Greg Laswell, Cary Brothers

Singer-songwriter Greg Laswell (pictured) needed a place to think and write. Some “me” time. So he repaired to a cabin in Arizona, and wrote the songs for his latest album, Take a Bow, which “both closes and opens another chapter in the California native’s life as a songwriter and a man.”

Serious dude.

Cary Brothers hit it when one of their songs—oops, I mean his songs, “Cary Brothers” being the name of a guy, not a band—was included on the Garden State soundtrack. While Zach Braff’s career stalled, Cary Brothers is doing fine, thanks. His new album, Under Control, is about finding “peace in chaos.”

Both Laswell and Brothers will be backed by Chicago-based Harper Blynn, which is a band, not the name of some dude.

Greg Laswell, Cary Brothers and Harper Blynn will perform tonight (Thursday, July 8) at 8 PM at Red Square (388 Broadway, Albany). Tickets are $15. For more info, call the club at 465-0444.

 

Brush the Summer By

Adirondack Theater Festival was founded with the vision of presenting fresh, new plays. It was a nearly inconceivable risk—renowned stage standards are the fuel and funding for the majority of summer theater companies. But since their first season in 1995, no script produced on the ATF stage has been more than five years old, and the Festival has nurtured and produced 15 world-premiere plays.

Their latest offering continues that success with a world-premiere full production of Brush the Summer By, which they presented in workshop last summer. Playwright Hal Corley is a five-time Emmy Award-winner for his work in daytime serials, and his plays have been produced on prominent stages from NYC to LA, to consistent critical acclaim.

According to ATF, Brush the Summer By, which brings together a local bartender and Maryland divorcee on a leaf-peeping trip, “explores the joys and dangers of living in the moment and the challenges and rewards of forgiveness.” And for folks ’round here, the play is truly home-grown: set in the Adirondacks and shaped by the feedback of last summer’s workshop audiences.

Brush the Summer By opens at Adirondack Theater tonight (July 8) at 8 PM and runs through July 17. Tickets are $32. For more info, or to purchase tickets, call 798-7479.

 

Sea Marks

Remember the slow blooming of romance in courtships that unfolded before cell phones and chat boxes and Match.com rushed the process along? Remember the patience, anticipation and tangible adoration of love letters? The shoebox brimming with sincerities and sweet nothings?

Sea Marks, the latest production at Shakespeare & Company, follows one such love-through-letters, set in the western islands of Ireland in the 1960s. A fisherman “with a poet’s touch” is captivated by a Welsh woman who has left her farm life behind for a career in publishing. Neither was fishing for love later in life, but when he courts her across the Irish Sea, the power of the written world catalyzes a thread of changes.

The Chicago Sun-Times called it a “delightful, unabashed ode to romance.” Sounds like a dreamy date night to us.

Sea Marks opens for preview at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., tomorrow (Friday, July 9) at 8 PM, and runs through Sept. 4. On July 28 there will be a Q&A with the creators following the performance. Tickets range from $16 to $48; discounts are available for students, seniors, military, teachers and full-time Berkshire residents. For more info, or to purchase tickets, call the S&Co box office at (413) 637-1199.