All posts by abarnett

Past

Explorations in Theater

MLT is excited to announce our next virtual venture in the form of a forum series with some of MLT’s long-serving members!

Covering various aspects of theater, the forums run June 23 through July 13. All are welcome to attend to listen in and join the discussion.

To receive LOG IN information, please register at
EIT Forums Registration

Tuesday June 23 7:00 – 8:00 PM

Removing the Table

A discussion of the audition process for actors

With Steve Black
and Alex Dietrich

Ever wonder what is going on in the minds of the people behind the table at your audition? In this online forum, two local directors will discuss the audition process from a director’s point of view. In addition to audition tips, tricks, do’s and don’ts, Alex and Steve will provide advice on how to do your best, remain calm, and be yourself! Both musical and non musical auditions will be discussed along with virtual and traditional audition settings. Time will be dedicated for questions from attendees as well.

Alexandra Dietrich, originally from Freeport, Maine, is known in New England for her work as a mezzo-soprano, music educator, arts advocate, and as a stage director whose direction has been called “brilliant” and “moving”. More about Alexandra Dietrich

Steve Black is a director, arts and school administrator. Steve has directed an numerous theaters and has served on the board of MLT for many years including multiple terms as president. More about Steve Black

Monday, June 29 7:00 – 8:00 PM

Broadway Anywhere

A Musical Theatre Sing-a-long

With Lianne Goodwin
and Thom Smoker

Musical Theatre SIng-a-Long: Thom & Lianne bring you an evening of those classic musical theater songs we all secretly (or proudly) love to sing along to. Grab your favorite beverage, sit in your favorite chair or stand in the shower, and join Thom and Lianne as we all sing along to the broadway classics and hits.

Thom Smoker and Lianne Goodwin. What do you need to know? They are both music educators, both singers, both music directors, both performers, both love musical theater, both love being involved with the community, and both love to do all of those things together.

Wednesday. July 8 7:00 – 8:00 PM

Contemporary Theater

The reading of a new play

With Emily Grove
and Zach Winston

New York City, 1977. Ed Koch is campaigning for mayor, Annie debuts on Broadway, a widespread blackout takes the city by storm, and an aging pro-wrestling promotion struggles to maintain relevance in a rapidly changing cultural landscape. Join us for a virtual staged reading of local playwright, Zach Winston’s Prologue: Welcome to The Big Times, an open-ended serial for the stage about television, crime, the media, and professional wrestling. Emily & Zach will be joined by local Boston & North Shore actors to bring this script to life, followed by a brief Q&A.

Zach Winston is a Boston-based actor/producer/director, and now, playwright. He is a founding member of Vagabond Theatre Group (IRNE nominations, Best New Play- Burning the Barn, Burning Up the Dictionary; Elliott Norton nomination, Best New Play- Breaking the Shakespeare Code), and has performed with various theatre companies including Zeitgeist Stage (Eight by Tenn, A Bright New Boise, Tigers Be Still), Vagabond Theatre Group (August & Autumn, True Believers), Boston Public Works (Hard & Fast: A Love Story), and Take Your Pick Productions (Lost Girls). After spending seven years working directly with playwrights while producing new works with Vagabond Theatre Group, Zach is excited to finally set pen-to-paper again. 

Emily Grove is a theatre educator, director, and actor living in Boston. Emily has taught youth theatre at the American Repertory Theatre, Greater Boston Stage Company, Company One, Arlington Children’s Theatre, and more. She is the resident theatre teaching artist at the Fayerweather Street School in Cambridge. Directing credits include: The Importance of Being Earnest, Machinal, Romeo and Juliet, and Mr. Marmalade. Acting credits include: The Smell of the Kill (Nicky), The Tempest (Miranda), and Cabaret (Fraulein Kost). Emily has served on the Board of Directors at MLT for just over two years and is a graduate of Salem State University, holding her BFA in Theatre: Performance.

Monday, July 13 7:00 – 8:00 PM

Playwriting Deconstructed

The process of writing for the stage

with Anne Marilyn Lucas, DGA

In this playwriting forum we will talk about dramatic structure, plot, character,and form (full length, one act and ten minute). I will talk about my process for creating different length plays. Ideas that suite this medium. How do you know it is a stage play or a screen play?
Where do you start? Should a play be linear? There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.

Anne Marilyn Lucas, DGA, is a playwright whose works have been produced and featured locally and internationally. Anne served as one of MLT’s original Trustees and continues to serve on MLT’s board.
More about Anne Lucas

News

MLT Facade Art – Children Invited to Participate

Children invited to create joyful canvases for Phase 2 of MLT’s outdoor art installation

The response has been overwhelming. All canvases have now been reserved. If you wish to be placed on a waitlist please register at the Reserve Art Kit link below. We will let you know if we have a lot for you and when to come pick it up.

• 27 art kits available
• Children must sign-up to pick up kits on Monday, July 20, from 2-4 p.m. at the MLT Firehouse terrace (12 School Street, Marblehead)
• Completed children’s art canvases must be returned by July 27 by 5 p.m.
• Children’s art canvases will be displayed for the month of August

Children painting canvas piece for Phase 2 of the MLT Public Art Project

Marblehead Little Theatre extends a special invitation to children and their families to create their own individual canvases for display on the façade of the MLT Firehouse in Phase 2 of MLT’s outdoor art installation. Up to 27 children’s individual canvases will be sewn into banners to replace three of the seven canvases created by artist-in-residence Jeremy Barnett now on display in Phase 1 of the installation.

“Phase 2 for children is part of MLT’s mission of community engagement and arts education and gives young people a chance to use simple shapes and bold colors to express and celebrate their own strong, expressive feelings,” Barnett said.

The Phase 2 take-home kits will be available for distribution on Monday, July 20, from 2 to 4 p.m. on the MLT Firehouse Terrace at 12 School Street. Kits include one pre-measured and primed 24-inch by 36-inch wide piece of canvas, a set of red, yellow, green, blue, brown and white latex paints and instructions with a link to instructional videos on the MLT website.

The young artists must provide their own application tools, “but anything from brooms, paint brushes, to sponges and even a finger-painting technique can be used,” Barnett said. “No experience is necessary. The only requirement is that the young artists have the courage and desire to share their expressions with the public.”

To participate, children and their families must sign-up
to reserve a Phase 2 Kit and commit to completing the project.

Sign Up to Reserve your Art Kit Here

Participation is limited to up to 27 children. Everyone must wear a mask and maintain proper social distancing at all times during pick-up.

“These take-home kits encourage children and their families to create their own works of art,” Barnett said. “The videos will offer some ideas of how children might get started, but the work ultimately will be up to the young artists.”

Completed canvases must be returned to the MLT vestibule by the final and firm due date of Monday, July 27 at 5 p.m., allowing the children one week to complete their canvases and five days for Barnett to piece the banners together.

The individual canvases will be permanently sewn together to create the Phase 2 banners. These will be displayed on the Firehouse façade from August 1 through August 31. The artwork will become the property of Marblehead Little Theatre until the banners find an appropriate permanent home.

“Phase 2 allows children and their families to engage in a communal project while still maintaining distance,” Barnett said. “When assembled and displayed, it is hoped the paintings will revive the communal spirit of the arts in Marblehead and serve as a reminder that we are still a community, even when separated.”

Information, News

A place to create art – Summer 2020

MLT to celebrate the arts and Fourth of July
with exhibit of 5 custom painted canvases
on its firehouse brick facade

• Project conceived & executed by Marblehead native Jeremy Barnett
• Canvases to be installed by July 4

Although there are no current live performances in the Marblehead Little Theatre firehouse following the state’s COVID-19 policies, MLT will celebrate the arts and The Fourth of July with five custom painted canvases to be installed on the façade of its historic brick building located at 12 School Street in Marblehead.

Artist Jeremy Barnett working on MLT Building facade art project

The project was proposed and executed by Marblehead native and artist Jeremy Barnett.

Upon hearing The Marblehead Festival of Arts had been cancelled like so many community events across the country, Barnett wanted the arts to still be celebrated during Fourth of July week.

Barnett said, “Marblehead Little Theatre is important to me, my family, and to the quality of life in Marblehead, which I still consider to be my home despite having lived elsewhere for many years. I wanted to pay homage to MLT in a way that would keep MLT visually alive during this unusual period when theatres are closed.”

“If people cannot gather inside MLT’s Firehouse Theatre, then let its exterior offer the inspiration and joy that its performances have provided for so long,” he said. “History tells us that when the unexpected occurs, that is when the arts become fuel for the creative spirit.”
Barnett’s entry into the backstage world of theater was as a member of the run crew for Marblehead Little Theatre’s 1992 production of “Oliver” when he was 14 years old. Since then he has been an award-winning scenic designer for theatres across the country and, as an artist, has exhibited in venues on three continents.

Barnett’s installation artwork uses simple shapes and bold colors to create strong, joyful feelings. His goal is to make his art accessible and relatable to all audiences. The canvases for MLT are inspired by the joy of summer, dedicated to the ideas of hope and community within the context of current events. “They are an aggressively non-cynical response to these challenging times,” he said.

The canvases will be arranged as four vertical canvases left and right of the firehouse wooden doors featuring organic shapes serving as abstract supports for a frieze made of two canvases across the top of the wooden doors. The fifth canvas – 7 feet high and 20 feet wide – on the Firehouse’s second story is a series of vibrant shapes suggesting the energy of summer, fireworks, ice cream sprinkles and bursting bottles of champagne.

Barnett is planning a Phase 2 project that will invite Marblehead children to create their own smaller canvases that will be sewn together to replace his original work.

About Jeremy Barnett

Jeremy Barnett is a Detroit-based scenic and event designer. He is a co-founding member of Amarant Design Collective, a Detroit-based installation art organization. Jeremy is a graduate of Marblehead High School. He earned a Master’s of Fine Arts in Scenic Design from Boston University and a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University. He studied photography at Pittsburgh Filmmakers Institute and at Studio Art Centers International in Florence Italy. He studied Stone Sculpture at the Tengenenge Sculpture Gallery in Guruve, Zimbabwe. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine from 2003 to 2005.

Barnett teaches scenic design and related crafts at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. His wife Kendra Soule Barnett and children Jacob, 10, and Vivienne, 7, are spending the summer in his hometown of Marblehead, Massachusetts. For more information, visit jeremybarnett.com

Information, News

Public Exhibit of Children Art

MLT’S SUMMER OUTDOOR ART EXHIBIT PHASE 2 FEATURES 37 CHILDREN’S PAINTINGS

Exhibit on display for month of August

https://www.facebook.com/325245637948/videos/2376918275946224/

In a celebration of color and exuberant creativity, the front of Marblehead Little Theatre is now bedecked with 37 canvases painted by children in Phase 2 of MLT’s outdoor summer art exhibit.

The vivacious canvases were painted in response to an invitation to local children issued by MLT and artist Jeremy Barnett to make their own artwork and submit these pieces in one week. The 37 canvases have been sewn together in a veritable COVID quilt and displayed on the facade of the theatre located at 12 School Street where they will be on display for the month of August.

“Marblehead has always been a community that is supportive and enthusiastic about the arts.” Barnett said. “I came up with the idea of publicly displaying paintings because I couldn’t bear the idea of a summer in Marblehead without a focus on the arts. But more than that, it felt important to have an expression of community art. When the children’s paintings came in, that’s exactly what we got. We saw bursts of color, portraits of families, depictions of summer, scenes of Marblehead, and even an expression of patriotism. Some are pictorial, some are abstract. All of them are bright. And all of them are beautiful.”

Barnett thanks the young participants for their artistic generosity and MLT for its ongoing support of the arts at all levels.

The canvases created by Jeremy Barnett for Phase 1 of this exhibit are available for purchases or alternative exhibition. For more information contact: Jeremy Barnett 781-910-7759 barnett811@yahoo.com

Information

GSBGC news

Boys and Girls Club of Greater Salem Celebrates Past Theatrical Partnership with MLT

Behind-the-scenes video of our past Drama productions

Traditionally, this is the time of year our members would be getting ready to put on a show for their family, friends, and community.

We are all devastated we had to cancel this year’s play, but here is a look at the amazing work our members have done throughout the last few years. Ranging from practicing lines, learning choreography, to the performances.

Here’s a look at some of the behind the scenes footage! Of course we couldn’t do it without Marblehead Little Theatre, Josenny our Theatre Director and of course our super-talented youth!