Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl coming in July - 8-11 and 15-18 at the Reid Theatre in Deerfield, MA
It’s time to create a piece with tender heart, sweet humor and delicate melancholy after all the harsh times we have been through. Eurydice is a tale of love and letters that tell the story of Eurydice, bride of the ancient Greek mythical musician, Orpheus. On her wedding day, Eurydice is to marry her true love Orpheus, but instead, she trips and falls into the depths of the Underworld. Her memories washed away by the river Styx, Eurydice has a chance encounter with her dead father and the love she feels for him reawakens her memory of who she is. When Orpheus finally finds her in the land of the dead, Eurydice has to choose between following him back to life, or remaining with her father. A poetic and moving modern version of the classic tale of loss and love, Eurydice abounds with surprising plot twists, quirky humor, and an original musical score created especially for the Old Deerfield production by Paula M. Kimper.
Tickets are $20 and $15(student/senior) and are available in June at the Academy of Music Box Office – academyofmusictheatre.com
Christmas Carol tickets available now at 413. 584.9032 or academyofmusictheatre.com - Dec. 17-20
Don’t miss Old Deerfield Productions’
A Christmas Carol
Emmy Award Winner Michael Haley as Scrooge with original music by BMI Film
Music Award winner (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) composer Alexander Janko and
performed by Archguitarist Peter Blanchette featuring the *Hampshire Young
People’s Chorus*.
Directed by Linda McInerney
*Dec. 17, 18, 19 at 8:00PM & Dec. 19, 20 at 2:00PM *
Academy of Music, 274 Main St., Northampton, MA
Tickets: $20, $15 st/sr & $7 for children available at:
*call: 413.584.9032 or visit: academyofmusictheatre.com *
Summer theatre for children at Eaglebrook
Coming in August 2010 -Summer Theatre at Eaglebrook School
A program for boys and girls ages 8 -12 on the beautiful campus of Eaglebrook School in Deerfield MA.
Eaglebrook School and Old Deerfield Productions offer two sessions of summer theatre for children:
Running time of camp, 9 am to 3 pm with mornings devoted to theatre games and then on to rehearsal. Recess will take place in the afternoon with activities including swimming in Schwab Pool, walking to the Rock, playing on the fields, and enjoying the gym. Performance each Friday afternoon to showcase week’s work with parents and friends invited to each performance. Each play is derived from games and improvisation and movement is incorporated into each “production.”
The cost is $225 per session with a limit of fifteen children with check payable to Old Deerfield Productions at 7 Memorial Street Deerfield, MA 01342. Deposit of $50 to reserve your spot is required at registration with remainder due by June 15.
Founded in 1922, Eaglebrook School is a located on 750 acres along Pocumtuck Ridge in Deerfield, MA just off of Routes 5 and 10 in the village of Old Deerfield. The Percival Theatre is a 260 seat theatre featuring beautiful acoustics and flexible seating. To learn more about Eaglebrook School visit: www.eaglebrook.org
and more on Sojourner and Kickstarter from Bonnie Wells
Twenty-first century patrons: Online site connects arts projects with funding sources
By Bonnie Wells
Staff Writer
Published on November 06, 2009
An inventive service for matching up worthy projects with the money to make them happen hung a shingle on the Web four months ago. And a local opera project is now up and running on the site.
“Isn’t this the coolest thing ever?” said Linda McInerney, artistic director of Old Deerfield Productions. She heard about the site from her son Matt, an Internet maven, a couple of weeks ago, and last Friday, her idea for an opera about the life of Sojourner Truth made its maiden voyage to the page.
The site is called Kickstarter.com, based in Brooklyn, and run by five guys from all over the country. The Web site bills itself as “a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, inventors, explorers” and others, and this is roughly the deal:
Currently by invitation only, a person with an idea in need of backing can describe the project on the site, complete with pictures and videos, and invite individuals to pledge a sum in support. Amazon.com processes the pledges. Each project specifies a monetary goal and has a deadline in which to collect pledges to meet it; in the case of the Truth opera, it’s $1,500 and 90 days. If the project meets its goal, the pledges are called in. If not, they get nothing. In many cases, goals are exceeded and the project gets to keep it all. Kickstarter makes its money by taking 5 percent of the successfully raised sums.
So far 800 projects have been hosted on the site. There are projects to write novels, to cut albums, and two other opera projects. There’s a couple who aim to write a letter to every soul on the planet, and Floating Doctors, who bring medical care to remote locales.
Here’s a bit of the Old Deerfield Productions pitch: “Share in funding our new folk opera about Sojourner Truth, ex-slave and fiery abolitionist who fought for the freedom of women and slaves. Make her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech – the quintessential antislavery anthem – ring in song across the spheres.”
“It’s a story of a woman who found her voice and changed the world with her voice,” McInerney said last week in a phone conversation. “She was the first black feminist, speaking publicly for black women’s rights, a slave who was abused by many masters and who, in 1826, ran away with her baby on her back.”
In order to sweeten the deal, projects offer premiums to their pledgers much like PBS. For a $10 pledge, the Truth project offers a postcard image of Sojourner Truth – “sent to your door” – bearing her words “I sell the shadow to support the substance.” For a $20 pledge, the mellifluous Evelyn Harris, who is set to perform the lead role of Truth in the opera, will record a greeting on their answering machines, ala Carl Kasell on NPR’s news-quiz show “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me.”
Serendipity
McInerney had been riffling through her mind’s eye for a suitable opera subject since producing the folk opera “The Captivation of Eunice Williams” in 2004, on the 300th anniversary of the infamous raid on Deerfield in which 7-year-old Eunice had been captured and frog-marched through the snow to the Mohawk village of Kahnawake in Canada.
As producer/director, she had been thrilled with the whole experience – the creative process, touring the show to sites like Kahnawake and the Rasmuson Theater at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. – not the least of which was working with New York composer Paula Kimper. She wanted to do it again.
Last summer, the serendipity that stalks McInerney’s life struck again. During the run of Old Deerfield’s show “The Last High Queen of Ireland” at the Academy of Music in Northampton, McInerney’s pals Evelyn Harris, a former member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Kimper and Emmy Award-winning broadcaster Jane Hanson, founder of Jane Hanson Productions in Easthampton, all turned up at the same show, constituting a mini-reunion.
That night McInerney had a dream. “I’m sitting in the Academy of Music, holding hands with Paula,” she recounts, “and Evelyn was up on the stage, starting to sing as Sojourner Truth.”
Though Truth is a local heroine, having lived in Florence, she wasn’t on McInerney’s radar screen. “I woke up at four in the morning and googled her [to see if there had been productions based on her life] and all there was were three one-woman shows that go from high school to high school,” she said. “It was perfect, a meaningful local story with global ramifications.”
And so it begins
Since summer, McInerney has been collaborating with Kimper as composer, Talaya Delaney as librettist, Hanson as co-producer and music director and Harris in the lead role of Truth. The group is working toward a workshop production of “Truth” in July of 2011 at Reid Theatre at Deerfield Academy and a full-scale production at the Academy of Music in October of that year. The $1,500 Kickstarter goal will help see them through a few months of planning work. Later in the process, they may return with a new monetary goal.
The ultimate goal?
“Through the story of this important black woman’s quest for freedom and equal rights, the opera will illuminate America’s complicated march toward the same goal,” writes McInerney in an email, “a march that continues in Sojourner’s footsteps today.”
Tickets available at the River Store at WRSI.com
Don’t miss A Christmas Carol, starring Emmy Award Winner Michael Haley as Scrooge to open December 17-20 at the Academy of Music in Northampton. PRESALE tickets discounted 30% available now at the Riverstore at wrsi.com
We are thrilled to offer this whimsical and very, very Valley Christmas Carol. We feel Dickens’ message bears repeating, especially when so many among us are in need. A Christmas Carol is not a story of religious traditions but of humanity. It is about community, and is produced in a way that celebrates our own unique and lively sense of community. People are looking for meaning and connection, especially at the holidays, and this is the perfect event to create that sense. It’s one of those shows that make you feel more human. And you will see lots of familiar faces on stage, even our own Clare Higgins. We’ve established A Christmas Carol as an annual ritual celebrating our interconnectedness within our beautiful Valley. This is a Christmas Carol like no other, with sets featuring a hand-painted 40’ by 25’ theatrical drop by acclaimed local artist Amy Johnquest. By taking nostalgic elements and the architecture of Victorian England and melding them with familiar places from our own Happy Valley you’ll see your community magically transformed in Amy’s inimitable style.
(413.584.9032 academyofmusictheatre.com)