Chatham gets a new outdoor Shakespeare festival + 13 more Cape Cod & Nantucket theater shows

Kate Gould Park in the center of Chatham is traditionally filled on summer Fridays with music lovers for the town band concert, so a new group (that includes familiar faces to Chatham) hopes the crowds will also sit outdoors for evenings of theater.

“Bring thou thy blankets and thy beach chairs!” invites a poster for the inaugural year of the Cape Cod Shakespeare Festival in Chatham. For more on what you can see and how the new festival is an extension of the former Monomoy Theatre, see below.

On our website, we have reviews of multiple shows playing at theaters around the Cape, so check www.capecodtimes.com/entertainment to see what our critics can tell you about shows playing at Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Cape Rep Theatre in Brewster, Cotuit Center for the Arts, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet and Cape Cod Theatre Company/Harwich Junior Theatre.

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And here are a few more shows coming up at local theaters:

Errico sings Sondheim and more

Broadway star Melissa Errico (“My Fair Lady,” “Amour”) will be back on the Cape for two concerts in Provincetown that will celebrate composer Stephen Sondheim, followed by a show in Cotuit that will include stories and songs about the inspirations that shaped her (including Sondheim).

At 7 p.m. Friday, July 22 and Saturday. July 23 at the Art House (214 Commercial St.) in Provincetown, Errico will perform her show “No One Is Alone,” focusing on songs created by revered Broadway composer/lyricist Sondheim, who died last year. Tickets are $45 and $65; https://provincetownarthouse.com/.

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According to information from Errico, she had a close relationship with Sondheim, including consulting him for her 2018 album “Sondheim Sublime,” and she performed a PBS tribute to Sondheim. Songs in this show will include “all the Sondheim standards,” plus stories and insights from her relationship with the composer, which included starring in “Sunday In The Park With George,” then in “Passion” and “Do I Hear a Waltz?”

Then at 7 p.m. Monday, July 25, Errico will perform “Let Yourself Go: An Evening with Melissa Errico” at Cotuit Center for the Arts (4404 Falmouth Road or Route 28); $55 (with discounts available); artsonthecape.org or 508-428-0669. This show will include personal stories and music by Sondheim, too, but also Lerner and Loewe, Rodgers and Hart, Harold Arlen, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Randy Newman, Michel Legrand, Cy Coleman, Irving Berlin, and more.

New musicals on the way

► A “practically perfect” nanny will take over the Academy of Performing Arts’ Playhouse stage, offering adventure for troubled Jane and Michael for the “Mary Poppins” musical, playing July 21 through Aug. 7 at the theater, 120 Main St., Orleans. The Disney musical expands on the book and movie stories led by jack-of-all trades Bert. Tickets and information: https://www.academyplayhouse.org/tickets.

► A role model of a more eccentric kind is at the heart of Jerry Herman’s musical “Mame,” about a young boy going to live with his bohemian aunt and them learning about life together. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays July 27-Aug. 21 (except July 28) and 4 p.m. Sundays at Chatham Drama Guild, 134 Crowell Road; $25 and $28; chatdramaguild.org or 508-945-0510. The show stars Bridget Anne Williams as Mame, Deborah Mahaney as Vera, Glenn Starner-Tate as Beauregard and other local actors, with Pam Banas directing and Geraldine Boles as musical director.

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► College Light Opera Company is this week, July 19-23, staging “Die Fledermaus,” a Johann Strauss 1874 comic opera (also known as "The Revenge of the Bat") that involves disguises, revenge and mayhem as a man named Eisenstein decides to evade jail to attend Prince Orlofski's lavish ball. Shows are at Highfield Theatre, 58 Highfield Drive, Falmouth; http://www.collegelightoperacompany.com/. The next show on tap for CLOC will be “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella,” a musical version of the beloved fairy tale. Shows are July 26-30; http://www.collegelightoperacompany.com/.

Cape Cod Theatre Project finishes season

A four-week season of staged readings of new plays wraps up this week with Lameece Issaq starring in her own solo piece “A Good Day to You Not to Me” with her fellow Noor Theatre colleague Sivan Battat directing.

The show, described as “a fictional solo show based on many true things,” is about a 40-something dental assistant dealing with family issues after getting fired and moving into a women’s rooming house run by nuns and with sometimes deranged co-habitants.

Live in-person shows will be held at 7:30 p.m. July 21-23, with a pre-recorded stream of the July 21 staged reading also available to watch online at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 23. Tickets: $25 for live show; $15 for a streaming ticket; https://capecodtheatreproject.org/2022-season/

Broadway stars lead comic thriller on Nantucket

Broadway actors Celia Keenan-Bolger (a Tony Award for “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Peter and the Starcatcher”) and Isabel Keating (Tony nomination for “The Boy from Oz,” “Wicked”) lead a cast for White Heron Theatre Company’s production of Frederick Knott’s “witty thriller” titled “Dial M for Murder.”

The shows, the centerpiece of a 10th-anniversary summer for the Nantucket company, will be at 7:30 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays July 26-28 and Aug. 1-4 and 8-11, with a 4 p.m. matinee July 31 at 5 N. Water St. Tickets start at $25. Tickets and information: https://www.whiteherontheatre.org/.

In this play, Tony and Margot Wendice — played by Dan Domingues (Off-Broadway’s “Fidelis” and “The Great Immensity”) and Keenan-Bolger — seem to have it all, until Tony discovers his wife’s affair with an American crime-thriller writer and plots the perfect murder to seek revenge.

Many might remember this story as the tense Hitchcock thriller, though the play is described as “an evening filled with laughs that will keep you on the edge of your seat.” Director Mark Shanahan explains: “Frederick Knott’s play is not only a taut, well- constructed thriller, it is also a fun and devilishly humorous play filled with snappy and witty dialogue. Knott knew just when to break the tension with a well placed laugh. 'Dial M' is not so much a whodunnit as a ‘will-he-get-away-with-it?’ and much of the joy of the play comes from the cat-and-mouse games played by our murderous husband Tony Wendice and the ever-undaunted Inspector Hubbard.”

Domingues, Shanahan says, plays a “particularly sly Tony” who matches wits with Keating’s Inspector, “and the two keep the play crackling with a fun energy.”

The cast is rounded out by Mark Price (Broadway’s “Mary Poppins,” “All Shook Up”) as Captain Lesgate; and Kavin Panmeechao (Lincoln Center’s “The King and I”) as Max Halliday.

Monomoy Theatre alum take Shakespeare outside

With hopes to “fill a little space that used to exist,” some core people behind the now-shuttered Monomoy Theatre in Chatham have created a two-week Cape Cod Shakespeare Festival that will bring two famous comedies outdoors.

Starting Monday, July 25, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Twelfth Night” will be performed in repertory for free on weeknights in front of the gazebo in Kate Gould Park in the center of town on Main Street. Organizers invite theatergoers to settle in to watch the 90-minute shows, which will be preceded by jugglers and acrobats to help create family-oriented evenings.

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Co-founder Alan Rust, former longtime Monomoy artistic director who programmed  Shakespeare plays there every summer, says he wants the festival’s nights to be entertaining for all ages. “Our great hope is that people who bring their blankets and their folding chairs to the band concerts will do the same for these plays," he says, "and bring their children of a certain age and introduce them to” Shakespeare and the magic of theater.

The troupe numbers 14, he says, with professional actors (including some Monomoy alum) on stage and a technical crew backstage and onstage, plus some area youngsters and local talent who have previously worked with Monomoy: author Bernard Cornwell, Scott Hamilton and Todd Cashdollar. Rust, serving as artistic director, will take on some small roles. Broadway and Monomoy actor Terry Layman serves as festival managing director and is directing “Twelfth Night.” Robert Davis is directing “Midsummer.”

Lights, actor microphones and costumes have been arranged, and Rust’s children have helped with posters and a company logo. Chatham artist Carol Odell created a design for a backdrop to cover the gazebo with the likeness of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater that husband/artist Todd Odell helped as technical consultant to figure out how to take up and down between performances, Rust says.

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The idea for the festival came up after a couple of attempts for Monomoy alumni to produce theater in a local church were thwarted by COVID-19 concerns, and Rust says he realized the Cape didn’t already have an outdoor Shakespeare festival like so many parts of the country. The plans drew enthusiasm throughout meetings to get the needed permission and permits and at public events where he’s spoken about the festival, Rust says. The group has raised almost the entire $80,000 needed to produce the season, he says, which includes paying actors and securing housing.

“My favorite part (of getting town permission) was that the Select Board is made up of people that work in town, all kinds of different folks, and one of them is a lobster fisherman. He said ‘I think this is a magnificent idea’ and I said, ‘Well, that tells you everything you need to know about Chatham. There's a lobster fisherman that really wants us to do Shakespeare,’" he says. "That's what makes it such a special spot. And that's really why Monomoy worked so well for so many years. The town supported what (Hartford University) was trying to do and it was great.”

After decades of weekly summer shows through Hartford and previously Ohio University, Monomoy Theatre was closed in 2019 when the property was sold. What will happen to the land and whether a theater will reopen there has been up in the air as various plans involving building new housing there have moved through town boards but so far not been approved.

The Shakespeare shows begin at 7 p.m., with “Midsummer” playing July 25 and 27 and Aug. 2 and 4, and “Twelfth Night” playing July 26 and 28, and Aug. 1 and 3. Rain dates are on the weekends: July 30 and 31 and Aug. 6. More information or to donate: https://ccsfc.org.

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

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod theater: outdoor Chatham Shakespeare festival, musical Errico