#Witches!? In Salem?!
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noradaydreams · 3 months ago
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September 30th ㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤㅤ October 1st
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sincerelystesichorus · 11 months ago
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i have spent so long trying to place who astarion reminds me of
his dry little sarcastic bits gets me every time and like it's automatically funny but it felt so familiar...
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this bastard.
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and some more similar comparisons i think
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thank you for coming to my ted talk
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fearsmagazine · 9 months ago
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WITCHES!? IN SALEM?! - Review
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DATES: March 16th to 30th, 2024 THEATER: HERE 145 Sixth Ave, New York, NY 10013 ACTORS: Jessie Cannizarro, Nick Carrillo, AJ Ditty, Carolina Đỗ, Aaron Parker Fouhey, James Fouhey, Jake Keefe, Andy Miller, Jessica Mosher, and Jordan Sison CREW: Director - Rachel Dart; Writer - Matt Cox; Producers - Jonathan Cottle and Matt Cox; Scenic, Costume & Puppet Design - K.C. McGeorge and Noah Ruff; Original Music - Brian Metolius; Stage Manager - Vanessa Rebeil.
SYNOPSIS: Salem Village, 1692, where wealthy landowners covet their neighbor’s land, local magistrates extract confessions, unpopular reverends want respect but more importantly firewood, and everyone is looking for someone to be punished for something. Meanwhile, several local children, led by the 12 year-old Abigail Williams try to make sense of the hysteria they find themselves at the center of. Meanwhile, the newest villagers, the Bloodkravens, are confused about it all.
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REVIEW: In his play "Witches!? In Salem!?" playwright Matt Cox presents Satan's perspective on the 1962 events in Salem, Massachusetts, and the subsequent trials, arguing that this was one historical event in which he had no involvement or even presence. Cox, the writer behind the long-running Off-Broadway comedy "Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic," brings his irreverent and sharp wit to the Salem Witch Trials for an evening of theater that is both hilarious and thought-provoking.
Cox's play features eleven main characters, with the cast serving in supplementary roles for specific scenes. He constructs the satire from a cacophony of selfish motivations and desires exhibited by the characters. Among them is a contemporary character introduced by Satan- an eighth-grade student named Jenny Ann Bishop. A straight-A student, Jenny Ann boldly declares to the audience, "I'd sell my soul if I could lecture a captive audience on my favorite school subject: U.S. HISTORY." Throughout the play, she appears, providing commentary on the unfolding events.
The satire and irony are perfectly paced, while the character motivations and arcs are reminiscent of a less vulgar "South Park" story. The characters stand out as caricatures, offering a refreshing and engaging experience that avoids clichés.
In the play, there's a compelling scene where Bridgert Bishop travels through time, reflecting on past and present events. As she enters a Walgreens, she remarks on the irony of being murdered for something that is now celebrated everywhere she goes. She expresses a sense that her words are part of a comedy about her tragedy and expresses hope that the real world has progressed since the events of 1692. This scene highlights the enduring relevance of historical events and raises questions about how far society has truly come.
As the story reaches its climax, a chilling twist unfolds. Satan emerges, presenting his alternate version of events, creating a hauntingly captivating conclusion. The play leaves a resonant impact, adding a lingering crescendo, leaving the audience in awe of the unexpected turn of events.
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The production values of the play were impressive, especially considering its modest budget and off-off-Broadway status. The puritan costumes were simple, enhanced by well-designed cardboard pilgrim hats. The Bloodkraven costumes were ironically fashionable, off-the-rack iconic pieces that added a touch of color to the otherwise puritan garb.
Most of the set and props were cleverly designed using cardboard, except for a few key elements such as the history book, gavel, church benches, and cauldron. Even the stage design, except for the quilt-like curtain, had a DIY feel that was both fun and effective, allowing for quick scene changes.
The lighting design, music, and sound effects were also impressive and added to the overall atmosphere of the play.
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"Witches!? In Salem?!" features a truly brilliant cast, including playwright Matt Cox himself. The production boasts a talented ensemble of actors, many of whom are alumni of Cox's off-Broadway hit "Puffs." It would be unfair to single out individual performances, as the entire cast is outstanding. However, Aaron Parker Fouhey, Jessica Mosher, Andy Miller, Jessie Cannizzaro, and A.J. Ditty deserves special mention for their hilarious portrayals and their ability to navigate the show's demanding physical comedy and set changes. The ten-minute intermission is well-deserved, as the cast puts in a lot of effort during the show's two acts. Having seen "Puffs," I believe that Cox has assembled his dream cast for "Witches!? In Salem?!" These actors were undoubtedly aware of the show's demands and were up to the challenge.
In Matt Cox's uproarious comedy titled "Witches!? In Salem?!", the infamous events of the Salem Witch trials are hilariously reimagined. The talented cast, like a well-oiled Swiss watch, delivers a marvelously synchronized and dynamic performance, creating a madcap comedy brimming with laughter and satire, and a couple of introspective moments. A memorable theatrical experience not to be missed.
Witches!? In Salem?! will be presented at 8:30pm on Sat 3/16, Tues 3/19, Fri 3/22, Sat 3/23, Tues 3/26, Thurs 3/28, Fri 3/29 and Sat 3/30 with 4:00 pm matinees on Sun 3/17 and Sat 3/23 at HERE, 145 Sixth Ave, New York, NY 10013. Tickets are available at www.witchesinsalem.com.
Review By: Joseph B Mauceri
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beggars-opera · 5 months ago
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On the road leading into the center of Concord, Massachusetts, there sits a house.
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It is a plain, colonial-style house, of which there are many along this road. It has sea green and buff paint, a historical plaque, and one of the most multi-layered stories I have ever encountered to showcase that history is continuous, complicated, and most importantly, fragmentary, unless you know where to look.
So, where to start? The plaque.
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There's some usual information here: Benjamin Barron built the house in 1716, and years later it was a "witness house" to the start of the American Revolution. And then, something unusual: a note about an enslaved man named John Jack whose epitaph is "world famous."
Where is this epitaph? Right around the corner in the town center.
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It reads:
God wills us free; man wills us slaves. I will as God wills; God’s will be done. Here lies the body of JOHN JACK a native of Africa who died March 1773 aged about 60 years Tho’ born in a land of slavery, He was born free. Tho’ he lived in a land of liberty, He lived a slave. Till by his honest, tho’ stolen labors, He acquired the source of slavery, Which gave him his freedom; Tho’ not long before Death, the grand tyrant Gave him his final emancipation, And set him on a footing with kings. Tho’ a slave to vice, He practised those virtues Without which kings are but slaves.
We don't know precisely when the man first known only as Jack was purchased by Benjamin Barron. We do know that he, along with an enslaved woman named Violet, were listed in Barron's estate upon his death in 1754. Assuming his gravestone is accurate, at that time Jack would have been about 40 and had apparently learned the shoemaking trade from his enslaver. With his "honest, though stolen labors" he was then able to earn enough money to eventually purchase his freedom from the remaining Barron family and change his name to John, keeping Jack as a last name rather than using his enslaver's.
John Jack died, poor but free, in 1773, just two years before the Revolutionary War started. Presumably as part of setting up his own estate, he became a client of local lawyer Daniel Bliss, brother-in-law to the minister, William Emerson. Bliss and Emerson were in a massive family feud that spilled into the rest of the town, as Bliss was notoriously loyal to the crown, eventually letting British soldiers stay in his home and giving them information about Patriot activities.
Daniel Bliss also had abolitionist leanings. And after hearing John's story, he was angry.
Here was a man who had been kidnapped from his home country, dragged across the ocean, and treated as an animal for decades. Countless others were being brutalized in the same way, in the same town that claimed to love liberty and freedom. Reverend Emerson railed against the British government from the pulpit, and he himself was an enslaver.
It wouldn't do. John Jack deserved so much more. So, when he died, Bliss personally paid for a large gravestone and wrote its epitaph to blast the town's hypocrisy from the top of Burial Hill. When the British soldiers trudged through the cemetery on April 19th, 1775, they were so struck that they wrote the words down and published them in the British newspapers, and that hypocrisy passed around Europe as well. And the stone is still there today.
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You know whose stone doesn't survive in the burial ground?
Benjamin Barron's.
Or any of his family that I know of. Which is absolutely astonishing, because this story is about to get even more complicated.
Benjamin Barron was a middle-class shoemaker in a suburb that wouldn't become famous until decades after his death. He lived a simple life only made possible by chattel slavery, and he will never show up in a U.S. history textbook.
But he had a wife, and a family. His widow, Betty Barron, from whom John purchased his freedom, whose name does not appear on her home's plaque or anywhere else in town, does appear either by name or in passing in every single one of those textbooks.
Terrible colonial spelling of all names in their marriage record aside, you may have heard her maiden name before:
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Betty Parris was born into a slaveholding family in 1683, in a time when it was fairly common for not only Black, but also Indigenous people to be enslaved. It was also a time of war, religious extremism, and severe paranoia in a pre-scientific frontier. And so it was that at the age of nine, Betty pointed a finger at the Arawak woman enslaved in her Salem home, named Titibe, and accused her of witchcraft.
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Yes, that Betty Parris.
Her accusations may have started the Salem Witch trials, but unlike her peers, she did not stay in the action for long. As a minor, she was not allowed to testify at court, and as the minister's daughter, she was too high-profile to be allowed near the courtroom circus. Betty's parents sent her to live with relatives during the proceedings, at which point her "bewitchment" was cured, though we're still unsure if she had psychosomatic problems solved by being away from stress, if she stopped because the public stopped listening, or if she stopped because she no longer had adults prompting her.
Following the witch hysteria, the Parrises moved several times as her infamous father struggled to hold down a job and deal with his family's reputation. Eventually they landed in Concord, where Betty met Benjamin and married him at the age of 26, presumably having had no more encounters with Satan in the preceding seventeen years. She lived an undocumented life and died, obscure and forgotten, in 1760, just five years before the Stamp Act crisis plunged America into a revolution, a living bridge between the old world and the new.
I often wonder how much Betty's story followed her throughout her life. People must have talked. Did they whisper in the town square, "Do you know what she did when she was a girl?" Did John Jack hear the stories of how she had previously treated the enslaved people in her life? Did that hasten his desperation to get out? And what of Daniel Bliss; did he know this history as well, seeing the double indignity of it all? Did he stop and think about how much in the world had changed in less than a century since his neighbor was born?
We'll never know.
All that's left is a gravestone, and a house with an insufficient plaque.
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roses-and-lightnings · 3 months ago
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Shoutout to that time Alice Wu-Gulliver, a Fire Witch, one of the few coven members able to cast actual magic, woke up and chose to beat a Salemite with a fucking broomstick
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sophsun1 · 4 months ago
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#me scrolling tumblr
Sabrina the Teenage Witch – 6.10: Deliver Us From E-Mail
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riosblackheart · 2 months ago
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Sometimes babygirl is a hundreds of years old lesbian witch that pretends to be tough but is actually a softie when she lets her guard down and is also SO unhinged that Death fell in love with her because they can only match each others freak. And I think that's beautiful.
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vampiire-diary · 8 months ago
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chrissy-kaos · 3 months ago
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Any takers on having a semi crazy witch gf to do spooky shit with? 🧙‍♀️🕷️🕸️
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scaryfaiiry · 1 year ago
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countesschocula · 4 months ago
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Art by Brain Brain Studio
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whchwitch · 2 months ago
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First meetings.
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ryan-waddell11 · 2 months ago
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Salem 🤝🏻 Eddie
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fearsmagazine · 10 months ago
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WITCHES!? IN SALEM?! by Puffs author Matt Cox premieres March 16-30at HERE in New York City
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Matt Cox, writer of the long-running Off-Broadway hit wizard comedy "Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic", is back with another play also involving witchcraft. WITCHES!? IN SALEM?! performs at HERE Arts Center beginning March 16th, 2024.
Welcome to Salem Village, 1692. A bad year to visit. Here, wealthy landowners want your land, local magistrates want your confession, unpopular reverends want your respect but more importantly your firewood, and everyone wants someone to be punished for something. Meanwhile, several local children try to make sense of a hysteria they find themselves at the center of. Oh! And the newest villagers, the Bloodkravens are here too. They are confused about it all.
WITCHES!? IN SALEM?! is darkly comedic, yet (mostly) historically accurate take on the Salem Witch Trials and all the (mostly) historically accurate horrors which may occur when populism runs rampant, injustice is a day to day occurrence, and a rigid religious minority sets the laws of the land. You know, old timey problems. A companion, or an alternative, to a certain other Salem play you probably read in high school.
“WITCHES!? IN SALEM?! is the most exciting kind of comedy: sharp, hilarious, and appallingly timely.” Says director Rachel Dart. “I could not be more delighted to work with this phenomenal cast and creative team on what is probably the funniest play there is about the brutal consequences of religious fanaticism!”
WITCHES!? IN SALEM?! stars Jessie Cannizarro (Puffs), Nick Carrillo (Puffs) , AJ Ditty (Puffs, Paddington Gets in a Jam!), Carolina Đỗ (Linda Vista, Grand Horizon), Aaron Parker Fouhey (Night of the Living N-Word!!! at Fringe NYC, The Christmas Tree Farm at Mile Square Theatre), James Fouhey (Puffs), Jake Keefe (Jesus Christ Tater Tot, Puffs), Andy Miller (Puffs, The Mysteries at The Flea), Jessica Mosher (Murder on the Links, “Mr. Robot”) and Jordan Sison (The Wolves at Hippodrome Theatre). Scenic, Costume and Puppet design is provided by K.C. McGeorge and Noah Ruff. Original Score by Brian Metolius. Stage Managed by Vanessa Rebeil.
WITCHES!? IN SALEM?! will be presented at 8:30pm on Sat 3/16, Tues 3/19, Fri 3/22, Sat 3/23, Tues 3/26, Thurs 3/28, Fri 3/29 and Sat 3/30 with 4:00 pm matinees on Sun 3/17 and Sat 3/23 at HERE (145 Sixth Ave, New York, NY 10013.). Tickets are available at www.witchesinsalem.com.
Matt Cox (Puffs; or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic, The Kapow-i GoGo Sagas, Guy Choiceman Decides To Save America: The Chooseical: Where YOU Do The Chooses) is a playwright, actor, improviser, sound designer, and former comic book retail associate based in New York City.
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sipitcutit · 2 months ago
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Yes i smoke crack
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w000ble · 2 months ago
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go watch it
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