuring the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe for a Halloween-week broadcast built from his stories and poems. Writers: Patrick Greene & Jason Pizzarello.
John Cares in Occupation: Murder! Courtesy photo.
Murder most delicious
Sometime during a sumptuous meal, someone is going to die, and it’s up to a well-fed audience to find the killer. That’s the pitch behind an interactive murder mystery dinner theater staged by Lend Me A Theater, a fun-loving troupe marking its 11th production season this fall with Occupation: Murder!
The game-show-themed whodunit by Billy St. Jean, in which a TV quiz show sponsor turns up dead and nine lucky audience members get pulled onstage as contestants, happens at Tupelo Music Hall in Derry on Saturday, Oct. 3, and Sunday, Oct. 4, with a dessert-only version the following two weekends at YWCA New Hampshire in Manchester.
Kat Abdelwahid plays Broadway diva Julia Warren in the production and more than inhabits her role.
“You are in character that whole time and you do not break it; that’s who you are,” the company’s co-founder said in a recent Zoom interview. Actors mingle table to table during dinner and again at intermission, scouting for volunteers who are up for a turn in the spotlight.
The company grew out of a shared production of Lend Me a Tenor, when a few theater friends realized their traditional fixed-seating home venue couldn’t support the kind of roaming, audience-in-the-room show they wanted to build. Three months later they were a registered nonprofit.
Eleven years on, Lend Me A Theater has never operated in the red, has hauled its own set trailer as far as Maine’s Cliff House and Cape Cod, and recently found a semi-permanent home base at the Manchester YWCA after a decade as a fully nomadic troupe.
Dinner, death and deduction is a formula other companies are running with their own twists this fall, like the seasonal offerings at LaBelle Winery and Majestic Theatre. But for a group that started with a folding table and a borrowed hall, Occupation: Murder! is proof the schtick still has lots of life, and suspects, left in it.
More murderous merriment:
• Occupation: Murder!
Lend Me A Theater (Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry) When: Saturday, Oct. 3, and Sunday, Oct. 4, Tickets: $25 show only, $60 with dinner, at tupelohall.com.
Occupation: Murder!– Dessert only: Lend Me A Theater (YWCA New Hampshire, 72 Concord St., Manchester)When: Saturdays, Oct. 10 and Oct. 17, and Sundays, Oct. 11 and Oct. 18. Tickets: $25 at lendmeatheater.org.
Interactive murder mystery dinner theater set in a television studio; audience members help solve the crime. Presented by Lend Me a Theater. Director: Ben Mahon. Two ticket options, with or without an autumn-themed buffet meal.
• Monster Mash Murder Mystery Dinner PartyLaBelle Winery (LaBelle Winery, 345 Route 101, Amherst). When: Sunday, Oct. 18, at 6:30 p.m. Tickets: $84 per person including dinner at labellewinery.com. The evening’s premise has famed director Alfred Z Hitchdick filming scenes for a horror blockbuster where Wednesday Addams meets the Universal classic monsters Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein and Invisible Man, with the real monster potentially a hidden murderer amongst them. Professional actors help diners enjoying a three-course menu unravel clues and challenge their detective skills.
• Much Ado About Murder
Majestic Theatre (Majestic Studio Theatre, 880 Page St., Manchester) When: Friday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 24, at 2 and 7 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 25, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $15-$20 at majestictheatre.net. Interactive murder mystery comedy with the audience voting on a killer’s identity at intermission via secret ballot. The victim is Carlton Larraby, whose life was filled with macabre little surprises for his family. His final joke is a Shakespeare-themed Halloween costume party that he sadly won’t live to enjoy, with the audience learning about the murder before the play’s characters. Writer: Pat Cook. Director: Becky Rush.
Janis Costa Deedy in Emma. Courtesy photo.
Halloween spirit
Manchester Community Theatre Players is already leaning into the season with a run of The Addams Family. But its second Halloween-timed offering this fall is a different animal entirely, and it comes with a promise, courtesy of co-director Amanda Morgan: “There will be blood.”
Carrie: The Musical is based on the Stephen King novel and Brian De Palma movie. Its first iteration is famous as one of Broadway’s most legendary flops, but it found new life in a darker, more psychologically grounded 2012 revision, though it’s still a deep cut for most theater fans.
MCTP’s production of it runs Oct. 23 through Nov. 1 at North End Montessori School, the same weekend a second area production of the show opens in Newmarket — but that one doesn’t have a real school gym. Morgan, who is both directing and music-directing, has wanted to tackle the show since she discovered it in college.
“I was always just a super fan of Halloween and all the fall-type activities, and I thought it was really cool that someone had made a horror movie into a musical,” she said in a Zoom interview, while describing having the chance to direct it as a dream project.
The musical stars a tight 18-and-up cast of 16, chosen over two days of auditions and including an intimacy coordinator, Jen Stearns, to safely stage the show’s more sensitive scenes. MCTP Artistic Director Margaret Tello co-directs the show with Morgan.
Morgan is aiming for a blend of tragedy, horror and dark comedy that honors both the campy 1988 flop and the leaner, bullying-focused 2012 rewrite, with enough fidelity to satisfy die-hard fans of the movie, along with enough new material to surprise them. “We’re trying our best to marry the two together,” she said.
The technical flourishes will be impressive, as lighting designer Josh Benham and a live pit will work in tight sync with sound design to simulate the show’s violence safely, an approach Morgan credits partly to the recent immersive stage production of Paranormal Activity as inspiration.
“It’s going to be a really acutely technically orchestrated experience,” Morgan said. With a run that stretches through Halloween weekend, Carrie: The Musical arrives at a moment when the work is enjoying a broader pop-culture resurgence, with an eight-episode streaming adaptation premiering Oct. 7 on Amazon Prime.
Rest assured as well that the infamous bucket of pig’s blood is very much part of the plan. So come for the nostalgia, stay for the gore. And enjoy a few more seasonally appropriate shows:
• Ride the Cyclone
Cue Zero Theatre Company (Arts Academy of New Hampshire, 19 Keewaydin Drive #4, Salem)When: Friday, Oct. 2, and Saturday, Oct. 3, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 4, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $20 at cztheatre.com. In this cult-favorite, dark-comedy musical, a group of teenagers killed in a roller-coaster accident compete in the afterlife for a chance at reincarnation, with music, book and lyrics written by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell. Directed by Darren Bernard, with Music Director Nate Faro.
• Evil Dead The Musical
Seacoast Repertory Theatre (Seacoast Repertory Theatre, 125 Bow St., Portsmouth) When: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m., through Nov. 8. Tickets: $47 and up at seacoastrep.org. Campy, gory musical comedy adaptation of the Evil Dead film franchise, following five college students whose cabin weekend unleashes demonic forces. Book & Lyrics: George Reinblatt. Music: Frank Cipolla, Christopher Bond, Melissa Morris & George Reinblatt. Director: Kate Sheridan.
• Carrie: The Musical
Manchester Community Theatre Players (North End Montessori School, 698 Beech St., Manchester) When: Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Nov. 1. Tickets: $15-$20 at manchestercommunitytheatre.com. Musical adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a bullied telekinetic teenager whose prom-night humiliation triggers a bloody reckoning. Music: Michael Gore. Lyrics: Dean Pitchford. Book: Lawrence D. Cohen. Director & Music Director: Amanda Morgan. Co-directed by Margaret W. Tello.
• Carrie: The Musical
Millspace Mainstage & Jonesing for Theatre (Newmarket Millspace, 55 Main St., Newmarket) When: Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Nov. 1 (including Saturday, Oct. 31, at 2 p.m.). Tickets: $25 at portsmouthnhtickets.com. Another adaptation of the King novel, directed by Kat Mail.
Many musicals
On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, it’s worth remembering that the day produced more than tragedy.
It also put a Newfoundland town of 9,000 in the spotlight, as it opened its homes to thousands of stranded strangers when 38 planes were diverted there. That’s the story of Come From Away, the Tony-nominated musical directed by Betsey Cox-Buteau that Community Players of Concord is bringing to the stage.
It’s an unusual show to direct, Cox-Buteau noted in a recent phone interview.
“It’s an ensemble piece, where everyone’s part is essentially equal,” she said. “There’s no particular star, but everybody is on stage for pretty much the entire show.”
An hour and 45 minutes long, it opens with the attacks and never lets the audience look away, but also never lets them forget what came next.
“It brings you into a space during that time, or in the days afterwards … where things were remarkably humane and good,” she continued. “It’s a marvelous story of community, and kindness.”
Before the first table read, Cox-Buteau gathered the cast, a dozen actors each tasked with multiple roles, around a table. She availed everyone, herself included, to describe where they were that fateful morning. The answers ranged widely.
“Some were just gleams in their mother’s eyes, and some of us were older,” she said. A Navy member who was serving in Southern California at the time “got to work and there was war, [while] I was a principal of an elementary school, K-8, and my reaction was to shut the school down.”
The exercise provided a shared foundation to tackle a script based on real people from the town of Gander. Some characters are straight portrayals, from the town’s mayor to the first female American Airlines pilot, grounded mid-flight. Others, like a couple who met on a diverted plane and later married, are composites.
With a Celtic score anchored by a pulsing bodhran drum, Come From Away has its cast singing and moving in near-constant rhythm. What it leaves audiences with, Cox-Buteau said, isn’t despair. “People will come away from this crying, for the most part, but full of happiness and their gratefulness for the kindness of strangers.”
Come From Away is one of many musicals on tap this season.
• The Addams Family
Manchester Community Theatre Players (North End Montessori School, Manchester) When: Friday, Sept. 25, and Saturday, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Sept. 27, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $15-$20 at manchestercommunitytheatre.com. Clash of offbeat family and conventional in-laws to be, as daughter Wednesday brings home the “normal” boy she wants to marry to her parents Gomez and Morticia, based on Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons. Director: Margaret Tello. Music Director: Christie Conticchio. Choreographer: Kayla Williams.
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Dine In Productions (Newmarket Millspace, 55 Main St., Newmarket) When: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from Friday, Sept. 18, through Sunday, Oct. 4. Tickets: $25 at portsmouthnhtickets.com. Genre-stretching musical tells a story of love, identity and survival through storytelling and powerful music, “a celebration of self-expression and resilience; loud, vulnerable and deeply human.” An intimate production brings the show up close, as Hedwig navigates fame, heartbreak and her search for wholeness.
• Sister Act
Palace Theatre (Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester) When: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m., through Oct. 4. Tickets: $45-$54 at palacetheatre.org. Based on the movie starring Whoopi Goldberg. A disco diva (Cathy McKay) witnesses a mob murder. Hiding in a convent, she transforms the ragged choir of nuns into a sensation. Music: Alan Menken. Lyrics: Glenn Slater. Book: Cheri Steinkellner & Bill Steinkellner (additional book material: Douglas Carter Beane).
• Green Day’s American Idiot
Seacoast Repertory Theatre (Seacoast Repertory Theatre, 125 Bow St., Portsmouth) When: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. through Sept. 27. Tickets: $47 and up at seacoastrep.org. With the Grammy Award-winning multi-platinum album as a starting point, this musical is both political rage and straight-up punk rock. This high-octane show includes every song from Green Day’s American Idiot as well as several songs from its follow-up release, 21st Century Breakdown.
• Seussical the Musical
ROH Presents (Rochester Opera House, 31 Wakefield St., Rochester) When: Friday, Oct. 16, through Sunday, Nov. 8, Wednesday through Sunday, various times. Tickets: $32-$36 at rochesteroperahouse.org. A mashup of Dr. Seuss stories centered on Horton the Elephant, working to protect the minions of Whoville despite a skeptical jungle. Music: Stephen Flaherty. Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, book by Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty, co-conceived with Barry Moss.
• The Commedia Pinocchio
Winnipesaukee Playhouse (Winnipesaukee Playhouse, 33 Footlight Circle, Meredith) When: Saturdays, Oct. 17 and Oct. 24, at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 25, at 1 p.m. Tickets: $16-$22 at winnipesaukeeplayhouse.org. Professional Theatre for Young Audiences presents a commedia dell’arte-style, entirely a cappella musical retelling of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, published by Pioneer Drama Service. By Lane Riosley with music by Aven Stephenson.
• Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryWindham Actors Guild (Windham High School Theater, 64 London Bridge Road, Windham) When: Friday, Oct. 23, and Saturday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 25, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $22 at windhamactorsguild.com. Musical based on Roald Dahl’s story of Charlie Bucket, who wins a golden ticket to tour Willy Wonka’s mysterious chocolate factory. Book: David Greig. Music & Lyrics: Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman. Director: Paul Conway (Music Director: Michael Shaw; Choreographer: Caleb Anderson.
• Fiddler on the Roof
Palace Theatre (Palace Theatre, 80 Hanover St., Manchester) When: Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m., through Oct. 4. Tickets: $45-$54 at palacetheatre.org. Tony winner about a poor milkman and his five daughters. With the help of a colorful and tight-knit Jewish community, he tries to protect his daughters and instill in them traditional values in the face of changing social mores and the growing anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. Written by Jerome Robbins and Harold Prince.
• The Wedding Singer
Actorsingers (Keefe Center for the Arts, 117 Elm St., Nashua). When: Friday, Nov. 6, and Saturday, Nov. 7, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Nov. 8, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $25 at actorsingers.org. Musical based on the Adam Sandler film about an ’80s wedding-band singer who falls for a waitress engaged to the wrong guy. Book: Chad Beguelin & Tim Herlihy. Music: Matthew Sklar. Lyrics: Chad Beguelin. Director: MaryEllen Stevenson. Music Director: Jessica Love. Choreographer: Valerie Psoinos Nelson.
• Irving Berlin’s White Christmas
Winni Players Community Theatre (Winnipesaukee Playhouse, 33 Footlight Circle, Meredith) When: Thursday, Nov. 19, through Saturday, Nov. 21, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Nov 21, and Sunday, Nov. 22, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $17-$25 at winnipesaukeeplayhouse.org. Stage musical based on the 1954 film built around Irving Berlin standards: Two WWII Army buddies turned song-and-dance men help save a struggling Vermont inn. Music & Lyrics: Irving Berlin. Book: David Ives & Paul Blake.
• Come From Away
Community Players of Concord (Concord Civic Auditorium, 2 Prince St., Concord) When: Friday, Nov. 20, and Saturday, Nov. 21, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Nov. 22, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $22 adults, $20 students and seniors at communityplayersofconcord.org. True story of Gander, Newfoundland, whose residents welcomed thousands of air travelers diverted there on Sept. 11, 2001. Book, Music & Lyrics: Irene Sankoff & David Hein. Director: Betsey Cox-Buteau.
Marilyn McBride in Occupation: Murder! Courtesy photo.
Character driven
Finally, there are shows that are all about the actors, like Kate Hammill’s Emma, which Nashua Theatre Guild will stage Oct. 2 through Oct. 4 at the Janice B. Streeter Theatre. NTG’s Alyson Galipeau described the play, directed by Vicky Sandlin, as a period comedy that will strike a chord with fans of Bridgerton.
It’s centered around the antics of lead character Emma Woodhouse, who decides to make matchmaking her pet project and arranges a series of events to that end.
“However, her plot backfires, resulting in outcomes that will make the audience laugh,” Galipeau wrote in an email. “While she is busy trying to set other people up, she fails to notice that her own match has been in front of her the entire time.”
Here are more stage productions to enjoy:
• Night Watch
Garrison Players Arts Center (Garrison Players Arts Center, 449 Roberts Road, Rollinsford) When: Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 4 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m., Oct. 2 through Oct. 17. Tickets: $18 and up at garrisonplayers.org. A woman (Sarah Kuhn) in her Manhattan apartment is haunted by the horrific memory of her first husband’s affair and death, both of which she discovered at the same time in this psychological thriller. She glimpses what appears to be a murdered body in the building across the way, but no one believes her. Writer: Lucille Fletcher. Director: Judi Currie
• Emma
Nashua Theatre Guild (Janice B. Streeter Theatre, 14 Court St., Nashua) When: Friday, Oct. 2, and Saturday, Oct. 3, at 7 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 4, at 4:30 p.m. Tickets: $20 at nashuatheatreguild.org. Stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s comedy of manners about a well-meaning matchmaker whose meddling in her friends’ love lives keeps backfiring. A fresh feminist take on a treasured classic, this Emma breaks down convention, expectation, and even the fourth wall with vibrant comic flair. Director: Vicky Sandin.
• Looking Glass Land – Misadventures of a Girl Named Alice
Community Players of Concord (Concord Civic Auditorium, 2 Prince St., Concord) When: Friday, Oct. 16, at 7 p.m., and Saturday, Oct. 17, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $15 at communityplayersofconcord.org. James DeVita’s take on Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, this adaptation highlights and improvises on the pure, unadulterated fun of the story while retaining some of Carroll’s deeper meaning, but mostly it’s pure silliness. All the familiar characters are there, and some new ones, like a baseball team, a rap group, a train conductor and star-struck tourists. Director: Karen Braz.
• Queens
Pinkerton Players (Stockbridge Theatre, 44 N. Main St. (Pinkerton Academy), Derry) When: Friday, Oct. 16, and Saturday, Oct. 17, at 7 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 18, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $5-$15 at pinkertonacademy.org. King Henry VIII is trapped in purgatory, bound to his throne by a Fool and the ghostly Women in White, forced to relive his transgressions against his six queens, his mistresses and the people of the court for eternity as punishment. Writer: Kristen Doherty.
• The Sound Inside
New Hampshire Theatre Project (West End Studio Theatre, 959 Islington St., Portsmouth) When: Friday, Oct. 16, through Sunday, Nov. 1, Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 4 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets: $30-$33 at portsmouthnhtickets.com. A solitary creative-writing professor’s carefully guarded routine is upended when a student reveals a devastating secret, in this Tony-nominated two-hander. Writer: Adam Rapp. Director: Constance Witman.
• And Then There Were None
The Players’ Ring ( Players’ Ring Theatre, 105 Marcy St., Portsmouth) When: Oct. 23 through Nov. 15, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. (Oct. 31, 2 p.m. only; Nov. 1, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.)Tickets: $33 at playersring.org. “A masterfully constructed thriller packed with shocking twists, mounting suspense, and one of the most famous endings in theater history,” as 10 strangers lured to an isolated island are murdered one by one in Agatha Christie’s best-selling mystery. Director: Jamie Bradley.
• An Empty Sky
The Players’ Ring (Players’ Ring Theatre, 105 Marcy St., Portsmouth, playersring.org/) When: Tuesday, Oct 27, at 6:30 p.m. Staged reading of a play depicting a love relationship “struggling to blossom in a time of political strangeness nearly devoid of hope” centered in a small New England church, as a disgraced clergywoman and a Jewish piano tuner build a fragile haven. Written by Joshua Faigen. Directed by Leslie Pasternack.
• Crimes of the Heart
Bedford Off Broadway (Bedford Old Town Hall, 3 Meetinghouse Road, Bedford) When: Friday, Nov. 6, through Sunday, Nov. 15. Tickets: $12-$15 at bedfordoffbroadway.com. Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy about three estranged sisters who reunite in Mississippi after the youngest shoots her abusive husband. Writer: Beth Henley. Directed by Deb Lund and stage managed by Pat Napolitano.
• A Wrinkle in Time
Winnipesaukee Playhouse Education Dept. (Winnipesaukee Playhouse, 33 Footlight Circle, Meredith) When: Friday, Nov. 6, and Saturday, Nov. 7, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Nov. 8, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $16-$22 at winnipesaukeeplayhouse.org. Stage adaptation performed by students ages 8-18 of Madeleine L’Engle’s Newbery-winning novel, in which Meg Murry, her brother and their friend travel through time and space to rescue her scientist father from an evil force.
• Blithe Spirit
Cue Zero Theatre Company (Arts Academy of New Hampshire, 19 Keewaydin Drive, No. 4, Salem) When: Friday, Nov. 20, and Saturday, Nov. 21, at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Nov. 22, at 2 p.m. Tickets: $10 at cztheatre.com. Noel Coward comedy about a novelist’s dead first wife who’s accidentally conjured up by an eccentric medium and proceeds to haunt his second marriage, presented by Arts Academy of New Hampshire.
Lend me your beers
Bar Shakespeare in Manchester
Performer Ashley Risteen in a The VanGuard Shakespeare performance in Salem, Mass. Courtesy photo by Glenn Provost, founder of Stage of Fools who has performed with VanGuard.
At Stark Brewing Co. on Monday, Oct. 19, it will be possible to order a pint and enjoy a Shakespeare play. That’s the idea behind Shakesbeer, a bar-reading series from Stage of Fools Theatre Company. It began with a back room staging of Much Ado About Nothing on Sept. 21 and continues with Julius Caesar.
Stage of Fools founder and artistic director Glenn Provost describes the format as loose by design, with actors carrying scripts as they weave among the tables and let the play spill into the crowd.
“It’s a little bit improvisational because we only have two rehearsals, one of which is going to be over Zoom and then the other one is in person,” Provost said. The big beats are blocked, but everything else is looser, as actors feel out the room in real time.
The concept wasn’t invented from scratch. Provost points to Seven Stages Shakespeare Company, which ran the similar ShakesBEERience in Portsmouth for many years, as a direct inspiration. He got the blessing from its former executive director Christine Penny, now at the Dance Hall in Kittery, to carry the idea forward.
He’s also performed twice with VanGuard Shakespeare, a comparable series in Salem, Mass. Provost has run companies before like Strangers at Home Theatre Company and Bolt Cutter Productions, but he said those were built as vehicles for two-person dramatic shows.
Stage of Fools is the opposite instinct: an ensemble built to grow. Nine actors make up the Much Ado cast, with nine or 10 expected for each of the next two shows; Provost estimates the company will work with more than 50 actors by the end of its first season.
That season runs monthly through fall and into spring, with Julius Caesar on Oct. 19, Henry IV on Nov. 16, then a winter break before Romeo & Juliet returns Feb. 8 with a “gender-crossed” Valentine’s Day spin, The Winter’s Tale on March 8 and The Comedy of Errors closing things out April 12.
Every (free) show is one night only, at Stark Brewing Co., 500 N. Commercial St., Manchester, 6 p.m. — Michael Witthaus
Featured photo: Quinn Spiewak at Bar Shakespeare. Courtesy photo.
