New Vaudeville Holiday Spectacular!

Here are the delights that await you in no particular order yet:
1. Excerpts from Savage -- a new musical in development. Savage is based on the true story of Wanda Savage, a Native American sharpshooter who rose out of Oklahoma poverty to perform in circuses and vaudeville before taking on Hollywood as a stunt woman and actress in silent films. With Nicolette Blount (Producer, Writer, Composer), John Waynelovich (Musical Director, Composer, Arranger) and Lindel Hart (Writer, Editor).

2. The Ballet Belles: Myah Grant and Madalyn Lilly, perform three excerpts from La Boutique Fantasque – the Overture, Tarantella, and Waltz – using the Rossini-Respighi score. The two young dancers take on the role of dolls who come to life when the shop is closed. The Ballet Belles are directed, and work choreographed, by Karen Shulda, Artistic Director Ballet Renverse, ret.

3. Emma Ayres, The Water Project Folk Opera is Emma Ayres' reimagining of her original play: The Water Project. Set in a rural Western-Mass dreamscape of the Great Depression, the story illuminates the archetypal conflict of big business interest and political corruption versus the working-class poor. In the Swift River Valley during the year 1938, a clock struck midnight, ringing in disincorporation, heartbreak and loss of place, all in the name of progress. "Newspaper headlines read: 4 towns flooded, 2,500 people relocated, houses moved on the backs of trucks, 7,500 graves dug up and reburied on higher ground, memories drowned, and little know..." the water is rising.

4. Alex DeMelo: The Concluding speech of The Great Dictator with Violet Walker on the saw.

5. Ellen Villani: Stand Up Comedy."So I gave up Holy Communion for Lent about 18 years ago and it stuck!!!! I figured none of us in truly worthy anyway. In place of that I've BECOME communion. I'm communing all over the place. I've got full blown relationships with grocery clerks, gas station attendants, and anyone elderly!

6. Jack Golden: premiere of movement performance, 13 Ways To Be A Black Dog. Just back from a successful run at the Charm City Fringe Festival in Baltimore, Jack received this review:"a very personal performance piece, reflecting on Golden’s life and relationships through words, music and movement. It’s refreshing to see a work based on the real life of the performer that refuses to shy away from the vulnerability attendant to such an endeavor. Rather than covering any discomfort with sarcasm, cynicism, or any of the other shields we use when we feel exposed, Golden goes with the truth. He admits the unscripted, improvisational component of the show scares him; he owns his feelings about family and loss. The result is a refreshingly honest, unironic look at the life of a kind man who has spent the last few decades touring the country, educating kids, making folks smile, and getting to know Jack better."

7. Jeremy Geragotelis: John Berryman Reads My Poems, Feat. A Bottle of Whiskey is a close character study that mythologizes the suicide of renowned poet of the 20th-century John Berryman. This piece of theater considers the boundary between the artist's practice and the ghosts of historic influence: how can we make our artistic context dangerous and forward-reaching?

8. Maureen McElligott sings.

9. Phoebe Lloyd and Michayla Robertson Pine, who brought the immersive work The City to the Full Disclosure Festival last month, offer an original devised theater piece with music called The Blue Room. Blue Room personifies a conversation between one's inner and outer self, exploring the difficult road to communion with your own fractured thoughts. There is strength and honesty to be found between the voices in your head, but fostering that relationship can often be as destructive as it is cathartic.

10. John Lentz - Vocal Jazz and Bass. John Lentz sings jazz stories. He is accompanied by Michael Suter on double bass.

11. Violet Walker clown extraordinaire plays the saw!