July 2024 (Vol. 2) - Digital Edition

“I sort of think of it as my theater problem,” says Jonathan Mirin, “If I didn’t have a theater problem I could get a regular job.” The Massachusetts-born playwright, actor, and educator assures me that this is a joke, but the quip illustrates something beautifully all-consuming about his love for performance — the driving force behind his work in the Piti Theatre Company alongside Swiss choreographer, dancer and visual artist Godeliève Richard (who he also happens to be married to).

by Caleb Scola

“I haven’t had a single day off since May 3rd, because I care,” says Ted Hebert. Ted, 72, is the owner and founder of Teddy Bear Pools and Spas, a pool retailer based in Chicopee, MA that serves Western Massachusetts and Northern Connecticut. Ted’s business works precisely because he cares. Teddy Bear Pools – while immensely successful and ever-expanding – relies on local connections, close client relationships, and good, honest business.

by Jaiden van Bork

Piti (pronounced “Pea-tea” as their website helpfully indicates) is a word from the ancient Indian Pali language that means “joy” or “rapture”. Mirin says that the touring ensemble’s mission is to “plant seeds of joy, sustainability, and justice” by presenting original work often centered around environmental or local history themes, with a major focus on young people. The group has toured extensively around New England, but also throughout the country and the globe presenting their unique work.

Longtime visitors of Payomet Performing Arts Center in North Truro, Mirin and Richard are excited to be presenting one of these original shows at the venue this summer. Entitled To Bee or Not to Bee, this award-winning play explores the causes and consequences of environmental destabilization through a fable about a money-hungry farmer who turns to monoculture and pesticides, and soon pays a horrible price. Mirin says the company was inspired by the 2009 documentary film Vanishing of the Bees and the work of food writer and journalist Michael Pollan, both of which foreground serious concerns about the state of contemporary large-scale agriculture.

“It’s not new that we’re facing a major environmental crisis,” the playwright says, but the focus on protecting pollinators is unique in its potential for action. “Pollinators need help. And the cool thing about pollinators is that there’s actually a lot kids can do , as opposed to [with] some other problems or issues that seem less tangible.” It’s incredibly easy for children and schools everywhere to plant a pollinator garden to combat loss of habitat, and while one garden won’t solve the crisis, Mirin says those small steps do add up. He hopes this play will inspire that kind of work.

Unsurprisingly, the playwright says his work is always motivated by a desire to help and serve others, a principle he says he has clarified greatly through years of meditation. Mirin practices Vipassana, an ancient meditation technique that emphasizes careful observation of the breath, the body, and eventually the mind itself. This practice is central to his work as an actor, he says. “When you meditate long enough, everything comes up from anger, to happiness, to sadness,” Mirin explains, “So it kind of greases the wheels for me to [know] where those states are located in the body.” By meditating on these different emotions and the respective experiences of feeling them, Mirin is able to draw those different experiences up more easily in the process of acting. Funny enough, Mirin and Richard actually met at a Vipassana meditation center in Switzerland, where they eventually embarked on a complex journey to India (and the rest, I suppose, is history).

Piti Theatre Company will also be holding its Inclusion Improv workshop in North Truro this August as well. This engaging morning of improv games and more is open to ages 8 and up (including parents and adults!) and focuses on using improv as a powerful tool for social emotional learning. “I think inclusion is a word that people hear a lot, and I think it’s not always clear what it means.” Mirin says “[But] one of the rules of improv is learning how to say yes to your partner, and another way to think of [that] is including their ideas with your ideas… [Inclusion] could be as simple as working with someone in the group who you might not usually work with or might not know… expanding our scope of who we think of as creative teammates.”

Sheffield 3rd grade student Zechariha Hammonds is posed as “crying man” by classmate Dayzar Crapps as part of Piti Theatre’s improv performance outside the school.

Breaking down barriers and letting participants “let loose” is key to these workshops. “Younger kids are doing that anyways,” Mirin says, “Like, kindergartners are just in the world of play all day long anyways, but then what happens is when you get to fourth, fifth, [or] sixth grade you start kind of shutting down little by little to fit in or be cool or whatever the social imperative is. But I find that… a significant portion of kids are really hungry for that kind of freedom and license to create.”

In addition to their touring work, the Piti Theater Company has recently secured funding for a project to turn an old barn on their property in rural Shelburne Falls, MA into a center for arts and ecology in order to further environmentally focused arts education for young people within the unique natural landscape of the Berkshire Foothills.

It seems almost like fate that the company will find themselves at Payomet this summer, a place where the environment and the arts frequently intersect in beautiful ways that are central to our mission. This unique intersection is rarely touched upon (or at least not nearly enough), and we are so tremendously excited to welcome the Piti Theatre Company to our tent this summer.

Get your tickets now and remember that Cape Cod kids get in FREE to all our family programming! More info at payomet.org.

by Caleb Scola

Ted has developed a depth of expertise after no less than fifty-eight years of experience in the pool industry. It all started when he took a summer job at a local pool company at the age of fourteen. When he was nineteen, Ted began to build pools as a subcontractor. “It’s something I loved, because you’re outside, you’re building fun for people,” Ted explains. “And I got satisfaction when I got done with something that people were really grateful for.” Then, in 1973, from the carport of his mother’s house, he founded Custom Pools by Ted, which became Teddy Bear Pools in 1975. The name comes from the French pronunciation of Ted Hebert’s name, which sounds like “Ted A-Bear.” Over the next several decades, Teddy Bear Pools scaled up their operations, buying out a former car dealership and then a 40,000-square foot warehouse.

But the success of Teddy Bear Pools is not just financial. For Ted, it’s satisfying to provide families with spaces that they can share and enjoy in the long- term. “I believe that your greatest asset value is your house. And if you have a pool in your backyard, for the cost of a vacation, you get to use that pool for many, many years.” Teddy Bear Pools takes pride in being able to serve its community and region at large with honesty and care. “I’m on my third generation of customers,” says Ted. “We have people traveling as much as 100 miles to get here for stuff, because they can’t find any place like this. We’re different. I care about my employees. I care about my customers. My employees are actually my family, and I consider my customers extended family.” He makes a point of calling every new customer to thank them for their patronage.

This care for the community is what inspired Ted to sponsor Payomet. Teddy Bear Pools is located over 180 miles from our tent. “Why would I advertise down here?” Ted asks, “Because I want to help out organizations like yours that are homegrown.” A longtime visitor and lover of the Cape, Ted stumbled upon our organization when he saw a roadside sign advertising an Arlo Guthrie concert. “I liked the ambiance. The clientele was very down-to-earth.” Ted has been a sponsor for over eight years, and continues to support Payomet’s commitment to nurturing the arts here on the Outer Cape. “I don’t do it because I want to see what return value I can get. I do it to help people.”

by Jaiden van Bork

Casey Clark grew up in a Provincetown that had multiple movie theaters. His father a projectionist, he says he began watching the work of filmmakers like Federico Fellini and François Truffaut by the age of eight. “I fell in love with it,” he says. Decades later, his film career would bring him back to the Cape to collaborate with Payomet on a brand new documentary.

Although he began his career in entertainment as an actor, Clark eventually began making his own films. Starting in New York City, he made significant connections in the industry, but eventually decided to move back home to the Cape when he shifted his focus to writing. “I just wanted the space, that’s why I came back here,” he says, “[I wanted] a more peaceful existence.” With more and more of the industry taking place over Zoom, he says it became easier to live on Cape and still get opportunities in New York and beyond thanks to his connections.

Then, Clark bumped into Payomet Executive Director Kevin Rice, who asked him to document the Cirque by the Sea circus troupe. With the performers arriving within the next few weeks, there was little time to spare, and Clark jumped into action. He says it was difficult to adjust to the documentary mode, having little experience with it, but the veteran filmmaker quickly got to work, following the circus performers throughout their rehearsals and meetings.

“I was really in love with their creative process,” he says, “A lot of it is really just solving problems, because there’s so many problems that come up — so many obstacles — and how you solve those problems, and how you meet those challenges… I mean that in a way is a good chunk of what creativity is.”

Clark focused extensively on that process of building the show from the ground up, all of which happens in a very small amount of time for the circus team. “It’s constant for two weeks — it’s just constant thought [and] rehearsal,” he says, “And then the physical element of it, like just the athleticism of it I found really inspiring and fun to be around. And they’re having a blast when they’re doing that — working round the clock and they’re just having a blast.”

To keep up with this fast pace, Clark says he frequently would show up to rehearsals with just his phone to shoot some extra behind the scenes footage. He, like many filmmakers, has mixed feelings about the rise of iPhone cinema. “For a long time I fought it,” he explains, “I mean, I was really one of the celluloid holdouts, [but] now it just seems like it’s opened a lot of doors… especially now that it’s starting to look pretty good.” In this case, Clark’s smartphone became a useful documenting tool.

Following up over text, Clark elucidates the joy he found in this process, saying: “I love hearing about how different artists do what they do. It’s incredibly diverse. No two artists seem to go about their work in the same way. There is no formula that applies to everyone. So I was excited to dive into the circus and get a behind the scenes look at how they do what they do. What I encountered was lots of fun, meeting challenges with open minds, tireless work ethic and a vision that really transformed into a living circus in a few weeks time.”

It’s the magic of the circus and the magic of filmmaking combined into one.

Stay tuned for details on this film’s premiere coming very very soon. And in the meantime, make sure to check out the circus team’s new show Overboard now playing outside at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater!

by Ryan Waller

Taylor Mac is an acclaimed playwright, songwriter, actor, and Pulitzer Prize Finalist who we at Payomet are incredibly proud to host on August 9th at Provincetown Town Hall!

Mac, whose preferred pronoun is “judy” (lowercase, just like any other pronoun), has been working in theater for three decades now, and has consistently evaded categorization in that time. A self described “fool”, Both as a writer and a performer, Mac has brought an androgyny and absurdist sense of humor to judy’s work that is unmistakable.

Growing up in a christian home in the eighties, judy yearned “for variance, for heterogeneity”, despite the close-minded environment. Seeking to not just be one gender, or have just one idea about things, Mac sought out queer environments and media such as the B-52s, or going to gay march rallies in the height of the AIDS epidemic. Upon graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, judy began working as an actor to find it was not Mac’s “calling”. Instead, after being personally inspired by John Cameron Mitchell and his performance in the musical “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, Mac began writing judy’s own plays, gaining critical acclaim and audience recognition in the process.

Mac’s most well known work, “Taylor Mac’s 24 Decade History of Popular Music” was a 24-Hour long showcase of American Music history from 1776 to modern day, with an hour dedicated to each decade. The show received near-universal acclaim from critics and audiences for its use of pre-existing songs to frame American history through the eyes of those who have been oppressed and mistreated by it. The show has recently been the focus of a documentary of the same name, streaming on Max.

Regarding the use of the pronoun “judy”, Mac says, “A few people have claimed I use it as a joke. They are uninformed. It’s not a joke, which doesn’t mean it isn’t funny. It’s a personalized pronoun for someone whose gender (professionally and personally) is constantly changing.” Mac’s pronoun was inspired by judy’s close friend Justin Vivian Bond’s adoption of the pronoun “v”. The choice of “judy” is an homage to Judy Garland, as well as a choice of something that is “fun and that immediately emasculates you”.
Mac’s fight against categorization and labels is uniquely present in judy’s work. Mac’s play “Hir”, which Mac describes as “absurd realism”, takes the trope of a dysfunctional family, and brings it into the modern era. The exploration of gender fluidity and toxic masculinity through a comedic lens is remarkably modern and original, and shows off Mac’s talent and personality in writing.

Taylor Mac is a truly one-of-a-kind performer and writer, and we at Payomet are incredibly excited to bring judy to the Outer Cape August 9th, at Provincetown Town Hall. See you all there!

2020 was a year so historic that it almost seemed fictitious. In the middle of one of the most unusual and chaotic presidencies in American history, with a catastrophic pandemic sweeping the globe and unprecedented civil unrest breaking out in response to police violence against Black Americans — 2020 also marked the 100th anniversary of the nineteenth amendment to the U.S. constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote.

1920, a hundred years prior, was a different era entirely, but also involved a historic presidency and a pandemic of its own – as well as a great deal of its own civil unrest. Perhaps this is what prompted singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan to create her latest album All My Friends. Commissioned for this historic centennial of the nineteenth amendment, the album tells the story of several inspiring women involved in the suffrage movement that served to secure women’s right to participate in the political process. Released just now in 2024, the album still feels incredibly timely.

Over a stunning array of instrumental arrangements, O’Donovan sings her way through this time period, drawing on a number of historical sources, like iconic speeches from suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt and letters from Woodrow Wilson, almost mimicking the docupoetic methods of poets like Muriel Rukeyser.

O’Donovan’s voice is perfect for this project, full of just enough theatricality to convey the intense drama and conflict of this period in time, but sophisticated and flexible enough to underscore the issue’s seriousness. And with the help of groups like The Knights and The Westerlies, the album makes the Suffragette movement feel incredibly contemporary and important. The album is also ripe with pop potential, with inspiring and catchy tracks like “Someone to Follow” and “The Right Time” that transcend their place within this deeply conceptual project.

It would be very easy for the content of this record to rob it of its soul, but O’Donovan skillfully avoids this pitfall (it’s no Hamilton).

We are super excited to welcome O’Donovan back to the Payomet tent this month. And, as we found out through some digging alongside our local historical societies — the Cape even has its own piece of women’s suffrage history. Many notable activists from this movement were in fact local to the Cape.

Katharine Lee Bates, for example, was a professor and poet credited with writing “America the Beautiful” — as well as a well-known Suffragette who wrote an iconic letter to the Lewiston Journal entitled “Why Not?” where she profoundly asked “Women are tax-payers, patriots, workers for every national cause — why not citizens? Women may and do express their opinions freely on public questions, in home and school, from the platform and in the press, why not through the ballot?” Additionally, Helen Howland was a Wellfleetian who became treasurer of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, an organization that — although not without its own questionable positions — played an important role in fighting for women’s suffrage.

However, reading about history is one thing — but Aoife O’Donovan will make you feel it when she joins us on Wednesday July 17th, alongside phenomenal bluegrass band, Hawktail, to perform songs from this brilliant new album. There are even special limited tickets available for $19 in honor of the nineteenth amendment! Get your tickets now and come check out this unforgettable experience with us.

From our partner in crime, the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, comes an exciting staged reading on July 19th as part of a nationwide event organized by Writers for Democratic Action: IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE – AGAIN. Inspired by Sinclair Lewis’s 1936 production that warned against the rise of fascism, this event is both an homage to that historic moment and a call to action in our present day.

This new adaptation was written by Rachel DeWoskin, Wesley Savick, and James Carroll It will be read by Robin Bloodworth, Dennis Cunningham, Laura Esterman, John Rothman, Sally Tigh, Brenda Withers, and is directed by Jeff Zinn.

FROM THE DIRECTOR:
“In 1936, Sinclair Lewis published a blockbuster novel, It Can’t Happen Here, warning of a rising fascist movement IN AMERICA that was mirroring and supporting what was then happening in Nazi Germany. The novel was adapted for the stage and, just before that year’s election, was produced on 21 stages across 17 states.

“Now, a new adaptation has been created and will be mounted simultaneously all across America on the afternoon of July 19, 2024 – the day after the Republican Convention nominates its candidate for president. Over 60 productions are in the works in more than 50 towns and cities in more than 20 states. All on this one day. We invite you to witness the one taking place at the Wellfleet Harbor Theater’s Julie Harris Stage with an all-star cast”

UPDATE: Tickets are now sold out for this event, but you can watch the livestream here!

A Note from the Editor

No editorial this week, just Payomet limericks.

My hotel in Ptown was set
I was dripping in traffic with sweat
Then I saw a sign,
Turned down Old Dewline,
Now I’m stuck at old Payomet

Cirque by the Sea was a blast–
Their movements were stunningly fast,
So I thought I might
Join the circus tonight
But wound up wrapped up in a cast

The mosquitoes are coming to town
They seem like they’re just all around
Swat them away
But they’re here to stay
They just love our North Truro sound

Check out Taylor Mac, Aoife O’Donovan, Piti Theatre Company, and more inside!