Provincetown Playhouse and the House Concert

photo from Wikipedia

After my subway adventure, it was a blessing to finally find the Provincetown Playhouse and to sit in the darkness and listen to two master storytellers. The Playhouse itself has quite a story.  Begun by a group of vacationing writers who gathered in Provincetown, the Playhouse has seen a steady progression of experimental, cutting-edge performances. The group later moved to Greenwich Village,and in this new home continued its successes with works by Eugene O'Neill, Edna Saint Vincent Millay and other well-known names in theater.

The trip was certainly worth my time, even though I missed the first half of the show. Therese Folkes Plair and Joy Kelley Smith sat at a small table onstage, with a musician off to the side playing a marimba. His name I did not get but his playing added an eerie background to the haunting stories of the tellers. Their presentation, with the great title of Haints, Haunts and Whazzits, brought tales of strangeness--of ghosts and snakes and other things that cause us to recoil in fright. Both southern born and bred, they sat at their table and alternated getting up and sharing stories. It was informal, friendly, and more like a conversation between friends. Afterwards at dinner, Joy told me that was exactly what they wanted to achieve, and I think they did it in spades.

I introduced myself to storytellers Regina Ress and Laura Simms after the show. Both have been longtime Facebook friends, and Laura  and I have been on the Storytell listserv almost since its inception in 1996, but I do not think we'd ever met face to face before this event. Regina is the mastermind behind the storytelling events at the Playhouse, and Laura coordinates storytelling at the Hans Christian Andersen statue in Central Park and is one of the major storytellers in New York City today. Also there was Mike Seliger, another fine New York teller I'd met a few years ago when I was presenting at a Sharing the Fire Storytelling Conference in Boston. What pleasure to see these friends!

I was invited to join the group for dinner, and there unfolded another new experience for me--Thai food at Galanga restaurant. Now the rest of the world has been raving about Thai cooking for years but I've always shied away from it because I'm not a fan of hot, spicy food. But this was delicious--we ordered only from the appetizer menu and as the food came we passed it around the table, tapas style. Duck, chicken, crunchy salads and all manner of tasty bites I cannot recall found their way onto my plate. I will certainly be looking for more Thai food in the future.

After a bit of excitement finding Mike's car (it wasn't where he thought he'd parked it!)  Laura, Regina, a lady named Suzanne from Germany, Mike and I all piled in and he drove us to Robin's house. I was a little breathless as we were later getting there than expected, so I rushed to change and get ready to perform. The house was already full and more people were coming in when we arrived. I really didn't need to hurry as there were four tellers on the bill for the evening, and I was the last of the four. This was really nice because I could sit back and relax and listen to the others.

First up was Andrew Linderman, telling a story of personal ghosts and lost friends. He was followed by Maria Aponte, whose multicultural heritage gifted her with the ability to "see dead people," as she described it. Her experiences were eerie, to say the least. Then Tommy O'Malley regaled us with laughter, tears and family drama mixed with the story of his complex relationship with a cousin. In between Robin Bady, our host, shared the story of her home, the house in which we were sitting, and the spirits that apparently abide there.

By the time I was up to tell, we were all filled with good stories and good food in that warm home, the perfect ingredients for spinning a story to cap off the evening. My story wound through my childhood, the folklore of the mountains, and experiences of my own and other with the ghostly side of this world.

By bedtime I was more than ready but also too wired to sleep, so Robin and I sat up into the wee hours, just talking over the evening and basking in the glow of an extraordinary day.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Travels: New York, the Bady House Concert #22

 

This was my first trip to New York, and the reason I went was to 1) perform for the Bady House Concert, an ongoing series of programs organized by my friend, storyteller Robin Bady, and 2) to hang out with this charming and wildly creative lady. This was concert #22, which means she's been planning, promoting, finding storytellers and opening her home for performances for almost two years. This program was focused on true personal ghost stories and I was on the bill with three tellers from New York. Robin usually has three local tellers and one from out of town, so her audiences hear a variety of storytelling styles and some newer voices get to be heard.

Her promotion of the concerts is really excellent. She uses Facebook, email lists and now has a website as well. The listeners on the evening I was there were attentive and appreciative, a real pleasure to tell to. I wove a new 30-minute performance from several pieces I've told before along with some new material, centering around the question of "have I really seen a ghost?" and experiences of family members, stories from other people, folklore, and my personal experiences.  A videographer filmed the evening, so I hope to be able to share clips of the video with you later.

It was not all work, of course! Flying into New York I looked down to see this below me. Wow.  That's a lot of city, and not nearly all of it.

Robin met me at the airport and we took the long way to her house. I enjoyed seeing the variety of neighborhoods and even though I expected it, the traffic and the volume of people on the streets was still a surprise. It's one thing to see it on TV, another to actually be in it. Noisy, vibrant, colorful fast best describes how it looked to me. Schoolbuses with the school's name in Hebrew on the side? New experience for me! Ethnic diversity is the name of the game in New York, something I think our Mountain State needs more of.

I had my first taste of bagels and lox too--I've had bagels and cream cheese before, but fresh New York bagels straight from the bakery, with good cream cheese (not that pasty Philadelphia brand I'm used to) and smoky, thin slices of salmon--heaven! I admit, I ate more of my share of them and only my inner, scolding voice stopped me from eating more. We talked, drank tea, ate bagels, and repeat. What a nice afternoon.

That first evening Robin and I ventured out to Ikea to get more folding chairs for the concert. I've never been to an Ikea store; there are none in West Virginia. I've seen their products of course and have ordered from them online but the store was another first for me. BIG! We found the chairs, but before that we did something else.

On my to-see list was the Statue of Liberty. Not to go on the tour, etc, but just to see it. Because, you see, my mother, who was English and married my Dad in England during World War II. She came to America on the Queen Mary with the first shipload of war brides, and they came into New York harbor and were processed through Ellis Island. I wanted to see that statue as my mother would have seen it. So Robin and I got on a ferry (which was free after 6pm!) and took a ride out into the harbor, all the way to Manhattan.

Before the ferry arrived, we chatted with a young man who was also waiting. He was holding a stuffed basketball pillow, and Robin immediately engaged him in conversation about it. His girlfriend (Carly, we learned, who we met later) almost killed him over buying it, he said. Forget your stereotypes about New Yorkers being unfriendly and not talking to you--everyone I met was friendly and helpful. We naturally got on to the topics of storytelling and ghost stories, and Carly told us about a haunted house her grandparents lived in. Stories are everywhere, we just need to listen to each other.

The ferry was fantastic. It was chilly and dark by the time we boarded which made it even better because the city all lit up was so pretty. We did not get as close to the "lady", as I called her, as I would have liked but I saw her and her flaming torch and friends, it is worth a trip to New York just to see her.

We also saw the Brooklyn Bridge all lit up,

and Manhattan with its high rises, glorious in the dark of night,

and an almost-full moon riding high above it all. 

The next day I went with Robin to a little event in a local park where she had agreed to tell stories for children.

Lots of great costumes. I really liked this Mary Poppins--she said her bag was an original carpetbag given to her by her grandmother.

even for pets.

Pumpkin painting, music, and lots more activities were on hand for the families of the neighborhood. I enjoyed seeing Robin in action. She truly is a talented teller with a gift for connecting with people.

We returned home for more bagels (yum!) and then Robin sent me off on the subway to another storytelling event, this one at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village (more about this in tomorrow's post). Of course I got on the wrong train. You know that feeling you get when you're pretty sure you screwed up? When the guy said next stop was Coney Island, I got off because I knew that was the wrong direction. I'd like to see Coney Island one day, but it wasn't on the to-do for this trip! A friendly transit worker helped me figure out which train to get on, and I was off again, this time on the right track, literally.

BUT when I got off the train, the map I had didn't jive with where I was, because it was for a different subway stop. Oops. I got out my phone with its trusty (so I thought) GPS and started out confidently, only to find that it took around a (big) city block, a complete circle. I called Robin's and got some directions and started off again. After asking directions a few more times and walking a mile or so along Broadway, 5th Avenue (places I never thought I'd see), I crossed Washington Square Park.

The park was crowded with people. A man was playing a grand piano in one area,

in another were drummers, a lone violin player, and so many more musicians and people doing all kinds of different things. It was a lovely day and New Yorkers were enjoying their park. I later learned that Bob Dylan, the beat poets and many other icons of the 60's were park performers. I would have stayed longer and taken more photos but I was already late for the storytelling, so I pushed onward.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.