Geltman performs

in BelfastBELFAST — The Belfast Maskers’ special 2002 One Night Only series will present rock singer-songwriter-guitarist Laurie Geltman of Rockland in a solo acoustic performance Wednesday, Aug. 21, at 7:30 p.m. at their downtown waterfront theater at 43 Front St.
Geltman has been a presence on the Boston music scene for many years. She has a Boston Music Award as Outstanding Female Vocalist and also won top honors in the Lilith Fair Emerging Talent Search in Boston, earning her a spot on the Lilith Fair tour.
Scott Alarik of the Boston Globe recently called Geltman, “A songwriter’s rocker, she has a knack for what songwriters call killer lines, the single image or captured moment that tells a life story in a few words. The CD also highlights her charisma; no matter how hard this woman rocks, she never seems to be putting on an act.”
A trailblazing female lead guitarist, she mostly has been touring solo this year behind her new and strictly acoustic CD, “Motion Pictures.” Last summer, while finishing up the CD in Boston, Geltman performed in the Belfast Maskers first large scale outdoor musical, “The Boys From Swanville,” playing lead guitar in the band and taking on one of the lead roles.
Geltman’s CD releases include an earlier album of roots rock, “No Power Steering” (Eastern Front Records), which centered around her then four-piece rock band plus guests, including Patty Griffin. It received rave reviews around the country, and garnered high praise for her songwriting. For her follow-up CD, Geltman assembled many of Boston’s top musicians for a one-time-only engagement at Club Passim in Cambridge, Mass. She and the fittingly-dubbed One Night Stand Band basically held a recording session in front of an audience.
The result, “Motion Pictures,” has just been released on the RBP label and includes a video documentary about the show. The enhanced portion of the CD was directed by award-winning filmmaker Kaylyn Thornal of Rockland, who directs the Resident Film Program at Rockport College.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for students and seniors, and can be purchased in advance by calling 338-9668, or at the door one hour before show time.

Maskers present ‘Miss Reardon’

BELFAST — The Belfast Maskers will present “And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Zindel, Aug. 15 through Sept. 1, at their 43 Front St. theater. Guest director Aynne Ames, who operated Castine’s Cold Comfort Productions for 22 years and currently teaches at Storm King School in New York, will direct.
“And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little” is the story of three schoolteacher sisters, who, in the wake of their domineering mother’s death, discover how really tenuous the ties that bind them have become. No longer obligated to gather around Mama and Mama’s table in some pretense of a unified family, the sisters spin off in their own directions, speaking honestly to one another for the first time, surprising each other and themselves by unleashing a lifetime of harbored accusations, delusions, and secrets that are as hysterical as they are staggering.
Diane Coller Wilson — a founding member of the Belfast Maskers who last appeared as Nurse Ratched in last season’s “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” — gets to play the ‘cuckoo’ one this time around. Her Anna Reardon, a junior high school chemistry teacher, is the sister who has taken care of Mama in her final, awful days. Mentally fragile to begin with, Mama’s death has pushed Anna over the edge, causing her to break down in the classroom and ignite a scandal that drives the play’s story.
Katherine Reardon, the sister of the title who has turned increasingly to alcohol to liven up her lonely life as an unmarried assistant junior high school principal and now Anna’s caretaker, is played by Victoria Covill, last seen in the Maskers’ David Mamet production, “Laughing Wild.”
The third sister, Ceil Adams, is the only one to have married and left home. Ambitious and driven, Ceil has risen up through the schoolteacher ranks to become the superintendent of schools, and now finds herself in the unenviable position of having to officially ‘handle’ her sister’s classroom indiscretion. Tobin Malone, Maskers’ artistic director, appears as Ceil in her first Maskers’ role.
Kathleen Horan (“Anne of Green Gables”) and Tony Sohns (“The Boys From Swanville”), play Fleur and Bob Stein, a neighbor couple in the Reardon’s New York apartment building; Eleanor Grafe (“One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”) plays the building superintendent’s wife, Mrs. Pentrano; and Jane A. Kelley (“The Boys From Swanville”) appears as a delivery girl from the corner market.
Described by the Boston Globe as ‘Funny and fierce and absolutely extraordinary,’ “And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little” runs 90 minutes without intermission and contains mature themes and language not appropriate for children.
“And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little” formally opened Friday, Aug. 16. Performances continue for three weekends only, Thursdays through Sundays, through Sept. 1. All Thursday and Sunday performances begin at 7 p.m., and Friday and Saturday shows at 8 p.m.
Advance tickets are available at Fertile Mind Book Shop, Belfast, and by phone, 338-9668. Tickets are $15 general admission, with a special discounted admission price of $12 for students and seniors (65+) at Thursday and Sunday performances only. Tickets are also available at the door one hour prior to show time. For information, call the Maskers’ box office, 338-9668.