Women's Week Celebrates its 35th Anniversary in Provincetown

By Penny Landau****Women’s Week Celebrates its 35th Anniversary in Provincetown, October 14-20, 2019. Provincetown has hosted the festival, which is like no other. It’s a celebration of women, sponsored by the women of Provincetown and it turns this vibrant seaside haven at the tip of Cape Cod into a Women’s Festival that has over 150 different events for every taste and interest.

Whether it’s getting to see the best performers and comics in LGBTQ culture today, attending a great workshop or just getting to walk down Commercial Street holding hands, there is something for everyone in Provincetown during Women’s Week.

Over the years, Women’s Week has grown way past anyone’s expectations. Performers of all genres, opera singers, comedians, folk, rock ‘n roll, jazz and blues singers, local talent, out of town talent and international talent, all icons of women’s performance, from Cris Williamson to Julie Wheeler to Judy Gold to New York vocalist Marieann Meringolo, all come to Provincetown to perform during Women’s Week.

There are original plays, a unique version of American Idol, workshops, meet-and-greet events, to a Lesbian literary festival that has grown up inside Women’s Week, featuring the best in lesbian fiction with favorite authors reading from their latest work and hosting book signings during the week.

Some of the performers at Women’s Week are:

Chely Wright rose to fame as a commercial country singer in the ’90’s and has since released eight studio albums and charted more than 15 singles on the Billboard charts. The Academy of Country Music named Wright “Top New Female Vocalist of 1995.” Her first hit came in 1997 with “Shut Up and Drive,” followed two years later by her first number one single, “Single White Female” and in 2005, “The Bumper of My S.U.V.” In 2010, Chely Wright released her eighth album, Lifted Off the Ground produced by Rodney Crowell, revealing a dramatic artistic transformation and emerging as a singer/songwriter of the first order.

Chely made history by being the first country music star to publicly come out as gay, which she revealed in her 2010 memoir entitled Like Me. That same year Wright founded The LIKEME® Organization, a nonprofit organization that provides assistance, resources and education to LGBT individuals and their family and friends, as well as founding The LIKEME® Lighthouse, an education and community center for gay youth in Chely’s hometown of Kansas City, MO.

In 2016, Wright released her latest critically-acclaimed studio album entitled I Am the Rain, produced by Joe Henry and praised by Rolling Stone as a “real triumph,” noting “Wright tempers the darker themes on her album with character-driven story songs whether inspired by her years as a touring musician or springing from her vivid imagination.” The Bluegrass Situation noted that “the album’s quiet confidence showcases what is probably the truest side of [Wright].”

Magen Tracy, is a veteran of the New England singer-songwriter circuit and a busy side-player in the Boston rock scene (Juliana Hatfield, Band of Their Own, Nate Leavitt Band, St. Helena). She first brought her bittersweet ballads and audacious anthems center stage in 2015, with a solo EP, Fiercely, produced by Nate Leavitt. Since then, the band has become a staple of the Boston music scene, featuring such in-demand Boston players as Stud Green (Humble Tripe), Tamora Gooding (Gene Dante & the Future Starlets, Axemunkee), Mike Oram (Abbie Barrett Band, Eric Salt & Electric City, Cujo, Andrea Gillis Band) and Sam Spencer (Sera Del Fuego, Milling Gowns). In 2017, they earned a spot in the Boston Rock & Roll Rumble, and a Boston Music Award nomination for Video of the Year for their single, “Color the Air.”

Provincetown Public School – 12 Winslow Street

Friday, October 11, 2019 @ 8pm

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**Maggie Cassella/All American Canadian**

Yep, She’s baaaaack! Our favorite ex-lawyer, expatriate, writer and comedian Maggie Cassella is returning to Provincetown for another fun-filled Women’s Week with All American Canadian. And this show? Well how about some heaping helpings of what it’s like to be an expat American in Canada right now? Ha! Come hear how SO. MUCH. HAS. CHANGED. since Maggie first set foot on Canadian soil. Actually, she first set foot on another guy’s foot in a Toronto bookstore and he said “I’m sorry.” So yeah, it’s like that.

The Club – 193A Commercial Street (508)487-1527

Monday, October 14 & October 17-19 @ 2pm

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Singer/songwriter Cris Williamson will return to Provincetown for Women’s Week. She’ll be performing at The Post Office Café and Cabaret, October 12-20 at 2:30pm.

“She is often considered a treasure, passed hand-to-hand, person-to-person,” says the Boston Phoenix, “Williamson is an heroic character whose tireless activism continues.”

Says Bonnie Raitt, “The first time I heard Cris’ music, it was like hearing honey dripped on a cello… Cris has been a whole lot of women’s heroes — including mine.”

Today, with 30+ full albums to her credit, Cris continues to tour the acoustic circuit adding new material at each juncture. Her performance career includes three sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall and the headlining of many of the great folk festivals, including Newport, Kerrville, Moab and Vancouver.

Post Office Café and Cabaret – 303 Commercial Street (508)487-3892

October 12-20 @ 2:30pm

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Mark Cortale is proud to present the return of BETTY for two shows only at The Art House on Oct. 17 and 18 at 7:30pm, for Women’s Week.

BETTY is the original pop rock band fronted by Alyson Palmer and sisters Elizabeth and Amy Ziff. The band’s heartfelt passion and signature sound of soaring harmonies, lively melodies and clever lyrics layered over strong grooves create an energetic, boundary-pushing live show that is a popular attraction worldwide. Elizabeth (vocals, guitar), Alyson (vocals, bass) and Amy (vocals, cello) are the singer/songwriters and arrangers. At times, the trio augments their sound with other instrumentalists live and with guest artists from a broad spectrum of pop culture: music, art, literature and activism. BETTY’s last release, Rise, is an ep featuring the song the band wrote in 2013 for Eve Ensler’s global campaign to end violence against women and girls, One Billion Rising. Their last full-length release, Bright & Dark, produced by David Maurice (Kelis, Garbage), is a lush exploration of the challenges and triumphs of their recent past, including Elizabeth’s battle with breast cancer. That album features guest vocals by Kate Pierson of the B-52s and is the bands best-selling song collection to date. Cuts are featured on the hit television series “Weeds,” NBC’s “Love Bites,” “Ugly Betty,” “The L Word” and more. Currently, the band is writing songs for their tenth album. Unstoppable activists, the women of BETTY use their music for humanitarian outreach: working for equal rights, peace and aid and the empowerment of girls and women. Since forming in 1986, they are most proud about being part of many hundreds of events that have improved lives, helped change policy and raised millions of dollars for worthy causes, research and people in need. Named Arts Envoys in 2012, the trio works with the U.S. State Department internationally in Cultural Diplomacy. BETTY and their music have been featured on national and international radio, television, films, commercials, jingles, web projects, as guests on recordings, compilation albums and in live theatre, including the smash Off-Broadway hit directed by Michael (Rent, Next To Normal) Greif, BETTY Rules. They do

The Art House – 214 Commercial Street – (508)487-9222

Thursday and Friday, October 17 and 18 @ 7:30pm

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Marieann Meringolo will perform her acclaimed show, Here’s To The Ladies! A Salute To Great Ladies In Song at Pilgrim House on Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 5:30pm as part of Women’s Week.

Marieann Meringolo is a native New Yorker who grew up on the songs of the Great American Songbook. She has been called “One of the circuit’s most powerful singers” and Time Out New York claimed, “If k.d. lang’s DNA were to get whipped together with Barbra Streisand’s in a genetics lab specializing in divas, the result might well be Marieann Meringolo.” She is a MAC Award-winning Recording Artist as well as a BackStage Bistro Award-winner for “Outstanding Vocalist.” Marieann’s Alan & Marilyn Bergman show Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, presented at Feinstein’s/54 Below, was nominated for Best Tribute Show by BroadwayWorld.com. She performs in New York’s most celebrated venues, (Feinstein’s/54 Below, Iridium, Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center), has toured with the late comedian David Brenner and headlines on cruises around the world. She was recently inducted into New York famed Friars Club. She is receiving rave reviews for her 2018 album, released on the BluJazz label, Between Yesterday and Tomorrow: The Songs of Alan & Marilyn Bergman. New York music critic, Will Friedwald notes, “The music of the Bergmans, as movingly realized by Marieann Meringolo, transports us to a better and more ideal world.” Marieann can also be heard on several other recordings: Her critically acclaimed debut album: Hold Me Close, her award-winning second solo CD, Imagine…If We Only Had Love (BackStage Bistro Award, MAC Award for Outstanding CD Recording of the Year). Her Live CD/DVD Here’s To The Ladies! A Salute to Great Ladies in Song was praised as a “Four-Star Dazzler” in Cabaret Scenes Magazine. She is proud to have released her long awaited and critically acclaimed Holiday album In The Spirit. Marieann’s gorgeous voice is often played on radio stations and the internet around the world and has been heard on selected United Airlines flights as well as Air Force II. She has also had the honor of performing live at the United Nations.