Foothills Theatre Closing Sale This Saturday

I just found this via twitter, which lead me to a craigslist ad posted by the Foothills Theater. As most Worcesterites are aware the Foothills Theatre was forced to shutter their doors a couple months ago after running out of funds.

Well it seems that the curtain has come down for the final time as they are selling off everything this Saturday between 10am to 4pm at the theatre. I'm thinking there might be some oddities in the bunch, and might be worth a look!


Foothills Theatre Sale

Louis C.K. at Hanover Theatre Saturday May 2nd

The Hanover Theatre books another solid stand up act, it was just announced today that Framingham's own Louis C.K. makes a stop in Worcester at The Hanover Theatre on Saturday May 2nd.

Louis is a damn funny standup and was the writer and director of the famed instant classic known as Pootie Tang! The Hanover has been open for just over a year and have hosted George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Lisa Lampanelli now Louis C.K. and a couple others that slip my mind right now. The big name comedy shows have all played to full houses so I would expect to see top flight touring comics make stops at The Hanover as the days go by.

I'll be putting myself on the volunteer list for this one pronto!

The Hanover Theatre

Platters "Tribute" Act Playing Hanover Theatre---Story Buried by T&G???

Since I volunteer I The Hanover Theatre every couple days I check google news for a possible story or review about the Theatre that I may have missed.

Today I stumbled across a story that originated in The Patriot Ledger and was also picked up and reported in The MetroWest DailyNews, The Brockton Enterprise and The Taunton Gazette. How odd that there has been no mention of this potential scandalous misrepresentation of the so called Platters at The Hanover Theatre in the Telegram and Gazette, our local newspaper which SHARES A PARKING LOT with The Hanover Theatre.

So was the T&G scooped right under their very own nose, or were they trying to sweep an embarrassing situation under the rug? You be the judge, but I vote for the latter.

Here's the deal:

26 states including Massachusetts have passed "Truth In Music" legislation which basically bans musical groups from using the name of a band if the band does not contain at least one original member of the band or have clear legal rights to the name. Bogus bands touring as The Platters, The Drifters and The Coasters are the most frequent victims, along with concert goers who may be duped into thinking that the band on stage contains some (or all) of the group's founding members.

The Hanover appears to be taking the line that they thought the band in question was legit and thought they had the legal docs to back it up. Since being contacted by the Massachusetts Attorney General The Hanover has removed the photo of Herb Reed from their website and now indicate that this is a Platters tribute.

I fully believe that the Hanover thought the group was on the up and up and was not out to dupe any theater goers. The bigger issue that I have is the Telegram & Gazette's lack of coverage. This is only the 2nd time that this law has been utilized since it was passed and The Hanover is literally a stones throw away from the T&G offices. It certainly seems that the T&G was attempting to keep this potentially embarrassing faux pas away from the eyes of the Worcester readership.

 Patriot Ledger 
 Metro West Daily
 Brockton Enterprise

George Carlin Hanover Theatre 5/1/08

Crystal and I made sure that we were volunteering on Thursday night for George Carlin at The Hanover Theatre. Volunteer nights there are especially kick ass when it is a show or artist that you are interested in and of course George Carlin would be on that list.
Plus when you are working a show that is sold out there is going to always be something unexpected that happens or some sort of seating glitch that you will have to sort out. The audience on Thursday straggled in a bit late or stayed in the lobby for a second drink before looking for their seats and it was the first time I really had to use a flashlight and seat people in the dark. And if you count the rows wrong or people are in their seats or off by a seat it can create quite a commotion. Not that I did that or anything. But once intermission rolled around after the opener and everyone found their way back to their seats Crystal and I had a great vantage point in which to watch Carlin.

He put on a strong hour long set that is much social commentary than comedy, but that is the charm of George Carlin at age 70. He isn't afraid to mock death, god or the lack thereof, the government and the sheep like quality of the average American. There were plenty of zingers mixed in with the type of talk that you would not have in polite company along with his own straight shooting outlook on things. It was a great chance to see one of the country's greatest comics work his craft from an up close vantage point.

In two weeks we will be working a jesus Christ Superstar show along with a BB King concert.

STOMP at The Hanover Theatre A 2 Sided Review

STOMP rolled its way into the Hanover Theatre in Worcester and put on 4 sold out performances. Crystal and I were able to catch 2 different shows, on Friday evening we attended the theater for the first time as patrons and today we volunteered at the matinée show.

For Friday night's show we had nice lower seats on the aisle 13 rows back from the stage. We showed up with just 10 minutes to spare before the show started since we are so familiar with the building at this point we just had to show up right before 9pm. The theater was packed with a Friday night crowd, a nice mix of folks,from seasoned theater goers and couples to kids who seemed to be on high school dates. Waiting for the show to start the one thing I noticed for the first time was how loud the din if the audience is while everyone is being seated. I had never really noticed it before while volunteering at an event. I guess I am so busy helping folks out and getting them seated that I am focused and don't really have a chance to hear the background noise. But as a patron who is waiting for the show to start it was really something I picked up on.

On to the show. What can I say except that both Saturday evening's show and Sunday's matinée were both 105 minutes of rhythmic pleasure. The cast seems really loose with each other and it was interesting to see the subtle nuances between the two shows depending on the vibe the cast members were feeling at the time. Also we watched Sunday's show from the balcony rather than the floor and having that higher viewpoint was a great way to follow up watching the show from the night before. I appreciated the performances from the set scaffolding much more by watching from the balcony.

The show mixes hard core rhythms that overpower your senses with minimal noises made from the smallest of objects in a way that creates a very nice ebb and flow to the whole sense of the show.

Great to see that STOMP was able to sell out all 4 shows and bring over 8,000 patrons to downtown Worcester this weekend. I hope everyone in attendance had a blast!

End of Weekend Update

I thought it would be nice of me to catch up with the blog for a moment before bed. Just finishing up watching the Red Sox take 2 out of 3 from the Yankees. And that is always a good thing, whether the month is April or September. To continue on a Boston sports note it was very nice to see the Bruins win their playoff game this evening against Montreal to get them on the board in the series. Playoff hockey is played at a very intense and emotional level with hard and heavy hits and games that can change on a dime. The fact that the Bruins were able to win at home, break the Montreal jinx and get the crowd involved can hopefully be something that they can build on. It would be nice if they could advance beyond round one of the playoffs.

I had Friday off from work to attend the HE&PG LLC bankruptcy hearing, but I got word on Thursday afternoon that the hearing was postponed until April 22nd. Crystal and I spent a good portion of Friday in the car running down to Fall River in the late morning and then swinging by Wrenthem Outlets and Whole Foods by taking Rt. 24 to Rt. 495 home.

Saturday Crystal had a baby shower to go to and I spent a good 3 hours doing yardwork here at University Park Lofts. Since the developer is bankrupt and the condo association has ZERO cash we are looking to cut costs however we can. Four of us spent another 12 man hours out there this morning from 9 to noon and managed to get all the sand that was dumped in the parking lot over the winter scooped up and off the ground as well as taking care of all the raking down in the parking lot. Things certainly look better. Us owners aren't going to sit around and let Brett Levy act like a glorified slumlord while nothing gets done.

On Saturday evening I was a last minute volunteer at the Stephen Lynch comedy show at The Hanover Theatre. I thought I was getting old considering the fact that I had no previous knowledge of Stephen Lynch prior to this event and the fact that most of the audience were in their 20's. However after checking out his wiki page I see that he is sort of hooked up with the Opie & Anthony crew, so I understand why I knew nothing of him. I ended up working his merchandise table before and after the show, and the crowd pretty much bought up 90% of the stuff he had out there. I sold thru all the t-shirts I was given except for 3, all of one cd, about 90% of the second and about 20 art prints. It was cool to see a younger crowd at the Hanover, and I overheard quite a few conversations where even the younger folks were impressed with the classiness of the building. I was able to catch him do about half of his act and although there was quite a bit of heckling from the audience and Lynch may have lost some of the crowd when he tries to just do straight "comedy" some of the songs were pretty darn funny.

Hanover Theatre Grand Opening

Well I got home from my volunteer duties at the Grand Opening event at The Hanover Theatre about an hour ago. I can say from what I witnessed the opener went off without any hiccups to a near capacity crowd and everyone that I saw in attendance seemed to have a great time and enjoy themselves, the show and the atmosphere of this grand old building.

There has been some naysayers online recently whether it is in blog posts or comments on the T&G website regarding the viability of the theater and the ability that it can have to kickstart the downtown transformation that this city needs. Maybe it is because I didn't grow up in Worcester or the immediate surrounding area and I wasn't around for the failure of the mall/outlets that I am more optimistic than most. I've only been living in this city for 14 months at this point and I will freely admit that one of the reasons we chose Worcester was because the potential for this city is there. We wanted to be as close to "a city" as we could be and be able to purchase something we liked and could afford. And that lead us to Worcester... A city that can support an endeavor such as The Hanover Theater because of the density of Worcester proper and its environs.

So at this point we both figure the least that we can do is lend a couple evenings a month of our time to support the theatre. At the same time I can do my small part to interact with more people from the area than I would under any other circumstances and provide a smile and hospitality. I look at these volunteer positions as ambassadors to the city. I want to make the folks that come to the theater feel as if they had an experience that was on par with any show they would go see in Boston. And with that people will return and word of mouth can grow and this new theater can thrive.

No doubt there will be plenty of discussion regarding the acts that the theater brings in. I'll admit that I was not overwhelmed by the initial lineup, but there is something for everyone, from Hairspray to Stomp to David Copperfield to The Saw Doctors. And today's announcement of the George Carlin date is certainly a step in the right direction in regards to booking talent.

So those are my thoughts about the theater as a whole.

I won't go into a big long dissertation about the night, but I must say with the small amount of mock training that all us volunteers had over the past two weeks we all did a heck of a job getting folks seated in the right place. Having the paying customer all coming in to find their seats for the first time while soaking in the building for the first time and checking out the chandelier and talking amongst themselves is not something you can practice. I was able to catch Bernadette Peters sing 4 songs Little Willie John/ Peggy Lee's "Fever". She was in good voice throughout and looked glamorous on stage. You wouldn't guess that she was 60!

After the show all the Central Massachusetts heavy hitters that put on their evenings best seemed to have had a great time and enjoyed the experience. As long as the theater can consistently pull in solid acts there is no reason The Hanover Theatre can not be a viable and successful venue.

Hanover Theatre Dinner & A Show Program

Worcester's Hanover Theatre has unveiled the early incarnation of their "dinner and a show" program. I am happy to see that The Hanover Theatre and many local restaurants are exploring synergies since the downtown proper area faces a dearth of dining opportunities at the present time.

It seems that the "dinner and a show" program is only open to Hanover Theatre members at this time, but with memberships starting as low as $35.00 and some pretty good deals with the restaurants the $35.00 membership fee could be recouped pretty quickly and the membership goes to a the theatre and is a small investment to make in the downtown community and the city as a whole.

The participating restaurants include:

Block 5
Bocado
86 Winter
George's Cony Island
Harlequin Restaurant
Maxwell Silverman's
Mezcal
O'Connor's
One Eleven Chop House
Peppercorn's
Rovezzi's
Seven Hills
The Sole
Tribeca
Via
Z Cafe

Member benefits include free shuttle, free deserts, percentage off your bill and points towards free food. Not a bad deal at all.

Crystal and I have our final evening of training tonight at the Hanover and will finally find out if we get to work the opening night, as well as our schedule for the first couple months!


Hanover Theatre Dinner & A Show

Hanover Theatre Sneak Peek Pictures

So I got a sneak peek of The Hanover Theatre this evening during volunteer training and orientation. I brought the camera along and the pictures you see above don't do the place justice.

There seems to be plenty of work yet to be done, especially in the new facade portion of the building. The new portion of the lobby blends well and merges into the old and the theatre portion itself has been brought back to its heyday of the 1920's. There doesn't seem to be a bad seat in the house. I checked out a few views from the floor as well as a balcony seat and all the sightlines looked great and a fair amount of legroom especially down below.

One more training session next Wednesday before the Grand Opening on the 14th of March. Next week we should find out what shows we have been scheduled to work.

Hanover Theatre Reveal

As you may or may not have heard Crystal and I are volunteering at the newly restored Hanover Theatre in downtown Worcester, which is set to open its doors next week. As part of our training we get to go inside the building tomorrow and see the lay of the land. If you are volunteering as an usher (which is what I would like to do) you get to sort of put dibs on an area you would like to work get accustomed to the layout, the balcony etc.

I'm totally excited to see the work that has put into the building. I'll be bringing a camera tomorrow and hopefully getting a nice array of shots to post sometime later tomorrow evening.

I'm off to a live Fantasy Baseball draft at 11pm.