Halloween Weekend Brings Romance, Mystery, and Murder to the Berwick Academy Stage:  Performing Arts Season to be Kicked-off with A.A. Milne’s “The Perfect Alibi”

The Berwick Academy Upper School Drama Department will kick-off the performing arts season with the fall play, “The Perfect Alibi,”  to be presented Friday and Saturday, October 30 and 31, on the third floor of the historic Fogg Memorial Building on the campus of Berwick Academy.

The “Perfect Alibi” was written in 1928 and hails from the “golden era” of British murder mysteries. The play, also known in the U.K. as “The Fourth Wall”, was subsequently adapted from the stage into a movie of the same title. Howard Haycraft, the well-known mystery scholar, calls “The Perfect Alibi” an “ingenious affair in which the audience watched both the commission of the crime and the steps leading up to its detection,” making it somewhat unusual as mystery plays go.

Students, representing grades 9-12, will participate on stage and behind the scenes to mount this classic written by Winnie the Pooh author, A.A. Milne. Long before his acclaim as a children’s writer, Milne achieved literary and artistic success as a playwright and humorist. Milne wrote plays, several novels and contributed numerous pieces to Punch, the British humor magazine.

Performance times are 7:00 p.m.  Reservations are not required.  Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for students a and will be available at the door on a first-come-first-served basis. For more information, contact Liz-Anne Platt at lplatt@berwickacademy.org.

Founded in 1791, Berwick Academy is an independent, coeducational country day school located in South Berwick, Maine.  For over 200 years, the Academy has pursued its mission through a purposeful blend of strong academics, arts, and athletics.  Berwick serves nearly 580 students in grades K-12 from the seacoast area of southern Maine, New Hampshire, and northeastern Massachusetts.

Are you ready for the kids to go back to school? The grandchildren to go home? Are you sick of sand in your bathing suit? Tourists in your way? Are you tired of working up a sweat just walking from the living room to the kitchen?

Let “Mid-Life Crisis Cabaret!” sweep you away from all that. Sit in AIR CONDITIONED COMFORT with people your own age. Eat cookies while you watch Pat, Gordon and Susan sing and talk about things you can relate to. Laugh in recognition and know you are not alone. It’s all happening this weekend at that little Portsmouth oasis, the West End Studio Theatre. Drop by and realize the joy of stay-cationing at it’s best!

2pm – August 22 & 23 and 8pm – August 22

Tickets are $19/$17 for patrons 65 or better

To make reservations, buy tickets on line or for directions,  go to http://actonenh.org/guest.html.

Tickets are on sale through GWRLT for $20 each. Call 646-3604 or email  info@gwrlt.org.  For every ticket sold through us, Hackmatack Playhouse donates $8 to GWRLT.

Nothing could be finer than to sink into the bucolic atmosphere of the Guptill Family Farm and enjoy top-notch musical theater. To top that off, we’ll be gathering under the tent before the show and during intermission for light refreshments and a chance to meet and catch up with fellow land trust members. Tickets are limited, so call or email to save your place for this wonderful event.  646-3604 or info@gwrlt.org

This lively musical features our very own Marshwood Music Director, Tanya West, and Stacie Cocola, English teacher. Stacie’s husband, John Payne, and Michael Aldrich, MHS student and star of many MHS productions are also performing.

Join us for a fun evening and bring family and friends.

Hackmatack Playhouse
538 School St
RT 9 Beaver Dam
Berwick, ME 03901 207-698-1807

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Hackmatack Playhouse is looking to trade tickets for handyperson carpentry work (fix screen doors, windows etc).  Please contact Hackplayhouse@aol.com or call 207-698-1807.

Marshwood High School presents
Rogers and Hammerstein’s

“OKLAHOMA”

April 2, 3 amd 4 ,  2009.  7:00 PM  (Thurs. Friday and Sat. nights)

Wesley Kennedy Center for Performing Arts..Marshwood High School

For tickets call 384-4500 or www.sad35.net

Music By Richard Rogers.. Book and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein 11
Based on the  play “Green Grow the Lilacs” by Lynn Riggs

March 21 & 22   “A Visit With Ida”
April 4 & 5         “Celtic Songs and Stories”
May 2 & 3           “Mid-Life Crisis Cabaret”

Fed up with shoveling? Ice storms? News about the economy? You’re in for a treat! This winter, “A Wicked Good Time at Town Hall” returns to South Berwick, bringing you affordable entertainment once a month, through mud season and into spring. We could all use a little diversion right about now, and Poolyle Productions has risen to the challenge! Join us upstairs at the South Berwick Town Hall for Maine humor, songs, stories and laughter, in a handicap accessible space with plenty of parking. Oh, and did we mention that our famously low ticket prices are the same as they were in 2006? Well, they are!

“A Wicked Good Time at Town Hall” kicks off with “A Visit With Ida” March 21 & 22. The star of “Ida: Woman Who Runs With the Moose,” “Ida’s Havin’ a Yard Sale!” and “A Very Ida Christmas”, Ida has been called “the funniest woman in Maine.” She will crack you up with her insights into love, sex and the Pine Tree State of mind. Guaranteed to put you in touch with your “innah Mainah,” Ida has Moxie, and she’s not afraid to drink it! Be forewarned: in the words of one concerned audience member, “You really should have “Depends” by the door for some of us!”

“A Visit With Ida!” will be followed by “Celtic Songs and Stories” featuring Jennifer Armstrong, April 4 & 5. This amazingly talented musician and storyteller shares her Scottish border clan heritage in a delightful program of Scottish songs, stories, toe-tapping fiddling, Gaelic mouth music, bagpipes and ballads. Fun for the whole family!

The series concludes with “Mid-Life Crisis Cabaret,” a celebration of the not-quite-Golden Years, with Pat Spalding, Susan Poulin and Gordon Carlisle, May 2 & 3. If you can’t remember what you did in the 60’s, or where your keys are, this is the show for you! Does a night out with friends include hard to read menus, antacids and decaf? In the last week, have you had a conversation about aging parents, insomnia, knee, hip or hormone replacement? You may think a colonoscopy is nothing to sing about. We beg to differ!  Rated GP 30: you must be over thirty to understand what we’re talking about!

“A Wicked Good Time at Town Hall” begins with “A Visit with Ida”, March 21 & 22, and continues with “Celtic Songs and Stories,” April 4 & 5, and “Mid-Life Crisis Cabaret!”, May 2 & 3. Performances are Saturdays at 7:00pm, and Sundays at 2:00pm, at South Berwick Town Hall, Main St., South Berwick, ME. There’s plenty of parking behind Town Hall and on Main Street. Tickets are $16, $13 for students, seniors and South Berwick residents, $6 for children under twelve. Or buy a Wicked Good Deal Pass (one ticket to all three plays): $41.95/$32.95, or a Not Too Shabby Pass (one ticket to two plays): $28.95/$22.95.  Tickets are available at the door, or to reserve, call:  207-384-4526, or email: info@poolyle.com http://www.poolyle.com

M.S.A.D. District 35, gets into the Spirit of the Holiday Season with their Production of A Christmas Carol. Though there are many different versions and interpretations of the story, Disney’s musical version, A Christmas Carol of the classic Dickens opened on Broadway in 1998 and was later made a movie in 2004. With a musical score written by Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Little Shop of Horrors), and lyricist was Lynn Ahrens, (best known for her lyrics in Seussical); the show ran for ten seasons in New York City.

The familiar story unfolds with curmundgedy miser Scrooge (played by senior Michael Aldrich) conducting his daily banking business in the midst of joyous Christmas caroling – but, of course, Scrooge has no time for anything to do with Christmas. Until, that is, he’s confronted by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley (played by 7th grader Darren LaPointe) and then visited by three spirits who guide him through the Christmases of his past (played by junior Cassie Robertson), present (played by junior Taygra Longstaff) and future (played by senior Alison Rollins) hoping to change his destiny and save his soul. This brilliant musical follows Scrooge through a series of extraordinary and magical journeys, where he in the end discovers the true spirit of the holiday season.

I found myself laughing and crying in turn during this witty and darkly funny play and thinking about love, loss, death and living as each of these stories unfolded.  It made for a very satisfying theater performance, I highly recommend it.

Directed by Kent Stephens, the production features Boston actor Mark Cohen, New York actress Norma Fire, and the Seacoast’s own Kristan Raymond Robinson.  Three Viewings is playing for two more weekends; October 24, 25, 26 and October 31, Nov 1, 2; Fri, Sat, and Sun eves. @ 7:30 pm; Sun. mats. @ 2 pm.

Those who attend the October 26; 7:30 pm show will be treated to a talk by the playwright Jeffrey Hatcher after the production.

At the St. Aspinquid Masonic Lodge, 101 Long Sands Road, York, Maine.   Tickets $25 – $30.   For reservations, email harborlight@bitstream.net, or call (207) 439-5769.  Location and other information: www.harborlightstage.org