What’s in a name? In this case, at the Barnstable Comedy Club, only a fraction of the range of shows this group produces. The BCC is the oldest amateur theater group on the Cape and has performed comedies, tragedies, and everything in between since its founding in 1922. A local favorite in Barnstable, the 200-seat theater was one of the...
The history of Cape Cinema in Dennis is as dramatic as many of the concerts and films — and filmed performances – that run here. A church-barn design houses a vast, surreal, and colorful 6,400-square-foot mural of the heavens. The mural was underwritten by founder Raymond Moore’s lover, whom he later secretly wed. In protest over the Sacco and Vanzetti...
When the revolving stage and big white Cape Cod Melody Tent was erected in 1950 (the third such structure in the U.S.), entertainment was limited to Broadway musicals. Today it’s the Cape’s biggest and best venue for top-name musicians, despite the occasional, less-than-perfect sound and acoustics. Every seat is within 50 feet (or 20 rows) of the stage. This theatre-in-the-round seats...
The Cape Playhouse in Dennis was established in 1927 by Californian Raymond Moore, who initially went to Provincetown to start a theater company but found it too remote. Moore’s attitude when he purchased this former 1830s Unitarian meetinghouse for $200 was, “If we fix it up, they will come.” Sure enough, the playhouse proudly claims the title of the country’s...
If your midsummer night’s dream is to watch a well-crafted play unfold under a starry sky, the Cape Rep’s outdoor theatre in Brewster will deliver. When the weather is not so dreamy, the indoor theatre is where they mount first-run and classic productions. Unless, of course, you have already reserved your table for two at one of the musical dinner revues at...
At 8 o’clock sharp, when the band leader turns to the crowd and shouts “Hi-de-ho,” the audience of locals and visitors shouts it right back at him. The Chatham Band Concerts in Chatham has begun, exactly as it has since it began in 1931 (minus four years due to WWII). About 40 band members of all ages fill the gazebo,...
College Light Opera, a professional theater company in Falmouth that mounts Broadway stock musicals, draws on the talents of aspiring singers, musicians, and technicians from around the country. With 86 members, it’s the largest resident theatre company in the U.S., performing nine operettas and musicals in as many weeks, with full orchestral accompaniment. Students hone their craft alongside seasoned performers....
The First Encounter Coffee House in Eastham, ensconced within the chapel of the small, yellow Unitarian Universalist church, comes alive twice monthly. It attracting local and national names on the touring acoustic music scene. The audience regularly fills the hundred wooden chairs and snacks on juice and homemade brownies in this intimate setting as folk, blues, and bluegrass musicians tell...
Where to begin to talk about gay Provincetown… The Boatslip (mapped) is best known for its daily Tea Dances => It turns into a giant, outdoor dance party at the stroke of 4pm when a wild world of revelers comes out of the woodwork to dance, dance, dance until 7. You have to experience Tea Dance at least once in your life;...
The lights dim — at the hands of a 7- to 15-year-old child. The scenery is all in place — because the junior stagehands have made it so. The young actors whip out a well-honed performance. At the Harwich Junior Theatre in Harwich professional directors, actors, choreographers, and technical stage managers take the next generation of the theatrical-bound under their...
The 263-seat Monomoy Theatre in Chatham sells out of most shows, if that tells you anything about the caliber of production and performance. Operated by the Ohio University Players since 1930, it’s one of the Cape’s oldest. Weekly shows during summer months include thrillers, dramas, classics, musicals, and modern fare.
Drive-in theaters are buggy, have expensive food packed with fat and sugar, long bathroom lines, and someone’s always shining their headlights at the wrong time. They also mainline right into the nostalgia center of your cerebral cortex and charm you with that sum-sum-summertime glow you remember from when times were simpler, albeit equally buggy and fabulously sugar-smackin’. As long as...
WHAT is it? The adjectives fly from anyone you ask, but they boil down to provocative, edgy, adventurous, and dependably high caliber. Since 1985, WHAT (Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater) has mounted an impressive mixture of new, experimental, and established works. From its humble stagings at the Catholic Church in Wellfleet, to a seriously rehabbed building that became the Harbor Stage...