Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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L I V E + P L AY 44 SEPTEMBER 2019 CONTACT gloucesterstage.com Top to bottom, a scene from the play Ben Butler, and Liana Genoud. 17. The festival accepts submissions of 10-minute plays by students and then professional actors donate their time to do staged readings of the winning plays. Last fall, Gloucester lawyer and playwright Ken Riaf 's My Station in Life featured the story of local recluse Simon Geller, who ran a classical music station from his Gloucester apartment from 1964 to 1988. Actor Ken Baltin so embodied the crusty Geller as he shamed his listenership for not giving him money that the performance earned him an Elliot Norton Award. "We have a duty and exciting responsibility to be part of a community that reflects the culture of our neighbors," says Christopher Griffith, interim managing director of the theatre. This includes shows like this past summer's Ben Butler, about a Union general who made the game-changing move to ignore the law and not return an escaped slave to the South during the Civil War. A lawyer and former governor of Massachusetts who championed the causes of labor and of naturalized citizens. "It's a unique opportunity to touch history in a different way," says Madison Cook-Hines, a directing apprentice this summer, who is assistant directing the production. For 40 years, GSC has managed to tell stimulating and relevant stories, both local and global, in an intimate black box setting. Their building, in a century-old repurposed brick warehouse, has staged stories about fishermen as well as fish packing plants and has been renovated slowly over many years to become the destination it is today. Recently, Griffith met a local woman to discuss staging her upcoming one-woman show. "We're innovators," Griffith says. "We develop relationships with playwrights and use what magic we have to amplify their voice." PHOTOGRAPHS, TOP TO BOTTOM COURTESY OF GLOUCESTER STAGE COMPANY, BY DINAH CARDIN, 131 Newbury St, Peabody, MA • 01960 • 978-531- (REDS)7337 2019 "Best Breakfast" 2019 "Best Bacon" 2019 "Best Kid-Friendly Restaurant" Thank you for voting for us! Refresh and Renew 12 Salem Street, Lynnfield, MA 01940 781.224.3334 | sofiaedayspa.com Thank you for making us the best of the North Shore!