Tonight and again on June 27th, the 2010 BarPlays Festival will take place at the Trinity Brewhouse.

7pm, Sunday, Trinity Brewhouse, 186 Fountain Street

Three pieces also on the schedule right around the corner at AS220.

7pm, Sunday, AS220, 115 Empire Street

Perfect weather for Nick-A-Nee’s, with or without the plays. Head over tonight for more about Belly Buttons, How to Become a Lesbian in Ten Days of Less, and Improv. More info at 2010 BarPlays Festival.

7pm, Saturday, Nick-A-Nee’s, 75 South Street

“Don’t choose between a night at the theater and a night at the bar.” This is the mandate from the 2010 BarPlays Festival. On the schedule for tonight are two pieces — Belly Buttons and Tipping. Some last minute changes may be possible, but that sounds interesting. To say that the E & O is an intimate venue would be putting it mildly. This should be good.(The E & O Tap is the venue next Friday, June 25th as well.)

Free, 7pm, Friday, E & O Tap, 289 Knight Street

My best guess is that when Babe’s became Abe’s, this is what happened to the ‘B’. I like it a lot. BarPlays is located at Abe’s tonight, and next Thursday, June 24th. BarPlays calendar here. (20% off United BBQ deliveries here. Pulled pork, yum.)

Free, 7pm start, Thursday, Abe’s, 302 Wickenden Street

Everyman Bistro is the BarPlays venue tonight, and next Wednesday the 23rd. On tap tonight (but subject to change) are works by Bill McDonnell, Charlotte Meehan, a special visit from Rory Raven, and something called Gorilla Punch improvisationalism. The first night has been reviewed by Channing Gray in ProJo.

7pm to 8:30pm, free admission (hat is passed after show), Everyman Bistro, 555 Valley Street, 751.3630

Tonight, and again next Tuesday on June 22nd, the BarPlays Festival will be held at the Fez. Tonight’s writers are David Eliet, Adara Meyers and Bit Players. [I have edited this list for accuracy. Thank you commenter.]

Adara Meyers’ “Omen Experts” was written for the Red Fez on Peck Street, and is designed to take advantage of the space, which, by the way, won’t have a stage.

More at ProJo.

Free, 7pm to 8:30pm, Tuesday, the Red Fez, 49 Peck Street

I know more about bars than plays, although I have been known to perform the occasional totally unscripted ’scene’ — reviews were mixed. This is not what David Higgins of the Words Progress Administration has in mind. The WPA will be performing original short pieces in bars around town over the next two weeks starting Monday June 14. Speaking to The Providence Journal Higgins reassures us,

. . .this won’t be a case of “guerilla theatre,” where unsuspecting folks are assaulted by actors. A host each night will explain what’s going on for those caught unawares.

THANK YOU. The locations are: Abe’s, the E & O, Everyman, Nick-A-Nees. the Red Fez, Trinity Brewhouse, the Wild Colonial, and AS220. All the plays take place in bars — actors may be seated at the bar and might even be the person behind the bar. The performances are timed for earlier in the evening, thus not interfering or competing with the later, more boisterous drinky-type crowd.

Mondays (June 14 and 21st), 7pm to 8:30pm-ish, AS220, 115 Empire Street

For more info go to BarPlays. (Complete schedule for next two weeks.)

Good news from RI Citizens for the Arts: state-wide funding for the arts/creative sector was restored to the 2011 budget by the House Finance Committee last night.  According to RICFA’s press release, the budget has the support of the Senate Finance Committee as well, although the full General Assembly still needs to approve the budget in the next few weeks.

While thanking House and Senate fiscal leaders for restoring arts and creative funding in a tough environment, RICFA notes that the Committee’s proposed budget fully restores the 1% for the public art program, the film tax credit, and $700,000 in grant funds through RI State Council on the Arts ($600,000 for discretionary grants and $100,000 for a Waterfire and RI Philharmonic collaboration this summer).  So, yay.

Come support and participate in a youth-planned, cross-organizational arts day:

“Roots & Rituals: A Creative Day for Creative People.”

Young people from the Providence Youth Arts Collaborative (AS220 Broad Street Studios, Community MusicWorks, the Carriage House, New Urban Arts, and Providence ¡CityArts! for Youth) have joined forces to organize the first-ever youth arts day on the theme of Roots & Rituals at AS220, generously sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts!

Join us for this free collaborative arts and media day where you can make cool stuff, learn about local youth arts organizations, and see expressive performances. Don’t leave your personality at home, bring your SKILLZ, experience different art practices in workshops, or just hang out. There will be an open mic – show us what you got! Get ready for a day you won’t soon forget! You will have an awesome time! FREE FOOD!

Doors 11:30am, workshops noon to 2pm, performances 2pm to 5pm

Full schedule after the jump.

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‘1839!’ is the new photography exhibition being mounted by a group of talented students soon to graduate from Rhode Island College. The word ‘photograph’ was coined in 1839 and these artists — Leah Edelman Brier, Andrew Davis, Kayla Hood, Sam Kashuk, AnnMarie Nethercote, and Elena Scotti — vividly demonstrate the variety of forms and techniques that have evolved since then. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, May 8th with live music provided by the Universes, Dirty Hank and Reason, and Krang.

(This image: Me Teef by Elena Scotti — Photo etching with Chin Colle.)

1839! runs Sunday, May 2nd through May 16th, Firehouse 13, 41 Central Street

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Tonight, Wednesday, at 5:30pm, join a group of queer-thinking curators for a panel discussion at Perishable Theater called Into The Void: Nurturing a Queer Canon.  It’s moderated by occasional Dose contributor Micah Salkind and features Elmo Terry-Morgan, producer of The Black Lavender Experience at Brown; Noah Anacleto and Sarah Kern, the forces behind Paint It Pink; and, um, me.

It’s another humanities event tied in to Perishable’s production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch which, uh, I won’t be seeing until Thursday but which is supposed to be really good.  (NB: I am the worst blogger/panelist ever.)

The panel’s free and open to the public.

Into The Void: Nurturing A Queer Canon
Perishable Theater
95 Empire St
5:30-7pm
free

Please join us Friday, April 30th from 5pm to 7pm for a Salon at the Providence Athenaeum, 251 Benefit Street, co-presented by the AS220 Project Space: Fifteen Artist and Their Fluxus Book Project!

Providence-based artist Madolin Maxey gathered 15 artists to work in the Fluxus tradition to produce 16 unique books, each consisting of 15 envelope pages, with each envelope containing a work by one of the artists. That is, each book contains 15 works, one by each artist. Individual covers will be created and bound to the pages randomly. Each time a unique book is encountered, it can be viewed differently. In the spirit of Fluxus, a reader can explore the contents of an envelope page fully or partially, as in a state of continual change.

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“When The Words Fail Us: Art and Trans Identities”

To extend the conversation that started last weekend during previews of Perishable’s production of John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and The Angry Inch, Perishable, in partnership with Rhode Island Council For the Humanities, The Rhode Island Foundation’s Equity Action Fund and The New England Foundation for the Arts, is presenting two ‘Humanities Bridge’ panels.

The first of these two panels, “When The Words Fail Us: Art and Trans Identities” happens today, Wednesday April 21 at 5:30 pm in Perishable’s black box space on Empire Street. Below is text that gives some context for the conversation:

When identities are fluid, it makes sense that vocabularies used to describe them would be too. People in the trans community, as well as allies, don’t have great ways to track the changing conversation, but artists are often able to respond quickly to the changes, adapting their creative processes and performances to suit incredibly dynamic contexts. How are conversations about Trans issues shaped by the language we have to access them? How does art give us new language to access the conversation? This discussion will provide a forum for artists to offer first-person perspectives on shifting linguistic norms and the multiple meanings of their work.

Click here to go to the perishable home page where you can check out panelist bios as well as purchase tickets for the show.

Wednesday, 5:30pm, Perishable Theatre, 95 Empire Street, 331.2695

The Black Lavender Experience kicks off with a Brown Pride Month convocation performance by Mangos with Chili. Founded in 2006 by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms. Cherry Galette, Mangos with Chili is a touring cabaret of queer and trans people-of-color performance artists, offering unforgettable performance in celebration of their lives, stories, survival, and the legacies they are creating for future generations of queer and trans people-of-color. Their performance on Wednesday, April 7th at 9pm in the George Houston Bass Performing Arts Space precedes a weekend of staged readings and conversations inspired by the work of Isissa Komada-John ‘10, Andre Thompson ‘05, Ione Lloyd and E. Patrick Johnson. Click HERE for the full schedule.

Starting this weekend the Sock and Buskin theater group and TAPS kick off a series of events in conjunction with its production of The Cook written by Eduardo Machado and directed by Kym Moore.

The play runs Thursday, April 8th through the 11th, and again from the 15th through the 18th; shows start Thursday through Saturday at 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm. On April 9th, immediately following that night’s performance of The Cook, director Kym Moore, dramaturge Patricia Ybarra, and Brown Professor of Comparative Literature Esther Whitfield will speak to the audience, answering questions and discussing the show. On April 10th, Ashamu Dance Studio, writer, actress, and performance artist Carmelita Tropicana will present her show Cabaret a la Cubana.

Full poster of events after the jump.  Tickets are only $7 for students, group discounts are available.  Contact the box office at 863.2838, or boxoffice@brown.edu. More info at TAPS.

Play run begins Thursday, Leeds Theatre, Lyman Hall, Brown Campus off Waterman Street

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Tickets are now on sale for the Perishable Theatre production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Performances will run from April 16 through May 9. Written by John Cameron Mitchell with composer Stephen Trask, Hedwig is . . .

. . . a boisterous, exuberant story of failed and redeemed love. This is a story of a boy in East Berlin, who fell hopelessly in love with an American G.I. and underwent a sex-change operation in order to marry him and flee to the west. A plan that went horribly awry.

This cast includes local actor Alexander Platt as Hedwig with Liz Gotauco as ‘her’ sidekick Yitzhak. Hedwig’s band The Angry Inch appears on the stage the entire performance, led by David Tessier and featuring local musicians Brandon Capaldo, David Rabinow and Paul “Zeus” Souza.

Perishable Theatre, 95 Empire Street, 621.6123, $20 - $10, Group rates available, Art Tix