The Encyclopedia Show: Somerville for Monday, March 4 — S1V6: VICE PRESIDENTS

Encyclopedia Show: Somerville -- S1V6: VICE PRESIDENTS

Encyclopedia Show: Somerville — S1V6: VICE PRESIDENTS

Monday, March 4
The Davis Square Theatre
255 Elm St. in Somerville
7pm doors, 8pm-10pm show
all ages, $10/$7 sliding scale
click for Facebook event

The Boston Poetry Slam and Simone Beaubien present the next installment in a new monthly series!

The Encyclopedia Show Somerville is an event franchised from the original series founded in Chicago in 2008, wherein invited artists from a variety of performance disciplines present all-new, original works on sub-topics of a single theme. A recurring cast of hosts and characters welcomes the artists with open arms and minds, while the resident Fact Checker is charged with maintaining the integrity of the Encyclopedic Truth of the show.

Our theme for this month’s show will be VICE PRESIDENTS! Presenting all-original guest performances from local artists, plus work from our recurring cast members:

  • Aimee Rose Ranger and Kevin Spak provide deft and earnest CO-HOSTING
  • The Michael J. Epstein Library offers MUSICAL SUPPORT
  • Teacher Meg presents a poignant HISTORY LESSON
  • And Intern Steve Subrizi is predestined to probably not ruin the show.

Live Fact Checking is reluctantly provided by Jack van Sly from the Institute of Human Knowledge and Hygiene.

This show in our monthly Encylopedia Show: Somerville series takes place at the Davis Square Theatre, 255 Elm St. in Somerville. Doors and the theatre bar open for a pre-show welcome party at 7:00. The show begins promptly at 8:00 and finishes at 10:00, including a short intermission. This is an all ages show! Admission is $10, or $7 for students, teachers, or guests in Prohibition-era dress.

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, February 27

Was school vacation just last week? Folks, this week we were back to school with an official CUPSI Warm-Up slam: Emerson College, Simmons College, Harvard University, and the Berklee College of Music mixed it up in a friendly 4×4 to get ready for college nationals in April. Emerson took the top scores in the bout at their home-venue-away-from-home, with Harvard University close behind; Berklee showcased some new work, including a harmonized group piece, to finish a respectable third, and Simmons earned the crowd favorite award for their very strong five-woman team. Looking forward to hearing about how all these teams fare at the big show!

This week: get ready for a HUGE Patricia Smith feature, poetry lovers. Not only is our very own co-founder and four-time national slam champion bringing a ridiculous all-star line-up with her (including Roger Bonair-Agard, Jan Beatty, and Angel Nafis)… She and her crew will also be doing TWO extended feature sets!

Our first open mic will begin at 8:00 as usual, followed by a 9:00 feature set. We’ll take a short break, then start with a second-half open mic around 10:00 with a second feature set to close the night. THIS SHOW WILL SELL OUT, so line up for our 7:15 door time, or take your chances hoping for room to open for you at the 9:45 intermission.

Questions? Check out our event page, or Patricia’s very own Facebook event. Trust us, you don’t want to miss out on this one.

Tips from the Bar: the Jack Slavin Prompt

Write a three-part poem: your personal ad, date, and break-up with an addiction.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, February 27: CUPSI Warm-Up

Boston Poetry Slam

SCHEDULE CHANGE! Sadly, the performer originally scheduled for tonight won’t be able to make this feature date. We’ll reschedule Amy Everhart as soon as we can, but in the meantime…

Did someone mention CUPSI? We heard that the collegiate national poetry slam tournament is being held in New York this April, and that there’s a ton of Boston teams headed there this year. To help our local students gear up for the competition, we’ll be offering the CUPSI Warm-Up, a 4×4 team slam featuring Emerson College, Simmons College, Harvard University, and one more team TBA.

Here’s the best part: we’re proud to present this slam in conjunction with reVERB, the slam poetry organization at the Berklee College of Music! Ours is only one match in a one-day, two-night extravaganza of workshops, competitions, and meet ‘n’ greets, known as The NorthBEASTer Friendly (click for all the details via Facebook). All students are welcome and we are still actively seeking teams to join in: email slam coach and Berklee Assistant Professor Caroline Harvey for details.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge. Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the slam begins at approximately 10:00. There is no open poetry slam tonight. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3 ($2 for non-competing NorBEASTer Friendly teams).

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, February 20

You can always tell it’s school vacation by the way teachers –and students– turn out for poetry in the middle of the week! The venue was jam-packed just a few minutes after doors opened last night, with folks of all stripes finding a good excuse to stay out late on a cold Wednesday. Perhaps in honor of feature Wes Hazard, work on the open mic leaned to the funny all night, warming up our stomach muscles in time for the feature. Wes himself showed off some of his comedy chops, but also took the opportunity to use “the full range of human emotions,” as he quipped; this classy guy put on a great show, and if you missed it, you can still ask him for the chapbook he produced especially for us.

The speed slam was the last one we’ll be having before mid-March, so the venue’s performers made the most of it! Eight poets became two as Bobby Crawford and Kieran Collier faced off in the final round, with Bobby’s thirty-second metaphor winning out over Kieran’s series of haiku. Bobby will be back in the next Champion of Champions slam in April, along with all our winners from this series: check out the list of speed slam winners here.

Next week: SCHEDULE CHANGE! It’s the CUPSI Warm-Up! Poetry slam teams from Emerson College, Simmons College, and Harvard University will face off in a practice round for college nationals, coming to New York City in just six weeks. We’re proud to present our slam as part of a two-day event, the NorBEASTer Friendly, with Berklee College of Music’s reVERB poetry club.

Tips from the Bar: the Russian Novelist Prompt

What unexpected thing does something in your refrigerator say about you?

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, Feburary 20: Wes Hazard

Wes Hazard, Boston comic and poet.

Wes Hazard, Boston comic and poet.

Double-dipping as a stand-up comic and a poet, Wes Hazard loves language, technology, over-thinking the institutions of pop culture, and entertaining audiences. An open mic favorite at the Cantab, Wes also produced a comedy-poetry show pairing at our summer Radio series, as well as presented at the inaugural Encyclopedia Show: Somerville. Navigating skillfully between the vulgar and the whimsical he takes few things seriously, least of all himself. Visit him on Twitter: @weshazard.

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge. Doors for the show open at 7:15. The open mic begins at 8:00 and the feature performs at approximately 10:00. An open speed slam in the 8×8 series will follow. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.

Cantab Recap for Wednesday, February 13

Cantabbers, if you’re reading this, then you survived Valentine’s Day! Congratulations to everyone, especially to those who also survived our Erotic Poetry Night. Turns out that this was no small feat, actually: our feature that night was Kevin Spak‘s brainchild, the Love Vs. Death slam. In this seven-round head-to-head featuring a murderer’s row of high-quality slammers, Love took an early lead and looked as though it would conquer it all! However, Death’s slow-but-steady philosophy actually took the win in the very last round, with a tight score of 4-3. Our thanks to all the talented folks who slammed, as well as the brave folks who elected to judge and choose between Romantic Certainty and Utmost Doom.

Next week: we welcome open mic regular Wes Hazard to the stage! Perhaps best known in Boston as a stand-up-guy stand-up comic, Wes has also found a solid following for his more serious work here at the Cantab’s open mic. Wes’ feature slot will be followed by an open speed slam in the 8×8 series.

Tips from the Bar: the Max Harrington Prompt

Write about the last failed kiss before your first successful one.

Cantab Feature for Wednesday, Feburary 13: Erotic Poetry Night PLUS Love vs. Death Slam

For some reason, the Wednesday closest to Valentine’s Day is likely to see a wave of romantics flooding into the Cantab Lounge, suddenly struck with the notion that an open mic poem to a date is the best way to express love on this annual Hallmark-fest. Not to worry! To stem the tide, we present Awkward Date Night (or, as we call it for the newspapers, Erotic Poetry Night). Whether it be deeply sensual or casually raunchy, our extra-long open mic welcomes all erotica, from the lightly titillating to the downright dirty. Bring your loved one(s) at your peril: if they last the night, maybe it was meant to be.

If you’ve got the stamina to last the open mic, then you’ll want to stick around for the Boston Poetry Slam’s first-ever Love vs. Death Poetry Slam! Produced by host, open mic regular, and game designer Kevin Spak, this head-to-head slam will pit poets slamming on the side of Love against poets supporting the side of Death (that’s right, two classic Valentine’s Day themes):

TEAM LOVE VS. TEAM DEATH
Kemi Alabi vs. Sam Teitel
Michael Quigg vs. Michael Monroe
April Penn vs. Zeke Russell
Meaghan Ford vs. Marshall Gillson
Nathan Comstock vs. Patrick S.
Chloé Cunha vs. Gemma Cooper-Novak
Sean Patrick Mulroy vs. Sophia Holtz

Inspired by our monthly Encyclopedia Show, competing poets will be offered subtopics on their respective teams in order to create brand-new work for the slam. In the spirit of this event, we’ve of course threatened the Love team with Death if they lose… And the Death team with the only fate worse: Love. See you there!

This show in our weekly Wednesday series takes place at the Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge. Doors for the show open at 7:15. An erotic-themed open mic begins at 8:00, and the Love and Death slam (advance sign-ups only) will begin around 10:00. The show is 18+ (ID required) and the cover charge is $3.