Blogs

Arts Week April 20, 2017
Posted: April 20th 2017 @10:13 AM

This is Arts Week, and I’m Jeannette de Beauvoir. I’m going to give you a taste of what’s going on around the mid and lower Cape in terms of art, literature, theater, cultural events, and other entertainment.

If you’d like to keep up with what’s going on in town between installments of Arts Week, you can always sign up for the weekly mailing list at ptownie.com. They’ll keep you in the know about all the things you need to know to plan your week. Ptownie.com

At the Provincetown Theater starting on May 3 you can see Oscar Wilde’s Salome, a scandalous play that takes place at King Herod’s birthday party. “The Man Who Has It All” only wants one thing- for his stepdaughter Salome to dance for him. He promises to give her absolutely anything in return. The rest, of course, is history. For times and tickets, visit provincetowntheater.org

ART IN THE BARN: A DAY OF PAINTING IN THE HAWTHORNE BARN BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAAM + TWENTY SUMMERS. It will include a SHORT LECTURE, a PAINTING DEMO with a CLOTHED MODEL. That’s on SATURDAY, MAY 13 from 9AM-2PM. $20 includes breakfast and lunch. There are only 20 spaces available, and you can buy tickets at paam.org/barn

At the Wellfleet Preservation Hall, on Friday at 7pm it’s the OUTERMOST CONTRA DANCE. Suggested donation is $10. There is a community potluck beforehand at 6:30, with the dance starting at 7:00. Contra dancing is social interaction set to music, meeting people, and making new friends. A caller, working with a group of live musicians, guides new and experienced dancers alike through a variety of dances. No need to bring a partner, we’ll find you one!

Also at the Hall it’s the 1ST ANNUAL NON-PROFIT FESTIVAL Saturday, April 22nd, 11am – 4pm – Free & All are welcome. Join us for a special day of celebrating and connecting non-profit organizations! The festival will include an eclectic selection of over 40 regional non-profits, ranging from arts-oriented to health & wellness, to human and social services related. Visitors who are interested in getting involved in their local community, volunteerism and others avenues of participation will have direct access to a wealth of information all day between the hours of 11am and 4pm. A delicious selection of organic food and beverages will be offered by Wellfleet’s The Local Juice for purchase, plus music and the Hall’s trademark warm, welcoming atmosphere will contribute to a fun and festive afternoon for all to enjoy. wellfleetpreservationhall.org

Tonight is the last trivia night at 7:00 pm at Napi’s in Provincetown, featuring a special trivia menu and categories that include music, a puzzle, and more.

In a rare theatrical event, the Cape Cod Symphony is pairing one of the most dramatic symphonies ever written, Symphony No. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich, with an extraordinary play for actors and orchestra by Andre Previn and Tom Stoppard, “Every Good Boy Deserves Favor.” Both works are a response to political oppression and celebrate freedom of thought. For the first time ever, the Cape Symphony is partnering with the Cotuit Center for the Arts to present this powerful music and play in one moving tribute to the enduring nature of the human spirit. more at cape symphony.org

THE LOST CITY OF Z: The true story of British explorer Percy Fawcett, who found evidence of a previously unknown advanced civilization in the Amazon in the 1920s. TOMORROW: An uplifting environmental documentary identifying initiatives that have proven effective in ten countries around the world. Laura Ludwig from the Center for Coastal Studies will conduct a Q&A following the screenings. THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE: The true story of the couple who owned the Warsaw Zoo & helped save hundreds of people & animals during the German invasion. Watersedgecinema.org

At the Cap Rep starting on May 4th you can see Regular Singing, a wonderfully intimate drama set on the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, that unfolds in the Apple home in Rhinebeck, New York as the family shares a monumental evening together, one that is both unique and familiar to us all. caperep.org

On Friday and Saturday, May 5 and 6, at 7:30 pm and on Sunday, May 7, at 3 pm, Jacob Sears Memorial Library will present Judith Partelow’s A Woman’s Heart. The play is presented as part of ArtSpring Cape Cod, a Cape-wide grass roots celebration of arts and culture sponsored by The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, and ArtWeek Boston, an award-winning creative festival in the greater Boston area.

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum has posted its summer workshops on its website; many of these workshops fill quickly, so you might want to peruse the offerings and see if there’s something there to interest or challenge you. paam.org

And the Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro has also posted its 2017 workshops, from encaustic to pottery to textiles to photography, there’s something for everyone. You can find out more about these classes and more at castlehill.org

There’s a great line-up of performances and activities that’s been posted at the Payomet Center for the Performing Arts in North Truro, and as it’s a good idea to get tickets in advance, head on over to payomet.org to see what’s happening.

***

So my first guests in the studio are Judith Partelow and Janet Robertson, here to talk about Judith’s new play, A Women’s Heart.

My second guest in the studio is Jeff Peters, writer, publisher, and the owner of our newest bookshop here in Provincetown, East End Books.
Passover 2017 by Rossi aka Chef Rossi
Posted: April 10th 2017 @9:34 PM

And so there came upon the nation a great (not so great, really) and terrible Pharaoh.

He promised the hungry that he would provide for them, but soon after he rose to power, he took the food from their mouths to feed his army.

He named the earth, sky and water as his property, there only for the purpose of enriching his reign with black gold.

He sought to enslave women by taking away their reproductive rights and health care. He boasted that they, too, were his property, to sexually assault at his leisure.

The women rose up and marched in the streets crying out, “Women’s rights are human rights!” but Pharaoh was too busy making speeches to his followers, who were drunk on his lies as if they were fine wine.

He removed the cloak of protection from children persecuted for being different, and sought to end artful pleasures for the people.

He ordered his minions to build a pyramid along the southern border and paid for it by taxing the poor and the middle class. Neither the Pharaoh nor the wealthy would have to pay.

He instructed his minions to close and lock every gate to the promised land.

Even as he ignored the cries of the children outside the gates, he threw hatchets at their oppressor to blind the people into further confusion.

The people beat their chests, looked up to heaven and cried out, “Please deliver us from Pharaoh!”

And so appeared not one but several prophets named Moses. Moses Warren, Moses Gillibrand, Moses Biden, Moses Yates, Moses Kennedy Jr., Moses Booker and Moses Winfrey.

They held hands as they approached the palace crying, “Let my people go!”

But Pharaoh was preoccupied writing his thoughts in 140 hieroglyphics or less, his proclamations bringing chaos in the angry crowds outside the palace.

The many Moses raised their hands to the sky and sent out the first of 10 plagues.

They filled the waters around Nordstrom Palace with blood until the Pharoah’s daughter floated out.

Pharaoh was unmoved.

So they persisted.

They sent hordes of pink frogs chanting, “We want a leader, not a crazy tweeter!”

Pharaoh ignored them and barred messengers from the palace, saying they brought him only “fake news.”

They sent swarms of flying filibusters.

Wild animals in “Not my President” T-shirts.

Pestilence in the form of town halls causing the Pharaoh’s henchmen to hide in fear and shame.

Boils on the face of Pharaoh’s most evil of henchmen – Bannon.

Hailstorms of emails, letters, calls and post cards.

Angry protesters, swarming like locusts.

Darkness fell as the candles of Pharaoh’s support were extinguished one by one.

His skin grew more orange. His bloated belly expanded so that he needed three thrones, but Pharaoh remained unmoved. When he might have been finding ways to help the people, he pretended to hit a tiny ball with a stick and counted his gold coins.

It came to pass that Moses Winfrey raised her hands in the air and announced, “Since you clearly don’t need any experience for this job, I’ll be seeing you in 2020! Until then, it’s time for the 10th plague!

She instructed all the sane and decent people to affix their doors with a Planned Parenthood or ACLU sticker.

That night, the Angel of Death visited the land.

Pharaoh awakened to the cries of the princess, not his wife, who preferred to live as far away from the Pharaoh as possible.

“He is dead, he is dead!” she screamed.

“Who is dead?” asked the Pharaoh, and sought to comfort his daughter, but stopped because he didn’t know how to comfort anyone but himself.

“You’re dead. Your approval ratings and that of the party that supports you are in the murky mud of the swamp. You are the least popular Pharaoh in history, and the people wish to drive you from your palace.”

Then Pharaoh said, “I like the swamp. I am the best at living in the swamp, truly,” then quickly ran to his West Wing bathroom throne and wrote his hieroglyphics for the people. “I am huge! Bigly!” Then he flushed, as if knowing the true value of those words.

And Moses Winfrey spoke to the people.

“You don’t need us to deliver you from this evil. … Vote, resist and speak out. Be your own Moses!”

And the people did revolt, and Pharaoh took refuge in Russia.

And so every year, to honor the self-empowering revolution when the people were freed from slavery by finding their own inner Moses, we celebrate by having our Passover Seder.

We don our pink pussyhats and celebrate the moment in history when we found our power!

Happy Passover. You are you own Moses!
First Weekend in April
Posted: April 7th 2017 @5:49 PM
Guests in the studio this week were Maura Hanlon and Jared Hagan from Cape Rep Theatre, and Matthew Clark from the Provincetown Public Library.

If you’d like to keep up with what’s going on in town between installments of Arts Week, you can always sign up for the weekly mailing list at ptownie.com. They’ll keep you in the know about all the things you need to know to plan your week. Ptownie.com

This weekend only at the Cape Symphony you can hear Masterpiece 4 – The Greatest Hits of 1720 Forty years ago a phenomenon swept the world and helped make Pachelbel’s Canon a household name. The classical smash album “Greatest Hits of 1720” featured the “top ten” of the Baroque period, including the theme from Masterpiece Theatre, Pachelbel’s popular Canon, Albinoni’s enduring Adagio, and masterworks by Johann Sebastian Bach, including Air for the G-string. Jung-Ho will count down Baroque’s biggest hits! capesymphony.org

There’s team trivia every Thursday night at 7:00 pm at Napi’s in Provincetown, and it will continue through April 20^th, featuring a special trivia menu and categories that include music, a puzzle, and more.

At the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater this is your last weekend to see Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Featuring a versatile cast of five performers, this Romeo and Juliet focuses on the impulsiveness of the teenager, adult efforts to guide and support him or her, and the miscommunication that can happen across the generation gap. Using original music and stylized movement, this adaptation offers a fresh look at a familiar story. This production was developed through the education programs at Lincoln Center. What.org

Want to go to the movies? This weekend, Waters Edge Cinema is showing three films: A UNITED KINGDOM: The incredible true story that unfolded in 1947 when the soon-to-be king of Botswana fell in love with a white British woman. Their impending marriage was vehemently challenged by both their families, as well as by the British & South African governments.PERSONAL SHOPPER: A young American woman (Kristen Stewart) living in Paris & working for a celebrity attempts to communicate with her deceased twin brother via her psychic abilities. KEDI: This splendidly graceful documentary follows a distinctive cast of stray cats as they go about their daily routines in Istanbul. Watersedgecinema.org

Speaking of film, Crone’s Winter Film Series has its final airing of the season featuring Pinocchio, with a Disney expert on hand to talk about its creation. That’s Friday at 7:00pm, Sage Inn and Lounge.

On Friday and Saturday, May 5 and 6, at 7:30 pm and on Sunday, May 7, at 3 pm, Jacob Sears Memorial Library will present A Woman’s Heart, a play written and directed by Judith Partelow of Dennis. The play is presented as part of ArtSpring Cape Cod, a Cape-wide grassroots celebration of arts and culture sponsored by The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, and ArtWeek Boston, an award-winning creative festival in the greater Boston area.

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum has posted its summer workshops on its website; many of these workshops fill quickly, so while it’s snowing tomorrow you might want to peruse the offerings and see if there’s something there to interest or challenge you. The museum’s “Members’ Juried show continues and is on view through April 12, represents the work of contemporary artist-members of PAAM, many of whom live at least part time on Cape Cod. paam.org

And the Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro has also posted its 2017 workshops, from encaustic to pottery to textiles to photography, there’s something for everyone. You can find out more about these classes and more at castlehill.org
Not Your Usual Romeo & Juliet
Posted: March 25th 2017 @2:59 PM
I really don’t have to write more than one word about Psittacus Productions’ Romeo and Juliet at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater: WOW. That’s it. Yes, all-caps.

I had only a vague idea about the production coming into the theater; I was under the unfortunate impression that what I was going to see was something along the line of Romeo & Juliet: The Musical. And yes, there is plenty of music, but this isn’t your standard Broadway fare.

It’s a whole lot better.

Five actors brilliantly play the parts of everyone in the story, adjusting their costumes slightly to go from male to female, young to old. (Imagine Friar Lawrence in a hoodie, Juliet’s nurse with a tablecloth around her—his!—waist, Thibault dangerous in black leather). I’m thinking about those costumes as I’m writing this, but they were imperceptible when I was in the audience; the characters so transcended what they were wearing—and what they were wearing was so appropriate.

It’s best described, perhaps, as a play with choral music and ballet moves. The performance starts out all music, but the genius of this production is the perfectly seamless transition from singing the words to speaking the words; one’s never really sure where one ends and the other begins. And the harmonies these five people produce would put any self-respecting doo-wop group to shame. Tight, perfect in timing and pitch, it’s like hearing one voice singing all the parts at once. Both the exposition and the dialogues are often sung, the actors proving themselves to be versatile musicians as well, using the set’s grand piano and electric and acoustic guitars.

And it goes fast! None of the long sighs and silences so often affected by Shakespeare productions: the words spill from their mouths, tumbling one over the other, moving the story relentlessly forward. It’s Aaron Sorkin meets William Shakespeare. It’s mesmerizing.

There are no breaks; all five actors are on stage for the length of the play, helping the audience feel a breathless continuity as the scenes roll out, one on top of the other, so that the play ends up comprising one scene only. It’s an exciting, extremely youthful whirlwind of sight and sound and a sense of the inevitability of the tragedy that’s approaching at breakneck speed.

As Juliet, Ruby Wolf is vulnerable yet determined. Wolf is no stranger to the Outer Cape; she’s appeared at WHAT and with the Peregrine Theater Ensemble, as well as at the Payomet Performing Arts Center and the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival. She’s easily believable as a young teenager, falling for the wrong guy and baffled that things cannot just work out. Her dress and bare feet give her an ethereal air and Wolf’s work around Juliet’s suicide in particular is amazing, downplayed, stripped of all theatrics, tragic in its simplicity.

Alec Funiciello is a beautiful Romeo, poised on the cusp of manhood, by turn passionate and fiery and gentle and tender. Gracefully athletic, handsome and hinting at enormous hidden energy, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface of Funiciello’s Romeo; he makes it easy to see why a teenaged girl would fall for him.

Matthew Dean Marsh is the musical genius who stays most of the time in the background on the piano bench, coming forward to play Lady Capulet in a performance just this side of over the top. As I’ve said, the music composition and arrangement is sheer genius, and that’s down to this guy.

The two final actors play a bewildering number of roles: Lord Capulet, Mercutio, Friar Lawrence, Benvolio, Tybalt and, of course, the inimitable nurse. Paul Corning Jr. is athletic (well, he does ride a bicycle around NYC every day!); but there the common elements of all his parts end: he is by turn brooding, dangerous, and reassuring. And Nathan Winkelstein moves seamlessly from the ever-present and often bumbling nurse to taking on the roles of friend and foe alike—and is totally believable in all of them. He handles humor well even when, in a second, the humor becomes dark in ways that feel inevitable.

All of these actors were close to perfect. Want to learn more about them? Check out their bios here.

Brilliant, youth-driven, exciting, there is nothing here for WOMR’s resident theater critic to criticize! The set manages to not feel black-box, the use of umbrellas to transition people around the stage is inspired, and honestly? anyone who misses out on this production is truly unfortunate. It’s a fantastic start to a great season at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater!

Romeo and Juliet, reviewed by Jeannette de Beauvoir

Directed by Louis Butelli and in association with Psittacus Productions and Lincoln Center Education. Photos by Michael and Suz Karchmer.

March 23-April 9, 2017
March 23 on Arts Week
Posted: March 23rd 2017 @12:15 PM
I’m Jeannette de Beauvoir, and this is Arts Week for March 23, 2017. I’m going to give you a taste of what’s going on around the mid and lower Cape in terms of art, literature, theater, cultural events, and other entertainment.

If you’d like to keep up with what’s going on in town between installments of Arts Week, you can always sign up for the weekly mailing list at ptownie.com. They’ll keep you in the know about all the things you need to know to plan your week.

There’s team trivia every Thursday night at 7:00 pm at Napi’s in Provincetown, featuring a special trivia menu and categories that include music, a puzzle, and more.

At the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater starting March 23^rd, you can see Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 3:00 p.m. Featuring a versatile cast of five performers, this Romeo and Juliet focuses on the impulsiveness of the teenager, adult efforts to guide and support him or her, and the miscommunication that can happen across the generation gap. Using original music and stylized movement, this adaptation offers a fresh look at a familiar story. This production was developed through the education programs at Lincoln Center. What.org

Tonight at 7pm join us at the Wellfleet Preservation Hall for a reading by the winning poets of the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, with special guest and poetry judge Marge Piercy. We had a lot of really great poems submitted this year and it should be a fun evening. Womr.org

Want to go to the movies? This weekend, Waters Edge Cinema is showing two films: GET OUT: This film fuses horror, comedy & mystery genres to tell the story of a young African-American man who visits the estate of his Caucasian girlfriend’s family where he learns that many of its residents, who are black, have gone missing. THE LAST WORD: A young journalist is approached by a retired business mogul to write her obituary while she is still alive. Starring Shirley MacLaine & Amanda Seyfried.

Speaking of film, the Provincetown Public Library welcomes the community to participate on Wednesdays in the March Cole Porter at the Movies Series screened at the Provincetown School Building during the month of March. This line-up of classic films has been carefully selected by Marc Strauss, Professor Emeritus in Theatre and Dance from Southeast Missouri State University. Professor Strauss will give a short presentation on each film in the series, and also host a question and answer session at the conclusion of the screening each week. Next Wednesday, March 15th, it’s 1948’s The Pirate.

And still more film! Crone’s Winter Film Series continues on Friday 7:00pm, Sage Inn and Lounge: another 1939 classic on Friday with Good-Bye, Mr. Chips, a heartwringer if ever there was one.

Travel with the Cape Symphony to France via Falmouth, as we present the works of three revolutionary French composers – Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. During this month’s performance, you’ll hear the rich textures of Sonata for Flute, Viola & Harp by Claude Debussy, the exotic sounds of Piano Trio in A Minor by Maurice Ravel, and Fauré’s colorful and explosive Piano Quartet No. 2 that not only embodies the romantic Germanic traditions, but introduces the impressionist sounds that would later be honed by Debussy & Ravel. It’s all happening at the John Wesley Methodist church in Falmouth tomorrow night at 7:30 and in Chatham Saturday night at 7:30. More info at capesymphony.org.

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum has posted its summer workshops on its website; many of these workshops fill quickly, so while it’s snowing tomorrow you might want to peruse the offerings and see if there’s something there to interest or challenge you. The museum’s “Members’ Juried show continues and is on view through April 12, represents the work of contemporary artist-members of PAAM, many of whom live at least part time on Cape Cod. paam.org

And the Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro has also posted its 2017 workshops, from encaustic to pottery to textiles to photography, there’s something for everyone. You can find out more about these classes and more at castlehill.org

There’s a lot to do this weekend, so get out there and do it!
Imagine
Posted: February 1st 2017 @9:28 PM
Imagine

“Walk a mile in my shoes.” You’ve heard that expression before. But what if we really did that?

Just for one day.

Just for one hour.

Just for one moment.

What if we could truly imagine what it felt like to be someone else?

Since election night, I’ve thought a lot about the coal miners in Kentucky who voted for Trump.

I have no idea what it’s like to mine coal. Seems like it must be terrible. All that grueling claustrophobic work and black lung for your trouble. It’s hard to imagine this as the choice you must make to feed your children.

But I do know what it’s like to do grueling work, to worry about how I will pay the rent, to not have enough money to buy groceries, to feel frightened of how I will keep the heat on if I can’t pay the gas bill. I don’t think you can ever forget the taste in your mouth of fear and hunger. From this place I have imagined myself in their shoes.

I would be angry too.

I might feel forgotten.

I know a banker who votes solely based on his wallet. He is a numbers man. He votes Republican no matter who is running because “It’s good for the Dow” and because he wants to pay fewer taxes.

He is a proud 1%-er.

I have tried to imagine how it might feel to be him. To make a salary equivalent to ten times an average man’s and even more than that for an average woman’s. What does if feel like to care deeply about “less government.” To think Medicare is for “the others.” To think welfare is ruining America.

It was a lot harder to imagine being him than the coal miners, but I tried. I imagined myself successful after years of education, interning and working my way up the ranks. I imagined feeling proud of my net worth and looking forward to an easy retirement, then resenting the government chipping away at my nest egg by raising taxes and adding Wall Street regulations to prevent another collapse in the economy.

I imagined what it might feel like to be reliant on my income for my sense of self. This part wasn’t as hard to imagine as the other ones. Who doesn’t feel better when they are successful?

I tried to imagine putting money before human rights. But I couldn’t stretch that far.

I imagined what it might feel like to be a Muslim in America. This is perhaps the easiest for me to imagine. I thought about the years growing up when my family spent the summers in a town where we were the only Jews. When the word got out, “holy rollers,” as we called them, came to our door to sing the devil out of us. Another time, a gas station attendant inspected me for my “horns and tail.”

We were “the others.” Surely there was something wrong with us.

I grew up listening to the stories of my family who had been killed in the Holocaust and how it started with them having to wear yellow stars. I know what happens when government asks non-Christians to register.

I imagine a Muslim in America right now might feel alienated, betrayed, angry and frightened.

I imagine myself as a Syrian refugee being denied access into the safe arms of America and I think of the “Voyage of the Damned,” the ill-fated 1939 voyage of the MS St. Louis, filled with Jews trying to escape Germany. They were denied entry into this great and free country and ultimately sent back to Hitler. Many of the passengers lost their lives to the Nazis.

I close my eyes and can hear my mother’s voice: “Has mankind learned nothing?!”

I have tried to imagine myself as a black person in America. It was even harder, because no amount of imagining can really prepare you for what it’s like to live in a world in which you are not the privileged class after being raised as such.

I imagine worrying if my son who went to the corner deli to buy milk might not come back. I imagine being stopped on my way to work because to someone, I looked like trouble.

I think about men who say Planned Parenthood should lose funding. They think abortions should be illegal. One wrote on Facebook, “Women should take responsibility for their own actions!”

Interestingly, this same man didn’t think the men who impregnate women should be financially responsible.

I would like these men to imagine how it might feel to be a 16-year-old girl, a victim of date rape who finds herself pregnant. She is still in high school. Her whole life is ahead of her. Imagine that, and then tell me women don’t have a right to choose.

I have known men who don’t seem to think women’s rights are human rights.

I’d like these men to imagine how it feels to be a woman. To endure sexual harassment. To be paid less for the same work. To worry about getting pregnant. To worry about being raped. To be grabbed, belittled, treated like a second-class citizen, called honey, sugar butt, baby, and when they defend themselves, called bitch.

I ask men to imagine how it feels to be a woman and have the man running for the highest office in the land say his power allows him to grab you by your genitals whenever he wants.

Many, many heterosexuals voted for politicians and support Supreme Court judges who think that gays should be denied service in businesses, that gay sex should be criminalized, that gay marriage is an abomination.

I ask them to imagine how it might feel to spend your life knowing that you can be jailed, murdered, beaten and humiliated for having the audacity to love whomever you love.

Imagine laws being passed allowing blatant discrimination against you; imagine how you would feel being treated like a pariah for simply following your heart.

The United States, land of the free and home of the brave, does not feel very free or brave or much like home right now.

Maybe, just maybe, if we really could imagine what it might feel like to be each other then we really could make America great again. Right now all we are doing is making America hate again.
This is What Democracy Looks Like
Posted: January 23rd 2017 @8:03 PM

We knew it would be big; perhaps the biggest march of our lives.

I got loads of advice.

“Don’t carry a bag!”

“Only bring what you can afford to lose.”

“Write your emergency contact info on your arm with a Sharpie.”

“Don’t drink water. Quench your thirst with dried apricots. “

It was, thankfully, warm for January 21st in New York. But we would have come in a blizzard.

I met my gal pals at a diner near the rally site.

I saw Leslie and Adeena first, kissed them, and then screamed, “BATHROOM FIRST!”.

“Smart!” Samantha (Sam) yelled after me.

I saw Jose’ on the way to the bathroom line.

“I’ve got two girls! I want them to be empowered and know their papa was part of it.”

When I got back, I opened my jacket and dispersed two bags of dried apricots.

“Huh?”

“You’ll thank me later.”

Then I presented Heike, Sam and Charmaine with pink “Pussyhats,” hand knit by my friend Mary Jane.

They were ecstatic.

“I can’t tell you what this means to me,” Heike sad politely.

“She’s been wanting one all morning.”

“Vagina power!” Charmaine screamed.

I had two signs, one that read, “I’m with hers” and another that read “AUDACITY OF NOPE.”

Sam happily volunteered to carry the NOPE sign.

“I got my own!” Charmaine said proudly and showed off her poster on which was written, “Keep your little hands off my uterus!”

We had registered for start times, meant to stagger the crowd based on your last name, but it very quickly became apparent that no one would be collecting tickets.

I don’t know how many people they were expecting, but clearly there were more. Many more.
We reached the rally at Dag Hammarskjold Park at 10:45 a.m.
Charmaine led the charge as we weaved through the already immense and growing crowd to try to get within hearing distance of the speakers. We held hands so as not to lose each other.
I heard Rosie Perez first. Her unmistakable voice needed no introduction: “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a very long time. I am so filled with love and hope,” she said.

Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon spoke, “Remember that throughout history, when women organize, change happens.”
We heard Whoopi Goldberg, Helen Mirren, and First Lady of NYC Chirlane McCray.
It was claustrophobic squished inside the crowd, but the breeze was strong and soothing. Everywhere I turned, a smiling face met me.

After the rally, it took more than an hour to inch our way out of the park and onto Second Avenue. By the time we reached Second, our group had dwindled to 15. I don’t even know when we lost Jen.

The plan was for the march to go downtown on Second Avenue to 42st, then head west to Fifth Avenue, then head uptown toward Trump Plaza.

The map for the march was 24 blocks. I wasn’t worried. I regularly walk 30 or more blocks a day. But seeing how long it took us to go just a block on Second Avenue. I understood.

“It will be hours before we reach Fifth Avenue,” Barbara said.

Again, Charmaine led the charge: “We can do it!”

I grabbed Liz’s hand. Gloria snagged Barbara.

“Stay close!”

Signs were everywhere.

“There’ll be hell toupee.”

“Orange you glad Putin helped you win?”

“My body my choice.”

“Equal Pay is the Only Way”

“Dykes for Rights”

“Free Melania”

“The KKK are celebrating and we are resisting”

“Grab HIM by the taxes.”

“Black Lives Matter”

“Nasty Women”

“Organize Agitate Educate”

“United Against Hate”

“LOVE TRUMPS HATE”

“This Pussy grabs back”

“He Made America Hate again”

“Made In Vagina”

“Keep your rosaries off my ovaries”

One little girl being carried by her mom pointed to a sign reading, “Grab Him By the Taxes” with male genitals drawn on it and asked, “Is that a butt?”

“Yes dear. That’s a butt,” her mom said, laughing.

As we turned onto 42nd Street, I began to comprehend the magnitude of this day. There were women cheering as far back as I could see and as far ahead. Some men were marching, too. People hung signs from windows and roofs. They packed the sidewalks, cheering us on.

Two young women walked by by holding a sign that read,
“Melania, blink twice if you want us to save you.” We all broke out laughing,

We lost a few more of our group in the crowd surging in from Second Avenue and were down to eight. Somehow, we even lost Charmaine. Leslie was taking a photo. Adeena sent a text message, and like that they dissolved into the crush of women. We were six.

We decided to keep hands on each other for the rest of the march. Sam, Gloria, Heike, Eric and me.

An elderly woman stood on the corner of 42nd and Lexington, holding a sign that read, “Now you made Grandma angry.” We all cheered.

A little girl inside a glass window at the Grand Hyatt pressed a piece of cardboard against the window on which was scrawled in childlike handwriting, “UNITE.” We all cheered as she waved at us.

As we approached the Met Life Building Bridge over 42nd Street, we looked up and saw a crowd of photographers, young men and women in “Pussyhats” on the bridge cheering.

A man hung over the bridge and yelled out to us.
“Tell us what democracy looks like!”

Thousands answered
“This is what democracy looks like!”

Of all the marching chants that day this was the one that I pulled at my heart the most.

“THS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!”

There were pink hats everywhere, women of all ages, shades and sizes. Everyone was cheering,

Surely this was exactly what democracy looks like.

I thought I had felt the enormity of this day, but then we turned onto Fifth Avenue and saw a seemingly endless sea of marchers.”

We yelled, “Women’s rights are human rights!”

“Black Lives Matter!”

“HANDS TOO SMALL TO BUILD A WALL.”

It took us more than 6 hours to march those 24 blocks.

We hadn’t used the bathroom since the morning. Even with Sam’s yoga stretch instruction, our feet and legs hurt so much we could hardly walk.

I didn’t notice the sun going down, but it was hard to miss how cold it got after it did. Even so, the cold and aching feet paled in comparison with the immense power of this day.

“They just said 400,000 people are here and twice as many in Washington!” a young woman shouted.

“They are marching everywhere! Los Angeles, Texas, Miami, Boston, Chicago, London, Copenhagen! We are all over the world today!!”

We slowly made our way off Fifth Avenue toward a warm pub with food, friends and BATHROOMS. We passed a police van that had become a monument to human rights, decorated with the signs of the day. My eyes latched onto a pink sign that read, “Women Roar.”

“Yes we do.”

In that immense and overwhelming crowd, nobody pushed, nobody shoved, and nobody fought. Even the police seemed tranquil.

“If this had been the men’s march, it would have gotten ugly,” Gloria said.

“Oh yeah.”

“We woke the world up today.”

I could still heard the chanting crowd on Fifth Avenue. “This is what democracy looks like!”

How often do you get to march into history?
When the Winners Lose
Posted: December 1st 2016 @6:06 PM
When the winners lose

I’ve been taking an inventory of how our lives might have been different if Al Gore had won the presidency instead of George W. Bush.

It’s on my mind because Al Gore was the last presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election.

Al was ahead by more than 500,000 votes. Clinton is ahead in the popular vote by 2 million and counting.

What might have been different if Gore had been president?

I don’t think there is any doubt that we would NOT have gone to war in Iraq. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people who were killed in that war and as a direct result of that war would be alive.

The destabilization of the Middle East would not have happened.

Would we have ISIS today? Would we even know that word?

Even “9/11” might never have happened.

President Gore, having had the experience of being vice president for eight years, after having been warned by intelligence of the threat (as Bush was), might have actually acted on the intelligence!

The Patriot Act, torture at the hands of Americans that includes Cheney’s beloved waterboarding, all the annihilations of human rights that happened during the Bush/Cheney regime would not have happened.

People around the world might not hate us so much.

We would not have spent $2 trillion on the Iraq war and could have instead used $2 trillion to grow our economy, repair our infrastructure and stay in the Clinton/Gore surplus.

Between being $2 trillion richer and the fact that Al Gore would certainly have not have instituted the Bush tax cuts to benefit the rich, the 2008 economic crash may well not have happened.

The victims of Hurricane Katrina would have gotten a lot more help a whole hell of a lot sooner.

Famous for his dedication to the environment, Gore would have left our planet a lot healthier today. Surely we would be eons further along on the path of alternative energy, not to mention all the jobs created on that path. Many more people would be driving electric cars and using solar panels. No one would be saying that climate change is just a theory.

I could say “if only” forever. If only the popular-vote president had won. If only.

Gore won the Nobel Prize. We won nothing.

More than 2 million MORE Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump.

Since November 8, I keep hearing the phrase “America has spoken,” which is code for “shut up and get over it!”

Yes, the voters have spoken, but you know what? We lost the election anyway. No one likes to lose, but losing when you won is a painful double whammy.

I’m opening my ledger to start a new inventory of what happens when the winners lose in this country.

I’ll keep you posted.
Thrill Me is … Thrilling!
Posted: October 27th 2015 @6:55 PM
Take two smart trust-fund boys, add a sprinkling of obsession and a dose of ego, and you have the first thrill-kill of the 20th century, the murder of a 14-year-old boy in Chicago in 1924 by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

Not, you might think, the stuff of which musicals are made. But Thrill Me begs to differ, and the production at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, directed by Jeffry George and starring husband-and-husband team Adam Berry and Ben Berry, is a brilliant show with surprisingly catchy tunes and the kind of twist at the end that mystery authors like me struggle to emulate.

The music is arguably the most powerful part of a powerful production. Backed by an energetic John Thomas on piano, Berry and Berry are seriously on fire, their voices faultlessly matched with tight harmonies and pitch-perfect sound. “I could listen to them singing together forever,” said my theater companion, and she was right: the Berrys are brilliant actors and if possible even more brilliant singers.

The story is an odd one. Leopold and Loeb were admittedly above average: they graduated from college at age 17 and 18, and were obsessed with Nietzche’s concept of a superman. Convinced that their intelligence and social privilege exempted them from laws that bound other people, they planned the “perfect” murder that had more to do with hubris than brilliance, as (again, speaking as a mystery author) they erred fairly egregiously on several counts. After killing Franks, they sent a ransom demand to his family, but the body was discovered, the ransom-note typewriter was matched, an alibi was refuted, and a pair of glasses traced to Leopold dropped near the body. Both confessed, and were represented by Clarence Darrow, who argued eloquently (and successfully) against the imposition of the death penalty. In January 1936, a fellow inmate killed Loeb in a bloody razor fight in the prison’s shower. Leopold was released on parole in 1958 (poet Carl Sandburg testified on his behalf) and died in 1971.

Ben Berry’s Leopold is petulant, demanding, and eager to do anything to get what he wants, including dissing Loeb’s obsession (“You’ve been reading too much Nietzche”). Adam Berry’s Loeb is cold, inaccessible, and seems the most human when he’s at his most creepy, enjoying arson and luring young Franks to his car. As cracks develop in their relationship, the power balance between the two men shifts subtly and gradually until the final twist, which is as surprising as it’s clever.

And the tunes are perfect. “Everyone wants Richard,” complains Leopold, while Loeb counters with his close-to-sexual satisfaction in Nothing Like a Fire. There’s even humor when they begin to plot the identity of their victim: “If we killed my brother John,” muses Loeb, “he’d never touch my things.”

The minimalist stage set and its clever use adds to the harrowing nature of the play. There’s no intermission and no applause breaks, so the tension is allowed to build and build to the end, when Leopold—finally alone—is being considered for parole. He notes that there are “new killers like me every day” as the parole board admits,”we need the beds.” Which is—after the buildup of electrifying pressure—something of an anticlimax, but a neat end to a taut brilliant production.

And there’s good news: not only are there playmaker talkbacks on October 29 and November 5, but Friday October 30th is Ptown Night at WHAT! Get transportation on the Funk Bus, cocktails, and a ticket to Thrill Me for a special price. Seating is very limited, so call now: 508-349-9428

Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Stephen Dolginoff

A musical thriller
Directed by Jeffry George
Runs October 24 – November 8
Thursdays-Saturdays, 7:30pm
Sundays, 3pm
September 11th 2015
Posted: September 11th 2015 @8:49 PM

I had a wedding to cater in October of 2001.

I assumed like most celebrations planned in the early fall of 2001 in New York City, they might cancel or postpone.

Who wanted to celebrate anything after that terrible morning on September 11th?

The wedding I was supposed to cater at The Seaman’s Church in South Street Seaport in September was canceled. There was no running water or electricity, and 50 firefighters were sleeping on the dance floor every night.

Billy and Dominic, the tough but sweet security guards at Seaman’s whom I’d come to adore over the many weddings I’d catered there, had helped to start a ragtag relief effort at the Seaman’s Church and at St. Paul’s Church at Ground Zero.

Officials were apprehensive about letting in more civilians, but once Dom told them I was a chef, they handed me an ID and a bright yellow hard hat and had me hop a pick-up truck to Ground Zero. This was September 16th, 2001. I quickly lost my identity as Rossi the caterer and became the hamburger mama of Ground Zero.

These days, I walk by construction sites all over Manhattan and Brooklyn. It seems like all the little pre-war buildings are being torn down to make room for glass skyscrapers. Soon New York City will be all glass, a million mirrors and no soul. The really big sites, like the Hudson Yards, take me back 14 years in one instant. All the dug out earth transports me to the collapsed towers at Ground Zero.

It was only recently that I brought myself to open the chest I keep by my bed, dig under my mother’s college graduation cap and the pajama top that I swear still smelled like her 6 years after she died on, yes, a September night. Underneath Mom’s protective shield, I have my 9/11 box. It is filled with photos I took from my roof of the towers burning, then collapsed, then the huge smoke clouds that lingered like death for days and left their smell for weeks. That strange construction smell, with a hint of something oddly sweet and burned. I’ve always thought the sweet was from the souls who were taken that terrible morning.

I think of the scream, not the jubilant screams from my roof less a year before on midnight of New Year’s Eve 2000, when we all got to move into a new century, but the scream that started when the impossible happened. When the first tower simply collapsed in front of us into a sea of silver cards and smoke. Everyone was screaming from the roofs, from the fire escapes, from the streets, from our televisions. Some sort of strange noise came out of my throat, a vibration … the word NO inside a tunnel that I have never felt before or after. NOOOOOOOOOO. NOOOOO!

I realize now that after the first tower collapsed, wide-eyed and talking like I was on helium, I was in shock. We all were. It doesn’t seem as though anything shocked me after the first tower collapsed – not the second tower collapsing, not the strange, sweet smell, not the fighter jets buzzing overhead, not the mothers pushing their babies around wearing ventilation masks in my neighborhood. Even when I pushed a wheelbarrow filled with ice and Gatorade to the firefighter tent, so close to “The Pile” (the steaming shards of metal and wreckage that were all that was left of the towers) that I could feel the heat on my face from the still smoldering ruin, even watching those firefighters crawl into the wreckage risking burns and death to look for survivors, even then, nothing else shocked me.

I am not sure when the shock of the first tower collapsing wore off. I am not sure it ever did.

I wasn’t shocked but I was surprised when the bride and groom of the wedding I was to cater in October 2001 called to say their wedding would go on. The groom, a talented Jewish artist with a zest for life, had consulted the Talmud and looked up this ancient rule: “When a funeral procession and a wedding procession meet at an intersection, the wedding procession has the right of way.”

He decided to embrace life, love and new beginnings.

Their wedding, just a month or so after that terrible day, was filled with people so happy to have something to celebrate. The air was electric. Never have I seen so much joyful abandon on a dance floor.

Every year on September 11th, I stop and listen to the names on the television and wait for the eerie twin lights at night. And every year, I wonder when will we reclaim this date. Should we reclaim this date?

There are people walking around me every day, young people who were not born when 9/11 happened. There are thousands and thousands of people living in New York City who came here after 9/11. There is a Freedom Tower in the skyline where the towers used to be.

The wound is no longer fresh, the scars have turned from pink to gray, and the world is climbing up all around that terrible morning.

I have allowed myself to say things again like, “What a beautiful day,” on mornings in September without fear of jinxing us.

I’m a nervous driver, and living in Manhattan, I’m always out of practice. My girlfriend tries to be supportive, but sometimes has to let loose.

“Go! GO! You have the right of way!”

“When a funeral procession and a wedding procession meet at an intersection, the wedding procession has the right of way.”

Sometimes, having the right of way isn’t enough, but I’m getting there. Little by little.