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[Future Events]

BOSTON MUSIC AWARDS: For better or for worse — and lately it’s been modestly for the better — the BMAs are the closest thing to a Beantown Grammy show, gala and overhyped, but also recognized as conveying some sort of imprimatur that is in equal measures sought after and scorned. This year’s awards could be interesting; the line-up lacks the star power of last year’s Ahmet Ertegun–Godsmack–Gang Starr trifecta but pulls in some next-best-things in last year’s hip-hop winner Mr. Lif, major-label rap-metal dudes Nullset, and consolation prize J Mascis. Also on the bill: Melissa Ferrick and Ellis Paul in a duet, Patty Larkin, and Roomful of Blues in the bathroom-break slot. Tickets to the show, which takes place April 19 at the Orpheum Theatre, One Hamilton Place, are on sale through Ticketmaster at (617) 931-2000.

SHORE THING: The intimate South Shore Music Circus — 2300 seats in the round — celebrates a half-century of summer concerts this year with a typically urbane series of performers steeped in classic rock, country, and the great American songbook. The centerpiece of the season is a visit from Tony Bennett on August 18, to which tickets go on sale today (April 5). On sale tomorrow (April 6) at 10 a.m. are performances by Kevin James (July 6) and Vince Gill (two performances on August 26). The Circus has also announced dates by Trisha Yearwood (July 7), Engelbert Humperdinck (July 28), Kenny Rogers (August 10), the Beach Boys (August 19), and Peter, Paul & Mary (August 23), all of which go on sale next Saturday (April 14) at 10 a.m. Call (617) 931-2000, or visit the South Shore Music Circus, 130 Sohier Street in Cohasset, on the Web at www.musiccircus.com for more info.

NEXT WEEKEND:

The Market Theater

Last Saturday, more than 100 friends and supporters got their first glimpse of the Market Theater, a splendorous new stage housed in what used to be Grendel’s Den restaurant in Harvard Square. The Market, which kicks off its inaugural season next Saturday, is no chopping block: a $2 million renovation has sent the room reeling back beyond Grendel’s to the building’s salad days as a turn-of-the-century Harvard University social club. A modest-sized, state-of-the-art stage is flanked by a pair of fireplaces set into elaborate dark oak pilasters and looking out on a parquet floor that will seat 100. It’s cozy and austere and reeks of old Boston money, old Boston theater.

Which is not quite the case. The Market is bankrolled solely by Cambridge philanthropist Greg Carr, the telecommunications genie who put up $18 million to found the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at his alma mater, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In other words: new money. And Market Theater director Tom Cole couldn’t be farther from old Boston theater: he’s a poet, playwright, contortionist, performance artist, and painter whose work has included folding his six-foot-four frame into a three-foot plexiglass cube, and whose play Oklahoma City — only his first to be produced — was presented by the Theatre Offensive just this year.

Cole, who for a time worked closely with Robert Brustein at the American Repertory Theatre, describes the Market Theater as “a nontraditional arts model.” No season subscriptions will be offered (general-admission seats are being sold at $30); there’s no permanent troupe of actors, no controlling board; and instead of employing a single artistic director, the Theater will be booked “museum-style” by an ad hoc curatorial group of artists and administrators. “I like to think of this as a place where all kinds of people can have a voice,” says Cole over the phone the day before the unveiling. “One of our philosophies is that since we have a building, and Greg is helping us afford this dreamy situation, we want to absolutely do work that wouldn’t get done elsewhere: to do experimental work, and more difficult work, and important work, work that has something to say about the world that we live in right now.”

Cole’s leaving the Theater’s options open — he’s suggested the space could and would accommodate everything from stand-up comedy to film series — while concentrating on new theater that’s a grade more daring than usual. Robert Auletta and Charles L. Mee — whose Amazons and The Imperialists at the Club Cave Canem, respectively, are teamed for the Market’s inaugural double bill — have both had work produced at the ART, though Cole points out that these one-acts represent the experimental side of two of America’s sharpest writers. The season will be rounded out by Swimming in March by Kate Robin, an unheralded New York playwright Cole is high on; The Last Letter, an adaptation by the filmmaker Frederick Wiseman of a chapter of Vasily Grossman’s Holocaust novel Life and Fate, presented in French with surtitles; and an evening-length cabaret of Kurt Weill songs.

“It’s a little scary, because we don’t know if people are gonna come,” Cole acknowledges. “But we’re gonna do it anyway. It is going to be challenging work, but it’s also going to be fun and accessible. It’s not obtuse and opaque and pretentious. It’s very raucous, it’s something you can enjoy, where you’re not looking over your shoulder and whispering, ‘What does that mean?’ ”

The Market Theater’s debut season opens with Amazons, by Robert Auletta, and The Imperialists at the Club Cave Canem, by Charles L. Mee (the evening will also include performances by the bands Neptune, Jessica Rylan Can’t, and Luther Price), in previews beginning April 14 and running April 18 through May 6. The Market Theater is at One Winthrop Square (just off JFK Street in Harvard Square) in Cambridge; call (617) 576-0808.

BY CARLY CARIOLI

Issue Date: April 5 - 12, 2001