Between October 26th and November 5th, horror fans of stage and screen gather at the Twin Cities Horror Festival, the only theater festival in the country to produce solely horror theater. This year, Boston Community Collaborative premiered the original production Sadie Mae, 1969, a play about the Manson Murders from the point of view of the women who were there, focusing on Susan Atkins, aka Sadie Mae Glutz.
The play was written, directed and choreographed by Ingrid Oslund, lead drama and dance instructor at Boston Community Collaborative. The play was carefully researched by Oslund in both Boston and Los Angles and was written over the course of 3 years. The entire cast consists of Boston Area actors, many of them current students of Suffolk University. Erica Wisor played the sinister Sadie Mae, with Matt Bittner as the infamous Charles Manson. Sara Kerr and Asha Hirsi took on the roles of Virginia and Ronnie, the real inmates who led to the break in the Manson case after Sadie’s jailhouse confession. Victoria Isotti, plays Sharon Tate, the pregnant victim of the Murders who haunts her killer. Rebecca Klein appears as Manson Family member, Squeaky Fromme as well as Susan’s mother. Joey Del rounds out the cast as “Tex”, another family member as well as the composer of the adaptations of the music the Mansons worshipped, giving the play a sinister atmosphere.
Being favorably reviewed at the Festival (Under “Revisiting a Familiar Family”, https://minnesotaplaylist.com/magazine/article/2017/twin-cities-horror-festival-digs-for-the-fear-inside-us-all), Oslund plans to expand the play from a festival piece to a full length work by the end of the year.
This work, as an immersive staged reading was featured this past spring at the Charlestown Working Theater as part of the Theater on Fire’s Cabinet of Curiosities. http://www.wbur.org/artery/2017/05/08/cabinet-of-curiosities-theatre-on-fire
Theater is nothing, but a collaborative art and Boston Community Collaborative has the Nazzaro Center, all of their GoFundMe Donors, Suffolk University, Oslund and Associates, HGA Architects and MidWestOne Bank to thank for their generosity in supporting this project.
BCC offers courses in Drama, Dance, Fitness, Engineering for Kids, and Chess during the St John School afterschool program, courses in Drama in the North End, and at the Josiah Quincy afterschool program. BCC holds a Movers and Shakers class for babies and toddlers at the West End Community Center. BCC hosts a number of community events: Movie Nights in the Gassy during the summer, an annual Halloween Party for adults, an annual Springtime Egg Hunt in Christopher Columbus Park and a variety of other things. For more information, contact becca0923@yahoo.com.
• Upcoming Events:
November 21, 10 am and 3 pm Annual Thank you card writing event for Thanksgiving at the North End Library.
December 10, 2 pm End of Fall session production of “The Snow Queen and the 12 Months”. This performance brings together all of our drama and dance students (4 classes of SJS students, 1 class of neighborhood students) to showcase and celebrate their talents and awesomeness.
January 2018, start of winter session of classes.
February 16 and 17, Auditions for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, our Spring 2018 Mainstage show. This will be a collaboration between professional actors and our students.
Mid March – End of Winter session production
Spring, 2018, annual neighborhood egghunt.
June 1 and 2, 7 pm, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
Mid June, End of Spring session production
October 26, 2018 6th Annual Halloween FUNraiser for adults.