OBERON Announces October-November 2017 Programming
By: BWW News Desk Oct. 06, 2017
OBERON, the American Repertory Theater's (A.R.T.) Second Stage and club theater venue on the fringe of Harvard Square, announces events to be presented at OBERON during October and November - including A.R.T. Institute, OBERON Presents, Visiting Artists, and Usual Suspects.
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MACBETH
A.R.T. Institute
Thursday, October 5 and Friday, October 6 at 7PM
Tickets $20
After murdering their king, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth spiral ever deeper into the desperation and madness of guilt. Featuring the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training Class of 2018, this new staging by Obie Award-winning director Melia Bensussen (Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief, A.R.T. Institute; A Doll's House, Huntington Theatre Company) brings Macbeth into conversation with Edgar Allan Poe's 19th century-when Gothic horror stories haunted the boundaries between the outside world and the individual unconscious.
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YO SOY LOLA
Sunday, October 8 at 8:30PM
Tickets $25 - $50
Yo Soy LOLA is a thought-provoking multimedia experience showcasing Latinas in the arts and raising awareness of the multi-dimensional Latina experience. Net proceeds fund scholarships and artistic ideas that directly impact the next generation of Latinx youth and their communities. After the show, a Latin dance party continues into the night.
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THE STORY COLLIDER
Usual Suspect
Wednesday, October 11 at 8PM
Tickets $10 - $12
From finding awe in Hubble images to visiting the doctor, science is everywhere in our lives. Whether we wear a white lab coat or haven't seen a test tube since eighth grade, science affects and changes us. We all have a story about science, and at this performance of The Story Collider, you'll hear ones about road blocks in science.
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EL AMOR EN TIEMPOS DE TRUMP
Friday, October 13 at 8:30PM
Tickets $15
El Amor En Tiempos De Trump is the culmination to a day-long symposium on queer of color criticism and performance at Tufts University. The night will highlight the work of NIC Kay (2017 I.D. Festival) and Victor I. Cares, two artists from the symposium, and feature Jayden Jamison KA St. James, Queen JP, Emphysema Menthol One-Hundreds.
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MORTIFIED
Usual Suspect
Saturday, October 14 and Saturday, November 18 at 7PM
Tickets $15
Hailed as a "cultural phenomenon" by Newsweek and celebrated for years by the likes of This American Life, The Today Show, The Onion, AV Club, and Entertainment Weekly, Mortified is a comic excavation of teen angst artifacts (journals, poems, letters, lyrics, home movies, schoolwork) as shared by their original authors-in front of total strangers.
In October, Mortified will celebrate the release of its new book, My Mortified Life, a guided journal that's designed to reconnect you with your own fabulous (and fabulously awkward) childhood self. The book will be on sale at the show thanks to local indie institution Harvard Book Store.
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ANCESTRAL MEMORIES
Live @ OBERON
Thursday, October 19 at 8PM
Tickets $25
With grant support from the French-American Jazz Exchange Program, Cuban-American saxophonist/percussionist/composer Yosvany Terry and French pianist Baptiste Trotignon present a unique and exciting program inspired by the rich and diverse musical traditions that emerged from the African Diaspora in the United States and former French colonies in the Americas. Ancestral Memories captures the rhythms, melodies, and harmonies of the Caribbean, New Orleans, and French Louisiana, re-imagined through 21st century aesthetics and a jazz sensibility. The ensemble also features the extraordinary rhythm section of Terry's brother, bassist Yunior Terry, and drummer Clarence Penn. Ancestral Memories' debut album will be released in October 2017 on OKeh/Sony Records.
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CIRQUE OF THE DEAD
Usual Suspect
October 20 - 31 at various times
Tickets $30 - $50
Boston Circus Guild returns for a fifth year with Cirque of the Dead, featuring never-before-seen acts and new performers in eight shows over six nights. Demons, witches, monsters, and creepy crawly creatures will fill each evening with never-before-seen acts of aerials, acrobatics, burlesque, sideshow, and more. Boston comedian Wes Hazard will be your host, and crowd favorite Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band will fill the room with booty-shaking live music. Come dressed in your Halloween finest and enter the social media costume contest using #cirqueofthedead.
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LAURA CORTESE & THE DANCE CARDS
Live @ OBERON
Sunday, October 22 at 7:30PM
Tickets $20 - $30
After cutting her teeth as a sideman in Boston's roots music scene, Laura Cortese's Compass Records debut California Calling, is the next step in her career as a frontwoman and bandleader. She and her Dance Cards break new ground with a bold and elegant new album, based in the lyrical rituals of folk music but exploring new territories of rhythm and sonics. With the support of Sam Kassirer (last season's Sound Society series), producer of folk-pop album favorites including Lake Street Dive and Pasonsfield, they've created something that's simultaneously rowdy, delicate, and cinematic. On their CD release tour, cellist Valerie Thompson (cello/vox), fiddler Jenna Moynihan (fiddle/vox), and Zoe Guigueno (bass/vox) pair their sophisticated string arrangements and rich vocal harmonies with Cortese's poignant and powerful singing.
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THE MOTH
Usual Suspect
Tuesday, October 24 and Tuesday, November 21 at 8PM
Tickets $10, available October 17 and November 14 at 3PM
The Moth StorySLAMs are steadily spreading all over the map, gathering people and stories from all over the country. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston have multiple shows each month. The Moth is open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's posted theme. The brave of heart, or those with stories they're aching to tell, prepare personal, true tales. When the doors open, storyteller hopefuls put their names in The Moth Hat. A half-hour later, names are picked, and one by one, storytellers take the stage. Each person has just five minutes! The ten featured stories are scored by teams of judges selected from the audience. Each StorySLAM generates a StorySLAM winner. After ten SLAMs, the winners face off in our GrandSLAM Championships. Come sign up to tell a story, or just enjoy the show!
October's theme is Creepy. Prepare a five-minute story about something that makes your skin crawl-the people, places or things that spook you. Creatures, humans included, who slither or skulk. Haunted houses, dark alleys, inappropriate co-worker comments, menacing Facebook postings. What lurks in the bottom drawer of your fridge. Ominous strangers. Suspicious ingredients. The unmistakable feeling of facing a threat that has not quite defined itself. Spidey sense activated!
November's theme is Control. Control towers and control top pantyhose. It's all about holding it together. Prepare a five-minute story about your valiant efforts to keep the equilibrium. Or your maniacal plans as puppetmaster to bend others to your will. A surgeon's precision, a nursery school teacher's iron will, being the boss of yourself or others.
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SESSION AMERICANA
Live @ OBERON
Wednesday, October 25 at 8PM
Tickets $15 - $25
Session Americana huddles close to a table wired for sound with suitcase drums, an electric bass, and a pump organ on the perimeter. Comprised of five songwriters and six Boston all-stars sharing lead vocals, you'll never know what's coming next. For ten years they've been building audiences and winning awards in Boston, the Northeast, and Europe. A performance at 2015's Folk Alliance introduced the band to the national industry, resulting in invitations to showcase at the AMAs, join a national booking agency, perform as the closing act at Sister's Festival, and play Rocky Mountain Folks Fest.
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MOONBOX CABARET 2017
Monday, October 30 at 8PM
Tickets $20
Treat yourself to the Moonbox Cabaret, an evening of song, dance, and laughs that's so fun, it's scary! Featuring beloved Moonbox alumni, previews from our 8th season-the hilarious, Hitchcockian 39 Steps and the timeless musical Cabaret-and more special surprises. Our Halloween tricks and treats give you the chance to support Boston's only theater company committed to sharing the stage with other non-profits!
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PROCLAMATION 5: TRUE THAT
A.R.T. Education
Saturday, November 4 and Sunday, November 5 at 7PM
Tickets $5
Proclamation 5: True That wrestles with the complex concept of truth in modern society. When the tangible is questioned and subjective opinion and misinformation are treated as fact, how can we find truth, and what do we do with it once we've found it? The ensemble of Proclamation 5: True That grapples with truth in a devised production brimming with humor, movement, and most importantly, honesty.
Proclamation is the A.R.T.'s annual performance and writing program for area high school students. An ensemble of rising high school juniors and seniors explore an urgent topic while developing an original theater piece. Through dialogues with experts from the community, creative writing, immersive research projects, and group improvisation, the resulting performance digs deep into the personal, the political, and the call to act.
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ROOTED IN RESISTANCE: HBGC GALA
Wednesday, November 1 at 7:30PM
Tickets $100
Each fall, the Hispanic Black Gay Coalition (HBGC) hosts its annual gala to commemorate its founding in 2009. We will gather in community on November 1 to be inspired by, reflect, and call upon the beauty, strength, and wisdom of (and critical need for) queer radical thought and movements led by people of color-past, present, and future. Host Committee: Kevin Hepner, VP of Administration and Finance, Roxbury Community College; Gary Bailey, DHL, MSW, ACSW, Professor of Practice at Simmons College; and Hope Denese Freeman, Director, LGBT Center, Tufts University. This is a General Admission event and not all tickets are seated.
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ONTHEFLOOR
OBERON Presents
Friday, November 10 at 8PM and Saturday, November 11 at 10:30PM
Tickets from $15
Returning to OBERON after an epic weekend this spring, The Dance Cartel's ONTHEFLOOR is driven equally by pumping bass, glitter, dance heroism and feats of endurance in this 90-minute, energy-busting experience is part dance, part video installation, part DJ set and part concert. Featuring chanteuse Niki Luparelli on November 10 and actress-singer Grace McClean (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812) on November 11.
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THE BIG SIX HURRICANE RELIEF CONCERT
Sunday, November 12, 7PM
Tickets $10-$50
The Big Six, an emerging supergroup formed by Emergency physicians from Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative will perform covers of classic rock songs at this benefit concert organized by the Harvard Humanitarian Iniatiative to raise funds for orgnanizations providing humanitarian relief for communities affected by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
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WORDSONG: ONE TEXT, FOUR COMPOSERS, AN UNSPOKEN CONVERSATION
Tuesday, November 14 at 8PM
Tickets $20 - $75
Currently in its 90th year, The Grolier Poetry Book Shop, the U.S.'s oldest poetry book shop, presents a fundraiser featuring the work of two distinguished poets with deep ties to the Grolier: Donald Hall and E.E. Cummings. WordSong: One Text, Four Composers, an Unspoken Conversation celebrates Grolier's rich literary tradition while providing support as it plans for its 100th year.
The program will feature four different settings of Cumming's in Just by by Boston composers Howard Frazin, Benjamin Pesetsky, Tom Schnauber, and Adam Simon, and performed by Krista River, mezzo soprano, Rafael Popper Keizer, cello, and Robert Schulz, marimba. Following will be the premiere of a new song cycle, Letting Go, by Frazin that is a setting of 6 Donald Hall poems: The Wish, The Child, Moon Shot, Villanelle, By the Exeter River, and White Apples, performed by Keith Phares, baritone, and Linda Osborn, piano. Letting Go is an early 90th birthday present for Mr. Hall, who will introduce the presentation himself by video.
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GLOWBERON: Bridget Barkan-DEAR STRANGER, I LOVE YOU
GLOWBERON Presents
Thursday, November 16 at 8PM
Tickets $25
Bridget shines her light on the community that continues to inspire this living alternative cabaret show. You'll be delighted and moved by her stories, characters, original and cover songs, improvisation, poetry, dance, and unapologetic truth. A musical journey from bad to new love, a dance between free love and committed love, the fight for self love and ultimate infinite universal love that can bring us all together: Perhaps our struggles will usher in an endless season of love.
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RESIST(D)ANCE
Friday, November 17 at 6PM
Tickets $10 - $20
A three-part immersive art experience; including an open creative forum for local artists and community leaders to engage in conversation and art making; a live performance featuring poetry, dance, and live music; and a dance party highlighting the importance of social dance in black communities. The purpose of this event is to unite community thinkers, leaders, and doers throughout Boston to move towards social change, to uplift local artists of color, and to create cultural production-informing our collective strength and identity.
All-access tickets available for the full event beginning at 6PM and for the Performance & Party beginning at 8:30PM.
This event is presented by Radical Black Girl, an art-activist whose goal is the radical awakening of the authentic self to become audacious, unapologetic and empowered. She hopes to inspire transformation of self and communities in order to change our realities through art.
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THE HUMMM
Sunday, November 19, 2017 at 7PM
Tickets $20
A wild and riotous deconstruction of Chekhov's classic play Three Sisters performed with just four actors, The Hummm was created by dramaturg Kai Chieh Tu and actors Ali Stoner (The Pirate Princess), Janice Amaya (The Pirate Princess), Katherine Wright (The Pirate Princess), and Sarah Paton (Dying for It) from the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training's Class of 2016. Using the "etude" style of devising inspired by the group's work at The Moscow Art Theater, the creative team behind The Hummm explores themes of success, sisterhood, and loneliness both in the world of the play and the present day. The production transports the audience to a surreal world in which the classically bottled-up passions of Chekhov's characters are released. Part classic, part fever dream, The Hummm is an exciting mix of dance, clowning, and improv, all tied together by a vibrant soundtrack and performed live by our composer, DJ Fedor Sokolov.
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6th ANNUAL DAVID BOOBIE BLACK FRIDAY
Usual Suspect
Friday, November 24 at 8PM and Saturday, November 25 at 7PM
Tickets $25 - $45
It's the 6th Annual Oh You Pretty Things/David Boobie Black Friday with a bonus Thanksgiving slice of Sweet Potato Bowie Pie on Black Saturday! Black Friday is approaching once again, which means it's time for the glorious return to Cambridge of Bowie-flavored striptease. Niki Stardust and her Total Blam Blam David Boobie Band (aka Niki Luparelli and The Gold Diggers) bring back to OBERON their lascivious tribute to David Bowie and the female form.
Friday's show is for the biggest Bowie fans with around 3 hours and 30 songs featuring Burlesque and Aerials from some of Boston's best and most notorious performers. Saturday is "Just the Hits! Wham! Bam! Thank You, Ma'am."
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A.R.T. Presents
THE DONKEY SHOW
The Long-Running Hit
Every Saturday night
Tickets from $25
Tony Award-winner Diane Paulus' celebrated smash hit continues its eighth Season at OBERON every Saturday night, bringing you the ultimate disco experience - a crazy circus of mirror balls and feathered divas, of roller skaters and hustle queens inspired by Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The party rages on the dance floor to all the best 70s hits as the show unfolds around the audience. After the show, the party continues into the night so you can live out your own disco fever fantasy!
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OBERON is located at 2 Arrow Street at the corner of Mass Ave. in Harvard Square, Cambridge. For more information and tickets visit cluboberon.com.
OBERON is the American Repertory Theater's Second Stage, a destination for theater and nightlife on the fringe of Harvard Square. In addition to offering work from the A.R.T's main season, OBERON is also a thriving incubator for emerging artists to imagine new projects that could only exist in this exciting club-theater environment. Thousands of artists and performance groups bring work to the space each year. OBERON regularly features a wide variety of local performers including aerialists, beat poets, musicians, food artists, tap dancers, gender-bending sketch troupes, comedians, hula-hooping burlesquers, and pop-and-lock human statues.
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