Ooh-la-la: Romance and seduction, the French way

Who would have thought that first thing in the morning, before finishing the first cup of coffee of the day, I’d be talking about girlie stuff like sexy lingerie and the French art of love with the lovely, curvy Jamie Cat Callan, and ... No, no, no, snookums. I had a legitimate reason for chatting her up while you were still asleep. She’s the author of (we need to pause here for a chuckle en Francais: hoh-hoh-hoh) “French Women Don’t Sleep Alone: Pleasurable Secrets to Finding Love,” and she’s coming to town next week to talk with the ladies from the Port City Women’s Club, and, like it or not, for the overwhelming majority of French filles Callan interviewed, undies are a key part of Aphrodite strategy.

Now, we’re not necessarily talking about the kind of frilly and sexy (and very uncomfortable looking and quite possibly dangerous) items that you might find in a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog, or so we’ve heard. But the pieces have to be nice — and they have to match. And you’ve got to turn yourself out, knicker-wise, every day, no matter if you’re anticipating, or hoping for a romp — er, a night of romance, or just popping into the car to run an errand. Not just because it makes you feel pretty or because you’re worried (thanks, Mom) about being seen in tattered underoos if, God forbid, you’re in an accident, but because it’s the first thing you put on in the morning, it is the first step in how you present yourself to the outer, physical world and, in essence, is an indication of how you relate to it. Immediately. And, beyond that, a simple step like lingerie choice helps build inner confidence. And that, the author says, not the bloomers, is what really gets the pheromones jumping.

During her February talk at River Merrimac Bar and Grille, Callan will serve up the straight Continental dope on flirtation and romance (the French raison d’etre) as well as marriage, deconstructing the French fairer sex’s rep for being so sexy and mysterious and intriguing — so ooh-la-la — and explaining why accessories like scarves, boots and skirts (and lingerie, of course) are essential building blocks for romance. And what makes her such an expert on the subject? With a name like Callan, she’s obviously not French. True enough. The author, whose middle name, Cat, is actually a nickname from her teen years, is half-Irish and blond. But her maternal grandmother was very definitely French, and looked the part. ”She was tall and slender with black hair, just a stunning woman,” Callan says, “She always dressed so beautifully, so elegantly, always with scarves, always turned out in heels, stockings. She was incredibly stylish.”

As a young girl, Callan spent her summers with Grandmere, who schooled her in the ways French women find and keep love, but she didn’t put it all together — the ideas about romance and seduction and style — until she started working on “French Women” a couple of years ago. She had been bouncing around a bit, writing three young adult novels in the 1980s, chasing after a master’s degree in film at UCLA, writing some screenplays and serving as an assistant to Meg Ryan in the 1990s, returning home to Connecticut to teach writing to adult students at Fairfield University (which is where she met her hubby, William Thompson, a climate change scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who was taking a class). Then, in one of those “light dawns on Marblehead” moments a couple of years ago, Callan, who just celebrated her 56th birthday last week, realized that she has always loved to travel, that she’s always been fascinated by French culture and that she’s a writer and that she could put it together into one enjoyable package: Travel to France and write about French topics. “My only regret is that it took so long to put these things together,” says the writer, who will be heading back to France in the fall, to research (“It’s not a vacation,” she says) “Bonjour Happiness,” her next book. “I just wish I had thought of it earlier.” She’s also working on a memoir about being a femme d’un certain age, growing up with an “impossibly French” grandmother.

The book, called “adorable” by literary sexual provocateur Erica Jong, isn’t all garterbelts and push-up bras and makeovers. It also looks at the French art of flirtation, explains why French women always feel sexy and where and how they meet their men, especially since they don’t date. Huh? Nope, instead of the usual expensive (and very high-pressure for both parties) date, they go to dinner parties, which tend to be casual affairs, so to speak, allowing the time and space to do the romantic, emotional stripteases they do so well. Or so we hear. Or fantasize about. (Oops, sorry, snookums. Just speculating. But, you know, I think French girls would be more understanding about things like that.) It also gives them the chance to duck out if it isn’t going to work out. The book also includes recipes — for food and, perhaps, seduction.

The book “connected the dots in my relationship with my grandmother,” says Callan, who teaches popular fiction at the University of Southern Maine’s Low Residency MFA Program at Stonecoast. “I had no idea that my grandmother was going to be my muse.” And, for the author, it’s all good: “I’m having the time of my life,” she says.

JUST THE FACTS, MAN: Jamie Cat Callan, author of “French Women Don’t Sleep Alone: Pleasurable Secrets to Finding Love,” will speak at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 1 at River Merrimac Bar and Grille at the Tannery. The event is free and open to all area women. The Port City Women’s Group came together four years ago, evolving from a small group of women sharing stories about themselves to a business networking group. They meet the first Monday of every month.

MORE MORE MORE: For more information about the author, check out her Web page. To watch a short interview with the author, check out this video.

The Big Three at Governor's Academy

Symphony by the Sea pulls into The Governor's Academy on Sunday for its second performance of the season, with a program of Romantic works by the Big Three of 19th-20th-century England — Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten and Edward Elgar. But the interesting thing about "Fantasia: Gems from the British Isles" is not the program itself, as impressive as it is, but how it demonstrates the versatility of the 30-piece orchestra, which practically reinvents itself for every piece. Britten's "Simple Symphony, Op. 4," as the name implies, is a pretty straightforward piece, but in Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
," the orchestra incorporates a separate string quartet. And in Elgar's "Introduction and Allegro, Op. 47," the quartet remains, but the orchestra will split in two pieces, with the smaller part, roughly 10 players, echoing and adding detail to the first. The program also includes Gerald 
Finzi's "Interlude for Oboe and Strings, Op. 21," with its uncommon instrumentation, reaching back to the Baroque, despite its Romantic pedigree, and a piece perhaps destined to be lost in the long musical shadows of his contemporaries — or, as Symphony by the Sea music director Donald Palma puts it, "exquisite, unique and unknown, which, paired with the three big names, seemed like the right piece" for the program.


Jonathan Knox, principal oboist with Symphony by the Sea since 1985, is the soloist for the Finzi. Conspiro Quartet, which comes out of New England Conservatory, where Palma is a faculty member, will perform with the orchestra in the Williams and Elgar. The man with the baton, a native New Yorker, started out on double bass and has built a serious resume: Juilliard School of Music, Leopold Stokowski's American Symphony Orchestra at 20, Los Angeles Philharmonic at 24. In addition to his regular duties at New England Conservatory and Symphony by the Sea, he is also a faculty member at the Yale School of Music and a founder and regular performer with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. "Yeah," he says, "I'm pretty busy." Palma was named Symphony by the Sea conductor in 2008, replacing Jonathan McPhee at the podium. He had been special guest conductor for Symphony by the Sea six years ago, leading a program that included Mozart's "In Nomine Domini" and Tchaikovsky's "Rococo Variations," so making the new gig was a no-stress event. "I felt very much wanted," he says. "I didn't feel nervous taking over, I didn't feel like I had to prove anything. It was like coming back to a friendly family. "

The work bridges the 19th and 20th centuries. It's late Romantic and is "very accessible, very lovely," says Palma, but the musical touchstones come from Central Europe, not England. (Think Dvorak, Suk, Martinu). Then as now "someone writes a good piece and everyone jumps on the bandwagon," says Palma. "Music is not made in a vacuum. Influences come from all over the place. Of course, it was a much slower assimilation. You couldn't just pop onto YouTube and see what was happening. England really took off with it. They made it very personal ... with its own kind of sounds. It's very British (and) evocative of all things English."

JUST THE FACTS, MAN: Symphony by the Sea will perform "Fantasia: Gems from the British Isles," at 8 p.m. Jan. 23 at First Universalist Church, 211 Bridge St., Salem, and at 3:30 p.m. Jan. 24 at The Governor's Academy's Performing Arts Center, Center Street, Byfield. The program will include Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
," Edward Elgar's "Introduction and Allegro, Op. 47;" Gerald 
Finzi's "Interlude for Oboe and Strings, Op. 21
," featuring Jonathan Knox on oboe; and 
Benjamin Britten's "Simple Symphony, Op. 4." A pre-concert talk with conductor Donald Palma will begin at 7:15 p.m. in Salem and at 2:45 p.m. in Byfield. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased at the door or on the symphony's web.

At New Works, proof's in the 'pudding'

Like old Forrest Gump says, “Life's like a box of chocolate pudding.” Except, of course, he didn’t actually say that. Maybe he should have, but he didn't. Gump was talking about a box of chocolates, not chocolate pudding. And we're not talking about Gump, we're taking about Michael Tooher, whose play about the subject — pudding, the creamy comfort food that Bill Cosby is always prattling on about, not Gump — kicks off the second weekend of the New Works Festival this year. The Maine playwright doesn't especially like pudding, but understands feel-good dessert as a metaphor for love, not life, although, it turns out, the two are closely related ... Actually, just so there's no confusion, here's what he said: “I like the idea of pudding,” he said. “It's light and messy. It should be messy. Pudding is a messy business. Like love, like life. There are no rules, there are no instruction manuals. No matter what you do, you're going to get some of it on you. And that's how it should be. Pudding should be messy and love always will be.”

Pudding, the food, is the glue that holds “pudding,” the play, together. It's how our reluctant hero, John, relates to the world — and how he hides from it. He mails boxes of chocolate pudding randomly as gifts: closing his eyes, stabbing a phone book with his finger, taking down the mailing address, sending out the anonymous gift. It seems like a lovely and selfless, if somewhat perplexing activity, and it is, but it’s more acutely observed as a daily act of desperation designed to conceal an all-consuming desperation. He has been doing this for years, since his wife of 31 years died and left him alone in the world. It’s his way of reaching out, but never having to connect. It becomes more than that after Mary gets involved.

Mary? A strange bird, who kicks in John’s doors, emotionally and physically, while trying to track down Fernando, a hot Latino stud who scored absurdly high on the compatibility chart for a computer dating company. She immediately senses something is going on but fails to grasp its significance as she tries to turn private pain into profit and, perhaps, transcendence. She shakes his tree, luring him into an economic affair — a cheap ad campaign — that misundersands the act entirely, turning it into mere product, profit, allthough deep down she senses that there may be something else going down. It doesn't quite work out the way anyone expects.

Explosive stuff
Tooher has been writing for about five years and has seen some success. His moody short "In a Clearing Quiet," in which a seemingly innocent 10-year-old girl pursues a mysterious agenda — "a creepy little tale," says Tooher — has been staged by four companies in three states over the past two years. "The Sentry," a short that focuses on a TV reporter interviewing a soldier on a surprising mission, was featured at last year's Boston Theatre Marathon and the Seven Short Play Festival in Albuquerque, N.M. But the Portland author's main gig has been as a stage hand, a job title that doesn't really cut it. What he actually does is blow stuff up, or make it look like stuff has been blown up — like his work for the National Geographic Channel's "Dirty Bomb Attack," part of its "Naked Science" series, in which a radioactive car bomb goes off in a busy area of Portland. He also does pyrotechnics for sports teams and stage shows.

He treats stage-writing as a job, tries to produce a page a day ("setting the bar really low," the playwright says.) He doesn't plot, he doesn't outline. "I'm not that good a writer," he says. All h needs is a title, or a first line, or both, or a notion where the thing is going. The first line and concept of "pudding" is "Come in," which doesn't seem like much but, Tooher says, sets he stage. "I'm a great believer in sitting back and letting the characters talk," he says. "Pudding" is the first full-length play Tooher has had staged. The production, which will kick off the second weekend of the New Works Festival, stars Jennifer Wilson, Terry Blanchard, Mary Shapiro, Kathy Isbel, Sherry Bonder, Julie McConechie, Myron Moss and Sam Szabo. Maureen Dailey directs.

While the current production seems to have come out of nowhere, Tooher says "pudding" may be a action to his ironically named, still-unproduced full-length "The Perfect Sameness of our Days," a ripped-from-the-headlines look at a returning soldier in need of mental and medical care who is all but abandoned by his country — a dark story written quickly and in anger. He was looking for lighter material when the idea came to him.

Ultimately, the play is about loneliness, about grief that has numbly metastasized and leaves a desperately empty human shell — and that's the modern tragedy. “The biggest disease is loneliness,” says Tooher. “ We fumble around trying to find one another, trying to connect — or reconnect. John's wife dies and his world collapses. He needs to feel again.” The play is also about fame, which has become an end in itself. “It's hollow and it's wrong," he says. "It used to be a means to an end. Now it's the end itself. It borders on the sociopathic.”

THE FACTS, THE FOLKS: The New Works Festival runs Jan. 22-23 and Jan. 29-30 at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Market Square, Newburyport. The first weekend will open with “Dead and Buried,” the new full-length play by James McLindon. The following night will feature half of the 14-shorts accepted into the festival. The second weekend will open with a staged reading of “pudding,” a new full-length play by Michael Tooher, followed, the next day, by the remaining shorts. Show times are 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. A limited number of four-day passes are available for $35 each. For information, call 978-462-7336 or go online to firehouse.org.

Friday, Jan. 22: "Dead and Buried,” drama by James McLindon, starring Astrid Lorentzson, Ashley Risteen and Eliot Johnson. Directed by Sherry Bonder.

Saturday, Jan. 23: “Soldier Boy,” drama by Leslie Powell, starring Kate Bossi and Jesiah Hammond; directed by Tim Diering. “No Strings Attached,” comedy by Kara Sorenson, starring Jennifer Wilson, Phil Thompson, Eric Lamarche and Steve Sacchetti; directed by Lois Honegger. “Knowing,” comedy by Gregory Hischak, starring Pam Battin-Sacks and Danny Sklar; directed by Cynthia Arsenault. “If You Love,” drama by Marc Clopton, starring John Sheedy and Jesiah Hammond; directed by Anna Smulowitz. “Sleeping with the Cat 1963,” drama by Daniel Sklar, starring Maureen Daley and Mary Shapiro; directed by Alan Huisman. “Jock Itch,” comedy by George Sauer, starring Sandy Farrier and Brad Ritchie; directed by Jack Rushton; “Touching Elephants,” drama-comedy by Stephen Faria, starring Gloria Papert, Dennis Flynn and Victor Atkins; directed by Diana Kerry.

Friday, Jan. 29: “Pudding,” comedy by Michael Tooher, starring Jennifer Wilson and Terry Blanchard, with Mary Shapiro, Kathy Isabel, Terry Donohue, Sherry Bonder, Julie McConechie, Myron Moss and Sam Szabo; directed by Maureen Daley

Saturday, Jan. 30: "Egg Whites and Miracles,” comedy by Stephen Faria, starring Missy Chabot, Irene Sanders and Fontaine Dollas Dubus, directed by Kimm Wilkinson. “Free Will and Kat,” drama by Deirdre Girard, starring Kayt Tommasino and Teddy Speck; directed by Stephen Haley. “Last Dance,” comedy by Kerry Zagarella, starring Bruce Anderson, Tracy Bickel, Kari Nickou and Jack Rushton; directed by Suzanne Bryan. “A Simile,” comedy by Robert B. Boulrice; directed by David Frank. “A Crooked Chapatti,” comedy by Priya Tahiliani, directed by Kathy Isabel. “Amenities,” comedy by Gregory Hischak, starring Stephen Faria, Kari Nickou, Irene Sanders and Steve Turner; directed by Anne Easter Smith.

Bryan surveys dance floor at New Works

No, it isn't your eyes playing tricks on you. Or an apparition - the ghost of theater past or something. Or proof of a wormhole or some kind of weird tear in the space-time continuum. It's just Suzanne Bryan, who enjoyed a nice run on the local scene as the head of Persephone Theatre, but dropped off the radar about eight years ago. She was in town to direct "Dancing in the Dark," a short play by George Cope and Bruce M. Menin, at Random Acts, the play-in-a-day series at the Firehouse last November, and she has been around the past couple of weeks to rehearse "Last Dance," a comedy by Ipswich playwright KerryZagarella for the New Works Festival, which opens Friday with a production of three-time winner James McLindon's "Dead and Buried." But, no, it's not a revival. Bryan is retired. From nursing, at least.


She left local theater – and the city - about eight years ago to work full-time at Dna Farber, shortly after staging "Fully Committed" in 2002. But she hasn't retired from theater. She staged several productions, including "Wit," at Dana Farber. And she's also volunteering at Dorchester Academy, an after-school theater program at Dorchester High School that, like many schools in the state, has had to deal with tough cutbacks - especially to arts programs. "They don't have any other options," she says. And, of course, dashing in and out of the city from her just-north-of-Boston home.

Right now she's on the phone, en route to Home Depot, with a carload of material to build "special props" for the play. What exactly those might be, she's not saying. She's not talking much about the play itself either, saying only that the 10-minute short has strong comedic and physical acting - "a comedy with a soupcon of noir," she says – and promising that "jaws will drop" when the lights come up.

The playwright, a kindergarten teacher in the Ipswich public schools, is a little more expansive about the play, her second at the New Works. "Last Dance," which will be staged Jan. 23, the last day of the festival, is "another comedy ... I hope." The father, who has disappointed the daughter her entire life, ups and dies just before her wedding. He was supposed to give her away. Figures, right? All that's out the window, of course, but his selfish death does not necessarily
negate his role in the wedding entirely. The story takes place in a funeral home - after business hours, without the consent of the owner, who doesn't know, or the father, who doesn't care. Awkward? Perhaps. Illegal? Yup. But that doesn't mean that father and daughter can't work things out, finally. The show will feature performances by Bruce Anderson, Ritza Elizabeth, Kari Nickou, Tracy Bickel and Jack Rushton.

Unlike "The Odor of Existech," the first play she ever wrote, which found a spot in the new play festival four years ago, Zagarella will be relegated to sitting quietly in the audience. Bryan will direct. "I guess I have to trust her," she says. Not that this is a bad thing. Zagarella has spoken to Bryan on the phone and knows that "she gets it." And the playwright, who is co-founder of the long-running Wail! Magazine and a former touring member of Boston's First Slam Poetry Team, says that "Odor of Existech," her last New Works entry "became so much better" because of the collaboration with the actors. It was a dark comedy ("Is there any other kind?" she asks) that used household recycling efforts as a metaphor of how to process memories and thoughts in our own lives - all of our history, whether good or bad, makes us what we are - "and how you choose to reuse and recycle these memories dictates who you are and how you lead your life," she says. "A lot changed. It made it a much better play because of the collaboration. "Still, she says, letting go is difficult for a self-described control freak. "At first, I'm sure I'll be hyperventilating."

JUST THE FACTS: The New Works Festival runs Jan. 22-23 and Jan. 29-30 at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Market Square, Newburyport. "Last Dance," a comedy by Kerry Zagarella, will be one of six short plays closing out the festival on Jan. 30. Show times are 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. For information, call 978-462-7336 or log on at firehouse.org.

Band full of punctuation ... and surprises

Trying to get a fix on Fox? What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?, that is. The band that has more punctuation in its name than any group in any genre, driving copy editors everywhere crazy, and a performance style that does the same thing to anyone trying to nail it down. Yeah, well, good luck with that. Even Fox frontman Brian King, who will perform as a solo act Jan. 28 at Governor Dummer, er, The Governor's Academy, finds it a challenge. He makes a joke about the band’s striking “the perfect balance between gloom and glam.” Which sounds good and feels right, but doesn’t quite get there - - like the phrase “acoustic noir,” an attempt to summarize the sound on the Gloucester-based band’s Web page, or fan-suggested similes like “the Eurhythmics at a carnival.” The sound, again summarizing the band profile, is rooted in folk and blues, but filtered through cabaret and alt-rock. Think Dresden Dolls, maybe Tiger Lilies, but, don’t get comfy with the descriptions or think yourself clever for coming up with them. They hit the mark, but only in a broad sense. Nah, this isn’t going to be easy.

Read more at North Shore Art Throb.

Sandy Farrier: Telling still-unwritten stories

Marc Clopton’s “Pie Boys” is one of those rare shows that emerge fully formed, that is so clearly a gift from the Muse, that a truly honest person wouldn’t take credit for creating it. And that’s exactly the approach that Clopton, founder of the Actors Studio, is taking. Not because he doesn’t want to bask in the glory, but because he didn’t write it. Because it doesn’t exist, despite the poster advertising its month-long run at Lincoln Center. The poster is a fake. Or, somebody cue the intro for “The Twilight Zone,” maybe it’s a portal to alternative reality, a signpost for the next theatrical stop, because this is definitely a story meant to be told. “I know, I know,” says Sandy Farrier, a graphic artist and self-described “acting wannabe,” whose play posters, both real and imagined, are on display through the end of January at the Firehouse gallery.


We should be clear about that: Farrier is a wanna-be who does it — as an actor and a playwright. For the past few years, he’s been a regular at the Firehouse and Actors Studio. He performed in “The Mediator” and “Coming Clean,” two edgy, sexually charged comedies that won honors at the 2009 Fringe Festival and were clearly crowd favorites at the Actors Studio during a follow-up production in November. His play “Mating.com,” which explores the notion that hope springs eternal and the fact that people lie, especially in the their online dating profiles, was staged at the New Works Festival two years ago. But he pays for his groceries with a paycheck from Endicott College, where he serves as head of the visual communications department, and as a graphic artist. He moved to the city in 2004. Three years ago, Hailey Klein, one of the founders of Random Acts, the Port play-in-a-day series, convinced him to take an acting class. He’s been a “theater addict” ever since. And the posters? They’re like methadone, or maybe piles of candy — something to take the edge off the jones.

But back to the fake posters or, if you will, advertisements for still yet-to-be-written stories. Farrier says the goal is to coax an idea from a combination of images, illustrations and other graphics. Sometimes he gets a clear vision, other times just a clue, a hint. “I start out with an idea and build on it,” he says. ““If there’s a spark, I see what I can do with it.”

With “Pie Boys,” the scenario emerged “in a minute, in a flash,” when the artist came across the photograph that dominates the poster. It shows a group of boys standing behind a long table in what appears to be, or what Farrier imagined to be, a Depression-era summer camp. It feels like Maine. It looks like the photo was taken moments before a pie-eating contest. The story came to him in a flash: He imagined a hazing incident that resulted in a young boy’s death. All of the boys know what happened. So does one adult witness. But nobody speaks about the “incident” until 35 years later, when they have a reunion. The play looks at how they lived with themselves, with what they’ve been carrying around with them. He doctored the image, adding blueberry schmutz around their pie holes. An eerie glow emanates from one of the boys, presumably the one who died. Contrasting type, messy and elegant, names the play while serving up a heaping helping of irony with the Maine state slogan, “The Way Life Should Be,” just above a solitary flying bird (a harbinger?) and the name of Clopton and other local scribblers, which Farrier says is meant “as a kind of homage” to the people who have helped someone who has “timidly observed and sometimes hung around the fringes” of the Port theater scene.

Other posters, other stories include “Lemon Wars,” which, with its combination of old photographs, calligraphy and maps, suggests an old-school imperialistic attempt to corner a particular market, and, a second story line that evolved with the discovery of an intriguing image of a younger woman, a love triangle that could bring the entire thing down. And “False Document,” which could either be a period piece or a modern-day monkey trial smackdown between creationism and evolution, focusing, as the poster does, on Chuckie Darwin but, perhaps, casting some doubt on documents that make up the big book itself.

The exhibit also includes work from real shows, created under a variety of circumstances: Straight-up design work, like the elegant poster for Michael Wainstein’s production of ”Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living In Paris” at the Actor’s Studio; work for shows the so-called wannabe actor was involved in, like Michael Frayne’s “Democracy,” which was staged at the York Readers Theater; and in-betweens, like the striking and kinda creepy poster for the 2008 production of Gregory S. Moss’s “House of Gold,” which, if you remember the production, was based loosely on the Jon-Benet Ramsey case, may dredge up some memories that you have been finally able to repress. The work, real or imagined, is all mixed together and only the designer, and perhaps the local theater hardcore, know for sure.

JUST THE FACTS: Sandy Farrier’s posters from real and imagined plays will be on display through Feb. 1 at the Firehouse Center, 1 Market Square, Newburyport. The exhibit is free. For more information, call 978.462.7336.

Sklar connects spies, kitties at New Works

Don’t underestimate the power of prose — or poetry. Daniel Sklar sure doesn’t. The 56-year-old Hamilton resident moved to the North Shore from New York, where he painted apartments and drove a cab while studying acting and getting a master’s degree in English from New York University. He met his wife, Denise, in the city. She was a dancer. He started looking for a respectable job, as a teacher, but there was nothing, and the Big Apple started feeling oppressive, and it was no place to raise a family. They wanted out. She had Salem roots, so they ended up on the North Shore. He started painting again, which was depressing. ”I thought I would be painting the rest of my life,” he says. Then one day he found himself outside Endicott College, an institution that he really didn’t know much about. He just walked in and got an interview. Which sounds unlikely and definitely not the best approach to landing a job, but the timing was right, the English department had one retirement, one firing and one guy just walking out the door. They needed someone right away. Sklar showed them his resume and one of his poems — and he landed the job, “So anyone who tells you that poetry will never get you anywhere is out of his mind,” he says. The Beverly liberal arts college offered him a full-time gig teaching creative writing and literature a year later.


That was 23 years ago. Now he’s a full professor and editor of the Endicott Review. His poetry has been published in a variety of publications. In 2001, he published “Hack Writer: Poems, Stories, Plays,” and in late 2008 followed up with ”Bicycles, Canoes, Drums,” a collection of his recent work. And, this weekend, “Sleeping with the Cat 1963,” his new short, will make its debut at the New Works Festival, a four-day event that focuses on original plays.

The name refers to a nightly, ritualistic bonding with a furry friend, which may be sweet and loving and therapeutic, but, when it’s all the emotional support you have, is a little sad. The story takes place on New Year’s Eve at the Saugus Iron Works, where two female spooks are nearing the end of their careers, which have lasted from the end of World War II to the Bay of Pigs. They meet for reasons that have not been fully explained to them. It’s all very mysterious. But the 10-minute play is not about espionage or intrigue or Cold War strategies. It’s about two people who have spent their entire adult lives lying about who they are and what they do. The end is nearing and, it appears, they’re crossing the finish line with nothing. They couldn’t have close friends because of their careers and now, save kitty, their lives are empty.

“It’s about relationships,” says Sklar, who will also make his Newburyport acting debut the same night, performing in “Knowing,” a comedy by Gregory Hischak. “It’s about choices. After they learn how to trust each other, no mean feat, coming from the world of cloak and dagger, they let down their defenses and spill their guts to each other.”

The production, which will be staged with six other shorts on Jan. 23, the second day of the festival, stars Maureen Daley and Mary Shapiro. Alan Huisman directs.

McLindon returns to New Works

So James McLindon topped the ticket at the New Works Festival this year, taking home the Pestolozzi Award for best full-length play? Big surprise, right? It’s his third win in four years. The guy should probably just find a place in town, right? “I could probably save gas money if I did,” the Northhampton-based playwright says, laughing. But, seriously, after learning he was top dog again, he offered to step aside, “if it felt uncomfortable in any way.” The board demurred, pointing out that he won it clean, after blind readings by a panel that included Joe Antoun, co-founder and artistic director of Centastage in Boston, and John B. Welch, one of the founders of Boston Theatre Association, and that the rules do not exclude playwrights with multiple wins. So, when the four-day play festival opens on Jan. 22, “Dead and Buried,” McLindon’s latest, will join “Faith,” last year’s New Works winner, and “The Garden of Dromore,” which took top honors in the 2007 edition of the festival - completing a literary hat trick and a veritable “wrighting” dynasty.

The play looks at three characters — a teenage boy, a teenage girl and an older woman. The girl is trying to find, or at least learn something about, her birthmother, whom she has never met. But each is “searching for someone or something missing in their lives,” says McLindon. “They’re trying to fill a void.” It’s set in a cemetery on Halloween and weaves themes of life, death, discovery and loss.

And it’s a comedy.

Huh?

“What? A play that takes place in a cemetery doesn’t sound funny?” McLindon says, laughing. “No, it’s a difficult play to categorize. Ultimately, it's very serious, but there’s a lot of comedy along the way.” Or as director Sherry Bonder put it, the playwright tackles heavy material but does it with a light touch. “It’s serious and redemptive,” says Bonder, who has worked with Theater in the Open for more than 15 years and is an adolescent therapist. “There’s a lot of humanity in the play. It’s a very serious, but balanced approach.”

Case closed
Before he was a playwright, he was a lawyer, taking home a law degree from Harvard, graduating magna cum laude and serving as editor of the Harvard Law Review. He practiced law, but resigned his partnership in a Beantown firm to write.
And while it might seem like a pretty dicey move, McLindon points out that “no career choice is especially stable these days.” He was actually a writer before he was a lawyer, scribbling for Yankee Magazine and the Boston Phoenix, as well as serving as speechwriter for presidents of the American Bar Association and for the Harvard Law Review. “I never stopped writing,” he says. And he never stopped lawyering either. He practices civil law part time in western Massachusetts - necessary because, despite his track record on this side of the Merrimack, it’s not easy getting from manuscript to playbill: “Writing is easy enough; getting established as a writer is always slow going.” At any given time, he has two full-length plays and several shorts going.

The premiere production will feature Ashley Risteen, whose last role was in the Actors Studio production of “Picnic,” and Eliot Johnson, last seen in the Michael Wainstein production of “Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris,” in the teen roles. They will be working with Astrid Lorentzson, a veteran of many local productions and, like Bonder, a therapist who works with adolescents and teens. The New Works reading will be the first time McLindon has ever seen “Dead and Buried” staged in any manner - and the production is crucial. “It’s very helpful to a writer to see a work in progress,” he says. “Hearing it out loud helps; it gives you a perspective you’ve never had before. I hope it feels like a complete piece. Thing is, you don’t necessarily know until you see it living and breathing on the stage. Every play has its own course.”

The ‘wright’ stuff
It is very different from his previous two New Works offerings, both of which tackled religious themes: “Faith,” last year’s winning production, looks at an adolescent boy’s struggle to find meaning in life and to be “special.” He longs to be given a message from God and won’t give up until he receives it. “The Garden of Dromore,” which was renamed “Dusk,” looks at the aftermath of the Catholic clergy sex scandal - and how those who spoke out were painted as enemies of the church if they dared to speak out. Why the shift in subject matter? “It’s hard to tell why you write something and not something else,” he says.

How long will it take before “Dead and Buried,” which the playwright still very much considers a work in progress, is finally done? McLindon says it’s anybody’s guess. He made changes to “Distant Music,” his first play, complete in 2005, after each of its five productions - some of the changes minor, just tweaks, but changes nonetheless. The play is about to be published this year. It is, he says, done - not necessarily because there are no possible changes that could be made, but because it is in print once and for all, for better or worse.

THE FACTS, THE FOLKS: The New Works Festival runs Jan. 22-23 and Jan. 29-30 at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Market Square, Newburyport. The first weekend will open with “Dead and Buried,” the new full-length play by James McLindon. The following night will feature half of the 14-shorts accepted into the festival. The second weekend will open with a staged reading of “pudding,” a new full-length play by Michael Tooher, followed, the next day, by the remaining shorts. Show times are 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. A limited number of four-day passes are available for $35 each. For information, call 978-462-7336 or go online to firehouse.org.

Friday, Jan. 22: "Dead and Buried,” drama by James McLindon, starring Astrid Lorentzson, Ashley Risteen and Eliot Johnson. Directed by Sherry Bonder.

Saturday, Jan. 23: “Soldier Boy,” drama by Leslie Powell, starring Kate Bossi and Jesiah Hammond; directed by Tim Diering. “No Strings Attached,” comedy by Kara Sorenson, starring Jennifer Wilson, Phil Thompson, Eric Lamarche and Steve Sacchetti; directed by Lois Honegger. “Knowing,” comedy by Gregory Hischak, starring Pam Battin-Sacks and Danny Sklar; directed by Cynthia Arsenault. “If You Love,” drama by Marc Clopton, starring John Sheedy and Jesiah Hammond; directed by Anna Smulowitz. “Sleeping with the Cat 1963,” drama by Daniel Sklar, starring Maureen Daley and Mary Shapiro; directed by Alan Huisman. “Jock Itch,” comedy by George Sauer, starring Sandy Farrier and Brad Ritchie; directed by Jack Rushton; “Touching Elephants,” drama-comedy by Stephen Faria, starring Gloria Papert, Dennis Flynn and Victor Atkins; directed by Diana Kerry.

Friday, Jan. 29: “Pudding,” comedy by Michael Tooher, starring Jennifer Wilson and Terry Blanchard, with Mary Shapiro, Kathy Isabel, Terry Donohue, Sherry Bonder, Julie McConechie, Myron Moss and Sam Szabo; directed by Maureen Daley


Saturday, Jan. 30: "Egg Whites and Miracles,” comedy by Stephen Faria, starring Missy Chabot, Irene Sanders and Fontaine Dollas Dubus, directed by Kimm Wilkinson. “Free Will and Kat,” drama by Deirdre Girard, starring Kayt Tommasino and Teddy Speck; directed by Stephen Haley. “Last Dance,” comedy by Kerry Zagarella, starring Bruce Anderson, Tracy Bickel, Kari Nickou and Jack Rushton; directed by Suzanne Bryan. “A Simile,” comedy by Robert B. Boulrice; directed by David Frank. “A Crooked Chapatti,” comedy by Priya Tahiliani, directed by Kathy Isabel. “Amenities,” comedy by Gregory Hischak, starring Stephen Faria, Kari Nickou, Irene Sanders and Steve Turner; directed by Anne Easter Smith.

Powell-ful production at New Works

She’s trying to be cool about it, not to rub it in, but it's hard to hold back the gloating: While we're, thankfully, between winter batterings, winds whipping, blowing the snow and our opportunity to truly enjoy a much-deserved long holiday weekend, Leslie Powell’s looking out her window at the Santa Catalina mountains, drenched in sunlight, as the mercury dances around the 70-degree mark. Ah, Tucson, Arizona, the Newburyport playwright Southwest escape destination, where she can spend some time with Sis and, of course, fellow scribblers from the Old Pueblo Playwrights, her literary home-away-from-home. Not that there's anything wrong with escaping New England’s winter treachery. (“I know, I know,” she says in a sotto voce that almost masks the smirk we expect is manifesting itself more than 2,000 miles away on the other end of the receiver, “but I still feel kinda guilty.” Yeah, right. Then it's off to southern California on a business trip, and back to chill Newburyport in time to take in the New Works Festival.


Yup, she’s in the line-up again. With some of the other usual local suspects, locally. Like Steve Faria, who nabbed the festival’s first-ever Peter Honegger Award for his short play “Egg Whites and Miracles,” and Deirdre Girard. And big picture, like James McLindon, the Northampton playwright who is making his third appearance in the anchor position and taking home the Pestolozzi Award for best full-length play.

Powell's latest is a little different from her previous stuff — much darker than, say, “Movie Mogul in his Mama’s Muumuu,” a hilarious collaboration with her husband, Ron Pullins, in which the main character writes breathless homo-erotic sports stories in his splendid, sartorial comfort. No, “Soldier Boy,” despite its name, which conjures up hazy memories of ’50s innocence, is much darker material: A returned, broken veteran picks up a woman in a bar, but it all goes very wrong, turning from a cheap-but-possibly-fun one-nighter to an attempted abduction, with the soldier threatening to kill her — or himself.

The material has its roots in news reports prompted by reports of the miserable medical and psychiatric treatment that have awaited veterans back home. “It just made me so angry,” says Powell, who founded Random Acts, the Newburyport play-in-a-day festival, with Hailey Klein, and the North Shore Readers Theatre Collaborative, which brings original plays to the stage in a readers' format, with Pullins and Actors Studio founder Marc Clopton.

This will be the third production of the piece, but its first local showing. Its first time out was during the 2008 Boston Theatre Marathon, where it was produced by the Metro Stage Company. Second time out was during the 2009 Gloucester Fall Shorts Festival, where it was directed by Holly Little. (New Works rules allow previous festival entries in the lineup.) Both were dramatically different productions, says the playwright: “I want to see it as many times as I can with different actors,” she says. “It's always different. It's like seeing it new and fresh because different actors and directors bring a different perspective." The current production, which will open day two of the festival, will be directed by Tim Diering, who closed out 2009 with two Michael Kimball plays: “Santa Come Home” at the Players Ring and “I Fall for You” at the Firehouse. Jesiah Hammond and Kate Bossi star. As for Diering, he’s keeping mum about what his plans are for the show — even keeping the playwright in the dark — saying only that “it will knock your socks off."


THE FACTS, THE FOLKS: The New Works Festival runs Jan. 22-23 and Jan. 29-30 at the Firehouse Center for the Performing Arts, 1 Market Square, Newburyport. The first weekend will open with “Dead and Buried,” the new full-length play by James McLindon. The following night will feature half of the 14-shorts accepted into the festival. The second weekend will open with a staged reading of “pudding,” a new full-length play by Michael Tooher, followed, the next day, by the remaining shorts. Show times are 8 p.m. Tickets are $12. A limited number of four-day passes are available for $35 each. For information, call 978-462-7336 or go online to firehouse.org.

Friday, Jan. 22: "Dead and Buried,” drama by James McLindon, starring Astrid Lorentzson, Ashley Risteen and Eliot Johnson. Directed by Sherry Bonder.

Saturday, Jan. 23: “Soldier Boy,” drama by Leslie Powell, starring Kate Bossi and Jesiah Hammond; directed by Tim Diering. “No Strings Attached,” comedy by Kara Sorenson, starring Jennifer Wilson, Phil Thompson, Eric Lamarche and Steve Sacchetti; directed by Lois Honegger. “Knowing,” comedy by Gregory Hischak, starring Pam Battin-Sacks and Danny Sklar; directed by Cynthia Arsenault. “If You Love,” drama by Marc Clopton, starring John Sheedy and Jesiah Hammond; directed by Anna Smulowitz. “Sleeping with the Cat 1963,” drama by Daniel Sklar, starring Maureen Daley and Mary Shapiro; directed by Alan Huisman. “Jock Itch,” comedy by George Sauer, starring Sandy Farrier and Brad Ritchie; directed by Jack Rushton; “Touching Elephants,” drama-comedy by Stephen Faria, starring Gloria Papert, Dennis Flynn and Victor Atkins; directed by Diana Kerry.

Friday, Jan. 29: “Pudding,” comedy by Michael Tooher, starring Jennifer Wilson and Terry Blanchard, with Mary Shapiro, Kathy Isabel, Terry Donohue, Sherry Bonder, Julie McConechie, Myron Moss and Sam Szabo; directed by Maureen Daley

Saturday, Jan. 30: "Egg Whites and Miracles,” comedy by Stephen Faria, starring Missy Chabot, Irene Sanders and Fontaine Dollas Dubus, directed by Kimm Wilkinson. “Free Will and Kat,” drama by Deirdre Girard, starring Kayt Tommasino and Teddy Speck; directed by Stephen Haley. “Last Dance,” comedy by Kerry Zagarella, starring Bruce Anderson, Tracy Bickel, Kari Nickou and Jack Rushton; directed by Suzanne Bryan. “A Simile,” comedy by Robert B. Boulrice; directed by David Frank. “A Crooked Chapatti,” comedy by Priya Tahiliani, directed by Kathy Isabel. “Amenities,” comedy by Gregory Hischak, starring Stephen Faria, Kari Nickou, Irene Sanders and Steve Turner; directed by Anne Easter Smith.

Some 'Assembly' required

We were happy to see that “Edge of the Mind,” the debut album from Schumacher Sanford Sound Assembly is comfortably ensconced in the Number 7 position of CD Baby's Top 10 Jazz Albums of 2009, keeping company with new releases by Mark Whitfield and Jeff "Tain" Watts, among others. And we're even happier to see video clips from the 17-piece, New York-based jazz orchestra's decade-ending show at the Bowery Poetry Club, where Newburyport composer (and Pentucket jazz program director) David Schumacher and his New England Conservatory colleague JC Sanford whipped out their latest stuff. Schumacher debuted "Kaleidoscope" and "Opportunity," two pieces based on Einstein's Three Rules of Work: "Out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." Fascinating stuff, watching crazy-hot musicians sort through and resolve the seeming chaos that opens the new work. Sanford adapted his three-piece score for the classic film Ben Hur for the performance. The three clips from his score for the 1925 silent film make you wonder if the film is even necessary — and, frustratingly, leave you hungry for more.

We would have like to see more detail about the reasons "Edge of the Mind: made the Top 10. "Blending big band structures with extended forms and heavy improvisation," while an accurate description of the sound, does not begin to explain it. Here's what we had to say, elsewhere, when "Edge of the Mind" it came out last May: Strong compositions with challenging, eye-opening charts and plenty of direction-changing breakaways for crazy-hot musicians. You see it in “Slide Therapy,” a Sanford composition, whose opening musical gambit is an intriguing dialogue between slide guitar and trombone. Or, when five .songs into what has been a tight, all-instrumental album, the band lays down a vocal track, a torchy tone-poem putting the spotlight on 2009 Grammy-nominated vocalist Kate McGarry. Or how, in one of the most unusual and bold explorations, Sanford uses three Buddhist mantras to create a rhythmic figure for “Rhythm of the Mind.”

The work, then and now, is about exploration, not defining a particular sound and nailing it over and over. It’s about a palette of colors, about textures and tones, sometimes wildly divergent. It’s about challenging listeners and the musicians in this increasingly rare behemoth, the jazz orchestra. It’s about movement, though not necessarily forward, but listing to the left, to the right. And while perhaps disorienting at first, it allows the composers to simultaneously disarm and dazzle as they find compositional balance.