Leo 24° (August 16)

Provincetown’s Eight Annual AFTERGLOW FESTIVAL, September 11-15, Celebrates Its Grassiest Roots While Expanding Its Scope throughout New England and Beyond

Provincetown, MA August 2018: The 8th annual Afterglow Festival takes stage at the Art House, Provincetown, September 11-15, with a program of ten shows by artists working a wide spectrum of stage forms: John Jarboe & the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Martha Graham Cracker, Tammy Faye Starlite, Joey Arias, Dan Fishback, Carol Lipnik, Anne Stott, The Illustrious Blacks, Enid Ellen, Ruby Rose Fox, hosted by festival founders Starsky + Cox. Tickets are $30 per show; $240 for a full GLOW pass to all festival shows. And, new this year: Afterglow “Sparklers” who donate $100 receive not one but two half-price tickets to all shows.

Afterglow was founded in 2011 by Quinn Cox and John Cameron Mitchell (Tony-award-winning creator of Hedwig and The Angry Inch) to honor Provincetown’s birthright as the birthplace of the modern American stage and an incubator for new works, developing independent stage arts in Provincetown, providing it a shining star on the international festival map. Afterglow has presented upwards of seventy-five artists in its first seven years; premiering works that moved off-Broadway, like James Lecesne’s The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey, Drew Droege’s Bright Colors and Bold Patterns; and others like Mike Albo’s The Junket, Penny Arcade’s Longing Lasts Longer, Stella Starsky’s Birth of the American Baroness, Dane Terry’s Anytime Moe, Justin Vivian Bond’s Mx. America and new Hedwig material by John Cameron Mitchell; championing the careers of Bridget Everett, Cole Escola and Erin Markey.

Afterglow has always brought in homegrown artists—Zoe Lewis, Billy Hough, Darlene van Alstyne, Patrick Riviere and others—to perform with its headliners. And this year local heroine Anne Stott and Enid Ellen will perform their own solo shows; while Ruby Rose Fox joins the roster of Boston artists like Jonny Blazes and Brian King and Providence’s Sage Francis, who’ve performed in festival. Increasing audience traveling expressly to Provincetown for the festival is a main thrust of Afterglow’s mission. And Cox and Mitchell have, with top names in tow, performed shows in New York City and other cities, to entice audiences to the tip of Cape Cod. Afterglow has also partnered with charitable organizations Provincetown’s Helping Our Women (HOW),the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod (ASGCC), Camp Lightbulb and the national The Trevor Project.

This year also celebrates the fourth season at the American Repertory Theater, in Cambridge, of Cox’s curated Afterglow-at-Oberon (formerly Glowberon) series, which will run from October to May 2019 and feature Tori Scott, Taja Lindley, Dan Fishback, The Illustrious Blacks, The Bearded Ladies Cabaret and Sven Ratzke. Additionally, the Afterglow Festival has been awarded a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) to create tours for artists throughout the region and will take Brian King‘s Gravitational Fool on the road this year, with a showcase at Endicott College’s Manninen Arts Center, September 27. “Afterglow presents” one-night-only performances, too, this year, starting with Lady Rizo at the City Winery, Boston, October 2.

Under a similar, new auspice, GLOW, the tagline of which is A Moveable Festival, Cox plans to get tours up and running throughout the region, including all six New England states, by the Spring of 2019.

“I would like to create a sort of alternative neo-Vaudeville circuit, if I could, starting here, in New England, working with theaters and colleges and universities, and museums and arts centers, in towns and cities throughout the region, where our artists can travel with regularity, and find new, wider spread audiences.

“All the while mindful of Provincetown as our spiritual center where we incubate, premier and develop works by our artists, it only makes sense to help the seventy-five plus performers we’ve worked with connect with audience in more and more places, where they can display their artistry and present their works, stamped, as they ever shall be, with a virtual made-in-Provincetown brand.”

A century ago, Eugene O’Neill, Susan Glaspell and the Provincetown Players began producing plays in Provincetown, eventually erecting their Playhouse in Greenwich Village where Afterglow’s core artists perform—namely, at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater. As a producing entity, Afterglow stages shows there and at Oberon/American Repertory Theater with proceeds supporting the festival. Besides New York, artists hail from Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Australia the U.K. and the Netherlands. “Once synonymous with painting and theater, P-town remains a fine-arts colony, but it lost the plot with its stage heritage,” says Cox, who under the auspice of the Glow Theatre, will create a playwrights initiative with Pulitzer prize-winning playwrights Tony Kushner and Doug Wright in advisory roles.

Raising money to travel, house and pay artists’, promotional and other fees, Cox and Mitchell and artistic board—Eileen Myles, Penny Arcade, Justin Vivian Bond, Stella Starsky, Taylor Mac, Jill Pangallo, Michael Cunningham, Matt Ray, John Kelly, James Lecesne, John Dowd and Daniel Minahan and Mitchell—actively garner awareness. As the festival grows, so too does support from residents and businesses. Afterglow has received support from The Diller von Furstenberg Family Foundation and Salt Hotels. Keeping Provincetown’s stage legacy alive is a cause that travels well, too, as evidenced by past sponsorships from figures like television producers Alan Poul and World of Wonder author J.K. Rowling and president of DC Comics, Diane Nelson.

Afterglow Festival     September 11-15 2018       Art House, Provincetown  214 Commercial Street     www.afterglowfestival.org

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