A Broadway/TV star, CCTP's female writers, a big dance anniversary & more arts news

Add one more star to the galaxy of Broadway talent that producer Mark Cortale will bring to Provincetown stages this summer: Sebastian Arcelus. The TV and Broadway star will join his wife, Stephanie J. Block, (Tony Award winner for “The Cher Show”) for her July 10 debut at Provincetown Town Hall with host/music director Seth Rudetsky.

Arcelus’ Broadway credits include Buddy in “Elf,” Fiyero in “Wicked” and Roger in “Rent.” On TV, Arcelus has starred as Lucas Goodwin in Netflix’ “House of Cards” and Jay Whitman in CBS’ “Madam Secretary.”

Information on the dozens of performers coming to town for the Broadway @ series — starting May 29 with six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald — and shows at the Art House and Town Hall: https://provincetownarthouse.com/.

The whole list: 'Most ambitious lineup' yet: Audra McDonald, Chita Rivera headline summer of 40-plus stars at Provincetown's Art House, Town Hall

Cape Cod Theatre Project spotlights female playwrights

“The future is female,” according to Cape Cod Theatre Project, which is celebrating female playwrights and perspectives with staged readings of four in-development plays from established and new playwrights.

The 2022 season (its first in-person in three years) will run June 30-July 23, with readings at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays at Falmouth Academy's Simon Center for the Arts at 7 Highfield Drive.

A kickoff event will be held June 23 with guests Heidi Schreck, a CCTP alum who is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Tony Award nominee for her “What the Constitution Means to Me” play — which ran on Broadway and is streaming on Amazon Prime — and her partner, director Kip Fagan. The event will include a brief Q&A that will include reflections on female-driven stories in theater.

The shows for the CCTP season:

June 30-July 2: “The Violet Sisters,” by Gina Femia, directed by Taylor Reynolds, which is set post-Hurricane Sandy, and involves a woman who returns home after an attempt to “make it” in LA and is greeted by an angry sister, a dilapidated house, and a past she can’t escape.

July 7-9: “The Janeiad,” by Anna Ziegler, directed by Lisa Peterson, is a take on Ulysses returning to Penelope 20 years after leaving in “The Odyssey.” In this version, Jane of Brooklyn’s husband left on a September day 20 years ago. Ziegler’s “Photograph 51,” developed at CCTP, has been frequently produced, including with Nicole Kidman in London’s West End.

July 14-16: “Ball Change,” by Brittany K. Allen, about changes over 50 years in New York's most elite celebrity answering service.

July 21-23: “Good Day to Me, Not to You,” by Lameece Issaq, a one-woman play that follows a 40-something dental assistant who gets fired and moves into a woman’s rooming house run by nuns while trying to conceive a child.

All-Access Passes (for all shows and events) are available for $100, and individual performance tickets will be available in June. Tickets and information: https://capecodtheatreproject.org/, 508-457-4242

The Yard announces 50th-anniversary season

The Yard dance organization in Chilmark is celebrating its 50th summer season with the return of in-person movement classes, artist workshops, plus a group of artists in residence and performances designed to “excite, inspire and encourage growth.”

According to a season announcement, some artists will share completed works, while others invite the audience into the middle of their creative process, with shows at the Chilmark campus or other Martha’s Vineyard locations. All works “are engaging in unique ways with the pressing social and cultural issues of the time,” Yard officials said.

The history of the Yard will also be the subject of an exhibit at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Vineyard Haven from July 20 to Oct. 21. Information on all: https://www.dancetheyard.org/summerseason22.

The performances will include:

7 p.m. June 7: a late-stage-in-progress excerpt of “Protecting Complexity with the Star Pû Method” by Larissa Velez-Jackson/LVJ Performance Co. Velez-Jackson is a choreographer, interdisciplinary artist, performer, and teacher who uses improvisation as a main tool for research and creation, focusing on personhood and the dancing, sound-making body. Velez-Jackson currently survives multiple myeloma cancer, is committed to “the healing and transformative potential of art and integrated body/mind practice, as well as advocating for accessibility in the arts” and uses this piece to ask “whether the performance encounter provides a space that makes healing actually possible,” according to the announcement.

7 p.m. June 11-12: Lucky Plush Productions, an ensemble dance-theater company based in Chicago, led by founder and Artistic Director Julia Rhoads that uses a hybrid of high-level dance and theater to provoke and support “an immediacy of presence — a palpable live-ness — shared by performers in real-time with audiences.” This piece, “Rink Life,” gives a nod to “the visual aesthetics and social dynamics of 1970s roller rink culture" and includes live singing.

7 p.m. July 15-16: Adele Myers and Dancers, a Miami-based not-for-profit dance theater company that is “committed to advancing and amplifying female dance artists through process, performance and community engagement.” While in residence, the group will present “These Women In Space and Time (T.W.I.S.T)," a dance theater performance that offers a variety of acts of female solidarity. The group will also host TWISTalks — a creative research and community engagement element that involves gatherings for women.

7 p.m. July 23: Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, a dance company that focuses on “the seamless integration of traditional African dance with contemporary choreography and spoken word,” aiming to offer “a unique view of human struggles, tragedies and triumphs.” The piece presented will be “The Equality of Night and Day (TEND),” a new work by Brown “examining the concepts of balance, equity, and fairness in light of the conflicting present-day issues that young people, women and people of color now face.”

7 p.m. Aug. 11-12: BrownBody, which is grounded in African diasporic perspectives with a mission “to build artistic experiences that disrupt biased narratives and prompt audiences to engage as active participants in the journey” through a blend of modern dance, theater, social justice and figure skating. The presentation will be “Tracing Sacred Steps,” which involves the African-American dance “Ring Shout.”

7 p.m. Aug. 26-27: Ephrat Asherie Dance, a dance company rooted in street and social dance that is “dedicated to revealing the inherent complexities of these forms,” exploring “the expansive narrative qualities of various street and club styles including breaking, hip hop, house and vogue, as a means to tell stories, develop innovative imagery, and find new modes of expression.” Presented will be “Underscored,” a piece inspired by intergenerational memories of club dancers that is created and performed by company members with guest artists from New York City’s underground scene.

Urban Bush Women, a Brooklyn-based performance ensemble and dance company, and Danza Orgánica & Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribal Members will also be in residence over the summer, with presentations to be announced at a later date.

Contact Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll at kdriscoll@capecodonline.com. Follow on Twitter: @KathiSDCCT.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Broadway/TV star, female writers, dance anniversary, more arts news