Response 1: The Performer's Blood Runs Through Lowell

The culture of a city defines its inhabitants, and it’s become very evident to me throughout my life that without its culture, Lowell would be anything but the city it is today. The culture of the performer runs through the blood of Lowell, made evident through its plethora of shows, whether it’s a musical, theatrical, or even a sport. Over the past two months, I’ve had the pleasure of attending many of these performances, including free jazz at the Luna Theater on Thursday nights, basement shows put on by students, the Jack Kerouac Festival, or other events put on by the immense underground music scene of Lowell. Even before attending the University of Massachusetts Lowell, since I lived in the Lowell area, I’ve been to countless cultural displays of Lowell, including Lowell Spinners games, the annual Lowell Folk Festival, various local Lowell businesses, and performances at Lowell’s Merrimack Repertory Theater, even having performed there once with the Dracut High Band, accompanying Scott Grimes. In short, the culture of Lowell has made itself evident to me through personal experience even more so than through legacy, despite having a rich legacy involving Jack Kerouac, as well as all the immigrants that brought their own culture into the melting pot. However, the three I’ll specifically mention here are going to be the one-man performance of a play entitled The Lion performed at the Merrimack Repertory Theater, a one-woman show performed by a method actress detailing the life of Worcester-native abolitionist and women’s rights activist Abby Kelley Foster, and my personal experience attending the UMass Lowell hockey games.

Ben Scheuer performing in The Lion

The first of these experiences, The Lion written and performed by Ben Scheuer, detailed the coming-of-age story of an aspiring folk musician. The play was actually a non-fiction story telling the story of the author’s (Ben Scheuer) life up to that point. Having said that, it was an emotional performance delivered in the Merrimack Repertory Theater, and the theater itself helped with the atmosphere of the play, since it was the perfect size to seem as personal as possible, but was also big enough to contain and entertain the setting of the musical realistically, since it portrayed his spoken interpretations of the places he traveled. The play was fostered here in Lowell, what with the creative development of the story being constructed here between the collaboration between Ben Scheuer and Sean Daniels, the director. In addition to the above, the play debuted here in Lowell, specifically at the Merrimack Repertory Theater. The shows we saw as a class marked the beginning of a national tour of the production, which is an honor in and of itself for the Merrimack Repertory Theater. However, that won’t be the first big production put on by Lowell’s theater. It’s been running shows next to the Lowell Memorial Auditorium inside the historic Liberty Hall for over three decades, putting on five to seven shows a season. These shows range from originals to revivals, but they’re all welcome in the 279-seat theater. The theater is an important reminder about the strong sense of culture inherent within Lowell’s history, having a lot to offer from the performer’s perspective.

Abby Kelley Foster

This sense of performance is carried through to the other excursion I’ll detail here, a show performed by a method actress detailing the life of Abby Kelley Foster. On October 14, 2015, Lynne McKenney Lydick acted as a window into the life of the revolutionary women’s rights activist Abby Kelley Foster, performing in Allen House in a one-woman play to depict the radical impact Worcester native Abby Kelley Foster had on the field of abolition and women’s rights, offering insight on the life of Foster. Lynne McKenney Lydick’s studies into Foster shine through her emotive performance that both entertained and informed the viewers regarding the life of Abby Kelly Foster. While I had never heard of her before, I learned that Abby Kelley Foster was a radical force within women’s rights, and one of the main reasons it started when it did, and that she stood up for what she believed despite the repercussions, which there were many of. She often had things thrown at her during her presentations and occasionally was thrown out of towns, yet despite these obstacles, she continued her lectures and helped spur the movement. She was also not recorded very heavily into historical texts, since she did not keep any personal journals, so as a result her legacy is often abandoned for other figures in her movement. The performance was housed within Allen House, a historic location on the South Campus of UMass Lowell, specifically inside the Spinola Gallery. This event furthers my point regarding performances: the culture of Lowell is heavily seeped in performances, which can be seen by the riveting performance put on by Lynne McKenney Lydick.

The performances don’t stop there though. Another kind of performance is an athletic one, and this is one that is specifically in abundance here at UMass Lowell. Particularly, hockey. Hockey games make up the majority of the sports followings at UMass Lowell, due to the high quality hockey team that has risen up in the ranks ever since being declared Division One fairly recently. They’ve made it to the Frozen Four numerous times in the past couple years, and they only get better. However, the biggest part of hockey here at UMass Lowell is the games themselves. Between the large crowd turn out at important games, the general atmosphere inherent in hockey itself, and the hockey pep band, the UMass Lowell hockey games have been a pleasure I’ve been indulging in far before even considering UMass Lowell as a college to attend, back when my father would buy season tickets for himself and one other, usually either my mother, a friend of his, or me. In short, the entire ensemble of the atmosphere is a performance, between the players’ impressive athletic displays and the hockey pep band, the jazz rock big band. The jazz rock big band is directed by Dan Lutz and Deb Huber and provides UMass Lowell home games with an extra element as their songs, which are anything from jazz to rock, blues to funk, and even a little fusion, add to the already buzzing atmosphere of the games. The band’s big brass sound, characteristic of jazz and blues songs, adds to the energy of the students, who cheer loudly from the student section. The saxophone section, reflected in the funk and ska pieces the band performs, adds a mellow vibe to the energetic brass section and the rhythmic force of the percussionists, which drive the tempo of the group and encourage the spectators. Since UMass Lowell has a fairly significant music program, music majors from all over are drawn to the hockey pep band, and they perform highly energetic shows every game, truly adding to the performance of the game, and feeding into the performer’s blood that runs through Lowell.

Lowell is a city of performer’s made evident through its Merrimack Repertory Theater’s significance, the plethora of talented actors and actresses scattered throughout, the music programs here at Lowell, the underground music scene, the folk festival, the art shows, and many, many more displays of talent. From its beginnings as a cultural hub, this blood has poured through the veins of Lowell and makes itself as evident as ever in modern times.