East Greenwich is a scenic coastal Rhode Island town with a lively restaurant scene and plenty of waterfront bars, but it’s not the most obvious destination for live music. At least it wasn’t until the newly rejuvenated Greenwich Odeum began regularly hosting live music acts. The venue aims to host an estimated 70 events this year even as it undergoes a major facelift.

The Odeum first opened its doors in 1926 as a vaudeville theater. Like many such venues, it transitioned from vaudeville into a movie house, which is remained for 60 years until it was finally crushed by the home video market. Now it’s back.

Newly-renovated Greenwich Odeum lobby

This year it’s been selected as one of two host venues for the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame induction concerts. Rock bands, including Throwing Muses and Neutral Nation, will perform later this month at The Met in Pawtucket, while jazz and R&B performers will play the Odeum.

This year’s honorees include drummer Artie Cabral, who has been performing since the 1950s. He was resident drummer at the famed Celebrity Club, the first racially integrated nightclub in New England. He still performs regularly. Fellow inductees Dan Moretti, Billy Osborne, and Frank Potenza will share the stage on April 23rd.

“We’re trying to expand out breadth with more than just rock concerts,” says Odeum board president Dan Speca. Comedy is increasingly popular—comedian Jim Breuer is appearing in May, and twice now the Odeum’s hosted the original cast of cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000.

As a seated venue, the Odeum tends to draw a local 35+ crowd, according to Speca. But when Partridge Family star David Cassidy performed his penultimate concert at the Odeum last month, fans came from as far away as Mississippi.

Speca joined the Odeum board in 2014 and became its president last year. He likens the venue’s renovation process to a startup: taking small steps and constantly analyzing financial risk.

The Odeum currently has one full-time employee, who handles everything from production management to box office duties, as well as a handful of part-time staff and active board participation. “I was in there last night changing light bulbs,” Speca laughs.

With capital grants from philanthropic foundations and the state arts council, the interior was revitalized last year—“a total gut job,” according to Speca—for the first time in half a century.

This summer, newly installed sprinklers will allow the Odeum to increase capacity and serve alcohol. They’ll close for a few weeks and reopen in time for the Rhode Island International Film Festival in August. With its 25-foot long screen, the Odeum has been restored to its cinematic heyday.

“Summer is a good time to close,” Speca says. “Acts aren’t touring as much, and people are at the beach.” Next summer they’re hoping to install a lift, which will lead event attendees to a new 98-seat balcony.

What’s next for the Odeum? Upcoming headliners include Todd Rundgren (that show is sold out) and “musician’s musician” Graham Parker, plus ’60s girl group stars Mary Wilson (of the Supremes) and Darlene Love (of the Crystals). Let the good times roll.

Dan Speca, president of the board
Greenwich Odeum
East Greenwich, Rhode Island
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Since 2006, screenwriter, director, actor and producer Alfred Thomas Catalfo has had much success, ranging from viral web-based spoofs to many top placements and acknowledgments in screenwriting competitions across the country. Most recently, Alfred won the Director’s Choice Award at this year’s Rhode Island International Film Festival for his short “Split Ticket“, an alt-history thriller with a supernatural twist.

“Split Ticket” (2016) Movie Poster

Portions of the film are based on true events; however, Alfred’s imaginative writing and direction take the alleged events to a much more mysterious place, “In April of 1947, just three months after being sworn in as freshman congressmen, Kennedy and Nixon took a trip together to McKeesport, Pennsylvania,” Catalfo said. “They debated an upcoming labor bill before a civic group of 150 people at the Penn-McKee Hotel, then went to the Star Diner for hamburgers. Leaving at midnight, they shared a sleeping compartment on the Capitol Limited overnight train through the Allegheny Mountains back to Washington, where they had a vote the next day. They drew straws for the lower bunk, which Nixon won. I thought that fascinating true event would make a captivating jumping-off point for a Twilight Zone-ish story about two American icons.”

Joel Coen (one-half of the famed Hollywood writing/directing sibling duo) mentioned that a director’s main job is ‘tone management’. With Joel’s perspective in mind, it’s easy to see why Alfred Catalfo’s film was selected for the Director’s Choice Award. Tonally, the film is very consistent even as Catalfo offers the audience moments of violence, sexual tension, comedy, drama and mysticism. Only an expert filmmaker could successfully lead the audience to believe that John F. Kennedy would say a line like “Glad you Quakers know how to throw a punch!”

Since we’re watching actors depict very famous cultural icons, it could be very easy to rely on the audience’s preconceived ideas about these historical figures rather than play with our perceptions a bit. Catalfo chooses to wink and nudge the audience instead of lean into these socialized understandings. For example, the irony of Jack Kennedy responding “Hell No! I wanted to be a journalist…” when asked, by Dick Nixon if his goal was to become the first Irish Catholic president.
Want to see Split Ticket” starring Graham King as JFK and Nathaniel Glein Scott as Richard Nixon? Catch it on the big screen Sunday, September 25, in the 2:45 PM shorts block at Theatre One, Revere Hotel Boston.

Alfred Thomas Catalfo on the “Split Ticket” set | Photo courtesy Alfred Catalfo

Alfred Thomas Catalfo is a New Hampshire-based screenwriter, director, and attorney who previously directed the acclaimed short films “The Norman Rockwell Code,” “Bighorn” and “Rocketship.”  He has been a winner or finalist in more than 40 major screenwriting competitions with five different feature scripts.   

Top image taken from “Split Ticket” (2016)

The post Catalfo’s counterfactual short, “Split Ticket” appeared first on Take Magazine.