Provincetown News

Provincetown History Snippet: Tennessee Williams in Provincetown

September 20, 2019

History

With the Tennessee Williams Festival right around the corner, it’s a good time to turn to festival curator David Kaplan’s book and remind ourselves of how Williams contributed to the town—and the town to him. In Provincetown Williams fell in love...

Provincetown History Snippet: The Sea is Good to Eugene O’Neill

September 13, 2019

History

American drama was born in Provincetown. It happened on Lewis Wharf on Friday, June 18th, 1916 at the première of Eugene O’Neill’s play Bound East for Cardiff. The play (O’Neill’s first produced work) heralded an outstanding career that would...

A Stampede for Our Times: Rhinoceros at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater

September 11, 2019

One could argue that 1959, when Eugène Ionesco wrote Rhinoceros, was a time far removed from our own. World War Two was little more than a decade over. The Cold War was vigorous. Yet sixty years on, the play is chilling in its indictment of the problems of...

Provincetown History Snippet: What is The Somerset?

September 6, 2019

History

Provincetown was largely deserted during the Revolution, as many of its men enlisted to fight. Yet together with Truro, Provincetown made one of the war’s biggest captures. The 64-gun British man-of-war Somerset had blockaded Boston and bombarded...

Provincetown History Snippet: Early Provincetown Homes

August 30, 2019

History

The earliest homes in Provincetown were reminiscent of the cottages the early settler left behind, yet adapted to life on a sand bar. They were shingled, built close to the ground with small circular cellars that could withstand the pressure of the...

Small Shacks, Big History: The Story Behind Provincetown’s Dune Shacks

August 30, 2019

History

Tucked into the dunes of Provincetown are a number of small shacks with a rich history. WGBH Morning Edition Host Joe Mathieu spoke with WGBH Managing Editor Sean Corcoran about the shacks, and how they seem to have outlasted the test of time. The transcript...

Provincetown History Snippet: The Provincetown Airport

August 23, 2019

History

Constructed in the 1940s, with a runway first paved in 1948, the Provincetown Municipal Airport consists of developed airside and landside areas maintained for airport facilities and operations, surrounded by undeveloped areas that consist of grasslands,...

Provincetown Theater presents Yukio Mishima’s Phantasmagoric Love Story The Lady Aoi

August 21, 2019

In a month-long residency, South African company Abrahamse and Meyer to perform their acclaimed Noh play September 12-22 World-renowned South African theatre artists Fred Abrahamse and Marcel Meyer have been bringing vibrant works to the Provincetown Theater...

Provincetown History Snippet: Who is Dorothy Bradford?

August 16, 2019

History

Dorothy May Bradford was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England, about 1597, the daughter of Henry and Katherine May. At the age of 16, she married 23-year old William Bradford in Amsterdam, and returned with her husband to take up residence in Leiden,...

When is a Corpse Not Just a Corpse? “Lenin’s Embalmers” at WHAT

August 14, 2019

How do you keep a legend alive? By embalming the body, of course, and that’s exactly what Josef Stalin (Robin Bloodworth) has decided to do: preserve the body of dead Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin (Robin Haynes) so that it may be viewed by the...