Granite State Stuff : Harbor Light Stage

The Mystery Plays, April 13

AskLisa — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:27:00 GMT

“The Mystery Plays” by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
last reading till fall for the Bold Face Play Readings Series

The secret code here lies in the multiple meanings of the word “mystery.” Aguirre-Sacasa channels everyone from Kafka to Lovecraft to Hitchcock to Capote in this tour-de-force theatrical diptych: two short mysteries hinged together by a character, and more.

“The Filmmaker’s Mystery” comprises the first act, in which horror pix director Joe Manning survives a train wreck, only to be haunted by the ghost of a dead passenger who tried to pick him up. In the second act, “Ghost Children,” Joe’s attorney Abby Gilly is drawn back to her childhood home to make peace with her older brother who, 16 years ago, brutally murdered her parents and sister. Over both intertwined stories hovers the compassionate spirit of the playwright himself. Like the authors of the original medieval “mystery” plays, he wrestles with questions of life, death, faith and forgiveness, but in a uniquely American way. The New York Times called it “irresistible.”

This fourth and final offering in Harbor Light Stage’s spring Bold Face Play Readings Series will be performed on Monday, April 13, at the Kittery Art Association, 8 Coleman Ave., Kittery Point, Maine. Reservations are recommended, and seats must be claimed by 7:15 p.m. for the 7:30 reading. Please note, there will only be one performance for this installment of the Bold Face Play Readings series, which will return this fall with another lineup of bold, intimate and engaging contemporary American works.

Playwright Aguirre-Sacasa is also author of the gay satiric thriller “Say You Love Satan.” Cast for this performance of “The Mystery Plays” include local professional actors Christopher Savage, Dylan Schwartz-Wallach, Colleen Madden, Brian Chamberlain, Susan Poulin and Allan Mayo.

Harbor Light Stage’s summer Maine Stage Series will then offer the world premiere of “Creek Man: The Unbelievable True Story of the Accordion-Playing Merman.” By, about and starring local legend Gary Sredzienski, “Creek Man” is part vaudeville, part autobiography, part history lesson and part aquatic homage. And like its subject, this limited engagement dinner theatre production at the York Harbor Reading Room will be truly one-of-a-kind. Tickets are on sale now.

For more information, including reservations or directions, call (207) 439-5769, email harborlight@bitstream.net, or visit www.harborlightstage.org.

Bold Face Play Reading March 2 and 3: “My Name is Rachel Corrie"

AskLisa — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:50:00 GMT

On March 16, 2003, a 23-year-old American was killed in Gaza by an Israeli Army bulldozer as she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. Rachel Corrie was her name, and this play is her story.

On March 2 and 3, Harbor Light Stage brings “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” to Kittery and Portsmouth as part of its winter Bold Face Play Reading Series. Featuring New York actress Rosebud Baker, readings will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 9, at the Kittery Art Association, 8 Coleman Ave., and on Tuesday, March 10, at the Portsmouth Pearl, 45 Pearl Street. Reservations are recommended, and seats must be claimed by 7:15 p.m.

“Theatre can’t change the world,” according to The Guardian’s review. “But what it can do, when it’s as good as this, is to send us out enriched by other people’s passionate concern.” The piece premiered at London's Royal Court Theatre in 2005, with an award-winning, sold-out run, and has since been staged around the world, including a performance last year in Haifa, Israel.

This extraordinary and controversial story of the growth of a human conscience is a one-woman show, created by actor Alan Rickman (“Harry Potter,” “Sweeney Todd”) and journalist Katharine Viner from Corrie’s personal diaries, letters, and emails. “My Name is Rachel Corrie” paints a portrait of a messy but articulate, Salvador Dali-loving chainsmoker with a passion for Pat Benatar who leaves her Olympia, Washington, home to work as an activist in the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her life followed one simple belief: “Even a person of privilege doesn’t sit idly by and watch.”

The Bold Face Play Reading series will bring two more runs to the Seacoast this winter: the Pulitzer-prize winning comedy “Third” by Wendy Wasserstein, March 23-24; and “The Mystery Plays” by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, April 13-14.

May will then usher in Harbor Light Stage’s second Maine Stage series. Tickets go on sale March 1 for “Creek Man: The Unbelievable True Story of the Accordion-Playing Merman,” by, about and starring local legend Gary Sredzienski.

For more information, including reservations or directions, call (207) 439-5769, email harborlight@bitstream.net, or visit www.harborlightstage.org.

Harbor Light Stage grows with more room for bold face play readings and Major Grant for Maine Stage Series

AskLisa — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:06:00 GMT

Harbor Light Stage, the Kittery Point-based professional theater company that offers its seasonal Bold Face Play Reading Series and last year launched the full production Maine Stage Series, is growing again in 2009. The not-for-profit has expanded its winter Bold Face season to include two performances of each reading: All readings will still be held on Monday nights at the warm and cozy Kittery Art Association, and a new Tuesday night performance has been added at the exquisite Pearl in Portsmouth. Curtain time remains at 7:30 p.m., and reservations are strongly recommended.

The Bold Face season opens Feb. 9-10 with “Under Yelena” by Buffy Sedlachek, an engrossing real-life mystery from Soviet-era Russia, by the author of “Tamarack” (Bold Face Fall 2006). After the Chernobyl disaster, scientist and apparatchik Ruta Zemlyan is dispatched to the contaminated site, where she is forced to partner with the caustic, dissolute, and anti-Soviet Antonas Zerbitska. Their mission: to solve the mystery of the missing nuclear fuel. Sedlachek creates two passionate and endearing characters as she spins a scientific “What-dunnit,” abundant with humor, intellect, and surprising emotion. The reading will feature Joel Colodner and Kristan Raymond Robinson.

Three more Bold Face plays will be read this winter before the Maine Stage season commences in May. “My Name is Rachel Corrie” runs March 2-3. Edited by Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner from the writings of Rachel Corrie, it is the true story of a 23 year-old American killed in Gaza by an Israeli Army bulldozer in 2003.

The appropriately titled “Third” by Wendy Wasserstein runs March 23-24. This final comedy by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wasserstein tells the story of Woodson Bull III, otherwise known as simply “Third,” and his professor, Laurie Jameson, who can’t stand him. “I know who you are, damn it,” the teacher exclaims. “You’re a walking red state!”

And finally, “The Mystery Plays” by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, April 13-14: Two murder mysteries. Two ghost stories. One spine-tingling play about faith and forgiveness.

Spring and summer will then bring the world premiere of “The Creek Man” as part of Harbor Light Stage’s ongoing Maine Stage series of full stage productions. Based on the life of modern local legend and American accordion master Gary Sredzienski, the play will offer an evening of comedic/dramatic storytelling, music, and environmental message. Harbor Light Stage has received a $14,500 grant from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation to support “The Creek Man.” Funds will go toward script development and mounting a full stage production, set to launch in May.

Sredzienski, a former Grammy nominee and host of the weekly radio show “Polka Party” since 1987 on WUNH, has also garnered the reputation of eco-activist. Having earned the sobriquet “Creek Man” for his four-season swims through the tidal creeks of the Piscataqua River, he made even bigger waves last year when he swam seven miles to the Isles of Shoals in the middle of winter—a singular feat that required months of training, a full support staff, and a custom blend of high-tech swim gear. The exploit was a fundraiser for the Krempels Brain Injury Foundation, for which he raised $15,000.

“Gary is not only an outstanding musician,” says Kent Stephens, founding artistic director of the not-for-profit Harbor Light Stage, based out of Kittery Point, Maine. “He is a great raconteur who is probably as intimately acquainted with the life under the water in the Piscataqua basin as anyone alive.”

“We are enormously grateful to the board of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Piscataqua region and to Celina Adams, Senior Program Officer,” Stephens continues, “for their belief in and support of this project. It helps underwrite one of our artistic missions: to create new work that speaks to the culture and history of the Piscataqua region and dramatizes the as-yet-untold stories of its people.”

The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation has been improving the quality of life in our communities since 1962. It builds and manages a collection of charitable funds, totaling nearly $490 million, created by individuals, families, and corporations. The Foundation is non-partisan, frequently playing the role of convener and catalyst on a broad spectrum of issues affecting New Hampshire and the Piscataqua region. The Foundation awarded more than $33 million in grants, scholarships, and initiatives in 2007, and more than $125 million in just the past five years. Based in Concord, the Foundation roots itself in communities across the state, including the Piscataqua.

For more information about Harbor Light Stage’s upcoming performances, including directions to its venues, call (207) 439-5769, email harborlight@bitstream.net, or visit http://www.harborlightstage.org.

Harbor Light Stage announces web site and details for May Production of "The Pavilion"

AskLisa — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:53:00 GMT

Harbor Light Stage, southern Maine’s professional theater company bringing provocative, contemporary American theater to the Seacoast, announces the launch of its Web site, www.harborlightstage.org. There, details can be found for the company’s first full-production in its new Maine Stage series: “The Pavilion” by Craig Wright, coming to Kittery for a three-week run May 9-25.

With or without high school reunion scars of their own, audiences will not want to miss the Seacoast premiere of this Pulitzer-nominated poignant comedy, set at a high school reunion in a small Minnesota town and hailed by critics as “an ‘Our Town’ for our time.”

The enchanting 19^th century barn at the Brave Boat Harbor Farm in Kittery, Maine, will host the 20^th reunion of Pine City’s Class of 1988. Special seating is being constructed for the occasion, and “The Pavilion” is the only theatre production to take place at the farm.

Class members (ie: the audience) will be transported to “The Pavilion” by a complimentary six-minute ride on the Seacoast Trolley from Cap’n Simeon’s overflow parking lot across from Frisbee’s Market, 88 Pepperell Ave., Kittery Point. (On-site parking at the barn is restricted to handicapped audience members only, and should be requested when ticket reservations are made.) Upon arrival, by the gilded marsh of the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, the audience will be greeted by reunion organizers and ushered into the imaginary lakeside pavilion, where they will become part of “a simple story with cosmic underpinnings.”

Three Seacoast actors, directed by Harbor Light Stage’s Founding Artistic Director Kent Stephens, will then unfold a tender and incisive comic gem about love, forgiveness, and the tyranny of time. Peter (Chris Curtis) is intent on winning back his sweetheart, Kari (Kristan Raymond Robinson), but Kari now has a husband – and a long, bitter memory.

As the sounds of Cyndi Lauper and U2 echo across the water under the revolving stars, Peter and Kari arrive at a most unusual reconciliation – helped by a compassionate, virtuosic narrator (Susan Poulin) who, in a rare female performance of the role, also plays all their other classmates.

The reunion closes under the sparkling mirror ball, where cast and audience members alike will take the stage for the play’s signature “sweetheart dance.” The trolley will then provide complimentary return service to the parking lot.

On Friday evenings, the bistro-style restaurant Anneke Jans, at 60 Wallingford Square in Kittery Foreside, will offer a special dinner-theater package.

For reservations, email harborlight@bitstream.net or call (207) 439-5769, extension 1. Seating is general admission. Maine Stage tickets are $25 for Friday evenings and Sunday matinees; $30 Saturday and Sunday evenings. Students with school-issued I.D. can buy a ticket for any performance for $15, but should be sure to reserve in advance. For more information, visit www.harborlightstage.org.

“The Pavilion” is sponsored by Kennebunk Savings Bank, York Hospital, Harbor Realtors, and The WIRE.