Featured

Remembering First Night Worcester on what would have been its 40th year

Richard Duckett

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Five years ago on New Year’s Eve, 2016, First Night Worcester celebrated its “35th Anniversary Spectacular.”

The event got underway outdoors at Institute Park at the Levenson Concert Stage with opening remarks by Worcester Mayor Joseph M. Petty followed by a performance by Sasha the Fire Gypsy. Although First Night Worcester was not exactly the large-scale happening it had been in its heyday, the 2016 event still had more than 80 performers (rock musicians, folk singer-songwriters, country music , youth orchestras, children’s chorus, chamber music singers, theater, acrobats, psychics … ) at venues mostly in the upper Main Street, Salisbury Street and Grove Street areas of the city. And as always the event exuded plenty of charm as you saw individuals or groups of people out on sidewalks identifiable by their First Night Worcester buttons heading determinedly to the next event on their respective program lists.

But as psychic mediums Deborah Livingston and Katherine Glass (a popular attraction at First Unitarian Church, 90 Main St.) may have already known, this would turn out to be the final First Night Worcester. In May 2107, an announcement was made that “After careful review, we have decided the 35th would be our last event.”

The then First Night Worcester Board President Kallin Johnson said at the time, “The Board is confident it has reached the correct business decision, but we’ll miss setting the stage for thousands of smiling faces on New Year’s Eve.”

COVID-19 last year and the sudden surge of the Omicron variant this December would probably have had a drastic impact even if it the event had continued.

However, 2021 also would have been the 40th first First Night Worcester.

The very first First Night Worcester warmed up New Year’s Eve with performances and celebrations attended by thousands of people on Dec. 31, 1982. Over the course of 35 years, over a million people took in the activities which were a signature Worcester experience that also provided a welcome paid gig to hundreds of local performing artists.

This New Year’s Eve there are a scattering of individual events scheduled to take place around and about Worcester, all of which sound good on their own terms, but there’s nothing under an umbrella of bringing the community as a whole together.

“Yes, I miss First Night Worcester,” said Charles J. Washburn, a founder of First Night Worcester and a past longtime member of the board.

“It really felt like, in Worcester, we all belonged to one another.”

On Dec. 31, 1975, a small group of artists and musicians in Boston seeking to perform on stages, both indoor and outdoor, organized an artistic and cultural celebration of New Year’s Eve.

First Night Boston came about, which remains the oldest First Night celebration in the country.

For a long while, First Night Worcester was the second longest continuous event of its

The First Night 2012 procession marches down Front Street to view fireworks in Worcester. RICK CINCLAIR/ T&G FILE PHOTO

First Night

Continued from Page 4

kind.

After a group of people in Worcester who had been going to Boston on New Year’s Eve for several years decided to put something together locally, the first First Night Worcester Dec. 31, 1982, drew between 10,000 and 15,000 people. There were hot air balloons over Lincoln Square that lit up and the event made use of the Worcester Memorial Auditorium, which at that time was still a regular venue for concerts. Altogether, there were 40 programs in 15 locations. The night was a success. According to one account, even the snow fell on cue (but didn’t accumulate).

First Night would become a phenomenon, and not just around here. A national blizzard of First Night organizations formed across the country in the 1980s, numbering up to 400 at one point with a national organization that even had its own executive director (who once spoke at Mechanics Hall).

Locally, First Night Worcester was a private, nonprofit organization that continued to grow and had year-round programs in addition to putting on the big night itself. The budget for 2010 was reportedly $350,000.

The organization relied on sponsors and sales of its First Night buttons (which were reasonably priced and got the wearer into all events as well as admission to partnering institutions such as the Worcester Art Museum) for most of its income.

The DCU Center, Mechanics Hall, Tuckerman Hall and Worcester City Hall were among the venues that hosted First Night events, as well as, later, The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts.

Some years the venues would be transformed such as the time City Hall was a medieval castle when the Fist Night theme became “First Knight.”

For many years, the steps of the Worcester Memorial Auditorium would be packed with people gathered to watch midnight fireworks. One time there was a bubble-wrap stomp on the Auditorium steps.

“Each year there was a new idea,” Washburn said. “Life sized ‘bowling pins’ in the Johnson Tunnel, illuminated hot air balloons, a parade of puppets and a throng in hand made costumes and burning ‘wish sticks’ created that night and also collected from all sorts of people who, for one reason or another, would not be able to join the fun in person.”

There would be a wave of family activities during the day, that for several years included the “Main Street Mile” road race. A procession downtown in the early evening (with First Night Worcester board member Dorothy Hargrove always stealing the show dressed up as characters such as the the Snow Queen or Cruella DeVil) would be followed by a first blast of fireworks. Then came the evening and night events geared more for adults, followed by fireworks at midnight.

Musical headliners over the years included New Kids on the Block, Arlo Guthrie, Leon Redbone, Livingston Taylor, guitarist Duke Levine and the Carol Noonan Band, fiddler Eileen Ivers, David Foster & the Mohegan Sun All-Stars with special guests including legendary Blues Brother Matt “Guitar” Murphy and singer Christine Ohlman, and actor and singer Alicia Witt (making a return journey to Worcester) with Ben Folds.

The WRTA would have three buses circulating continually along the loop all night, picking up passengers at seven appointed stops and anywhere else people happened to flag them down for a ride. For those who preferred more rustic transportation, there were horse-drawn hayrides up and down Main Street.

In the early 1990s Fist Night Worcester sold 15,000-20,000 buttons a year, but 65,000 or 70,000 people came downtown. “So, there’s a big gap between who our audience is and who comes downtown,” said then First Night Worcester President Jonathan Finkelstein in 1992.

“I have only fond memories of First Night Worcester,” reflected Kallin Johnson, a musician, conductor and director of music at Notre Dame Academy.

“On several occasions, because I was still doing a lot of performing, I would be known to drive to Boston to perform at their First Night or even one

A large luminous worm was used in the pre-fireworks parade in front of the Worcester Auditorium at Lincoln Square in Worcester during Worcester First Night 2009.

PAUL KAPTEYN/T&G FILE PHOTO Groupo Fantasia, including Amado Rodriguez, left, performs in the tent during Worcester First Night 2012. RICK CINCLAIR/T&G FILE

PHOTO

Ballet Arts Worcester dancers perform at the Worcester Art Museum during First Night Worcester

2012. PAUL KAPTEYN/T&G FILE PHOTO

First Night

Continued from Page 5

time I drove to Chatham to perform at Chatham’s First Night celebration but I always drove back to Worcester so I could be there at the end of evening — at the welcoming in of the New Year,” Johnson said.

After joining the First Night Worcester board sometime just before the year 2000, Johnson recalled that one national concern was computers not being able to calculate a new century at midnight. “Would they all just shut down and self-destruct?”

All was well.

“Fond memories include the years we used the DCU center for many events — luckily one year, sometime in late 2009 or 2010, you could hardly walk around outside of there as the snow piled up so high outside that most attendees just stayed inside the DCU,” Johnson said.

“I miss seeing all sorts of friends as I made the rounds, checking in on each site to be sure all was going well,” said Washburn. “In the early years mobile phones were not ubiquitous so our program committee checked in on each venture several times during the night. There were so many delightful moments. In the later years I especially liked seeing young families gathering for a show. It reminded me of bringing my own family to the earliest First Night celebrations.”

Johnson said, “I shall never forget the uses of Tuckerman Hall where I convinced my friend, Paul Levenson (executive director of the Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra which owns and operated Tuckerman Hall), to let us use the hall over multiple years. He reminded me recently of one participant who had several handfuls of glitter which at the appropriate time he/she let fly at the appropriate hour which provided months of clean-up for his crews. He told me that it took at least six months before they were able to clean up all the glitter.”

When Witt and Folds came to Worcester they needed a place to rehearse on the day before the New Year’s Eve concert in Mechanics Hall. “So I took them over to my music room at Notre Dame Academy where I teach and gave them full use of amplifiers and drums, etc., “ Johnson said. “When I dropped them off there was not an ounce of snow on the ground but when I came back to get them a few hours later there was at least 6 inches of snow.”

Also at Tuckerman Hall, country singer Ayla Brown, daughter of former U.S. Senator Scott Brown, received a marriage proposal.

New Year’s Eve could be a very cold date in Worcester, and perhaps it felt more so as the years continued. Attendance began to decline, sponsors were harder to find, and First Night button sales slowly fell off (with 6,000 sold in 2015). Fireworks were curtailed some years, and the planning shifted to smaller venues. In November 2013, First Night Worcester said “help” as it sought to raise $25,000 to fund the New Year’s Eve celebration.

Meanwhile, where at one point there were over 400 First Night organizations across the country, by 2016 the number was down to about 20. There was no WRTA loop in 2016, but there were two trolleys to take people from place to place, and there was still a horse and carriage offering hayrides. The 35th First Night was also deemed a success.

But for whatever reason or reasons, the lights were going out nationally and locally.

“First Night Worcester stopped only because we could not be sure that the next year would be successful and we did not want to spoil our record and go out on a failed event,” Washburn said.

There are First Nights taking place this year, including in Boston, albeit a scaled down version. So could we ...

“You ask, will it ever return? No, I don’t think so,” Washburn said.

“That’s not to say that another civic-minded cultural event won’t emerge, and that it might even happen on New Year’s Eve. But First Night Worcester, as much as many people miss it and regret its passing, is history,” Washburn said.

Sankofa Kuumba Cultural Arts Consortium perform at the Epworth United Methodist Church in Worcester for First Night

2001. PAULA FERAZZI SWIFT/T&G FILE PHOTO Alicia Witt performs the first of two 40-minute sets at Mechanics Hall during Worcester First Night 2013. BETTY

JENEWIN/T&G FILE PHOTO

The Worcester Common Oval entertained ice skaters during Worcester First Night 2016. RICK

CINCLAIR/T&G FILE PHOTO

‘Accidental playwright’ Ed Humphries’ newest play set for Gateway Players

Veer Mudambi Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Ed Humphries’ newest play, “Dad’s Dance,” will open in February, performed by the Gateway Players Theatre of Southbridge. A casualty of the pandemic, the play was originally slated to premiere at Old Sturbridge Village Theatre, before COVID-19 necessitated a worldwide shutdown. Initially delayed, it was later canceled entirely. However, the Southbridge resident’s own journey to the stage has been much longer than that and is a story all its own.

“I’d call myself an accidental playwright,” said Humphries, referring to how he got to this point. Attending a performance to support a friend, he found himself surprised with how much he enjoyed the experience. Upon learning that the theater company was looking for more actors for a production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Humphries auditioned on impulse, landing the part of the villain Nurse Ratchet’s right-hand man in 2008.

“Every time Ratchet is on the stage, he’s with her,” said Humphries of his character. “He acts as her pit bull who pushes the inmates around.” What made it so fun, he discovered, was playing someone who was his complete opposite. “I found the role cathartic. After a hard day at work, get on stage and bully the inmates,” he said laughing.

For a time, he acted in one play a year while his kids were young — sometimes parts that he was interested in, but sometimes just ones convenient to his schedule. And it wasn’t long before he began to imagine what sort of play he would want to watch — a thought that “planted the seed” of writing his own plays, said Humphries. Having gone to school for journalism, and toying with writing a novel or two, he soon found out that a play was different from news writing or prose. So he began by studying the scripts for plays he performed in, starting with “Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Theater depends almost entirely on dialogue, which was something Humphries always had the hardest time with. It was more than just writing a believable conversation, however, but one that “builds characters” and using dialogue as the sole source of character development.

Studying that helped him home in on the individual voices and make his characters sound distinct from each other. It even allowed him to move beyond “writing a conversations to building characters” and he talked of how most of that will come from the actor but he gives them a blueprint and ingredients to work from at the start.

A scene in “Dad’s Dance” when people are standing around drinking beer lent itself to his photographic memory for conversation — “I pick up funny lines and weave them in.”

It all contributes to showing not telling the way different people can positively impact your life, if you open yourself up, and it is Humphries’ super power. “Always thought it was my weak spot but began to become my sweet spot and writing plays seemed more natural to me,” he explained.

He completed his first play, “The Monkey Bar Mafia,” in 2012, around three years after his part in “Cuckoo’s Nest.” Inspired by Humphries’ own experience of a year of unemployment and being a stay-at-home dad, the story dealt with the interaction of parents at the playground while watching their kids.

Humphries co-directed the play and reworked the script throughout production, and still remembers the exhilaration of opening night. “It was unbelievable — after going over those lines again and again, you can forget that people will connect with them emotionally. [The play] came out at a time when unemployment was high,” he said, “so that likely hit people hard.”

The experience was so inspiring that he immediately began work on his next play, and though his first play was a steep learning curve, he has since co-directed two plays and directed a third. In his fourth and most recent one, “Dad’s Dance,” he does not direct but acts instead. “It was sort of against my better judgment but the director was insistent,” he said about his return to acting, the first time since “Cuckoo’s Nest.”

“Dad’s Dance” is loosely based on his relationship with his daughter and in support of her passion for dance. His daughter has been involved with dance for most of her life and participates in yearly dance recitals. Though he told her, ”this is what I’m going to write, but I need you to know it isn’t our story,” the play wouldn’t exist without the relationship they have with each other. Memories of playing dance video games with his daughter inspired parts of the play

Like in all his other plays, Humphries makes people both laugh and cry. “When a friend of mine sat down to read the script, he asked, ‘is this going to make me cry at the end too?’” Humphries recalled. “It’s just how I’m wired.” And that is what draws the audience in, provides a sense of community and gives the performance a kind of healing power.

Even though he wrote this all prepandemic, now the message of the healing power of community will be felt differently in light of COVID-19, “coming out of what we just came out of with social distancing” and could be therapeutic for audiences “now that we can enjoy theater.”

All performances will be held at the Fellowship Hall of Elm Street Congregational Church, 61 Elm St., Southbridge. Performance dates are 7:30 p.m. Feb. 11, 12, 18 & 19, and 2 p.m. Feb. 20. Tickets are $15 for adults and $13 for seniors and youth under 18. Tickets may be reserved by calling Gateway at (508) 764-4531. Online credit card ticket sales at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/ event/5322152

This comedy will be directed by Eric Hart, and produced by Ed Humphries. The cast includes Mikey Dearn, Teresa Simpson, Patrick Bracken, Stephen Jean, Mary Darling, Prreeti Tiwari, Lynn Boucher and Ed Humphries. Stage manager is Diane Servant, choreographer is Valerie Langlais, and technical director is David Corkum.

From left, “Dad’s Dance” actors Lynn Boucher, Stephen Jean, Teresa Simpson and Mikey Dearn. ERIC HART

The Trichomes ready for ‘New Year’s Eve Extravaganza’ at Electric Haze

Robert Duguay

Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

It’s hard to believe, but in less than a week, 2021 will forever go into the history books. The ball will drop, 2022 will arrive, and a sense of hope for a better 12 months than the previous 24 will be prevalent among the masses. To ring in the next installment of the 2020s, there really isn’t a better way than hitting up a show to enjoy some live music along with some visual art, while possibly having a drink in your hand or a hit of a hookah. Fortunately, all of this is going down at a “New Year’s Eve Extravaganza” happening at Electric Haze on 26 Millbury St. in Worcester with an Apocpoet Art Gallery showing followed by The Chops from Boston, local multi-genre cover band Groover Cleveland and The Trichomes from Newmarket, New Hampshire, taking the stage.

Back in April, The Trichomes released the single “Snake Oil,” which was recorded in the basement of their house. The song captures a weird and funky vibe while being nearly 10 minutes long.

“We had another guitarist in our band for six months and that was the one song we recorded with him,” multi-instrumentalist Stefan Trogisch says about the making of the track. “Nearly a year later, after he wasn’t in the band anymore, we finally released it as a single. The whole premise of it is just trying to feel weird but also funky while making something. It has some really funky verses but there’s kind of a circusy, Django Reinhardt vibe at the same time.”

The band has a very collaborative and multi-instrumental approach to music. Other than jokingly mentioning attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as an influence, the members each have diverse musical tastes which helps in seamlessly diving into different styles.

“I would say that we all have a lot of different musical backgrounds and we all listen to some crazy music,” Trogisch said. “Stuff like Mr. Bungle but for main influences there’s some ‘70s fusion rock, we like punk rock, we like ska and even classical, so it’s kind of all over the place.

With 2021 marking the return of live music after it barely existed during the COVID-19 pandemic last year, The Trichomes really enjoyed performing with different musicians from other acts. They find it to be a very fun experience while also bringing about fond memories from the past six months.

“Being able to have people sit in with us again,” bassist and synthesizer player Ian Smith reflects on his favorite moments of the year. “We’ve had a few sit-in sessions that made us really happy.”

“It’s not that we’re always a jam, jam, jam time band but we do like doing it on occasion,” Trogisch adds. “Whenever we’ve gotten a couple horn players from another act throwing down with us it’s always super fun. We don’t get to do that at our house as much but we have a trumpet player jumping in with us sometimes, which folks will see on the album we’re currently working on.”

Speaking of that album, the band aims to have it out on a specific date in the spring. It’s a date that fits well with The Trichomes’ name if you do some research.

“Spring is what we’re looking at for a time to release the album, specifically 4/20,” Trogisch says. “Our name comes from actual trichomes being the hairs on plants and when you touch them they stick to you, much like how music does. We released ‘Snake Oil’ on that date this year as well so we figure it would be a good time to put out the album then and we’ll probably put out another single before that. Potentially it’ll be a song about cowboys wearing pants and dresses.”

The Trichomes are set to play Electric Haze on New Year’s Eve. PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREA LYNNE SKANE