Michael Benson Photo
Annie DiMartino (far right) works with students in Long Wharf Theatre’s Urban-Suburban project
At Long Wharf Theatre, “artists of the future” are “creating a production for our audiences of the future,” Annie DiMartino, the organization’s director of education, said Thursday. Residents of Long Wharf’s Next Stage program will present Mac Wellman’s rock musical (with a score by Michael Roth) tigertigertiger April 7 – 9.
The above-mentioned Next Stage residents “are their own company within Long Wharf Theatre,” DiMartino said. Eight residents, recent college graduates looking for a stepping stone to the professional world, are working in their chosen fields as they prepare to stage tigertigertiger. Maryna Harrison, who recently earned an MFA from Rutgers University, is directing the production alongside residents pursuing careers in set, costume, sound, and lighting design, dramaturgy, and technical direction. The Next Stage “company” is working with actors — including two high school students — who were cast after auditioning in November.
“This is a rock musical for young audiences,” DiMartino said, indicating that Long Wharf is marketing tigertigertiger to K‑through-eighth-grade audiences.
DiMartino, who administers Long Wharf’s Next Stage program and is serving as musical director for its production of tigertigertiger, said matinee performances on April 7 and April 8 are being offered free of charge to schools. Public performances, with a suggested donation of $5, are scheduled for April 9.
In addition to her involvement in the Next Stage production of tigertigertiger, DiMartino is working on educational projects with students at ACES Educational Center for the Arts and High School in the Community. She’s currently serving a yearlong residency in ECA’s music department, where she’s teaching a music-theater class, and a two-month residency at High School in the Community.
On May 13, students from ECA will perform an original work by DiMartino and Carol Taubl, a piano accompanist at the school. The work, a musical called Threads of a Spider Web (with a book by DiMartino and music by Taubl), uses poetry by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Edna St. Vincent Millay to connect the lives of 10 people.
A week later, on May 19, students from Deb Hare’s “Shakespeare Acted Out” class at High School in the Community will perform DiMartino’s MacBeat, an adaptation whose purpose is to bring out the rhythm of Shakespeare’s verse by way of a “cool, hip-hop, Stomp version of Macbeth,” DiMartino said.
Threads of a Spider Web will be performed at Long Wharf Theatre’s Stage II at 6:30 p.m. on May 13. Proceeds from a $5 suggested donation will be directed to ECA’s music department. A free 11 a.m. matinee performance of MacBeat (also at Long Wharf Theatre’s Stage II) will be presented on May 19 to students from High School in the Community. A public performance will be given at 6:30 p.m.