Vineyard Playhouse hosts coffeehouse

By Gwyn McAllister
Published: November 12, 2009

• Reader Comments
• Printer-friendly version

It's been years since the Wintertide coffeehouse provided both a venue for acoustic music, and a gathering spot for locals. But now, M.J. Bruder Munafo, and the staff of Vineyard Playhouse are resurrecting the spirit of the popular coffeehouse with two new off-season offerings, and turning the Playhouse into a destination for off-season entertainment and socializing. Depending on the success of the new endeavors, Ms. Munafo, Playhouse artistic director, hopes to keep the new movie and music nights going all winter.

Singer-songwriter Sarah Blacker performed at the Vineyard Playhouse's Spoon in the Moon Coffeehouse last Friday. Photos by Ralph Stewart

"By the end of the summer we're exhausted," she explains. "I think the whole thing with the films and the coffeehouse is that they're low-key. Coffeehouses by their nature are laid-back."

On Halloween weekend, the first in a series of classic old movie nights was presented. And last Friday night, the Playhouse hosted its inaugural Spoon in the Moon Coffeehouse. A good-sized and mature crowd came to hear singer/songwriter Sarah Blacker, and enjoy coffee, cookies, and conversation.

M.J. Bruder Munafo, Vineyard Playhouse's artistic director, has plans for a second coffeehouse in December.

The singer/songwriter, who lives and performs regularly in Cambridge, just completed a 10-city southern tour, where she played in small acoustic rooms as well as a 900-seat venue. Her first CD, "The Only Way Out is Through," was released earlier this year and has been picked up by a number of radio stations across the country, including WMVY.

The Playhouse, Ms. Blacker says, represents her ideal showcase: "You can connect and really tell your stories. The audience is part of the experience. It's about having a co-active music experience and making something bigger than you can do on your own."

The 26-year-old Ms. Blacker, who performed at The Ritz in Oak Bluffs this past summer, was trained as a vocalist at the Berklee School of Music. Her repertoire ran from yearning love songs to kick-out-the jams rockers. She put her own spin on the song "Blue" by Joni Mitchell, a singer she is often compared to, but otherwise the songs were her own compositions. She describes her music as jazzy folk-rock and all three genres were represented equally well. Between songs, Ms. Blacker charmed the crowd with short intros and a little repartee with the audience. Her naturalness, sense of humor, and easy laugh gave the evening the feel of hanging out with a few close friends.

In the past, the theater has presented shows by Taylor Brown and the late Maynard Silva, among others, but there was no regular programming. Ms. Bruder Munafo notes that the idea of using the theater as an off-season venue for other forms of entertainment is something that has been brewing for a while and this winter the time just seemed right.

Enjoying the coffeehouse are (clockwise from bottom left) Peter Dreyer, Rama Chandra, Barbara Chandra, Adele Dreyer, and Brigitte Lent.

In between sets, the audience wandered downstairs to mingle and chat. Ms. Munafo wants the coffeehouse experience to incorporate both the upstairs and downstairs. She invites people to feel free to walk in and out of the performance in the theater and spend time talking together in the comfortable downstairs lobby where tables and free coffee are offered. (People are allowed to bring their coffee and the baked goods from Scottish Bakehouse upstairs with them.)

A second Spoon in the Moon evening is scheduled for next month and the Playhouse hopes to provide a mix of musical styles and local and imported talent. Paul Munafo, who's involved with the booking, says, "I'd love to see some of our local electric bands do acoustic music here. My idea is to keep it simple, so it's all about the music."

Hopefully, the Playhouse's off-season experiment will prove successful. Although only a handful attended the first movie screening of "The Haunting," the coffeehouse managed to attract about 50 people, and the hope is that word of mouth will help generate audiences for both.

With the annual Fourth Grade Theater Project scheduled for the next two Saturdays, "The Merchant of Venice" playing on Friday, Nov. 27 and Saturday, Nov. 28, and a screening of "A Guy Named Joe" tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 13, there is something going on at the Playhouse every weekend of this month.

"The reason we're doing this," Ms. Bruder Munafo says, "is to keep our spirits up in the winter - the community's spirits."