The Pierce Performance Series seeks to raise the visibility of the Boston Public Library's Special Collections through free public performances. Thanks to the generosity of the Harold Whitworth Pierce Charitable Trust our past performances have commemorated the hundredth anniversary of the Peace Jubilee, celebrated women's suffrage, examined the life of Phillis Wheatley Peters, and celebrated the musical legacy of Serge Koussevitzky.
We Hold These Truths
An evening of music and poetry inspired by the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
On June 25, 2026, the Associates of the Boston Public Library hosted "We Hold These Truths," an evening of commissioned music and poetry inspired by the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
The Associates was especially honored to be joined by special guest speakers, former Governor Deval Patrick and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who read from the Declaration of Independence throughout the evening. Their participation brought extraordinary resonance to an evening reflecting on the enduring ideals, grievances, and aspirations in the nation’s founding document.
The 8th installment of the Pierce Performance Series was made possible by the generosity of the Harold Whitworth Pierce Charitable Trust and hosted by the Associates of the Boston Public Library.
2024: Celebrating conductor serge Koussevitzky’s legacy
The Associates' sixth annual Pierce Performance was 150 Years of Koussevitzky.
This free series of musical programs, held in collaboration with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Public Library, celebrated the 150th anniversary of legendary conductor Serge Koussevitzky’s birth and the 100th anniversary of his appointment as BSO music director. To learn more read the event recaps on our news page.
Through three inspiring talks and musical performances by BSO musicians, we examined Koussevitzky's role as an innovator, music director, and double bassist. The October 15, October 29, and November 19 programs took place in the Central Library in 2024. Peruse the digital program here.
2024 Pierce Performance Series Schedule
Ongoing: Special Collections Lobby Exhibit
- Items from the BPL's Koussevitzky Collection will be on display in the Special Collections Lobby from October 2024 through March 2025.
Tuesday, October 15 - Koussevitzky, Innovator
- Read the recap blog here.
- Associates-funded BPL Curator of Music, Jared Rex, along with the BSO’s Blanche and George Jones Director of Archives/Digital Collections, Bridget Carr, discussed how the BPL’s Serge Koussevitzky collection and the BSO Archives document Koussevitzky’s impact on the music world. The program featured a short chamber music performance of Paul Hindemith’s Septet for Winds by BSO musicians.
Tuesday, October 29 - Koussevitzky’s Legacy
- Read the recap blog here.
- Northeastern emeritus professor and Russian music scholar Harlow Robinson and PRX radio host Tom Godell discussed Serge Koussevitzky’s influence on the Orchestra’s sound and the artistic trajectory of contemporary American symphonic music. The program included a performance of the final movement of Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 2 in C, Op. 36 by BSO musicians.
Tuesday, November 19 - Koussevitzky, Musician
- Read the recap blog here.
- WCRB’s Brian McCreath and BSO Principal Bass Edwin Barker discussed Koussevitzky’s origins as a double bass virtuoso and impresario. The program also included performances by Mr. Barker of selections from Koussevitzky’s legendary 1929 Boston recital.
Legendary Russian-born conductor, composer, and double-bassist, Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951) was appointed as the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Music Director one hundred years ago. Under Koussevitzky’s tenure from 1924 to 1949, the BSO became a leading American orchestra, but it is the activities and initiatives he spearheaded off the podium that we primarily remember today. This includes his extensive work commissioning new orchestral compositions from young American composers; his passion for music education by creating a place for young musicians to study at the Berkshire Music Festival and Center (now Tanglewood); publishing musical works of his contemporaries through Éditions Russes de Musique, the music publishing company he founded; and, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, a trust fund managed by the Library of Congress to commission works by contemporary composers, which continues to provide funding for new compositions to this day. Koussevitzky’s dedication to mentoring young musicians, including Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, Dorothy Maynor, and Leonard Bernstein, helped launch the careers of many significant composers, conductors, and performers. Join us in celebrating this transformative force in American music!
RESOURCES
The Boston Public Library's Special Collections contains eight rare printings of the Declaration. In the summer of 1776, the Declaration was current, breaking news, distributed through newspaper printings, broadsides, and more. For the first time ever, the Boston Public Library’s eight rare printings of the Declaration are on display together in a free, public exhibition, Declarations: Printing a New Nation, on view through Sunday, September 13, 2026, at the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Central Library in Copley Square.
Rather than focusing solely on the Declaration as a single iconic manuscript, the exhibition examines the multiple printed copies that circulated in July 1776 and the months that followed; copies that brought news of independence to cities, towns, and military encampments. Through these materials, visitors will gain a deeper understanding of how information traveled in the eighteenth century and how print culture shaped the birth of a nation.
The exhibition is presented in partnership between the Boston Public Library and the Leventhal Map & Education Center and made possible by the Irene Haney Creative Enrichment Fund through the Boston Public Library Fund. Ongoing funding to support conservation, curation, and digitization of BPL’s Special Collections is provided by The Associates of the Boston Public Library.
Past Pierce Performances
Click on each bar to learn more
2025: A Revelation of Character
The Associates' seventh annual Pierce Performance was A Revelation of Character.
A Revelation of Character is a new, short play commissioned by the Associates of the Boston Public Library from award-winning playwright Patrick Gabridge, in collaboration with Plays in Place.
The 7th installment of the Pierce Performance Series, this play dramatizes the fraught relationship between abolitionists Lydia Maria Child and Maria Weston Chapman amid their shared fight to end slavery. Playwright Patrick Gabridge drew from original letters in the Boston Public Library's Anti-Slavery Collection, many of which were conserved and digitized with funding from the Associates.
The staged readings take place in Rabb Hall at the Central Library on November 12 and 13 at 6 PM, and November 15 at 2 PM.
Patrick Gabridge
Playwright & Founder of Plays in Place Patrick Gabridge is the producing artistic director and founder of Plays in Place and has created site-specific plays in partnership with many museums and historic sites, including Mount Auburn Cemetery, Boston’s Old State House, Old South Meeting House, Historic Northampton, and Old North Church. He is an award-winning playwright and has written 24 historical plays, along with many contemporary plays that have received more than 1,000 productions from theatres and schools around the world (17 countries so far). He’s also a screenwriter, novelist, and a writer of audio plays.
Lisa Rafferty Director Playwright, director, producer
Lisa Rafferty creates documentary plays which celebrate the strength and resiliency of heroic women and men and writes comedies about motherhood. These include ONWARD –Votes for Women, FINISH LINE, about the 2013 Boston Marathon and The Legacy of Welles Remy Crowther presented at the 9/11 Museum in NYC. For Boston Theater Company, she created and directed Beyond Boundaries: Gender Expression in Shakespeare. Her comedy series, The MOMologues, is published by Concord Theatricals seen around the world. She worked with composers in Boston, New York and Tel Aviv to create MOMologues the Musical, appearing in NYC, Boston, and LA.
Jennifer Drummond Maria Weston Chapman
Jen is thrilled to join this incredible group for Pierce's Performance Series. By day, she works as an Executive Assistant for a Boston non-profit. Favorite past roles include: Theater – CABARET (Sally Bowles), HAMLET (Ophelia), TOP GIRLS (Marlene); Film – BATMAN: RIDDLE ME THIS (Selena Kyle/Catwoman), SUMMER (Sibling 1), NEW YEAR'S (Carlita Veronica). Sincerest thanks to Pat, Lisa, Amie, Emma and team for bringing this vital piece to life. “We often hear, ‘What shall we do?’ Here is an opportunity to do something now.” May we never stop fighting for what is right!
Amie Lytle Lydia Maria Child
Amie Lytle is thrilled to be making her Plays in Place debut. This is her 6th production with Lisa Rafferty. Select recent credits include: POTUS (u/s), Someone Will Remember Us (u/s), Trinity Rep, The Crucible, Macbeth, THT Rep at the Hanover Theatre; Bread and Butter, Harbor Stage Company; Sister Act, Lyric Stage; Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Collective Rage, Romeo & Juliet, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress, Burbage Theatre Company; Finish Line, Boch Center- Schubert Theatre. She is also a yoga teacher and the author of “Rescue Lou.” www.amielytle.com
Emma Friend Lydia Maria Child
Emma is very excited and honored to be a part of this production. After studying theater at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Emma has taken part in multiple staged readings, such as, The Mill Project by Brianna Sloane and A Light Under the Dome, by Patrick Gabridge. Now based in Philadelphia, Emma is happy to be in such a lovely show, so close to home. Enjoy!
Eliza Fichter Understudy
Regional: How to Not Save the World With Mr. Bezos (Great Barrington Public Theater); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Actors’ Shakespeare Project); Noises Off (Lyric Stage Company); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Servant of Two Masters (Lanes Coven Theater); Morning, Noon and Night (Company One); The Minutes (Umbrella Stage Company); Kill the Magistrate (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); The Crucible (Nora Theatre/Bedlam); The Revolutionists (Central Square Theater); Matchless & The Happy Prince (Underground Railway Theater). A multidisciplinary artist from Massachusetts, Eliza also works as a printmaker. B.F.A. Boston University, M.Ed. Harvard University. elizafichter.com
Hannah McEachern Associate Producer
Hannah (she/her) is a Boston-based producer and director specializing in comedy and new works. Outside of her role of Co-Producer at Plays in Place, she is the Founding Artistic Director of QTCboston, a new-works theatre collective that focuses on developing new plays and cultivating spaces for queer artists to nurture a sense of community and belonging within the Boston theatre industry. Producing credits include: The Kittie Knox Plays (Plays in Place), Queer Coffee House (QTCboston), Queer Comedy Night @ Satellite (Wicked Queer Comedy), Remembrance (QTCresidency), Teach-In on Sustainability: 24 Hour Play Fest (Emerson College). Hannah earned her BFA from Emerson College, and MFA from Edinburgh Napier University.
Michael Eckenreiter Stage Manager
Michael Eckenreiter is an actor, stage manager, musician, and sound designer based in MA & RI. Michael graduated from Bridgewater State University with a BA in Theatre Arts and a minor in Musical Theater Performance. Michael served as an Assistant Director for new works at the Kennedy Center in 2018. As a stage manager, credits include Marie Antoinette (BSU), Heathers: The Musical (BSU) Dracula (BSU) ONWARD: Votes for Women (Birch Tree Productions). Acting credits include: Johnny in American Idiot (Wilbury Theatre Group) Hans Rilow in Awakening of Spring, and Lady Olivia in Twelfth Night (Reverie Theatre Group). More at michaeleckenreiter.com and Instagram: @mecksmix
Kat Lawrence Costume Designer
Kat Lawrence is a Boston local costume designer and performer. She graduated from Brandeis University in 2022 with a degree in Theater Arts with Highest honors, Music, and Film. Her work has been seen all over Boston with The Huntington Theater, Fresh Ink Theater, Commonwealth Shakespeare, The Hub Theater, Wheelock Family Theater, and Boston Conservatory. She is also the Costume Design and Props teacher at the Cambridge School of Weston, teaching the next generation of theater artists. She is grateful to return to work at the BPL with Lisa after performing in 2021’s ONWARD: Votes for Women. See more of her work at www.kat-lawrence.com and Instagram @kat_lawrence_costumes
Lawrence Gullo Props Designer
Lawrence Gullo is a writer and performance artist trained in London, Prague, and New York. Whether producing experimental theatre like Let’s Misbehave, teaching live art classes, constructing burlesque costumes and props, or building puppets from scratch, he is always inspired by queer history and mythology.
Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880) and Maria Weston Chapman (1806–1885) were leading Boston abolitionists whose efforts shaped the anti-slavery movement.
The pair fell out in the 1840s amid disputes in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Child resigned as editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard in 1841, criticizing Chapman’s rigid Garrisonian stance for rejecting political engagement and alienating moderates, while Chapman viewed Child’s compromises as betrayal. Their clash reflected a deeper split in the movement between ideological purity and a broader coalition to end slavery.
The Boston Public Library's Anti-Slavery Collection contains a wealth of letters, including this one from Lydia Maria Child to Maria Weston Chapman. In this letter, Child resigns from the anti-slavery movement as a whole. On the other side of the letter, Chapman wrote a biting comment, 'A Revelation of Character'.
2024: Celebrating conductor Serge Koussevitzky’s legacy
The Associates' sixth annual Pierce Performance was 150 Years of Koussevitzky.
This free series of musical programs, held in collaboration with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Public Library, celebrated the 150th anniversary of legendary conductor Serge Koussevitzky’s birth and the 100th anniversary of his appointment as BSO music director. To learn more read the event recaps on our news page.
Through three inspiring talks and musical performances by BSO musicians, we examined Koussevitzky's role as an innovator, music director, and double bassist. The October 15, October 29, and November 19 programs took place in the Central Library in 2024. Peruse the digital program here.
2024 Pierce Performance Series Schedule
Ongoing: Special Collections Lobby Exhibit
- Items from the BPL's Koussevitzky Collection will be on display in the Special Collections Lobby from October 2024 through March 2025.
Tuesday, October 15 - Koussevitzky, Innovator
- Read the recap blog here.
- Associates-funded BPL Curator of Music, Jared Rex, along with the BSO’s Blanche and George Jones Director of Archives/Digital Collections, Bridget Carr, discussed how the BPL’s Serge Koussevitzky collection and the BSO Archives document Koussevitzky’s impact on the music world. The program featured a short chamber music performance of Paul Hindemith’s Septet for Winds by BSO musicians.
Tuesday, October 29 - Koussevitzky’s Legacy
- Read the recap blog here.
- Northeastern emeritus professor and Russian music scholar Harlow Robinson and PRX radio host Tom Godell discussed Serge Koussevitzky’s influence on the Orchestra’s sound and the artistic trajectory of contemporary American symphonic music. The program included a performance of the final movement of Benjamin Britten’s String Quartet No. 2 in C, Op. 36 by BSO musicians.
Tuesday, November 19 - Koussevitzky, Musician
- Read the recap blog here.
- WCRB’s Brian McCreath and BSO Principal Bass Edwin Barker discussed Koussevitzky’s origins as a double bass virtuoso and impresario. The program also included performances by Mr. Barker of selections from Koussevitzky’s legendary 1929 Boston recital.
Legendary Russian-born conductor, composer, and double-bassist, Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951) was appointed as the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Music Director one hundred years ago. Under Koussevitzky’s tenure from 1924 to 1949, the BSO became a leading American orchestra, but it is the activities and initiatives he spearheaded off the podium that we primarily remember today. This includes his extensive work commissioning new orchestral compositions from young American composers; his passion for music education by creating a place for young musicians to study at the Berkshire Music Festival and Center (now Tanglewood); publishing musical works of his contemporaries through Éditions Russes de Musique, the music publishing company he founded; and, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, a trust fund managed by the Library of Congress to commission works by contemporary composers, which continues to provide funding for new compositions to this day. Koussevitzky’s dedication to mentoring young musicians, including Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, Dorothy Maynor, and Leonard Bernstein, helped launch the careers of many significant composers, conductors, and performers. Join us in celebrating this transformative force in American music!
Collaborators
COMMEMORATING the 250th anniversary of the publication of PHILLIS' groundbreaking work
The Associates of the Boston Public Library's fifth annual Pierce Performance was held on December 4, 2023 in the BPL's Rabb Hall and virtually for two weeks following the show.
Faces of Phillis featured a staged reading by Adeola Solanke and directed by Regge Life, a panel discussion, and a poetry reading. The three-part literary evening was held to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the publication of Phillis Wheatley Peters' groundbreaking book, Poems of Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in 1773.
The event was featured in The Boston Globe on December 1st:
Faces of Phillis’ Imagines Phillis Wheatley’s Life for the 250th Anniversary of her Poetry Collection
To view highlights from this performance, please visit YouTube.
Pierce Performance 2023
This three-part literary event started with "Faces of Phillis," a staged reading written by Adeola Solanke and directed by Regge Life. The reading dramatized key moments from Phillis Wheatley Peters’ life. A talented ensemble of actors portrayed the historical figures Phillis Wheatley Peters, Obour Tanner, John Peters, Scipio Moorhead, and Elizabeth Freeman. This was followed by a panel discussion, moderated by Lisa Rafferty, featuring Ade Solanke, our playwright, Meredith Bergmann, the sculptor for the 2003 Boston Women’s Memorial, and Kyera Singleton, the Executive Director of the Royall House Museum. The evening concluded with the City of Boston’s Poet Laureate, Porsha Olayiwola, performing a dramatic reading of one of Phillis’s poems, as well as her own work inspired by Phillis. Click here to read the Faces of Phillis program booklet, including more background about each of our collaborators and the cast.
Background
Phillis Wheatley Peters (1753-1784) was an early American poet and correspondent who became a transatlantic literary celebrity while enslaved in Boston. As both a Black woman enslaved in pre-Revolutionary Boston and an internationally renowned poet, Phillis Wheatley Peters navigated a world of complexity and contradiction. Even today, her biography defies conventional categories and unanswered questions about her life and work abound.
When she was approximately seven years old, Phillis Wheatley Peters (whose birth name we do not know) was kidnapped near the coast of West Africa and forced into captivity. After enduring the Middle Passage, she arrived in Boston Harbor in the summer of 1761. There, she was purchased by her enslavers, the prominent Bostonian couple Susanna and John Wheatley, who renamed Phillis after the ship that had brought her to the city.
Phillis Wheatley Peters composed her first poems as a young teenager. Through her position within John and Susanna Wheatley’s evangelical household, she eventually built connections with some of the leading religious and political figures of the day. In 1770, her elegy on the death of the Reverend George Whitefield brought her fame in the colonies, while her collection, Poems of Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, published in 1773, made her a transatlantic celebrity. She was the first African American and the third American woman in the United States to publish a book of poetry. Read More Here.
Adeola Solanke, also known as Ade, is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and founder of Spora Stories. Her acclaimed debut play, "Pandora's Box," received a Best New Play nomination in London's Off-West End Theatre Awards. Ade has been recognized as the Best Playwright in the Nigerian Entertainment and Lifestyle Awards and received Best Play honors in the African Film Awards. Her work has graced renowned stages across the UK, including Arcola, Young Vic, and Sheffield Crucible Theatres. Ade recently completed two Fulbright Distinguished International Fellowships at Emerson College and the University of Southern California. Ade has previously written two plays about Phillis Wheatley Peters including Phillis in London and Phillis in Boston, which is playing from November 3rd - December 3rd at Revolutionary Spaces in Boston.
The Boston Public Library's Rare Books Department holds a substantial collection of primary sources that document Wheatley Peters’ life and literary work: from colonial newspapers and manuscript letters to original copies of many editions of her poems. Learn more about the BPL's holdings via this blog entry, Tracing the Life of Phillis Wheatley Peters, by Jay Moschella, BPL's Curator of Rare Books.
Shown here is the BPL's first edition of Wheatley Peters’ collection of poems, printed in London in 1773. Most scholars believe that the engraved portrait of the author was designed by Scipio Moorhead, an artist enslaved by the Reverend John Moorhead, of Boston. This copy is signed by Wheatley Peters.
The Associates is proud to have underwritten the preservation of this rare book in 2015 as part of our commitment to preserve and promote the BPL’s Special Collections.
Crew
Regge Life - Director
Lisa Rafferty - Producer
Kimberly Mae Waller - Associate Producer
M Stranski - Costume Design
Michael Eckenreiter - Stage Manager
Cast
Adreyanua Jean-Louis - Phillis Wheatley Peters
Serenity S'rae - Obour Tanner
Joshua Lee - John Peters
Junior Cius - Scipio Moorhead
Regine Vital - Mumbet/Elizabeth Freeman
Revisiting the Life and Influence of one of America's First Rebels
Thomas Paine was one of the world’s greatest writers, but worst politicians. With strokes of his pen, Paine inspired the American Revolution, defined the French Revolution, and championed reason as the basis for our beliefs and morality. His ideas about democracy, equality, slavery, pensions, healthcare, education, and morality would have created a very different kind of world if they had been acted on. He also fought passionately against the institution of monarchy. Paine, who ignited revolutions, would die largely ignored and disdained, yet when writing his books and pamphlets he was at the epicenter of world events, literally transforming nations through the power of his words.
The 2022 Pierce Performance featured a free production of To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine. Through his portrayal of this pivotal patriot, Ian Ruskin provided audiences with an intimate insight into Paine’s life and his important role in bringing about revolutionary changes in the world. The play’s period costuming and props, the soundtrack of original music by Joe Romano, and the sound effects by Keith Robinson added immediacy and intimacy to Ruskin's powerful performance. Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at the Harvard Kennedy School, introduced the November 2nd performance and helped to connect the play to issues that continue to today.
Actor, writer, and independent scholar, Ian Ruskin trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and worked for 15 years in repertory companies, London’s West End, television and film. Moving to Los Angeles in 1985, Ian guest starred in episodic television such as She Wrote, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and MacGyver. His lifelong interest in social justice led him to found The Harry Bridges Project in 2000, where he produced two radio documentaries and wrote the one-man play From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks: The Life and Time of Harry Bridges about labor leader Harry Bridges. With the assistance of a COLA (City of Los Angeles) Fellowship, Ruskin wrote To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine, continuing his mission to present the stories of forgotten and misunderstood heroes from American and European history. Both plays were filmed and directed by Academy Award winner, Haskell Wexler, and aired on PBS for several years. Past performances of the Bridges and Paine plays include the English and Scottish Parliaments in London and Edinburgh, Faneuil Hall in Boston, Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre in New York, Grand Performances in Los Angeles, The American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, and The Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro. Ruskin has also created a radio documentary A Wild Woman Sings the Blues about the life and work of Barbara Dane, and a one-man play about “the man who invented the 20th century,” Nikola Tesla, Magic and Lightning: into the Mind of Nikola Tesla. To learn more, visit Ruskin Productions.
Deposited with the Boston Public Library in 1894, the John Adams Library includes over 2,700 volumes collected by the second president during his lifetime (1735-1826) as well as hundreds of additional books later donated by his family members. One of the greatest private collections of its day, the books spans the fields of classics, literature, history, politics, government, philosophy, religion, law, science, mathematics, medicine, agriculture, language and linguistics, economics, and travel. The collection is of particular interest to scholars and historians because Adams recorded thousands of interpretive and critical manuscript annotations in the margins of his books.
One of the gems in this collections is Adams' personal copy of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. The entire book has been digitized and can be read here.
Celebrating Women's Right to Vote
The women’s suffrage movement was a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States. The 19th Amendment, which guarantees women the right to vote, was finally passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920. To mark the recent 100th anniversary of this historic event, the Associates of the Boston Public Library commissioned a play celebrating many of the advocates who brought about this radical change.
The 2021 Pierce Performance featured the world premiere of ONWARD – Votes for Women, a documentary play created by Lisa Rafferty, with music arranged and composed by Adam R. McDonald. The production offered the powerful and inspiring voices and perspectives of the extraordinary women who fought for seventy years for equality. Over twenty historical characters from the movement, along with women leaders from our time, were portrayed by an ensemble of ten.
The cast, featured many renowned members of the Boston arts community, playing multiple roles, including: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Alice Paul, Mary Church Terrell, Louisa May Alcott, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Ford, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Gloria Steinem. The script was created using language verbatim from documents in the Boston Public Library's Special Collections, and other speeches, letters, articles and interviews from a variety of sources. Suffrage music and songs were interspersed throughout the production, along with an original score.
Playwright, director, producer Lisa Rafferty creates documentary plays which celebrate the strength and resiliency of heroic women and men including SHE DID ALL THAT - Betty Ford: Speaking Out, Saving Lives,about the unforgettable First Lady;THE LEGACY OF WELLES REMY CROWTHER: The Man in the Red Bandanna, about the young man who died saving others on 9/11; and the world premiere of Boston Theater Company’s FINISH LINE, about the 2013 Boston Marathon, with Joey Frangieh. Her comedies –The MOMologues(1, 2and3), published by Samuel French, have appeared in 26 states and six countries. She is the recipient of the Massachusetts General Hospital's the one hundred award for writing a comedy about breast cancer with other survivors, titled Pink Ribbon Overdose. Lisa is the Producing Director of the Elliot Norton Awards and teaches theater at Bridgewater State University. For more details, please see Birch Tree Productions.
Adam McDonald is the composer and music director for ONWARD. His background includes music directing the national tours of Wicked, and Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In New York, he music directed Far From Canterbury, and Songs for Slutty Girls. His regional shows include Titanic, Showboat, Footloose, Damn Yankees!, Cats, The Sound of Music, and Beauty and the Beast, all at The Muny, and Guys and Dolls, and The Game at Barrington Stage. Some of Adam’s other favorite projects include Company, Working, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Cabaret, Once on This Island, A New Brain, John and Jen, Curtains, Hello Again, William Finn's Elegies; A Song Cycle, First Lady Suite, and The Rocky Horror Show. Adam performed Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 2 as a guest soloist at Iowa State University, and Rhapsody in Blue as a guest soloist at The Boston Conservatory. He earned his Bachelor of Music from Iowa State University, and a Master of Music in Piano Performance from The Boston Conservatory.
To see photographs of the 2021 Pierce Performance please visit the related blog post.
Giving Voice to the Abolitionists: Selected Readings from the BPL's Anti-Slavery Collection
Pierce Performance
Do letters written more than 150 years ago in opposition to the institution of slavery in the United States still matter today? Can the words of the abolitionists help us to understand the foundations of social and political movements in our time? Giving Voice to the Abolitionists explores these questions through the performance of a group of young actors as they read the words and letters of abolitionists.
Giving Voice to the Abolitionists features five remarkable students from the Boston Arts Academy, sharing letters originally written by William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Lydia Maria Child, and Amos Augustus Phelps. Wellesley College Assistant Professor Kellie Carter Jackson introduces the readings and argues for the letters critical relevance today. The video was produced in collaboration with Artists for Humanity.
Background
In the late 1890s, the family of William Lloyd Garrison, along with others closely involved in the anti-slavery movement, presented Boston Public Library with a major gathering of correspondence, documents, and other original material relating to the abolitionist cause from 1832 until after the American Civil War.
The Library's Anti-Slavery Collection contains about 40,000 pieces of correspondence, broadsides, newspapers, pamphlets, books, and realia spanning a 35-year period. The major holdings consist of the papers of William Lloyd Garrison, Maria Weston Chapman and Deborah Weston, Lydia Maria Child, Amos Augustus Phelps, and Samuel May Jr.; records of the American, Massachusetts, New England, and Female Anti-Slavery Societies; and the personal libraries of William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Parker, and Wendell Phillips.
Giving Voice to the Abolitionists premiered on YouTube in December 2020.
To see learn more about our virtual Pierce Performance and see the video presentation please visit the related blog post.
Commemorating the Peace Jubilee
Background
In 1869 Americans from across the country gathered in Copley Square to celebrate the end of the Civil War with a five-day patriotic musical extravaganza. Patrick Gilmore’s National Peace Jubilee featured over 10,000 vocalists, 1,000 musicians and 100 firemen hammering on anvils, performing for an audience of over 30,000 people in a temporary building dubbed the “Temple of Peace.” At the time, it was the biggest musical event ever held in America.
Pierce Performance
To mark the 150th anniversary of this momentous occasion, the Associates of the Boston Public Library held a free event on March 29, 2019 commemorating the Peace Jubilee and telling its story for contemporary Bostonians, just steps from the original location.
The evening featured:
- Patriotic brass and choral performances by New England Conservatory (NEC) including My Country Tis of Thee, Lascia ch'io pianga, Hallelujah Chorus and Star Spangled Banner;
- Mirroring the original event, NEC musicians were joined by local firemen hammering on anvils for the Anvil Chorus;
- Poetry by the City of Boston's Poet Laureate, Porsha Olayiwola;
- An explanation of the original Peace Jubilee by Jake Sconyers from the HUB History podcast; and
- A keynote address on leadership by Professor Theodore C. Landsmark, Director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University.
To see photographs and videos of our inaugural Pierce Performance in 2019 please visit the related blog post.