FREE

Kick off Season Twelve at our Opening Party at Buoy Bar at the Boatslip, Thursday, May 11 from 4-6 pm! Come by to learn about who's coming to Twenty Summers this spring, and enjoy appetizers, and drinks. Space is limited, RSVP early!

6pm doors | 7pm show

$45

Lonely Parrots is a brand new Folk-Pop duo based in the San Francisco Bay Area. One half Michael Martinez, one half Max Embers, their music combines catchy melodies with honest, uplifting lyrics about love, loss, growth and self-discovery. The two singer-songwriters, who have each had successful solo careers including appearances on NBC’s Songland and American Idol originally met at the renowned Berklee College of Music, where they studied under music industry legends such as Kara DioGuardi and Paula Cole. Notable collaborations include the likes of Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Ryan Tedder, Naika & John Oates (to name a few). While gearing up to the release of their first project, Max and Michael have also launched their initiative MORF (Music On Regenerative Farms) with the mission to bring live music to sustainable farms, raising awareness about the regenerative movement and celebrating environmental projects through the joyful experience of live music. Find them on Instagram or TikTok @lonelyparrotsmusic!

6pm doors | 7pm show

$20 Suggested Donation

Cody Plays is an experiment in creating a play in a matter of a few days with a rotating group of special guests and collaborators created by writer/performer Cody Sullivan. Where is the show taking place this week? What is happening in the world that day? Who can we beg to take a role? The answers to these questions are the frantic, immediate, ephemeral ingredients that Cody uses to facilitate the group creation of each Cody Plays. Cody started the show in Provincetown at The Gifford House, in June 2023. He continues to play in Provincetown and Boston.

“The results are outrageous and boisterous and harken back to Provincetown’s devil-may-care days.” – Chris Muller, The Boston Globe.

Cody Sullivan is a writer and performer based in Provincetown, MA. He began his studies in performance art in Boston at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and his practice of improvisation at Improv Boston. In 2014 Cody moved to Chicago to study at the iO Theater, where he became a house performer from 2015-2019. Cody currently performs solo theater and improvisation, as well as writing/directing his show Cody Plays, in which he selects a different collaborator to co-write, direct, and perform in a play over the span of a few days.

$20 Suggested Donation

Field Trip will meet at Center for Coastal Studies Kiosk at MacMillan Pier

Join Mark Adams in using art, science and personal stories to explore visions of the sea coast in the face of coastal change, and the vulnerability of public space.

Provincetown makes a great case study of how dynamic coastlines evolve as the forces of tides and storms interact with the financial risk to its historical and cultural fabric. Participants of this field trip will walk and examine the town’s harbor front and train an artist’s eye on how public space occurs, using sketching, description, data and measurement.

A followup Ecosystems & Imagination Workshop on Sunday, May 25 will bring our field observations into Stanley, Twenty Summers’ 494 Commercial Street space, where we can share how nature’s space has molded our autobiographies. The participants will be asked to contribute selected personal stories about coastal life, it’s daily routines and extraordinary events.

Participants in the initial field trip will be asked to bring a personal sketchbook, explore some basic drawing and writing methods and use their own environmental experiences to gather data for a communal map of the harbor coast. Adams will provide base maps of public lands, flood zones and tide lands and explain some of the history of our coastal footprint on Cape Cod.

Though participation in both the Field Trip and Workshop are highly encouraged, it is not a requirement. We would love for you to join either or all portions of our Ecosystems & Imagination series.

“Coastal space is made of ecosystems overlain with our cultural presence. We can inhabit that space responsively by understanding its boundaries as it changes under forces of ocean and atmosphere, storms, tides and the dynamics of land. The places we make and return to are never fixed. They need room to change but we prefer not to surrender our vital experiences that attracted us to the water’s edge. Together we will map the extent of the tidal coast, its ecological habitats, its cultural boundaries and the experiences that are crucial to our lives.

A good coastal map has five dimensions: the physical features of rock, plants and sand, its natural inhabitants both transient and resident, the built environment of structures, docks and seawalls, its cycles of change over time (daily, seasonally and decadal), and our stories and experiences. We will bring our data and expertise to add to a base map of habitats and ownership. You bring your stories and experiences as told through beach fires, fishing, dog walks, storm shelter and the art that it inspires. We hope to blend all these contributions into a hybrid that will reveal our intuitions and bring a more nuanced awareness of coastal places.”
–Mark Adams

6pm doors | 7pm show

$45

Sabrina Song’s music captures the weary heart of young adulthood—with all its heartbreak and bursts of hope in between. The Brooklyn-based singer, songwriter, and producer emerged as a rising star with her early trilogy of EPs—2019’s Undone, 2020’s How’s It Going to End?, and 2022’s When It All Comes Crashing Down—which saw her unpacking growing pains with plainspoken vulnerability. In 2023, she broke out with her 2022 single “Strawberry,” which captivated a newfound online audience with its delicate, emotionally stirring sound. Now, the 24-year-old artist is poised to become a new force in introspective indie rock with her debut album, You Could Stay In One Spot, and I'd Love You The Same, out now. 

On You Could Stay In One Spot, Song parses through the existential thoughts and murky relationship dynamics that arise in ones’ early 20s and crystallizes the pure, timeless emotions at the core of all the turmoil. “This album touches on the things that I’m constantly thinking about but not always expressing,” Song says. “I’m grappling with the oppressive feeling of time slipping away, the experience of womanhood, and trying to find balance as I fully become an adult.” She exhibits a wisdom beyond her years as she writes of letting go of people-pleasing tendencies, the rage of being looked down upon, and the magic of surrendering into love—despite self-sabotage and doubt.

Born and raised on Long Island, New York, Song began taking piano and violin lessons while participating in community theater productions at a young age. As she honed her songwriting as a teen, she was drawn to singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Mitski for their deeply personal and narrative-driven lyricism. With their influence, her songs capture universe experiences, while still tapping into a specifically Gen-Z ethos. As her work tracks the process of her abandoning her perfectionist and realist mindset, Song faces these messy coming-of-age feelings to find herself anew on the other side. “My projects are something I feel I can put on a shelf, and have it be timeless,” she concludes.

$20 Suggested Donation

Author Omo Moses sits down with esteemed Ptownie Don Collins to discuss his recent release, The White Peril: A Family Memoir.

From the son of legendary civil rights organizer Robert P. Moses: a brilliant, unflinching memoir about becoming Black in America that interweaves voices from 3 generations of the Moses family.

In The White Peril, Omo Moses deftly interweaves his own life story with excerpts from both his great-grandfather’s sermons and the writings of his father, the civil rights activist Bob Moses. The result is a powerful chorus of voices that spans 3 generations of an African American family, all shining a light on the Black experience, all calling fiercely for racial justice.

Omo was born in 1972 in Tanzania, where his parents had fled to escape targeted harassment by the US government. He did not encounter white supremacy until the family moved back to America when he was 4. Here he learned what it meant to be Black. He came of age in a Black enclave of Cambridge, Massachusetts, became a passionate basketball player, lived in the shadow of his father’s Civil Rights work but did not feel like a part of it until his college basketball career came to an unceremonious end. Unsure what to do next, he took up his father’s offer to go with him to Mississippi and teach math to Algebra Project students. Omo didn’t know it yet, but it was among those young people that he would find his purpose.

This book is at once a coming-of-age story, a multigenerational family memoir, an epic father-son road trip, a searing account of the Black male experience, and a work that powerfully revives Rev. Moses’s demand for liberation.

Omo Moses is an entrepreneur, author, producer, and organizer. He is currently the founder and chief executive of MathTalk, a public benefit, ed-tech company based in Cambridge, MA . He is the former Executive Director and a founding member of the Young People’s Project; producer of the award-winning documentary, Finding Our Folk, which features the Grammy-nominated Hot 8 Brass Band; and author of two books, Sometimes We Do (2019) and The White Peril (2025). He is the father of Johari and Kamara Moses.

Don Collins owns the John Randall House B&B and serves as a Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum Trustee since 2022. Born in Washington, DC., Don spent much of his childhood overseas. He has a Master’s degree in Higher Education and Don worked at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania before working at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) where he became the Development Director of Student Affairs and Head Cheerleading coach. Don first made his way to Provincetown in 2010. He has now been running the John Randall House for thirteen years.

“You don’t know where change is going to take you. But you know that if you’re part of it, you can help direct that change.” –Don Collins

$20 Suggested Donation

Join Mark Adams in using art, science and personal stories to explore visions of the sea coast in the face of coastal change, and the vulnerability of public space.

Provincetown makes a great case study of how dynamic coastlines evolve as the forces of tides and storms interact with the financial risk to its historical and cultural fabric. This workshop is the followup to Ecosystems & Imagination Field Trip, where participants will bring their field observations into the Stanley, Twenty Summers’ 494 Commercial Street space, to share how nature has molded our autobiographies. The participants will be asked to contribute selected personal stories about coastal life, it’s daily routines and extraordinary events.

Though participation in both the Field Trip and Workshop are highly encouraged, it is not a requirement. We would love for you to join either or all portions of our Ecosystems & Imagination series.

“Coastal space is made of ecosystems overlain with our cultural presence. We can inhabit that space responsively by understanding its boundaries as it changes under forces of ocean and atmosphere, storms, tides and the dynamics of land. The places we make and return to are never fixed. They need room to change but we prefer not to surrender our vital experiences that attracted us to the water’s edge. Together we will map the extent of the tidal coast, its ecological habitats, its cultural boundaries and the experiences that are crucial to our lives.

A good coastal map has five dimensions: the physical features of rock, plants and sand, its natural inhabitants both transient and resident, the built environment of structures, docks and seawalls, its cycles of change over time (daily, seasonally and decadal), and our stories and experiences. We will bring our data and expertise to add to a base map of habitats and ownership. You bring your stories and experiences as told through beach fires, fishing, dog walks, storm shelter and the art that it inspires. We hope to blend all these contributions into a hybrid that will reveal our intuitions and bring a more nuanced awareness of coastal places.”
–Mark Adams

$20 Suggested Donation

In a panel discussion moderated by National Book Award–winning author and Marine veteran Phil Klay, distinguished conflict journalists and photographers Victor J. Blue, Ashley Gilbertson, and Danielle Paquette will discuss their work in conflict zones on several continents over the past couple of decades. How has their work changed? How has it changed them? And as we move into a chaotic time both in the news industry and in foreign relations, where old assumptions about the international order are quickly being upended, what are unique challenges of covering wars now? And what insights can long-time war correspondents offer as we look out into an uncertain future?

Phil Klay is an author, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, and a professor at Fairfield University. His short story collection Redeployment won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction, and his novel Missionaries was listed by former President Barack Obama as one of the best books of 2020. He also regularly writes essays on politics, culture, and American military policy for publications such as the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the Washington Post.

Ashley Gilbertson is an Australian photographer and writer living in New York City recognized for his critical eye and unique approach to social issues. He is a frequent contributor to major media outlets and a collaborator with the United Nations. For over twenty years, Gilbertson’s work focused on refugees and conflict, an interest that in 2002, led him to Iraq. His work from that country was awarded the Robert Capa Gold Medal, and in 2007, Gilbertson’s first book, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, was released, going on to become a best seller. Today, Gilbertson documents global migration in Africa and Europe, and works on climate, social and health issues in the United States and Asia. He writes regular opinion and news stories for outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, ProPublica, and UNICEF. In 2014, a multimedia story on the militarization of the South China Sea earned him an Emmy nomination.

Victor J. Blue is a New York based photojournalist whose work is most often concerned with the legacy of armed conflict, human rights and the protection of civilian populations, and unequal outcomes resulting from policy and politics. He has worked in Central America since 2002, concentrating on social conflict in Guatemala, and since 2009 has photographed the Counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan. He has completed assignments in Syria, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Iraq, and India, and has documented news stories and social issues across the United States. He worked as a staff photographer at The Record in Stockton CA, and holds a Masters Degree in Visual Communication from Ohio University. He practices a deeply reported, character driven documentary photography that tries to both inform viewers intellectually and move them emotionally, and communicate something universal from the particular circumstances of individual lives and struggles. 

Danielle Paquette is a national correspondent for The Washington Post. She previously served as West Africa bureau chief and has reported from more than 20 countries on four continents. Paquette joined The Post in 2014, starting as a roving economics reporter. A native of Indiana, she has also worked for the Tampa Bay Times and the Los Angeles Times. She resides in the nation’s capital with her husband and dog.

$20 Suggested Donation

In this exhibition, multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and scholar, Thomas Allen Harris, pulls from his vast collection of 1980s black and white photography and 1990s diaristic video entries to demonstrate the ethos of the black queer renaissance of the late 20th century. 

He presents House of Haizlip—a curated selection of photographs from events programmed by his close friend and mentor, Ellis Haizlip, between 1986 and 1989 at the Schomburg Center for Research—and Tahj Diary (1990)—a video where Harris uses the camera as a therapist and discusses the end of his romantic relationship. Together, these works patchwork threads of black queer radical politics and forms of cultural expression including community development, imaginative performance, personal testimony, and self-documentation. They beckon the viewer to critically contemplate the disruptive power that these artistic and cultural strategies had for a generation grappling with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the individualistic ethos championed by Reagan’s neoliberalism, and the rise of the Moral Majority, which pathologized kinship formations outside of white, heterosexist family structures.

By bringing these archival records into the present, this exhibit plays with time itself. It returns to the past, offering its audience an opportunity to view Harris develop his eye as he moved from photography to video and film. It also invites the viewer to imagine a queerer future, a future filled with tender embraces, deep engagement, and alternative ways of being with each other. 

This exhibit corresponds to his subsequent workshop Queer Mentors: Storytelling Practice with Thomas Allen Harris. 

$20 Suggested Donation

What can a jellyfish teach us about memory? A mycelial network about connection? A migratory bird about returning to oneself?

In this generative writing workshop, Willow Defebaugh, Editor-in-Chief of Atmos and author of The Overview, will guide participants in her signature method of ecological reflection: beginning with a species, and uncovering what wisdom it holds for the human world. Participants will be invited to explore their own stories of kinship with the more-than-human—whether with an animal, plant, mineral, or ecosystem—and to translate those connections into short pieces of prose or poetic nonfiction. The session will begin with a short reading from The Overview, followed by a guided meditation, a creative prompt, and space to write and share. Open to all levels of writing experience, this is an opportunity to deepen your practice by expanding the circle of who you write with—and for.

Willow Defebaugh is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Atmos Magazine, an award-winning climate and culture media platform that tells stories about the environment through a lens of creativity. She is the author of The Overview, a deep ecology newsletter and book. She is a lifelong student of nature and graduated with a degree in creative writing from the University of Michigan. Her work has been featured in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Teen Vogue, V Magazine, Interview, i-D, BBC, The Guardian, them, New York Magazine, and more. She lives in Brooklyn on unceded Lenape territory.

6pm doors | 7pm show

$45

The Portland, OR based band Glitterfox has released five singles in just six months under their new record label Kill Rock Stars, with two more arriving this Spring. The band’s been growing steadily since “Drive” came out in August 2023, with their indie rock recipe that deftly balances Southern songwriting shine and nostalgia-fueled anthems. The four-piece band’s songwriters and front persons, married couple Solange Igoa and Andrea Walker, have always channeled their personal struggles as well as experiences as queer, neurodiverse individuals into their songwriting. Bassist Eric Stalker and drummer Blaine Heinonen bring a love of Americana, grunge, and dance music into the mix. All of these influences can be heard on the band’s latest singles, produced by Chris Funk of The Decemberists, and in their spirited live shows as they prepare for their full-length album debut in 2025.

$20 Suggested Donation

This workshop, led by Thomas Allen Harris, provides a unique space for attendees to share stories about the queer ancestors—mentors, friends, family members, and/or lovers—who have shaped their lives. Drawing inspiration from Harris’ interest in the archive’s ability to excavate and activate memories, this workshop aims to steward and safekeep queer histories that are currently under attack and may not have institutional support. We will use Harris’ unique community photo-sharing methodology, which is derived from and will expand on his work in his nonprofit, Family Pictures Institute for Inclusive Storytelling, and his PBS show, Family Pictures USA. Attendees will surface Provincetown’s queer presence and create a queer ecology that spans space, time, and difference while gaining valuable insight into the role that the family photograph and storytelling have in producing collective understandings of our shared experiences. 

This is an informal, inclusive, and supportive workshop that does not expect participants to have fully polished stories or storytelling skills. We ask participants to bring personal photographs that help contextualize their stories. A videographer will record the session.

6pm Doors | 7pm Show

$20 Suggested Donation

DETAILS COMING SOON

Sam Morrison is an LA-based writer, actor, and comedian. Hailing from Florida, Sam found his home performing his unique brand of high-energy humor and storytelling at NYC’s premier comedy clubs. Since then he has emerged into the writing scene with a Broadway run on the horizon. In 2023 he made his television debut on Late Night With Seth Meyers and since has been named a Just For Laughs New Face, performed on Comedy Central Featuring and The Drew Barrymore Show, and appeared on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen, Howard Stern, and Tamron Hall.

His first two solo shows were critically acclaimed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and his third show Sugar Daddy, extended Off-Broadway four times and was hailed as “The best new show in New York” by The Daily Beast. Presented by Billy Porter and Alan Cumming, Sugar Daddy is now in development for Broadway. He has performed in the New York Comedy Festival five times, being selected for Best of New Talent in 2019 and headlining in 2024. He has also performed in the Netflix is a Joke Festival, was a Finalist in the Stand Up NBC nationwide search, and a staff writer and voice over actor on S1 of Bravo's Blind Date hosted by Nikki Glaser. He is a 2025 Yes, And Laughter Lab Fellow, he hosts his own Youtube series where he takes comedians thrifting, and co-hosts the show ROOMIES with Dylan Adler in Los Angeles.

$20 Suggested Donation

Join Margarida for an artist talk to introduce her larger New World project, showing the different series and the connection with the Azores Islands.  Including some new images from her residency. she will be dissecting and intertwining the communities of the Azores and Provincetown. Learn about Margarida’s process, and some of the characters she’s come across in her work.

Margarida Correia is a Portuguese artist focused on photography and storytelling. Correia uses her work to delve into the historical and personal significance of locations embraced by Portuguese communities. She lives and works in Lisbon. She received an MFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York. 

Correia had solo shows at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, the AIR Gallery in New York, at Real Art Ways in Hartford, the Texas Woman’s University in Denton (USA), the EDP Foundation, the Museum of São Roque, Gallery Monumental, Gallery 111, in Lisbon and the Museum D. Diogo Sousa in Braga. 

$20 Suggested Donation

We invite you to a conversation that bridges architecture, marine life, and the industrial heritage of Cape Cod, while highlighting the important historical connections between Portugal and the Cape. This event will feature André Tavares, Professor of Architecture at the University of Porto, whose book, Architecture Follows Fish: An Amphibious History of the North Atlantic [MIT University Press, 2024], explores how fishing practices an marine life have shaped coastal architecture and landscapes. Supported by a European Union grant, Tavares’s work shows how fishing industries created the harbors, processing facilities and infrastructure that defined communities like Provincetown and Truro. His research delve into the “architecture of fish houses and drying racks that once punctuated the landscape, showcasing how the region’s fishing practices left an indelible mark on its built environment and ecological systems.

The discussion will be enriched by the participation of Scott Landry, Christy Anderson, and Morgan O’Hara. Together, they’ll delve into topics like the design of fish houses and harbor facilities on Cape Cod, the role of architecture in sustaining fish communities, and the ecological challenges of balancing tradition with sustainability.

André Tavares, born in 1976, is an architect and runs Dafne Editora, a small architectural publishing house in Porto. He writes regularly and is the author of several books on the relation between architectural culture and the public sphere. He often addresses the international circulation of knowledge among Portuguese-speaking architects.

Christy Anderson studies and teaches the history of architecture. While most of her work focuses on the buildings of early modern Europe, her projects extend broadly across oceans and into contemporary design. A full-time member of the Department of Art History at the University of Toronto, and a member of the faculty at Daniels, she enjoys teaching both non-specialist undergraduates and students in the professional programs. Her most recent project is a study of the ship as an architectural type, which explores the spaces and environments that connect the sea to the shore. Ships facilitated global exchange and moved goods, people, and the natural world from port to port. The environment of the sea, the technology of design, the movement of commodities, and the shaping of cities all centre on the ship as mobile architecture. In 2010, Christy was named a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in the field of architecture, planning and design. She received her PhD from MIT in the School of Architecture, and was a senior research fellow at Worcester College, Oxford University.

Scott Landry worked as a naturalist in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and particularly within the Gulf of Maine for many years before joining the CCS Whale Disentanglement Team more than 20 years ago. In addition to being a First Responder for the team, Scott conducts research on the problem of entanglement. Scott holds a B.A. degree in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts and a Graduate Certificate in Science Illustration from the University of California-Santa Cruz.

Morgan O’Hara is a cultural historian of the built environment. She has worked at MASS Design Group since 2018, where she supports the Public Memory and Memorials Lab through research, engagement, and interpretation. Her backgrounds in cultural anthropology, public history, and collaborative design have informed her approach to socio-spatial research to develop human-centered histories of built spaces and infrastructure. For the Fringe Cities project, Morgan conducted longitudinal analyses of small cities in the United States that participated in mid-century urban renewal, and while at the Hudson Valley Office, she was embedded in the public engagement work necessary to craft meaningful community design solutions in Poughkeepsie. Her passion lies in elevating creative and community-driven expressions of lesser-known histories in public space. Morgan studied anthropology at Reed College, graduated from Columbia with a Masters in Historic Preservation, and intermittently co-teaches Studio II in Historic Preservation at Columbia GSAPP.

$175

We are hosting three days of art-making in the Hawthorne Barn with our friends from PAAM. Following a brief lecture on the legacy of Charles Hawthorne in Provincetown, teacher John Clayton will give a painting demonstration and supervise a full day of painting in the Barn. Coffee and lunch will be provided.

The class is open to all levels of experience, but please bring your own supplies. We will provide easels and stools. If the event sells out, we will maintain a waitlist on a first-come, first-served basis.

Materials List

$175

We are hosting three days of art-making in the Hawthorne Barn with our friends from PAAM. Following a brief lecture on the legacy of Charles Hawthorne in Provincetown, teacher John Clayton will give a painting demonstration and supervise a full day of painting in the Barn. Coffee and lunch will be provided.

The class is open to all levels of experience, but please bring your own supplies. We will provide easels and stools. If the event sells out, we will maintain a waitlist on a first-come, first-served basis.

Materials List

$175

We are hosting three days of art-making in the Hawthorne Barn with our friends from PAAM. Following a brief lecture on the legacy of Charles Hawthorne in Provincetown, teacher John Clayton will give a painting demonstration and supervise a full day of painting in the Barn. Coffee and lunch will be provided.

The class is open to all levels of experience, but please bring your own supplies. We will provide easels and stools. If the event sells out, we will maintain a waitlist on a first-come, first-served basis.

Materials List

FREE

Twenty Summers is thrilled to partner with Site-Specific Dances to host a free movement workshop at the Hawthorne Barn.

No prior dance experience is required - just an openness to move, share, and connect!

Site-Specific Dances, a performance company focused on environmental and community-based projects, invites you to be a part of Erosions, a community-based intergenerational dance and oral histories project exploring Provincetown’s LGBTQ+ history, environmental challenges, and collective memory through movement and conversation. The project interweaves dance, interviews, and original music to reflect on the presence of two types of erosions in Ptown :

● Cultural & Historical Erosion: How do we preserve LGBTQ+ history as generations pass? How can we bridge generational divides in queer storytelling and activism?

● Environmental Erosion: How is Provincetown’s natural landscape changing due to climate change? What does this mean for the future of the Cape Cod National Seashore? How do past and present views on environmentalism, Indigenous knowledge systems and western science, connect to address the crisis ?

Participants will have the opportunity to take part in movement workshops, interviews, and performances that activate Provincetown’s urban and natural landscapes, such as the Breakwater, Bas Relief Park, Hatches Harbor, and Race Point Beach to name a few.

Interviews: March through June 2025

Workshops: April - June 2025

Site-Specific Live Performances: June 20 & 21, 2025

***Workshop participants are encouraged, but not required, to participate in June 20, 21 & 22 live performances. ***

If you’re interested in joining as a performance participant, interviewee, or both, email info@sitespecificdances.com.

$20 Suggested Donation

20S x East End Books Ptown presents the celebrated novelist and memoirist Paul Lisicky joins performing artist John Kelly at the Hawthorne Barn, the pair will dive into Lisicky’s new work, Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell with a very special surprise at the end, NOT to be missed.

From the moment Paul Lisicky heard Joni Mitchell while growing up in New Jersey, he recognized she was that rarity among musicians—a talent whose combination of introspection, liberation, and deep musicality set her apart from any other artist of the time. As a young man, Paul was a budding songwriter who took his cues from Mitchell’s mysteries and idiosyncrasies. But as he matured, he set his guitar aside and turned to prose, a practice that would eventually take him to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and into the professional world of letters.

As the decades passed, Paul’s connection to Mitchell’s artistry only deepened. Joni’s music was a constant, a guide to life and an artist’s manual in one. As Paul navigated love and heartbreak and imaginative struggles and the vicissitudes of a creative career, he would return again and again to the lessons found in Joni’s songs, to the solace and challenges that only her musicianship could give.

Song So Wild and Blue is a gorgeously written, beautifully intimate, and unique tribute to the woman who shaped generations of creators and thinkers. Lisicky offers his own coming-of-adulthood as testimony to the power of songwriting and staying true to your creative vision. A guide to life that is part memoir, part biography, and part homage, Song So Wild and Blue is a joy for devoted Joni enthusiasts, budding writers, and artists of all stripes.

Paul Lisicky is the author of seven books including Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, Later: My Life at the Edge of the World (one of NPR's Best Books of 2020), as well as The Narrow Door (a New York Times Editors' Choice and a Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award), Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, The Cut, Fence, The New York Times, Ploughshares, Tin House, and in many other magazines and anthologies. His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Rose Dorothea Award from the Provincetown Library. He has taught in the creative writing programs at Antioch University Los Angeles, Cornell University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, The University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere. He is currently a Professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Camden, where he is Editor of StoryQuarterly. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. 

John Kelly is an award-winning performance and visual artist. His performance works dramatize the lives of characters – whether actual or fictional – revealing their challenges, foibles, and humanity: sometimes autobiographical – other times inspired by the realities of cultural outsiders, and the hurdles and political realities they navigate.  His latest dance theatre work Underneath The Skin (based on the life of the 20th century gay novelist and tattoo artist Samuel Steward) was commissioned by the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, and had a subsequent run at La MaMa. In 2024 he was a Baryshnikov Arts Fellow. He recently completed his first graphic memoir, A Friend Gave Me A Book, based on a near catastrophic trapeze accident.

$20 Suggested Donation

Join author Michael Koresky in conversation with Aaron Hicklin at the Hawthorne Barn to discuss Koresky’s Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness. A blazingly original history celebrating the persistence of queerness onscreen, behind the camera, and between the lines during the dark days of the Hollywood Production Code.

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the Motion Picture Production Code severely restricted what Hollywood cinema could depict. This included “any inference” of the lives of homosexuals. In a landmark 1981 book, gay activist Vito Russo famously condemned Hollywood’s censorship regime, lambasting many midcentury films as the bigoted products of a “celluloid closet.”

But there is more to these movies than meets the eye. In this insightful, wildly entertaining book, cinema historian Michael Koresky finds new meaning in “problematic” classics of the Code era like Hitchcock’s Rope, Minnelli’s Tea and Sympathy, and—bookending the period and anchoring Koresky’s narrative—William Wyler’s two adaptations of The Children’s Hour, Lillian Hellman’s provocative hit play about a pair of schoolteachers accused of lesbianism.

Lifting up the underappreciated queer filmmakers, writers, and actors of the era, Koresky finds artists who are long overdue for reevaluation. Through his brilliant inquiry, Sick and Dirty reveals the “bad seeds” of queer cinema to be surprisingly, even gleefully subversive, reminding us, in an age of book bans and gag laws, that nothing makes queerness speak louder than its opponents’ bids to silence it.

Michael Koresky is Editorial Director at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image and a member of the National Society of Film Critics. Previously he held editorial positions at Film at Lincoln Center and the Criterion Collection, where he continues to host and curate the Criterion Channel series Queersighted. He has taught at NYU and The New School; cofounded MoMI’s online film criticism publication Reverse Shot; and has written for Film Comment, Sight & Sound, the Village Voice, Film Quarterly, and other publications. He is the author of Films of Endearment and a monograph on the British director Terence Davies.

Aaron Hicklin has been editor of three magazines in the U.S.: BlackBook (2003-2006), Out (2006-2018), and Document Journal. He is the author of Boy Soldiers and The Revolution Will Be Accessorized (Harper Collins) a collection of writing that appeared in BlackBook. He has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. In 2015 he opened One Grand Books, a bookstore curated by celebrated bibliophiles, in Narrowsburg, NY; in 2015, he founded Deep Water Literary Fest in 2018, held each June in Narrowsburg.

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Australian-born Geraldine Brooks is an author and journalist who grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney, attending Bethlehem College Ashfield and the University of Sydney. She worked as a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald for three years as a feature writer with a special interest in environmental issues.

In 1982 she won the Greg Shackleton Australian News Correspondents scholarship to the journalism master’s program at Columbia University in New York City. Later she worked forThe Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. In 1990, with her husband Tony Horwitz, she won the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of the Gulf War. The following year they received a citation for excellence for their series, “War and Peace.”  In 2006 she was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University. She returned to Harvard as a Visiting Lecturer in 2021.

She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for her novel March. Her novels People of the Book, Caleb’s Crossing, The Secret Chord and Horse all were New York Times Bestsellers. Her first novel, Year of Wonders is an an international bestseller, translated into more than 25 languages and currently optioned for a limited series by Olivia Coleman’s production company. She is also the author of the nonfiction works Nine Parts of Desire, Foreign Correspondence and The Idea of Home. Her latest book, Memorial Days, will be published January 24 in Australia, and February 4 in the United States.

Brooks married fellow journalist and author Tony Horwitz in Tourette-sur-Loup France in 1984 and were together until his sudden death in 2019.  They have two sons, Nathaniel and Bizu, She now lives with a dog named Bear and a mare named Valentine by an old mill pond on Martha’s Vineyard and spends as much time as she can in Australia.  In 2016, she was named an Officer in the Order of Australia.

Patrick Nolan is Vice President, Publisher of Penguin Books and imprint of Penguin Random House. He joined the company in 2000 as sales director and is now the book-publishing right hand to Viking, overseeing their paperback reprints and a select list of Penguin trade paperback originals as well as the backlist. The list of authors he works with includes Amor Towles, Tana French, Rebecca Makkai, Ruth Ozeki, Bessel van der Kolk, and Robert Greene and the estates of Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, and John Steinbeck. 

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Michael Mayo leans on his intuition as a vocalist, composer, songwriter, and arranger. Much like molding and shaping a sculpture out of clay, he stretches his voice through layers of heavenly harmonizing, hard-hitting beatboxing, and heartfelt crooning.

The Los Angeles-based phenomenon creates from the heart without filter or pretense, allowing his voice to transmit raw emotion above an ever-evolving backdrop of jazz, neo-soul, and R&B on his second full-length LP, Fly [Mack Avenue Records/Artistry Music], and more to come.

“As improvisers, we sometimes talk about leaving space and following your second or third instinct,” he notes. “Lately, I’ve been trying to challenge myself by going with my first instinct and seeing what sticks. Fly has been a fun experiment in that. There were different emotional zones I wanted to occupy, but I started a lot of those sounds with improv and followed that thread. I have a tendency to overthink. I decided to stop that before it began. I didn’t rush, but I treated everything with an immediacy—which goes against my nature as an overthinker. To me, this album feels very, ‘Let’s go’.”

Born and raised in Los Angeles, music quite literally surrounded him. As a sought-after background vocalist, mom shined alongside Beyoncé, Diana Ross, Luther Vandross, and Whitney Houston. Meanwhile, dad not only sang, but also performed saxophone for Earth, Wind & Fire and horns for the likes of Sérgio Mendes. Among his most formative memories, Michael recalls “being backstage, watching Mom and Dad perform, and seeing them in their element.”

Unlocking the power of his voice, he eventually attended the New England Conservatory of Music and at The Thelonious Monk Institute at UCLA (now the Hancock Institute of Jazz). 2018 saw him make waves with the single “No More” [with Amber Navran]. Following his graduation, he unveiled his full-length debut, Bones, in 2021 and cumulatively generated millions of streams accelerated by “The Way” and “You and You.” Earning critical acclaim, Jazzwise rated it “4-stars,” and JAZZIZ raved, “Michael Mayo has developed his own lush, neo-soul sound that adroitly showcases his clear tenor, which glides over luxuriant clouds of his multi-tracked vocals.” He captivated audiences worldwide, headlining his own gigs and touring with the likes of Herbie Hancock. Not to mention, he even garnered the German Jazz Pride award. 

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Mason Jennings is a Minnesota-based pop-folk singer-songwriter. Jennings is originally from Honolulu, Hawaii. He is well known for his simple yet catchy melodies, intimate lyrics, intensely literary and historical themes, and deep tenor’s voice. His music has appeared in the surf film Shelter and he has toured extensively.

Jennings shares his new video for the single, “Only Lovers Welcome” from his brand new album, Underneath The Roses out now via Loosegroove Records. 

Jennings writes that the songs from Underneath The Roses were, “Written in an unprecedented burst,” following the birth of his son, Western, in March 2022. Jennings explains, “I hadn’t written any songs in about a year. I had been dealing with the psychological after effects of the pandemic as well as the loss of my dad. So, when Western was born I didn’t expect to be writing much. But immediately he was responding to music in a very intense way. For this album, between May and November 2022, I wrote 48 songs! They certainly uplifted me and connected me with the creative spirit, and spirit in general, again. They cover all kinds of ground but, when I listen back, I think the central theme is overcoming fear with love.”

Jennings also released a video for, “No Ordinary Friend,” which he explains, “Depicts two of the most important decisions a person can make. One, whether or not they believe in a loving higher power and two, who they decide to choose as a life long romantic partner. This song is referring to both of those and the choices I’ve made.”

Jennings adds “I called it Underneath The Roses because I feel like these songs are musical roses and when I look below them there are many thorns and so much dirt and soil. All of it was needed for them to come into existence and bloom. It’s been a long hard road of self-discovery and discernment for me the last few years and the roses wouldn’t be here without what lies underneath. Hope you enjoy the music!” 

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Join Tony and Olivier Award-winning theatre and film producer Tom Kirdahy & special guest for a conversation about their lives and work on Broadway. 

Tom Kirdahy stands among the most influential and visionary producers in the entertainment world today, pushing the boundaries of live theater worldwide with his Tony and Olivier Award-winning productions. His current slate includes the critically-acclaimed revival of Gypsy starring six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald and directed by George C Wolfe; the brand-new musical Just in Time, featuring Tony Award winner Jonathan Groff as Bobby Darin with direction by Alex Timbers; and — following a sold-out run in New York — the UK Premiere of Stephen Sondheim’s final musical Here We Are. This year, Kirdahy makes his debut as a film producer in the movie adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman, helmed by Oscar winner Bill Condon and starring Jennifer Lopez. Kirdahy’s roster also boasts the international blockbuster Hadestown (winner of eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical) and the long-running hit revival of Little Shop of Horrors off Broadway. He is responsible for some of the most daring and innovative productions of the last decade, including the Tony and Olivier Award-winning play The Inheritance, the first Broadway revival of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, The Jungle, White Rabbit Red Rabbit, and The Visit, as well as the box office record-smashing It’s Only A Play, and the global sensation Anastasia, amongst many more. Kirdahy spent the first twenty years of his career as an attorney providing free legal services to people living with HIV/AIDS in the Bronx and carries on his passion for justice and advocacy through his service on the Executive Board of Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS, the Broadway League’s Board of Governors, and many years on the Executive Board of NYC's LGBT Center. 

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Months ago, Chase Strangio became the first transgender lawyer to appear before the Supreme Court, arguing in the case of U.S. v. Skrmetti. Come join Chase in conversation with LGBTQ+ activist, actor and writer Celeste Lecesne, as they discuss their lives amidst the perilous state of LGBTQ+ rights.

Chase Strangio is Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBT & HIV Project as well as a nationally recognized expert on transgender rights. Chase’s work includes impact litigation, as well as legislative and administrative advocacy, on behalf of LGBTQ people and people living with HIV across the United States.

Prior to joining the ACLU, Chase was an Equal Justice Works fellow and the Director of Prisoner Justice Initiatives at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, where he represented transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in confinement settings. In 2012, Chase co-founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund, an organization that provides direct bail/bond assistance to LGBTQ immigrants in criminal and immigration cases. Chase is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law and Grinnell College.

Chase was counsel in the ACLU’s challenge to North Carolina’s notorious HB2, Carcaño, et al. v. Cooper, et al, the ACLU’s challenge to Trump’s trans military ban, Stone v. Trump, and the case of Aimee Stephens, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v EEOC, which resulted in a landmark 6-3 ruling from the Supreme Court finding the 1964 Civil Rights Act's prohibition on sex discrimination in employment extended to discrimination against LGBTQ workers.

On December 4, 2024, Strangio presented oral arguments on behalf of the private plaintiffs in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a landmark Supreme Court challenge brought by three families and a medical provider against a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.

Celeste Lecesne (they/he) wrote the short film Trevor, which won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short and they are co-founder of The Trevor Project, the largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention Lifeline for LGBT and Questioning youth. They created THE ROAD HOME Stories of Children of War, which was presented at the International Peace Initiative at The Hague, and is credited as executive producer of After The Storm, a film that documents 12 young people living in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Celeste’s TV writing credits include Armistead Maupin’s Further Tales of The City for Showtime and Will & Grace. They have written three novels for young adults and created The Letter Q, a collection of Letters by Queer Writers to their Younger Selves. As an actor, they have appeared on TV, Broadway and Off Broadway. Celeste is perhaps best known for solo shows such as, One Man Band, Word of Mouth (Drama Desk Award) and The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey (Outer Critics Circle Award). The NYTimes has ranked them “among the most talented solo performers of his (or any) generation.”  They are also the co-founder of The Future Perfect Project, a national arts initiative for LGBTQIA+ youth, and the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship Award.