Community Theater Fall Preview Big things are happening in local theater this season. Check out what RI and Southeastern Mass has to offer And let’s not forget some of the smaller, but robust and often more surprising theaters scattered around the region! There are so many, we’ve followed this article with an extensive listing of great theater you can expect this season. Mixed Magic (MM) Theatre will present the prison drama Jesus Took the A Train, tackling morality, religion, class and race in the story of man accused of murdering a cult leader and sharing a cell with a born-again Christian. MM follows this September through October performance with Othello. This anticipated performance will star legendary local actor and Mixed Magic founder, Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, in the title role. Unlike Epic and Wilbury, Mixed Magic isn’t relocating; it’s continuing in its comfortable, versatile space at the Hope Artiste Village in Pawtucket. mmtri.com After Bob (see separate article), Contemporary Theater will present Assassins, an investigation of presidential assassinations, with a score by Stephen Sondheim. Yep, you read that right: sounds like the Wakefield-based theater will continue to stretch our minds in interesting directions this year. thecontemporarytheater.com Look for The Wilbury Group to continue to refine its use of the exciting new space at the very spacious and slightly eccentric South Side Cultural Center. Located within and behind Trinity Church on Broad St., this is where Trinity Rep started, so there are some big shoes to fill. This fall, they’re bringing Detroit to Rhode Island in the New England Premiere of this OBIE-winning, Pulitzer-nominated play set in the modern embers of a rapidly deflating American city. “From our beginning, The Wilbury Group has been about selecting and presenting audiences with the most challenging, relevant plays available,” says Artistic Director Josh Short, who predicts the ’13-’14 season will be “our most challenging yet.” thewilburygroup.org Also exploring the lack of constraint afforded by their bountiful new space, Epic Theatre will bring theatrical experimentation to Theatre 82 at the Artists’ Exchange in Cranston’s Rolfe Square, where they are now resident. Their season begins with the black comedy A Behanding in Spokane, by Martin McDonagh, following a mysterious man’s quest for his missing hand at a run-down motel. artists- exchange.org/theatre82.html Theatre 82 will also host productions by other companies through the fall, with Marley Bridges Theatre Company presenting Menace of the Morgue, a zombie musical set in the 1950s, throughout October, and GCOLE Productions bringing Brighton Beach Memoirs to that stage in November. Mixed Magic, The Contemporary Theater, and Epic are all part of the new RI Theater Alliance, which will present interesting opportunities to get inter-troupe passes over the season. You can catch up with what they’re doing at facebook.com/RITAlliance In its 13th season at a restored church in South County, Granite Theatre will present the solid classics the Mousetrap in September, followed by The Sound of Music. granitetheatre.com The Rhode Island Shakespeare Theater has adapted Macbeth to Rhode Island, which means it’s now a mob story. How will they mix Shakespearian language with Rhode Island accents? Find out in October. Search Facebook for TRIST. The Academy Players will be Working this September with the musical, based on the book by Studs Terkel, about how people spend most of their day. Academy follows this show with a November performance of They Chose Me, another all-ages family musical, this one about families as seen through the eyes of children. academyplayers.org Swamp Meadow gets heavy, then lightens up with upcoming shows The Crucible, in October, and The Man Who Came to Dinner, the musical comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. This community theater has been achieving some great performances up in Foster — worth the visit! swampmeadow.org The Little Theatre of Fall River will be doing OK this fall, with its production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma. littletheatre.net The Newport Playhouse has an interesting flow in their upcoming line-up. Starting with The Love List, about a methodical search for the perfect mate (September), they’re following it up with A Perfect Wedding, about a groom who wakes with a hangover and an unexpected bedmate on the morn of his wedding (October), then Angel on my Shoulder, with a cohabitation theme, and finally, My Husband’s Wild Desires (no explanation needed). Does anyone else see a progression there? Any of these comedies should make for an amiable, amusing night out – for dates and details, see our listings or newportplayhouse.com. Your Theatre in New Bedford, which has been putting on shows since the 40s, has an interesting selection coming up, starting with Biloxi Blues in September. It is followed by the nostalgic Neil Simon piece, Love, Loss, and What I Wore, by the late Nora Ephron, queen of the 90s chick flick. Finally, they present Henry Flamethowa, a much starker drama about a troubled teen with the Devil for a pen pal. And if you think more than 65 years of community theater is a lot, check out the Community Players, who open their 93rd season with an October presentation of the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof! yourtheatre.org and thecommunityplayers.org Fall for Great Shows this Season The best alternative shows in RI all season plus an interview with Hope Anchor I’d figured with Hope Anchor-a-mania about to run rampant through the city, a fun person to do an interview with would be the band’s guitarist, Terry Linehan. Known as Terry Dread back in the day, he has literally seen it all from being on a major label with Waterdog, touring as a guitarist for Green Day, and even being in a Green Day side project called The Frustrators with Mike Dirnt. He got a shout out from Billie Joe Armstrong at Green Day’s recent appearance at The Dunk. Terry co-owns a punk bar in Providence called The Scurvy Dog where the music is always loud and there’s a great selection of beers. To kick off the Fall Guide, I figured I’d ask him a few questions to get the dish on Never Gonna Let You Go and his thoughts on the music scene. MC: How would you compare Never Gonna Let You Go to your debut release, Pile on the Dirt? TL: Firstly, Pile on The Dirt was recorded in three spurts over four years and I think it sounds like that. Even if you’ve been doing this for as long as we have as musicians, it takes a while to feel the direction out as a band. After we did Pile on The Dirt, the songs on Never Gonna Let You Go are the next nine songs plus bits we wrote that we threw against the wall and stuck. So it has more of an immediate feel and is less calculated. I think it’s more visceral as well. Music should be physical and I think this record has that. MC: How do you feel Hope Anchor as a band has evolved in the last couple of years? TL: Well, you got enough copy for that? We started with a bunch of music I had written, assembled the group and tested what worked that I had written and what didn’t, then hit the studio. Since Pile on The Dirt there have been three major changes. 1) Eric Fontana left the band as he had his first child and we respect his decision and admire his contributions during his tenure, 2) we added Pip’s brother Matthew as a violin player, which makes us sound like a haunted house! 3) I switched from playing Gibsons to Fender Jazzmasters, which allows me to use the whammy like My Bloody Valentine, but use it in hard blues, which I’m not sure has been done before. MC: As a longtime fixture on the music scene, how would you compare the music scene of today to say 10 or 20 years ago? TL: The scene today has a lot more information, a lot more bands, and a lot less music fans. Local bands used to draw 800 people on a Friday at the Promenade St. Living Room. It seems like bands are mostly playing to other bands these days. I think the internet has made it so people don’t have to go out and see bands live to know what they’re getting anymore. Also there are obviously way less record stores anymore. I admire the ones we have, but I feel bad that kids don’t go to a record store to learn about music anymore. MC: What are the three things you are most proud of in your music career? TL: This’ll sound corny, but I’m most proud of our new record. Like everything else, it’s the culmination of a lifetime in music. Besides that, I’m super proud of playing guitar for Green Day on the American Idiot tour. It was a special record at a special time. We were in the middle of the Bush years and very publically rallying against them. Thirdly I’m very proud of the last Frustrators record and tour. Mike and I wrote the record in five hours, recorded it the next day and hit the road the next year having not played together as a band in 10 years! MC: What were some the influences or types of things you guys were shooting for making this record? TL: The new record was more influenced by time and place than other artists.