Entertainment

New Rep Theatre Receives 2 Mass Cultural Council Grants

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New Repertory Theatre has received two grants from the Mass Cultural Council (MCC), a state agency: one for $75,000 through its Cultural Sector Fund for Organizations Pandemic Recovery Grant Program, and a $5,000 grant Universal Participation (UPI) Innovation Grant.  

The Pandemic Recovery grant is part of MCC’s historic $51 million public investment into the Commonwealth’s creative and cultural sector to organizations impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2021 a $4 billion pandemic recovery package was approved by the Legislature and signed into law. This Act, Ch. 102 of 2021, directed Mass Cultural Council to develop and administer grant programs to assist cultural organizations and artists recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and operate more efficiently moving forward. Mass Cultural Council received $60.1 million in surplus state revenue funds to support this effort. These funds will provide critical support to offset significant losses incurred from necessary suspension of New Rep’s productions during the height of the pandemic. 

The UPI grant will enable access to artists from diverse communities to develop new works through New Rep’s Pipeline Project, which invests directly in local performing artists, writers and performance makers, providing concrete and tangible pathways at production at the professional level. The Pipeline Project embodies core principles of New Rep’s Renewal Vision, with a renewed commitment to diversity, equity, accessibility and accountability infusing every aspect of the company’s work as it seeks to build community collaborations and give voice to the interests of those communities.   

“The arts remain an essential way for us to strengthen our communities, and I am proud to support New Repertory Theatre in those efforts.

Entertainment

Pianist Performing Benefit Concert for Helen Robinson Wright Charitable Fund

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Pianist John Kramer will perform at Watertown’s First Parish Church on Saturday, March 4 at 7:30 p.m. The concert will benefit the Helen Robinson Wright Charitable Fund. The concert features music written by Black composers, including Florence Price, William Grant Still, Nathaniel Dett, Margeret Bonds, and Louis Mareau Gottschalk. Kramer is a performer, composer and arranger who has played throughout the United States and in France. He is the music director at Winchester Unitarian Society and is a member of the Berklee College of Music faculty. First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church is located at 35 Church St.

Entertainment

New Rep Theatre Announces Two New Pipeline Project Residencies

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New Repertory Theatre is pleased to announce the selection of two new artist residencies for its second round of Pipeline Projects. Selected from over 40 submissions from local artists, these artists represent exceptionally innovative and relevant works for our time. The selected artists are Nikta Sabouri, an Iranian-American freelance theater director, dramaturg, actor, and translator based in Boston and Iranian-American writer, actor and singer Isabelle Sanatdar Stevens. Nikta Sabouri’s project will be the first English translation of the 60-minute play Testament of Bondar Bidakhsh, a dramatic account of the fall of the Vizier to Yama, the King of Persia. This high-ranking official constructed a magical cup to give Yama infinite knowledge and absolute power, which ultimately led to their mutual downfall.  

The Testament of Bondar Bidakhsh is the third play in the “Naqqali Trilogy” book by Bahram Beyzaie.

Entertainment

Two Watertown Artists Instrumental in Bringing Teen Exhibit to ICA Boston

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Watertown’s Shivani Sharma, left, and Ruth Henry, center, speak withy Liz Rodgers at the opening reception for “The Stories that Make Us.” The following information was provided by Sue-Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin:

Friday evening Jan. 27 saw the opening of The Stories that Make Us, an exhibition of artwork by high school students that explores personal stories about migration, belonging, and overcoming adversity. Key organizers of the event were 2022 Watertown High School grad Shivani Sharma and former-Watertown Middle School teacher Ruth Henry. They represented of the I Learn America Initiative (www.ilearnamerica.com).

Entertainment

New Rep’s 2023 Season Features 3 Plays, Including 2 Tony Winners

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New Repertory Theatre is pleased to announce its 2023 Season, as the company continues to build on its nearly 40-year legacy of excellent, provocative theatrical productions that speak to the vital issues of our time. The 2023 season includes two Tony Award-winning masterpiece plays that grow more resonant every day, and a world premiere from local talent that speaks directly to Boston and its past, present, and future. Larry Kramer’s Tony Award winning autobiographical drama, The Normal Heart, will open June 21 for a three-week run through July 9. Set in New York City in the early 1980’s, Larry Kramer’s powerful, passionate and controversial play was the first to treat seriously the poignant and devastating subject of AIDS. The Normal Heart traces Ned Weeks, a gay activist writer, through his fight for visibility and justice for the gay community. An angry, unremitting and gripping piece of political theatre.

Entertainment

Show at Watertown Gallery Has Artworks Inspired by the Sea

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Storefront Art Projects is pleased to present:

Walter Crump, Jennifer Day, Don Lutz & Lydia Gadman, Roz Sommer, Jessica Straus, Rebecca McGee Tuck, and Jenn Wood in {by-from-on-under} the sea, a multi-media show inspired by the ocean. With Jennifer Day’s altar piece format of a monochrome painted slice of the sea, Rebecca McGeeTuck’s colorful found object sculptures from the wrack line, Jessica Straus’s school of carved and painted basswood cod, curated shadow boxes of antique objects and ephemera by Don Lutz & Lydia Gadman, Roz Sommer’s painterly cooked fish, Jenn Wood’s colorful splash paintings on yupo, and Walter Crump’s meditative dit and dot paintings of underwater microbes and biota. This is an exhibit by seven artists who use the ocean as their muse. 

at Storefront Art Projects Jan. 27-Feb. 25, 2023

Reception Saturday, Feb.

Entertainment

Mosesian Center Winter Season: Theater, Concerts, Art Shows

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The Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown has announced a winter season of performances, exhibitions, and arts education programs. From theater, music, and comedy to new exhibitions and arts education, from returning favorites to new partnerships, there’s plenty of variety—plus love, romance, and break ups—in this season’s programming. Performances

Watertown Children’s Theatre The Giver | January 27-28

Jonas’ world is perfect. Everything is under control and safe. There is no war or fear or pain. There are also no choices.

Entertainment

Art Show Made by Autistic Man from Watertown on Display in Cambridge

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Dominic Killiany

Dominic Killiany, who is autistic, has difficulty communicating verbally, but he has been able to express himself in his paintings. Works of art created by the 24-year-old Watertown resident are now on display at LabCentral in Cambridge’s Kendall Square, and a public reception will be held on Jan. 25. His mother Susan Cicconi explained about Killiany’s artistic approach in the artist statement for the exhibit: “Dominic’s art is his passion. He is autistic, his art is his visual poetry and connection to the world.