It started as many of life’s greatest moments do: with the smell of bacon. Jacques Lamarre was at a book expo in New York City, browsing the new releases. And there he was, just hanging around in the small- and academic-press aisle—the best aisle—when he smelled it. Bacon.

“I was like, ‘That’s always of interest,’” says Lamarre. He followed the aroma to a feminist-press booth and it was fronted by the mono-monikered celebrity Chef Rossi, with a tray of peanut butter bacon sandwiches. She was signing her memoir, The Raging Skillet: The True Life Story of Chef Rossi, a Memoir with Recipes.

“I was standing in line with the book, reading the back of it,” Lamarre says. “And by the time I got up to talk to her, I said, ‘Would you be interested in seeing this become a play?’”

Chef Rossi, the muse behind Lamarre’s new play, The Raging Skillet.

When Lamarre moved to Hartford in 1990—he’d been offered a job at Hartford Stage—he fell in love with Hartford’s “tremendous art scene,” he says. Since then, he’s become a staple of that scene. In addition to Hartford Stage, he’s worked with the Hartford Symphony, the Mark Twain House, Real Art Ways, The Wadsworth Atheneum, among others. And he’s an accomplished playwright—The Raging Skillet is his 12th full-length play, and his third for TheaterWorks, where it will premiere on July 20.

Photo of (l to r) Ronn Carroll and Harry Bouvy in Christmas on the Rocks, photo by Lanny Nagler.

Lamarre calls his latest play “the first punk-rock, lesbian, Jewish catering show.” The Raging Skillet, which Lamarre worked on closely with Chef Rossi (and which will star Mary Testa and Barbara Rosenblat, whom you’ll recognize from Netflix’s Orange is the New Black), honors the book’s quirky format, with recipes actually being made on stage.

“It’s going to be very fun,” says Lamarre. “There’s going to be a lot of music, cooking on stage, comedy, and mama drama.” Chef Rossi herself is coming to Hartford to see her story on the big stage, too. (“She is beyond excited about this,” Lamarre says.)

Jacques Lamarre

“I love Hartford,” he continues. “It’s been so good for me and so good to me. I’ve been able to make an impact in the cultural scene here that I don’t think I would be able to do in a place like New York. But also I just find the people in the region to be so wonderful. I’m so lucky to have this community.”

Jacques Lamarre–playwright
Hartford, Connecticut
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Top image Antoinette LaVecchia in I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti at TheaterWorks. Photo by Lanny Nagler.

The post A Life in Recipes appeared first on Take Magazine.

Matthew Delamater was searching for his passion after graduating college with a degree in business administration and found it right in his hometown of Oxford, Maine. He was 25 and had just landed his first acting role playing a salesman on the train in the opening scene of The Music Man.

“There was no pay, no ego—just people working so hard to create the best production they could,” he says. Although Delamater admits he had no idea what he was doing, he fell in love with acting because of that performance. “I loved the teamwork aspect of it, that you had a role to play, and that the overall goal was for the show to connect with people and when you did it, it was amazing,” he says.

Matthew Delamater in American Odyssey, photo courtesy NBC

As a lifelong Maine resident, Delamater says he has done and seen some of his favorite work right here in Portland. “There is great theater here, film and even commercial work for an actor, and though it’s certainly not as plentiful as the bigger markets of course,” he says. “But given how accessible it is to great film markets like Boston and even New York, you can really make it work.”

Delamater’s past year proves his point. He had a part in Detroit, a film directed by Kathryn Bigelow, which releases on August 4, 2017, as well as in the major motion picture Daddy’s Home 2 to be released November 10, 2017.

Delamater keeps himself plenty busy in Portland’s thriving local theater scene. He was recently is in a production of Constellations by Nick Payne at SPACE Gallery in Portland, directed by Sean Mewshaw. “It’s a beautiful play about relationships and the infinite possibilities that the universe creates,” he says. “It’s basically about the choices we make in our lives and and how different choices can manifest entirely different universes.”

Like most actors, Delamater has a wish list. “One dream I do have I suppose is to play a significant supporting role in a significant independent film. Having the access to the kind of roles that I do in Boston is amazing, but usually it’s the theater that allows you to explore larger characters,” he says. “Some day I’d love to really dive into a character on screen that has the depth and development that typically I have only been able to explore on stage. But truly, any opportunity to do real, honest work that connects with people really is the dream.”

In the meantime, he’s enjoying theater life in Maine. “I feel blessed that I can live in the beautiful state and city that I love and be a part of a community that is so vibrant and supportive and be able to act as much as I do.”

Matthew Delamater–actor
Portland, Maine
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Top image by Emily Delamater Photography

The post On Set with Matthew Delamater appeared first on Take Magazine.

When a well-known local New Hampshire director approached seamstress Mary Selvoski about refitting a dozen costumes for an 1800s version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the master seamstress didn’t hesitate. “He gave me two weeks,” she says and shrugs. “I’ve had tighter deadlines.”

It’s Monday morning when I catch up to Selvoski at her shop, Mary’s Closet, in an old warehouse called the Varick Building in the Millyard of Manchester, New Hampshire. Selvoski is cutting and restitching what to my eye just looks like an old blanket. But then she drapes her work over a nearby mannequin and the blanket is reborn as a flowing cloak. “It’s a spirit,” she says proudly. “There’s a few of those in The Tempest.”

If you have gone to a production of community theater anywhere in New Hampshire in the last four decades, odds are you’ve seen Selvoski’s work. Since 1980, the Granite State’s seamstress to the New Hampshire stars has been outfitting community theater groups, providing costumes from scratch or refitting outfits to meet the production’s needs. Taking a quick walk through her vast storage space, even the least theatrically savvy can identify the vast reach of her work. There’s a whole row of princess and queen outfits, from several copies of Beauty’s iconic yellow and blue gown to Glinda the Good Witch’s pink wings and high crown. An entire row is devoted to vests for men and another for Santa suits. There’s a shoe room and a hat room. And high up on the top shelf near the ceiling hangs an enormous Hello Kitty head. “My daughter made that,” Selvoski says. “She did a good job, don’t you think?”

In early 2016, Selvoski sold Mary’s Closet to Seacoast Repertory Theater, a well-known regional outfit based in Portsmouth. Now rechristened “Department M” by Seacoast Rep, Selvoski maintains her own corral of clients and serves as a designer and rental agent for the company. At this point, Selvoski estimates that she has 15,000 costumes in her warehouse.

Mary Selvoski in her workshop, Seaport Repertory Theater

Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and raised in Revere, Selvoski got her start in sewing out of stubbornness. She was a tumbler on the gymnastics team in her high school, but disliked her team’s costumes. “So I made new ones,” she says. “I’m very competitive, I look at other people’s work and think that maybe I can do better. That’s what’s kept me going.”

Ironically, it’s this same competitive nature that prevents the seamstress herself from attending the theater. She’s too critical. “I’ve never really been able to get into the show. I’m always looking at bad hemlines,” she says laughing. “Once I saw that an actress had a skirt made of the same material as an actor’s shirt and I thought, What were they thinking!”

Mary Selvoski – Seamstress, Costume Designer
Manchester, New Hampshire
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Top photo courtesy Mary Selvoski

The post Mary Selvoski: Seamstress to the New Hampshire Stars appeared first on Take Magazine.