Stars and starts at Aquinnah Variety Show

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It was standing room only at the second ever Aquinnah Variety Show on Thursday, as locals from across the Island welcomed the spring with community, artistic expression, and unexpected talent.

Organized by musicians Laura Jordan and Kate Taylor as a showcase of skill and unabated joy, the show was exactly as Taylor described it in her opening remarks to the crowd: “Just like a three-ring circus,” she said. “But with only one of the rings.” It was a night of beautifully chaotic acts, highlighting both recognizable faces and newcomers.

Jordan and Taylor said the priority of the show was inclusivity — no one who auditioned was turned away, and rather than a show that was orchestrated to be entertaining and polished, it was effortlessly engaging — everyone involved was urged to be themselves.

The show on Thursday hosted over 100 audience members, 22 acts, and one dog — Jordan’s Icelandic Sheepdog, Glory, trotted across the stage and weaved through chairs throughout the performances. Performers’ ages ranged from three to more than 80 years old, incorporating all stages of life.

From lifelong musicians like pianists David Stanwood and Wes Nagy to a delightful short play about grasshoppers and beetles by local children, the spirit of the Island was illuminated with each individual who crossed the Aquinnah Town Hall stage.

The show opened with Jessica Goodenough’s emotional rendition of the 900-year-old love song “O Viridissima Virga,” written by Hildegard of Bingen, with Stanwood accompanying on an upright piano near the stage. Goodenough’s haunting vocals rang out from the front doors of Town Hall as she glided through the crowd, her attire flowing with the piano notes.

Jordan and Taylor introduced the show through song with a medley of hits, starting with “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac and ending with the rise of the painted stage curtain and tap dancing from Cathy Weiss. Both donned Western-style garb fitted with tassels, colorfully outfitted on the warmly lit stage.

While many performances were bright and exciting, others were soul-stirring. “After 50 Years,” a poetry collection performed by “Monk” actor Tony Shalhoub and his wife, actress Brooke Adams, was written by Aquinnah couple Kathie Olsen and Charley Hoye over the course of their 50 years of marriage.

The stage was set with a dining room table adorned with a tablecloth, light, and cookies, with Shalhoub and Adams sitting across from each other. Their tenderness toward each other and the material they read from scripts before them was palpable, and the audience sat in watchful silence for the entirety of their performance.

“All day, you rebuild a world that is continually crumbling around the edges, and I never thank you enough,” Shalhoub said, his eyes lifting to meet his wife’s.

“[And] we laugh at the illusions created by white hair and wrinkles,” Adams said as she smiled back.

Another love story was told with comedic twists and turns — Barbara Wallen described meeting her husband, Gary Paraboschi, through an ad she placed in a magazine.

“It was back in the ’80s,” she said. “So there were no dating apps or anything like that. But there were dating magazines.” She received a few letters, she said, but Paraboschi’s stuck out.

He was next up, performing original haikus with observations of the natural world and moments of wonder. Isaac Taylor then joined him onstage to perform “Aquinnah Boogie Woogie.” Taylor wrote the song specifically for the show, and said it was the first song like it he had ever written.

Aquinnah residents Naushon and Faith Vanderhoop with Cicada Evans, whose powerful voices rang out in three-part harmony to Sam Cooke’s “Bring it On Home to Me,” leaned into the emotion of the night, rocking back and forth to the beat and engaging the crowd with every note.

A blend of generational talent was found in a dynamic act by dance teacher Claire Page and student Wren Forté. With unbelievable skill, Forté demonstrated an understanding of the material beyond her years. The two floated and dipped across the stage, lit by warm lights and accompanied by Nagy’s piano.

The children who performed on Thursday displayed a wide range of talents from singing to acting. A play called “Grasshopper on the Road” was a short and sweet adaptation of the book by Arnold Lobel, with shining stars Ava Dubno and Josey Persinko as the leads. Willow Bishop sang the ballad “Never Enough” by Loren Allred with vigor, stunning the crowd with the high notes.

The Aquinnah Brass, a marching band of local musicians, turned up the volume while student Zuzu Sauer performed acrobatics across the stage and Isaac Taylor circled the front of the room on a unicycle. The circus reference from Kate Taylor at the beginning of the show rang true at that moment. 

The joyfulness continued with the iconic brother-sister duo of Kate and Livingston Taylor, singing a song from their childhood that had a country edge. “This is a song we sung as kids, and I don’t think we’ve sung it together since,” Taylor said.

Their voices were a familiar comfort to many Islanders, who have listened to the Taylor siblings’ tunes throughout their lives.

“We want to express the Island way,” Kate Taylor told The Times in an interview before the show.

Her grand niece, Claudia Taylor, the Island’s poet laureate, performed a poem dedicated to her sister, Paige Taylor, inciting tears from the crowd. “We splashed in the water that stained the tub turquoise,” Taylor read, her voice quiet, lilting, and calm. “[And] one day I looked over at you, little star, and saw you twinkling at me from light years away.”

Jordan, like Taylor, brought her family onstage to perform a number. She and her husband Max Decker harmonized flawlessly to “Sunflower” by Low, as their son Robin Decker kept time on the drums. The tone of the song was deeply reminiscent of tracks from her former band, the Billionaires, which released a debut album in 2007. 

In true Vineyard fashion, a sing-along uplifted the audience and pulled the evening together. Justin Corl began with deep, resonant notes, glancing ever so often at Jordan, who sang along to keep tempo. The crowd was invited to join in after a few verses to the song “Rainbow Connection,” which many will remember from “The Muppet Movie” in 1979.

Shortly into verse two, the voices picked up, ringing out over the town hall and filling the space with the sound of the Island.