"These characters will carry you into their world, cuddle you and then spit you out."

Aniela Gonzalez: From Audition to a Starring Role
Interview by director Dan Lombardo

Sometimes the right actor walks in the door of the audition room and magic happens: You have your leading lady. In the case of the casting the lead character, Gabriela, I had already had a casting session for non-Equity actors in Boston, and two full days of Actors Equity auditions in Wellfleet. I still hadn’t found just the right Gabriela. Then, a young actor called to ask if she could come in and read for the part. I’ll let Aniela tell the rest of the story.

Dan Lombardo: Describe what your audition was like.
Aniela Gonzalez: I had a wonderful audition experience, the kind actors dream of. Everyone was very friendly from when I first walked in through the door and you were so kind and welcoming that I instantly felt at ease. I performed a monologue and scene; you had me read another scene and soon after you said “I never do this but you have the part!” I was thrilled and relieved to hear those words after a long journey from Manhattan to Wellfleet and having cancelled a flight to Miami the day before just to go to the audition. Gabriela is a part I have been wanting to play since I first read and fell in love with References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot and I am grateful it’s being done in such a special theater.

DL: Tell me about your character, Gabriela.
AG:  Gabriela is a young woman from Puerto Rico, who lives alone most of the year in a desert that is part of an army town. She spends most of the year waiting for her husband to come home from war. She longs for a certain sense of beauty in her life and looks for it in the Universe, the stars, galaxies, and the moon. They take her far away from her lonely reality. Her cat and the moon keep her company until Benito comes home for a few hours just to take her to bed and leave again. This behavior has left her progressively more empty and frustrated throughout the years. She loves deeply, dreams passionately, and wants her marriage to be beautiful again.

DL: Why should everyone on Cape Cod leave the beach and rush to WHAT to seeReferences to Salvador Dali…?
AG: If you haven’t read References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, I recommend you DONT READ IT!, come SEE it!, feel all the emotions, react to the characters, become a part of this world for a couple of hours and THEN read the play. These characters will carry you into their world, cuddle you and then spit you out. But that is the theater — it’s an experience worth leaving a day at the beach for.

References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot
Previews May 24 & 25. Opens May 26, Closes June 9. Show starts @ 8pm.

(tickets)

References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot - opening May 26

References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot
by Jose Rivera
Directed by Dan Lombardo

Previews May 24 & 25. Opens May 26, Closes June 9. Show starts @ 8pm.
Tickets: $10 - $35

Rivera's magical masterpiece finds Gabriela talking to the moon ? played by a man in a Panama hat playing a violin on her refrigerator. When her husband Benito returns from war, the limits of love are tested, the desert comes alive like a surreal Dali painting, and Gabriela?s housecat dances with a wily coyote. In this comic drama, the moon hovers over all, offering haunting music and dreamlike wisdom. Appearing with WHAT?s seasoned actors will be the young, talented actors of Boston?s TC Squared Theater.

CAST
Mimi Augustin as Cat
Aniela Gonzalez as Gabriela
Michael Knowlton as Martin
Robert Najarian as Benito and Moon
Jesse Tolbert as Cayote

Caitlin Clouthier, Production Stage Manager/Assistant Director
Jamaica Jarvis, Assistant Stage Manager
Nick Dorr, Scenic Designer
Mary Fritz, Properties Designer
Nathan Leigh, Sound Designer
John Malinowski, Lighting Designer
Anne Miggins, Wardrobe Supervisor
Chris Page, Technical Director
Carol Sherry, Costume Designer

A Night of Jazz

Friday, May 11, 7:00am 

WHAT is hosting a jazz concert featuring Gerry Beaudoin (guitar), with  Bruce Abbott (sax), Ron Ormsby (bass), and Bart Weisman (drums).
 
Gerry Beaudoin is an Award-winning Jazz guitarist who frequently performs as a member of the New Guitar Summit with Harold Alden & Jay Geils.  His first national success was in 1992 with the Boston Jazz Ensemble. Gerry then went on to make two critically acclaimed trio recordings and three appearances on the Grammy Awards ballot.  He is a graduate of Berklee College of Music and has performed or recorded with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Jay McShann, Dick Johnson, John and Bucky Pizzarelli, Dave McKenna, Alan Dawson, Karrin Allyson, Harry Allen, and many more.

Click here for tickets

An Evening of Performances and Visual Art

Wellfleet Cultural Council Presents an Evening of Performances and Visual Art at WHAT

Saturday, May 5
Reception 6:00 p.m.; Performance 7:00 p.m.

A one-night-only variety show starring local artists and performers will take over the Julie Harris Stage at WHAT on Saturday evening, May 5. Titled “Wellfleet Cultural Council Presents,” the program will raise funds for future grants to support community projects in the arts, sciences, and humanities. Paula Erickson will be master of ceremonies.

All of the artists and performers are past recipients of Cultural Council grants. They include Tara Murphy of Cape Cod African Dance and Drum, poet Peter Frawley, and the Cape Rep Playback Theatre. Melissa Nussbaum will perform her original script, “Marilyn Monroe, Communist,” directed by David Drake.

The Wellfleet Recycling Committee will preview a new PSA directed by Jefferson Thomas; and Dennis Cunningham will present his multimedia piece about the Oesfees, a harvest festival for farm workers in South Africa.

Musical performers will include Jennifer Stratton, Denya LeVine, Dinah Mellin of Allegretto Outreach, Katie Hickey and Jim Rohrer, and Harriet Korim and Rick Arnoldi.

A pre-show reception begins at 6 p.m. with paintings and photographs by Terry Gips, Nate Johnson, Ellen LeBow, and Jim Rohrer. This exhibit will remain on view from May 1 to 10.

Comedy Night - May 4

On May 4, these guys are going to make us all laugh so hard we'll forget everything except our way home.

And maybe that, too. Bring a driver.

Juston Mckinney
Juston was a Deputy Sheriff in Maine before he turned in his gun for a microphone. He has appeared on both the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and the “Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien”…. He liked them both, and they liked him.

Juston has numerous appearances on Comedy Central including his own one hour special, “A Middle Class Hole”, which was released by Warner Bros. on CD/DVD. Come see one of the great smart young comedians on todays scene.

Jim Colliton
Being married and raising 3 kids, has turned Jim’s every man life into a hilarious comedy routine. Basic daily activities like yard work or dealing with peanut butter allergies become rich comedy foder, and Jim’s love of performing comes across every time he takes the stage. Well-crafted jokes are weaved seamlessly into spontaneous crowd work and bring the house down at comedy clubs and cruise ships across the world. In 2009 Jim’s first comedy CD “Stories from the Suburbs” won the prestigious Just Plain Folks Music Festival’s Comedy CD of the Year in Nashville TN. Along with Television appearances on Comedy Central and Ed McMahon’s next big star, Jim is considered by many as the country’s next break out star.

Mike Whitman’s innovative material made him a hit and a semi-finalist in the 2012 Boston Comedy Festival. Mike’s presence and style has led people to call Mike Boston's Best New Comedian. One of the country's most versatile and entertaining comics working today, Mike has performed at colleges and top venues around the Nation. Come see why people are talking about Boston's Hot New Comic of 2012!

Free reading tonight!

Playwright Meryl Cohn – The Final Say

Free Public Reading on the Julie Harris Stage
Saturday, April 14, 2012. 7:00 pm
Directed by David Drake
With:
Tim Babcock, Andrew Clemons, D’Arcy Dersham, Natalie Ross Miller, Eliza Ryan, Kaitlin Varkados

Cohn’s plays often blend feelings from opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Her 2006 play “Naked with Fruit” followed four women confronted simultaneously with loss and love, while her 2005 play “And Sophie Comes Too” explored the liberating experience of becoming who you are against the backdrop of loved one’s constraining wishes. She splits her time between Provincetown and Northampton, MA.

The Final Say, synopsis:
“Betsy Gold might finally get her play about her grandmother’s heroic actions during WWII produced– if only “Holocaust Superhero: The Musical” weren’t just about to open. When Betsy learns that the upcoming musical has a similar story line, and was written by her former playwriting professor, she is forced to decide how far to go to protect her play and her beloved grandmother’s story. It’s a serious play in some ways– but there’s also a fair amount of comedy and a wry perspective on the theatre world.”

Reel Paddling Film Festival - April 13 & 15

April 13, 7pm
April 15, 3pm

The Wellfleet Harbors Actors Theater presents the first Cape Cod Paddling Film Festival, with a Paddlers Reception and Premiere Paddling Film Screenings on Friday, April 13, 2012 from 7pm to 9:30pm.

The Cape Cod Reel Paddling Film Festival is an international film tour presenting the world’s best whitewater, sea kayaking, canoeing, SUP and kayak fishing action and paddling lifestyle films of 2011.

With a focus on environmental awareness, the film festival offers 27 inspiring paddling films, including the ten tour festival category winners. Audiences can expect to see stand-up paddle surfing, hairy whitewater action, sea kayakers exploring remote coastlines, headwaters canoe expeditions, international river travel films, motivating environmental documentaries, grueling kayak fishing battles and hilarious short films capturing the lighter side of paddling life.

Hosted by local paddler Dick Hilmer, the Friday night reception and film festival will spotlight the paddlesport guides of Eastern Mountain Sports for their contributions to “responsible paddling” and a documentary film and presentation by Mike Simpson and Will Rich who recently paddled from Key West, FLA to Portland, ME. on an epic adventure, “SUP The Coast”.

Additionally, Friday night will feature selected award-winning films from the festival line-up, including Advanced Classic Solo Canoeing with Becky Mason as she teaches from her cedar-canvas canoe on the crystal clear waters of Lac Vert, Quebec; In Chasing Water, National Geographic photojournalist Pete McBride follows the Colorado River from his family’s ranch to where the river once, but no longer, reaches the ocean; WildWater is a journey into the places only river runners can go. It’s a visually stunning feast for the senses and an expedition into new ideas; in The Pipedreams Project three kayakers embark on an epic two-month kayak expedition along the length of the B.C. coast; and Tracing the Columbia brings together two historical moments: David Thompson’s charting of The Columbia River in 1811 and the 45-day journey of 200 modern voyageurs.

Sunday, April 15, 2012 from 3-6pm, the Cape Cod Reel Paddling Film Festival rolls the non-stop REEL Paddling World Tour films on the W.H.A.T. stage, breaking only for a brief intermission.

The Cape Cod Paddling Film Festival World Tour is produced by Rapid Media and presented in the W.H.A.T theater, Rte 6, Wellfleet, MA as part of W.H.A.T’s spring film series. Tickets are $15 in advance / $18 at the door for the Friday night reception and premier film screenings. Tickets for Sunday’s Paddling Film Festival are $12 in advance / $15 at the door. Student under 18 yrs, tickets $4 Sunday only.