Here at Fig City, we focus on publicizing events occurring within the Newton community, but there’s more to tell about Newton’s impact on the arts. Here’s a quick list of some places where you can see the work of Newton artists outside our city limits in the coming days.
Alice Howe, a rising Americana music star who grew up in Newton, will sing in Needham on November 2, when the Alice Howe and Freebo Band will headline the Needham Bank Great Hall Concert Series. Howe was named Best Female Artist at the 2023 International Acoustic Music Awards, and Freebo toured and recorded with Bonnie Raitt for a decade. See video.
Steven Drukman‘s play, Pru Payne, is in now its East Coast premiere, presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Roberts Studio Theatre in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion (527 Tremont Street, Boston’s South End), October 18 – November 16. Drukman grew up in Newton, is an Associate Professor at NYU, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his play Another Fine Mess.
Pru Payne tells the story of Prudence “Pru” Payne, a sharp-tongued intellectual and critic who signed on to share her extraordinary life in an eagerly awaited memoir, but when her memory starts to fade, her son sets her up in a state-of-the-art care facility, where love takes hold just as the world she once knew begins to slip away.
The Newton-based nonprofit Commonwealth Lyric Theater will present the world premiere of Pinocchio: The Musical at the Emerson Colonial Theatre on November 14-17. The work’s composer and stage director is Newton resident Alexander Prokhorov-Tolstoy, founder and artistic director of the Commonwealth Lyric Theater and great-grandson of author Alexey N. Tolstoy, who created a Russian adaptation of the Italian fairy tale. Several in Prokhorov-Tolstoy’s family are involved in this production, both on stage and behind the scenes. See introductory video.