Stage 33 Live is bringing River HALO and The Break Maids together for a concert this Sunday evening, April 15, at 33 Bridge Street in Bellows Falls. Doors at 6. All ages. Admission by donation. Recording for broadcast. Seating is limited to 50, plus standing room.
If you haven’t heard of Stage 33 Live, that’s no surprise. We’re new. And sporadic. And unusual. And evolving. We’re like the local love child of Ted Talks, eTown, Science Friday, BackStory, and The Little Rascals (“hey kids, let’s put on a show”). It’s a celebration of local and regional original humanities and science presentations and performances, spoken word arts, and music presented as a broadcast and web variety program, recorded during live listening events on a simple stage in a former industrial building in Bellows Falls, Vermont; a nonprofit endeavor run entirely by volunteers. Scads of info at www.stage33live.com
We landed on the cover of The Commons a couple issues back, which was a delightful surprise; we knew they were doing a piece, of course, but we figured it’d be page 4 in Arts. You can see it here:
www.commonsnews.org/site/site05/story.php?articleno=27939&page=1
We’re running a short series on Sunday evenings in April, a sort of getting-acquainted / proof-of-concept / working-out-the-kinks thing. It’s going great. The layered and overlapping functions (the listening-event part, the audio and video parts, the downstream audience part, the low-overhead vibe of the whole shebang) are working together just right. Couldn’t be more pleased.
The first couple April Sundays were open stages: an all-comers, and the second one featured Writers + Poets + Music. (There’s one more open stage in the series on the 22nd. It was intended to feature Humanities + Science + Music, but it’s turning out to be mostly music. And that’s OK… this time. The 15-minute RSVP slots for that evening have filled up; walk-ups are welcome after the reserved slots go, depending on time and audience interest. We’ve had at least one cancellation and one no-show on the other nights, so if you want to perform it’s not necessarily a lost cause. But it’s not a sure bet either.)
This weekend, Stage 33 Live has a proper concert with River HALO and The Break Maids on Sunday evening, April 15, and there aren’t enough good things to say about them. River HALO, “a gal duo singing homespun freedom songs of the luminous kind,” are hard to pigeonhole: part mountain and part forest and all heart, kind of an outsider folk sound that gets inside you quick. And then The Break Maids with original rock n’ roll with a twist of folk punk – “straight off the hill and over the top,” dancing allowed! They were on hiatus for a while working on other projects, but now they’re back and as cool as ever.
www.facebook.com/events/1773927792904125/
Then it’s the month’s final open stage on the 22nd, and we wrap on the 29th with a multimedia premier of the newest episode of The Secret Life of Death, followed by audience Q&A. The Secret Life of Death is a project by Gail Golec; she chooses an interesting gravestone in one of the region’s historic cemeteries, and researches the life and times of that person. Really fascinating and well presented stuff about the events that helped shape today. Gail’s an anthropologist and archaeologist who collects animal skeletons, is a writer and media creator, and all-around good-humored smartypants.
www.thesecretlifeofdeath.com
Going forward, there are things bubbling but no specific plans yet. Best way to be in the loop is to sign up for the email newsletter at www.stage33live.com/newsletter/
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Stage 33 Live
33 Bridge Street
Bellows Falls, Vermont
stage33@stage33live.com
www.stage33live.com
ph/txt (802) 289-0148
