Category: Visual Arts

Full-scale productions return to the Hatbox Theatre

The stories of Sherlock Holmes come to life in Phylloxera Productions’ Holmes and Watson, opening June 11 for a two-week run at the Hatbox Theatre in Concord.

Director and producer Gary Locke long dreamed of bringing a Sherlock Holmes play to the New Hampshire stage but was disappointed by the scripts he found. An avid fan of the classic mystery series, he had high standards, and he wasn’t prepared to settle.

“Most Sherlock Holmes plays are just dreadful. They have their own ideas of how the characters act and look, and they make it into a joke,” Locke said. “I’m a person who wanted to do absolute justice and fealty to Conan Doyle and his world and his characters. I wanted to do the best Sherlock Holmes play possible.”

Then, he came across Holmes and Watson, a play written by Jeffrey Hatcher, published in 2017. Hatcher “knew his stuff,” Locke said; he had written a number of Sherlock Holmes adaptations for stage and screen throughout his career, including the screenplay for the 2015 feature film Mr. Holmes,starring Ian McKellen as the iconic detective. Locke was sold.

“I started reading it and was so excited, like a little kid at Christmastime. I just couldn’t believe how good it was,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘I’ve finally found it. I’ve found my Sherlock Holmes script. I can finally tick this box on my bucket list.’”

Interweaving three Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes and Watson is set in 1894 England, following a scuffle between Holmes and his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty that resulted in Holmes going over the Reichenbach Falls. The detective is assumed by most to be dead, though his body is never found. While mourning the loss of his best friend, Dr. Watson receives a telegram informing him that three men being held in a remote asylum off the coast of Scotland have claimed to be Holmes, still alive. The detective work falls on Watson now, as he must discover which one of the men, if any, is the real Holmes.

“It’s a story about friendship, loyalty and solving a very strange puzzle, with lots of surprises,” Locke said.

Locke said he’s confident the play will earn the approval of Sherlock Holmes purists like himself.

“If you know Holmes, you’ll see how Hatcher’s encyclopedic knowledge of the Holmes stories shines through,” he said. “He’s got the characters and their voices down so good.”

For those not as familiar with the series, Locke said, Holmes and Watson is “a genuine crowd-pleasing puzzle” that engages the audience in trying to solve the mystery themselves.

“It’s loaded with clues, and if you really pay attention you can follow the clues and figure it out,” he said.

The Hatbox Theatre’s first mainstage production of the year, Holmes and Watson marks the theater’s “re-re-opening,” theater owner and operator Andrew Pinard said; after the initial Covid shutdown, the Hatbox reopened in July 2020 with a mainstage production of Phylloxera Productions’ Copenhagen, with plans to follow with Holmes and Watson,but the strict capacity limitations being enforced at that time, combined with the public’s reluctance to start attending live shows again, made it impossible to generate a profit, and Pinard decided to reclose the theater.

“Holmes and Watson … got pushed back until audiences were ready and we could accommodate enough audience members safely,” Pinard said.

Now, as long as masks are worn and seats are distanced at least three feet apart, the Hatbox is able to operate at around 85 percent capacity.

“This enables us to … get to a point where productions not only break even but might actually come out ahead a little for their next production,” Pinard said.

For Locke, the reward of this show comes not from making a profit, he said, but from giving New Hampshire theater artists and theater-goers an opportunity to return to what they love.

“The cast is having the time of their lives, and I know that the audience is going to be really appreciative of the show we put on,” he said. “Obviously I don’t want to lose money, but if I do, at least I know it was well-spent.”

Holmes and Watson
Where: Hatbox Theatre, Steeplegate Mall, 270 Loudon Road, Concord
When: June 11 through June 27, with showtimes on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m.
Tickets: $22 for adults; $19 for students, seniors and members; and $16 for senior members
Info: Call 715-2315 or visit hatboxnh.com

Featured photo: Holmes and Watson at the Hatbox Theatre. Courtesy photo. Courtesy photo.

Two new sculptures to be installed in downtown Concord

Downtown Concord becomes an open-air art gallery through Art on Main, an initiative by the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce’s Creative Concord committee to commission public outdoor sculptures by professional sculptors from around New England for installation along Main Street.

Now in its fourth year, Art on Main is bringing in two new sculptures to be installed this month.

Both were created by Chris Plaisted, a Connecticut-based artist who was born and raised in Alstead, New Hampshire.

“This will sort of be a homecoming for me,” Plaisted said. “I still have many friends and family in the area, so part of the intent in participating was the hope that they will get to see my work.”

Plaisted’s large-scale, welded steel sculptures have appeared in dozens of outdoor art exhibits across the country. He described his work as being “primarily abstract, but often with figurative elements.”

His Concord-bound piece “Into the Wind” is a 12-foot-tall, 5-foot-wide and 5-foot-deep red steel sculpture that was prompted, Plaisted said, by a conversation he had with his friend about their shared sailing hobby and summer plans.

“I got to thinking about making a piece inspired by our boats, so this piece is an abstract of a sail cutting the wind,” he said.

At 9 feet tall, 32 inches wide and 32 inches deep, “Sunflower from Mars” is also red steel and was born out of Plaisted’s interest in the 1938 radio broadcast The War of the Worlds.

“The piece was then inspired by the idea that, what if Martians had actually landed in the U.S. and planted a seed? What would they have left behind?” he said.

The sculptures installed through Art on Main remain in Concord for one to two years, at the discretion of the Creative Concord committee. Plaisted’s piece will join several pieces that have been renewed for a second year. All are available to purchase, with 30 percent of the proceeds to be placed in a dedicated fund for Concord to acquire more permanent public art.

“The idea is that we’re bringing in new pieces on a fairly regular basis to keep sort of a fresh appearance of new art coming into the downtown,” Concord Chamber President Tim Sink said.

Sculptors are found through a call for art put out by Creative Concord in the winter. By the end of April, the committee makes its decision.

“We’re not looking for statues of George Washington,” Sink said. “We’re looking for [pieces] that are more non-traditional; that are large and capture your eye as you’re walking or driving down Main Street; and that are rugged and durable — something that kids could climb on.”

The best way to experience the art, Sink said, is to park on South Main Street and walk, starting in the area of the Capitol Center for the Arts, up to the New Hampshire Statehouse on North Main Street.

“It’s a very pedestrian-friendly atmosphere with lots of outdoor dining and shops, and you’ll pass these pieces along the way,” he said.

You can engage more with the pieces on Creative Concord’s website, which features professionally shot videos of the artists introducing themselves and discussing their sculptures. Sink said Creative Concord is looking to expand the Art on Main initiative to have a new mural created in downtown every year. They’re on track to have one completed by the end of the summer, though they haven’t chosen a location yet.

“We have plenty of canvases,” Sink said. “If you walk through downtown, you’ll see there are probably 14 or so sides of buildings that are highly visible and would be great for a mural.”

Visit concordnhchamber.com/creativeconcord and visitconcord-nh.com/art-in-concord, or call the Chamber at 224-2508.

Featured photo: “Into the Wind” by Chris Plaisted. Courtesy photo.

New children’s book helps kids cope with pandemic life

Most people who are stuck at the mechanic’s for three and a half hours wouldn’t use the time to write an entire children’s book. But Kathy Brodsky of Manchester is not most people; when the words “Talula Turtle” popped into her head as she was waiting for her car last November, she took out her iPhone and started writing. The result is How Talula Turned Her Day Around, a newly published children’s book about coping with some of the challenges of Covid-19.

“She’s the cutest little thing who doesn’t like to wear a mask,” Brodsky said of Talula.

Though the waiting room location was unusual, writing stories in a short amount of time based on ideas that just come to her is Brodsky’s style.

“Even though I have no idea where any one of my poems will go, once I get the first four lines, I’m up and running,” she said.

Like all of Brodsky’s books — this is her 16th — How Talula Turned Her Day Around offers life lessons meant to comfort or inspire young kids.

“I’ve been a therapist for 51 years,” said Brodsky, who still sees clients three days a week. “I think being a therapist shows up in my books. … [Or] the books show up because I’m a therapist.”

Talula was born from the emotional impact that Covid has had on the world — a heavy topic made relatable to kids by showing how hard it’s been for Talula to adjust to wearing a mask and being away from her friends.

Discussion questions at the end of her books give kids the chance to talk more about their feelings; in Talula, one of the questions is “How has Covid-19 changed your life?”

“What’s happened with Covid is a huge loss for everybody,” Brodsky said. “It’s a loss of life as we knew it before. … Whenever there’s a loss we go through a grieving process. We’re shocked, then we deny it, we get angry. … Everybody’s just been trying to deal with this loss.”

Knowing she had to get Talula published quickly because of the immediacy of the topic, Brodsky couldn’t use her usual illustrator, Cameron Bennett, who was working on another project. Instead, she turned to her niece, Sarah Zeogas. While Bennett has hand-painted Brodsky’s previous books, Zeogas digitally illustrated Talula.

She and Zeogas worked together to get both the book and a corresponding coloring and activity book published by March. Since then, it’s been used in schools and read aloud during public library story times.

“[My books] have very simple words … but they can be much more than that,” Brodsky said.

The words for the first picture book that Brodsky wrote, My Bent Tree, came to her during a walk, when she noticed that a tree she’d walked past many times before was bent. She started repeating rhyming words to herself on her way home, and the book became a story of a tree that got struck by lightning and is now different from all the other trees.

“It’s for anyone dealing with any kind of difference,” Brodsky said, who didn’t fully realize her own connection to the book until it was done. “My Bent Tree was my story — when I was born I had polio.”

Brodsky never planned to become an author — “I had no idea I could write,” she said — but positive feedback from a poem she wrote in an invitation to her mom’s birthday party prompted her to enroll in an adult education writing class.

Brodsky self-published her first book, Moments in Our Lives, in 2004. It’s her only adult book, a collection of poems, and she’s planning to add on to it and re-release it in the near future. She also has another kids’ book in the works called Stover Learns to Swim, her third book featuring Stover the pig, who learned all about fitness and healthy eating in Stover, and then overcame his fear of staying away from home in Stover Goes to Camp. This time, Stover is afraid of swimming. The story stems from Brodsky’s time as a swimming instructor.

“When I first came to Manchester in 1970, I was the only swim instructor at the YMCA,” she said. “I had a 14-year-old boy [who was afraid to swim], but all of his friends were swimming.”

Though Brodsky has finished writing Stover Learns to Swim, she’s waiting on Bennett to return from abroad so he can hand-paint the illustrations. She hopes to publish it this year.

How Talula Turned Her Day Around
How Talula Turned Her Day Around and all Kathy Brodsky’s books are available for purchase on Amazon or at kathybrodsky.com.

Featured photo: How Talula Turned Her Day Around

Nashua to host its second pandemic-era Sculpture Symposium

After a successful rescheduled and pandemic-adapted event last summer, the 2021 Nashua International Sculpture Symposium will resume its traditional time in the spring, with sculptors starting work on Monday, May 24.

“Last year, we were able to provide a model for a safe, community-oriented program within a pandemic setting,” artistic director Jim Larson said. “[Having a model] that easily met all of the safety requirements, combined with the amazing and exciting artwork we saw produced, meant that we were excited to try [the symposium] again this year, even while we’re still within a pandemic scenario.”

Started in 2008, the Nashua International Sculpture Symposium was inspired by the Andres Institute of Art International Sculpture Symposium, a similar event held in Brookline every fall. It is the only international sculpture symposium in the U.S. that is held in a city, with the sculptures being placed on public property.

“More public art — and more accessibility to public art — is the name of the game,” Larson said

The symposium invites three experienced sculptors to spend three weeks in Nashua, creating outdoor sculptures for permanent installation in the city. Historically, it has welcomed sculptors from all over the world, but with the pandemic increasing restrictions on international travel, the symposium will, for the second time, feature three sculptors from the U.S. Aside from the discrepancy it creates with the event’s name, Larson said, the absence of an “International” component, though not ideal, doesn’t diminish the impact of the symposium. There’s even an upside, he said: Hosting U.S. sculptors allows Nashua to “build connections with local and somewhat-local similar-minded organizations and artists,” ultimately strengthening the arts community in New Hampshire.

“What’s really exciting about inviting local artists to the symposium is that the resources we collect through grants and donations to support our artists stay right here in our community through that artist and their work,” Larson said.

The sculptors — Gavin Kenyon from New York, Sam Finkelstein from Maine, and Nora Valdez, from Boston, Mass., originally from Argentina — are all mid-career, Larson said, and were chosen based in part on how the symposium could benefit them and their artistic growth. Finkelstein, for example, has worked in stone for many years but has never made a large-scale piece because he lacks the studio infrastructure needed to move thousands of pounds of stone; and Kenyon, whose 20 years as a professional artist has consisted mostly of commission work and private projects, hasn’t had many opportunities to create public art or art in the public domain.

“We’re supporting them and providing what they need to make work that they couldn’t or wouldn’t otherwise,” Larson said.

This year’s sculptors have been challenged to interpret the theme “Introspection” through their pieces — a theme that has emerged in many artists’ work during these pandemic times, Larson said.

“Artists have been isolated in their own studios, more productive than ever, but not having as much dialogue … about their work and ideas, so, in that way, art has become very introspective,” Larson said. “[For the symposium,] we want to keep art within the context of that introspection while bringing it back out into the public realm.”

Working from cast concrete, white marble, red granite and Indiana limestone, all three sculptors have planned figurative pieces depicting elements of the human form. But, as symposium president Gail Moriarty can attest, it’s not uncommon for sculptors to find new inspiration once they’re able to physically engage with the installation site and materials.

“They come with ideas that they’re ready to begin working on, but nothing is finalized until they [start working],” Moriarty said. “It’s really cool to see how those ideas manifest themselves, because we’re never quite sure how they will.”

The sculptors will work six days a week, Monday through Saturday, outside The Picker Artists studios on Pine Street from Monday, May 24, through Friday, June 4, and relocate to the installation site on Saturday, June 5, where they will resume working for one more week. As always, the public is encouraged to stop by the work site to observe and interact with the sculptors, so long as they wear a mask and keep a safe distance.

This “constant viewership and dialogue” surrounding the sculptors while they work is just as integral to the symposium as the sculptures that are produced, Larson said.

“[The way in which] artists physically enact their intentions on their work becomes part of the piece, and being able to watch that makes it easier to engage with the piece of art,” he said.

Moriarty recommends visiting the work site multiple times over the course of the symposium to follow the sculptures’ transformation.

“The materials look different every single day,” she said. “It’s always exciting to come back and see how much they’ve changed.”

The finished sculptures will be revealed during a closing ceremony (not open to the public, but it will be videoed and available to watch online) on Saturday, June 12. The sculptures will be installed collectively in the courtyard at the corner of Church and Court streets in downtown. A quiet, low-traffic space that branches a block off Main Street, the site enables an “intimate viewing experience” of the sculptures, Larson said.

“It’s not like looking at the pieces on Main Street, where there’s traffic whizzing by,” he said. “This is a place where someone can have their own personal time with the pieces.”

14th annual Nashua International Sculpture Symposium
Opening and closing receptions: The opening reception will take place on Thursday, May 20, and the closing reception will take place on Saturday, June 12. Neither event is open to the public, but both will be videoed and available to watch online.
Visit the sculptors: Sculptors will work Monday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., outside The Picker Artists studios (3 Pine St., Nashua) from Monday, May 24, through Friday, June 4, and at the installation site at the corner of Church and Court streets in downtown Nashua from Saturday, June 5, through Saturday, June 12.
More info: nashuasculpturesymposium.org

Featured photo: A previous Nashua International Sculpture Symposium. Courtesy photo.