Martha's Vineyard Theatre | Vineyard Gazette

Creative Cast Helps Bring Shakespeare to the Masses

Aliyah Walker | Thursday, August 5 2021 - 9:10am

Shakespeare for the Masses is typically an off-season, indoor production. This summer, however, the troupe of intrepid actors and Shakespeare experts have taken their show outside and on the road.

In collaboration with the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, the show is performed at the Tisbury Amphitheatre on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. It also pops up at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, Featherstone Center for the Arts and the Vineyard Drive-In.

But despite the venue shifts, the core message from 13 seasons remains the same: “Quick & Painless & Free!”

Theatrical Harvest Is Locally Grown

This weekend and next the Island Theatre Workshop is presenting its annual Pick of the Crop play series. As its name declares ITW is a community theatre group of and for the Island. All of its playwrights, directors and actors are amateurs. By this we mean not paid, rather than unskilled or inexperienced. Most players have appeared in numerous Island productions throughout the years and are familiar presences on stage.

One-Woman Show Brings Loveland to Island

Next weekend, on Sunday, Oct. 28, Ann Randolph will perform her one-woman show Loveland at the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven. Ms. Randolph was once a member of the Groundlings in Los Angeles with Will Ferrell and was perhaps headed to Saturday Night Live, too, but her desire to perform and write her own shows led her down a different path. She has created a number of one-woman shows, including the award-winning Squeeze Box which was produced by Mel Brooks and Ann Bancroft. A movie version of the show is in development.

Center Stage for Bullying Issue

Bully. Target. Bystander. Hero.

The vocabulary words took on greater meaning for elementary school students at the Edgartown School on Thursday morning as they watched eight junior high students in the IMP theater program present Assertions, a series of monologues on the topic of bullying.

On Tuesday morning, a group of high school IMP players performed a similar piece for a middle school audience.

Opera at Library

The Vineyard Haven Library is stepping into the great fall void with a full list of programs.

On Tuesday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. James Sullivan, author of Island Cup: Two Teams, Twelve Miles of Ocean, and Fifty Years of Football, will be at the library to discuss his book and give the inside scoop behind the story.

Crop Walk Preparation

In preparation for the Island Theatre Workshop 2012 PICK of the CROP festival, ITW is seeking original script submissions by local playwrights. Shorts, one-acts and full-length plays will be considered.

If selected, materials will be presented at the November festival. Material must be received by Sept. 14 and may be submitted via the website itwmv.org or [email protected], or by mail at P.O. Box 1893. Vineyard Haven 02568.

For more details, call 508-627-3166.

Pathos Over Playtime, Rock Opera Is Chest Beating Success

Katie Ruppel

After clown school shut down unexpectedly, May Oskan was a little lost and rather bitter.

“The floor went out from under me... I didn’t have my community, teachers or classmates,” said Ms. Oskan of her time at the San Francisco Circus Center. “I didn’t have my tightrope or anything to juggle. I was a clown with no circus.”

Always one to be involved in a project, Ms. Oskan knew she had to do something big.

“And I knew I didn’t want it to be funny,” she added with a laugh.