Cantab Recap for Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Oh, you just knew it was going to be crazy in the Cantab on the first near-winter night of the year. The house was packed early with folks hoping to get a good seat for the feature… Which meant the open mic was packed with hard-working, sweet-talking folks, including a couple of wonderfully performed covers, a surprise group piece, and world-traveler David Lee Morgan, a London poet who’ll be hitting up our Encyclopedia Show this coming Monday. But all that was of course just a warm-up for the unparalleled Janae Johnson; Janae brought us a perfectly timed and flawlessly performed set, bringing us a selection of the powerful and thoughtful work that made her the cross-town Lizard Queen. We also got a taste of some brand-new work(!) and even a group piece with her Lizard Lounge teammate, Porsha Olayiwola: don’t forget that everyone of age is welcome to join in the fun at the Lizard’s slam every Sunday. Our own slam followed Janae on this night and featured some hot competition, with Nora Meiners defeating Allison Truj in the final round.

So you’ve pretty much planned out your next week, right? On Sunday you can head to the Lizard Lounge for a visit (the feature is one of our favorite open mic folks, Tom Daley, by the way). Then on Monday you can pop over to the Davis Square Theatre at 7pm when doors open for the Encyclopedia Show: Somerville, a variety show that brings a selection of artists to compose on a monthly theme: this month’s topic is THE ZODIAC, and our performances will include music by Steve Subrizi, comedy by Wes Hazard, a short film by Gary Hoare, and poetry from Austin James Bay and Princess Chan!

If you can even think past those two events, folks, then you’ll also have your eye on next Wednesday’s feature at the Cantab: that’ll be Craig Nelson, 2001 Boston Poetry Slam Team member and Northampton Poetry curator. And, yes, we’ll be continuing our slam series with another open competition in the 8×8 series. See you there!