"I think 2026 will be the year of the DIY venue."
January 25: A really nice 3:00 matinee concert this Sunday with Carl Goulet + Sandiland & Vincent.
These honest and heart-forward performing songwriters are hidden gems who fly a little under the radar, yet have the chops and fluency of artists who get a lot more attention. Passionate, sometimes political, sometimes humorous, always thoughtful.Presales have been on the slow side so far — this may end up being one of those outstanding performances that only a fortunate extra-intimate audience gets to experience. Some of the most transcendant shows we've hosted have been to a handful or two... there's an indefinable magic that seems to happen, a kind of powerful connection between the performers and the people or something.The Daily UV said that Goulet's album Gazebo “charms the listener with gentle melodies yet packs a punch with the depth of wisdom and love.” The clarity and purity of his writing and performing is seldom matched. Similarly, Sandiland & Vincent have carefully honed their craft over years, producing songs with beautiful arrangements and tight, rich harmonies.Tickets are just $10 in advance through stage33live.com or at the door. Advance tickets guarantee entry. Only 40 tickets will be sold (but it doesn't look like that's going to be a problem).Tickets and basically the same info available on our website.
And then comes February, the shortest month, which will paradoxically be our busiest month... and the most unusual.
We'll break it down by date.
On Thursdays in February, at 6:00 PM, Stage 33 Live and WOOL.fm will screen a series of films from 1930 that are newly entered into the public domain.
$5 suggested donation at the door, but nobody will be turned away for lack of money.
We've got some comedy, some drama, some vaudeville, some set big-set big band and dance. First time doing this, totally an experiment! If people are into it, we'll probably do it again.
A pair of cartoons starring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, the precursor to Mickey Mouse – then the feature King of Jazz, a lavish series of musical numbers, comedy sketches, and visual set pieces showcasing the possibilities of sound cinema and color filmmaking at the dawn of the 1930s. The film revels in Art Deco-inspired design and the use of two-color Technicolor, and celebrates popular music of the era. Highlights include performances by Paul Whiteman and his orchestra, appearances by the Rhythm Boys (including a young Bing Crosby), and a striking Rhapsody in Blue sequence.
February 7, a Saturday: Synthfest 2026 Session 2.A celebration of synthesizer performance, circuit-bending, and sound manipulation. Meet-and-greet the performers and each other at 6:00 PM... get up close to the gear (look but don’t touch), talk with the performers, settle into the space. Five 20-minute performances will follow, starting at 7:00.This session will feature mostly improvisations across a range of styles and moods. On the schedule: Belltonesuicide, Bob Familiar with Glenn Dickson, Bosey Joe, Dave Seidel, and Denny Kemps.Session 1 (a capacity room!) hit it out of the park, and this one should be another winner. Suggested $10 donation in advance or at the door per event, all proceeds benefit the performers. No one will be turned away for lack of money. Advance donations through stage33live.com guarantee entry if the session sells out. Admission is limited to 40. All performances will be recorded and filmed.More info on the website.
A German youth eagerly enters World War I, but his enthusiasm wanes as he gets a firsthand view of the horror. Considered a realistic and harrowing account of warfare in World War I, the film opened to wide acclaim in the United States. In 1990, it was selected and preserved by the United States Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. The film was the first to win the Academy Awards for both Outstanding Production and Best Director, and it is the first Best Picture-winner based on a finished novel.
A feat of adventure filmmaking and a testament to the audacious, spare-no-expense vision of Howard Hughes, this landmark aviation epic remains exhilarating. With the onset of World War I, two British brothers recruited into the Royal Flying Corps find their bond tested by their differing attitudes toward the war and their love for the same woman (Jean Harlow in her bombshell breakthrough). The product of a notoriously long and dangerous production that resulted in the deaths of multiple crew members, Hell’s Angels broke new technical ground, making use of early sound and color technologies, and capturing some of the most thrilling dogfight scenes ever filmed.
February 26: Animal Crackers + Soup to Nuts, a Thursday evening double feature picture show at 6:00.
Based on the Marx Brothers’ 1928 stage musical, Animal Crackers is set at a Long Island society party honoring eccentric African explorer Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho). The film serves as a vehicle for the Marx Brothers’ comedy and absurdist routines, with a minimal plot loosely structured around the theft of a valuable painting. The film’s humor and surrealist elements influenced comedy filmmaking and earned recognition from avant-garde critics and filmmakers. In Soup to Nuts, Mr. Schmidt’s costume store is bankrupt because he spends his time on Rube Goldberg-style inventions. The creditors send a young manager who falls for Schmidt’s niece Louise, but she’ll have none of him. Schmidt’s friends and some goofy firemen try to help out, and things come to a slapstick head when Louise needs rescuing from a fire. It was the film debut of the original four members who would later go on to become known as The Three Stooges.
Pretty excited about this one! Sunburned Hand of the Man are an enigmatic experimental collective with a stunningly large discography and frequent personnel changes. Incorporating elements of free jazz, space rock, psych-rock, hypno krautrock, drone, folk, funk, punk, and dirty synth, their live shows are a surprise every time — even to them, usually — ranging from wild improvisatory freak-outs to more coherently sculpted material careening from unsettling to hypnotic to mellow.According to Sean Kitching, writing in The Quietus, “Sunburned at their best are capable of taking the listener on a shamanic, boogie-fueled trip outside of quotidian reality. Live shows blend monstrous tectonics of rhythm, caustic guitar, echoing phased vocals, insect electronics, and kitchen sink instrumentation that collide in an ecstatic racket.”Throughout the mid-’90s they represented New England’s “free rock” contingency, and the “free folk” — sometimes misnomered “freak folk” — era described by David Keenan’s influential article New Weird America in the British music magazine The Wire.There will be no opener for this show, it will be 100% Sunburned. It’ll be loud. Stage 33 Live has no idea what the lineup will be, or how long the show will go. This is in accordance with the strange purity of Sunburned Hand of the Man.It appears that Daisy Frederick will be providing her very cool real-time liquid light projections for the show!February 28, 2026, which is a Saturday, at 7:00 PM. Tickets are just $20 in advance through stage33live.com or at the door as available. Advance tickets guarantee entry. Only 40 tickets will be sold. The performances will be recorded and filmed. More info at the stage33live.com website.
That's February. Other news follows.
Episode 5 of the Stage 33 Live podcast slipped out quietly a few days ago.
The theme is LEAVING, and it features The Fretbenders, Jake Swamp and the Pine, Lenny Solomon, The Sky Blue Boys, Charlie & Emma, Luminous Crush, Stone & Snow, Derek Sensale, Marc Douglas Berardo, Man Made Tragedies. Matt Sharff, B.B. Dozer, Só Sol, and Tracy Grammer with Jim Henry.
It's available in all the podcast paces and on our website.
Welcome to a couple more co-sponsors joining us in hosting four classic movies at the Bellows Falls Opera House:
Circuits in the Woods and Chrisman Kearn join fellow conspirators Dave & Sharon Pelland, Rick Holloway, Andrew Dey, Rockingham Entertainment Development, and angels who wanted anonymity.
Circuits in the Woods is an electronic music festival that will have its second round on November 7. To find out about last year's festival (to get an idea about what this year's will be like), see their Mastadon channel (no account necessary). The four classic movies we'll be hosting this year will be on April 8, July 1, September 23, and December 30 at the Bellows Falls Opera House.We don't know yet which films will be screened on which days, but the top four picks as voted for by our co-sponsors are Searching for Sugar Man, A Mighty Wind, Inside Llewyn Davis, and The History of Future Folk. Alternates, in order of votes, are The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Once, Bound for Glory, Coal Miner's Daughter, and Music and Lyrics.If you'd like to be a co-underwriter with us, you can jump on board by donating $25 or more (it all gets funneled to the Opera House) and note that it's for the Classic Movie Sponsorship. Each $25 gets you a comp ticket and a pat on the back... unless anonymity is requested, we'll credit everyone who pitched in to make it happen here on the socials, on our website, in our newsletter, and in the theater before the showings.
The world has unexpectedly lost Susan MacNeil. 😢
She was a friend and supporter of Stage 33 Live... and just about every do-gooder thing that touched her orbit. Her seemingly boundless energy, enthusiasm, and activism put a lot of light into this world. She'll be missed by many, including us.
Public calling hours for Susan will be Friday, January 23 from 4 to 6pm at Fenton & Hennessey Funeral Home, 55 Westminster St in Bellows Falls, VT. A celebration of life will take place in April.
