Twenty Summers

The celebrated novelist and memoirist Paul Lisicky joins performing artist John Kelly at the Hawthorne Barn, the pair dives into Lisicky’s work, Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell. With a beautiful reading from Lisicky, and intimate performance by Kelly, this Season 12 event is one we love to revisit.

Watch an incredible evening with Mason Jennings, filmed live at the Hawthorne Barn. This performance captures the heart and soul of the night—honest, immersive, and filled with moments you won’t want to miss.

Lonely Parrots perform live at the Hawthorne Barn in this full-length concert captured during Season Twelve. With infectious energy and playful musicality, the band’s set moves between upbeat grooves and intimate moments, inviting the audience into a world of joy, curiosity, and spirited connection.

In this workshop led by Thomas Allen Harris, participants gather to share stories about the queer ancestors—mentors, friends, family members, and lovers—who have shaped their lives. Drawing inspiration from Harris’ work with archives and memory, the session explores how photographs and storytelling can help excavate, activate, and safeguard queer histories that are often overlooked or under threat. Using Harris’ community photo-sharing methodology—developed through the Family Pictures Institute for Inclusive Storytelling and the PBS series Family Pictures USA—participants reflect on personal photographs and the stories they hold. Through these shared images and memories, the conversation surfaces Provincetown’s deep queer p...

Lonely Parrots perform live at the Hawthorne Barn in this full-length concert captured during Season Twelve. With infectious energy and playful musicality, the band’s set moves between upbeat grooves and intimate moments, inviting the audience into a world of joy, curiosity, and spirited connection.

In a panel discussion moderated by National Book Award–winning author and Marine veteran Phil Klay, distinguished conflict journalists and photographers Victor J. Blue, Ashley Gilbertson, and Danielle Paquette discussed their work in conflict zones on several continents over the past couple of decades. They reflected on how their work had changed, how it had changed them, and, as we move into a chaotic time both in the news industry and in foreign relations—when old assumptions about the international order were quickly being upended—they examined the unique challenges of covering wars today.

Sabrina Song performs live at the Hawthorne Barn in this full-length concert captured during Season 12. With plain-spoken lyricism and warm melodic clarity, Song’s set moves between quiet introspection and emotional resonance, inviting the audience into moments of vulnerability, humor, and heartfelt connection.

Experience an intimate and engaging event with Ari Shapiro and Joshua Prager at the Hawthorne Barn, closing out our 2025 Season. Take a closer look at Ari’s voice, perspective, and storytelling, filled with insight, nuance, and memorable moments.

Get ready for an unforgettable moment as powerhouse band Glitterfox light up the Hawthorne Barn in a show-stopping takeover you won’t want to miss. Captured live during Twenty Summers’ Season Twelve, this newly released video brings all the energy, magic, and raw electricity straight to your screen—press play and experience it for yourself. The Portland, OR based band Glitterfox has released five singles in just six months under their new record label Kill Rock Stars, with two more arriving this Spring. The band’s been growing steadily since “Drive” came out in August 2023, with their indie rock recipe that deftly...

Australian-born Geraldine Brooks is an author and journalist who grew up in the Western suburbs of Sydney, attending Bethlehem College Ashfield and the University of Sydney. She worked as a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald for three years as a feature writer with a special interest in environmental issues. Later she worked for The Wall Street Journal, where she covered crises in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. In 1990, with her husband Tony Horwitz, she won the Overseas Press Club Award for best coverage of the Gulf War. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 2006 for...

Enjoy dynamite talent Michael Mayo's concert at the Hawthorn Barn from June 2025 as part of our Season 12 programming. Michael Mayo leans on his intuition as a vocalist, composer, songwriter, and arranger. Much like molding and shaping a sculpture out of clay, he stretches his voice through layers of heavenly harmonizing, hard-hitting beatboxing, and heartfelt crooning. The Los Angeles-based phenomenon creates from the heart without filter or pretense, allowing his voice to transmit raw emotion above an ever-evolving backdrop of jazz, neo-soul, and R&B on his second full-length LP, Fly [Mack Avenue Records/Artistry Music], and more to come.

Ashley Gilbertson joins filmmaker Michael Cestaro at Stanley to discuss his recent exhibition alongside photographer Franco Pagetti, as well as his life, travels, and career as a photographer and writer.

Sit down with lawyer Chase Strangio and artist Celeste Lecesne to revisit some of Chase's most impactful moments, and how these two amazing individuals will look to the future with hope, determination, and love.

Kioea (pronounced kēōˈāə) is a music group featuring Carand Burnet (she/her) as lead guitarist and songwriter. Their music blends sounds of surf rock, psychedelia, and global influences. J. Swartwood (Aquarium Drunkard) described Burnet’s music as “simultaneously modern and vintage.” Kioea has played at 3S Artspace, The Music Hall, The Thing in the Spring Festival, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, SPACE Gallery, WMUR Summer Concert Series, and elsewhere. Burnet received a Maine ARP Grant through SPACE Gallery and the National Endowment for the Arts, which supported the making of Kioea’s album Stand Tall.

There is no separating equality from ecology, which knows that no member of any natural system has more value than another. In a world of polycrises, what does it mean for activism to be a daily necessity? How can we more deeply integrate it into our lives, allowing our values to shape a more fulfilling and joyful existence? This discussion will bring together advocates who are reframing how we talk about social and environmental justice—and what it means to be an embodied activist.

‘Milk Tea Opera House’ is an initiative to create opportunities to influence more voices, to awaken them, and to guide them. It is vital to be able to experience more voices and together we ask this question: Where does voice come from, and how does it represent you? JU-EH creates a live Milk Tea Opera House Session, along with Twenty Summers, to co-create new kinds of interactive spaces from where the voice is born, redefining the term ‘opera house’ for the next 100 years. The main practice of an MTOH Session focuses on the human voice, and exercise how we use the voic...

At its heart, fashion is a tool of creativity and transformation—we slip into shapes and silhouettes, ever discovering new shades of self. So why is an industry that is so driven by “the new” seemingly incapable of reinventing itself when it comes to the health of people and the planet? This event will bring together two forces within the industry—photographer Camila Falquez and model, author, and organizer Cameron Russell—to share their reflections on creating authentic and meaningful change over the course of their careers.

McElroy’s debut novel, “The Atmospherians,” told the clever but slightly insiderly and overfreighted tale of a wellness cult designed to cleanse men of their toxicity. “People Collide” is a more agile, universal book, with its title alluding to the randomness of human connection. It’s a variety of rom-com, really, that somewhat lost art. “Circumstances pinball people together,” the narrator declares. “This is called fate because chance is too scary a word.” Perhaps no situation is more pinballish than that of in-laws, and McElroy’s unexpected digression into the psyche of Elizabeth’s mother, a frustrated writer herself who unknowingly condemns Eli...

Join 2021 Twenty Summers Fellow Jeffrey Mansfield and director Michael Cestaro for a conversation following the preview of Signs from the Mainland, a documentary short that explores the extraordinary history of the Martha’s Vineyard deaf community. Starting as far back as the early 1700s, genetic deafness took a foothold on Martha's Vineyard where as many as one in four residents were deaf and a majority of hearing residents also were able to communicate in what is considered one of the precursors to modern American Sign Language. The film explores the deeper meaning and lessons to be learned from this unique en...

Take a look at Synchronous Creative in an evening of site-specific movement and exploration surrounding the idea of “safe spaces” at the Hawthorne Barn. The evening is an inside look at their creative process, where they led audience members through a few prompts and exercises utilized through their process at Twenty Summers.

Join Rebecca Orchant & Bill Hough for a conversation celebrating Rebecca’s new book Simmering, A Kitchen Memoir . “There are somethings that you just can’t do in front of other people. You can’t look at magazines with boobs in them; you can’t eat condoms on your mom’s nightstand; and you most certainly can’t stick your finger into the Duncan-Hines vanilla frosting tub. And so I waited.”

A powerfully gifted musician and a scholar of Black American music, Jake Blount speaks ardently about the African roots of the banjo and the subtle, yet profound ways African Americans have shaped and defined the amorphous categories of roots music and Americana. His 2020 album Spider Tales (named one of the year’s best albums by NPR and The New Yorker, earned a perfect 5-star review from The Guardian) highlighted the Black and Indigenous histories of popular American folk tunes, as well as revived songs unjustly forgotten in the whitewashing of the canon. Jake Blount’s music is rooted in care and...

Journalism informs. It investigates. It holds the powerful accountable. But can it also be art? Adam Moss makes that case in his new book, The Work of Art, featuring visual artists, novelists, poets, musicians, and journalists like Gay Talese, Ira Glass, and the front-page editors of the New York Times. Join Moss and Provincetown Independent editor Ed Miller, along with journalist and historian Dan Okrent, journalist and podcaster Andrew Sullivan, and journalist and artist Tessera C. Knowles, as they discuss the creative side of journalism — as it is practiced now, as it has flourished historically, and as it takes ever-new fo...

This sonically-innovative harpist is revolutionizing her instrument for the digital era. Over the past 15 years, she has worked relentlessly to stretch boundaries and limitations for harpists. In 2022, she made history by becoming the first black woman to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition. That same year, she was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award. “No harpist thus far has been more capable of combining all of the modern harp traditions—from Salzedo, through Dorothy Ashby, through Alice Coltrane—with such strength, grace and commitment.” —saxophonist Ravi Coltrane

Over the past six or seven years I have focused on cutting away certain areas of maps, creating lace-like pages of roads, rivers, and other geographical features. These are then protected between sheets of acrylic, in boxes, or safely mounted on panels. For my site-specific installation at Twenty Summers, I embraced the fragility of the pages, leaving them unprotected and open to whatever might happen when people also enter the space. I envisioned hundreds of cut maps hanging from the beams, perhaps randomly, perhaps in a specific layout. I have a sense of the installation being somewhat representative of the...

All life once rose from the ocean, and all life still depends on it today. From melting glaciers and rising sea levels to plastic pollution and overfishing, our common origin is in danger. This group of marine biologists, ocean advocates, and researchers of the local coastal ecosystem venture into a discussion about how the ocean connects us—and what we can do to protect it.

Fabiola Méndez is a Puerto Rican cuatrista, singer, Emmy-nominated composer, and educator that has taken part in a musical and cultural movement, crossing over the lines of genres such as folk, jazz & Afro-Caribbean and taking the listener on a journey through identities, cultures, and roots.

A chance meeting with a stranger on the side of the road led artist, Michael Joseph down a decade-long journey photographing and documenting an American subculture, called Travelers. Travelers are the most contemporary of non-conformists, having evolved from the 1930s Dustbowl Hobo, '50s Kerouac Beatnik, and the '90s East Village Squatter. Michael presents his work and new book, "Lost and Found: A Portrait of American Wanderlust" through visuals and audio. His portrait project set in Provincetown, called "Wild West of the East" will be discussed. Topics common to both projects include identity formation, found family, wanderlust, the human...

Introduce yourself to the nettle plant through an immersion of flavor, texture, sensations and experiences. Nicole Cormier RD, LDN offers connections to Urtica dioica with a tasting of various preparations of the plant to eat, sip and feel. “I am passionate about helping people...improving whole health ... mental and physical ...educating ... I believe in the power connecting farmers and consumers.”

The Weather Station is the project of Toronto based songwriter Tamara Lindeman. The last few years have seen The Weather Station release two albums: the career defining Ignorance (2021) and its ethereal, mostly live recording companion piece, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars (2022). In that time, The Weather Station have gone on to headline tours across North America and Europe, play major festivals, and perform on the televised Austin City Limits as well as Jimmy Kimmel Live. Ignorance was named Best New Music (Pitchfork), and landed in year-end Top 10 lists from The New Yorker (#1), Spin, New York...

On August 18th, 1949, Forum 49 hosted a panel discussion called ‘Directions in 20th Century Architecture’ featuring architect Marcel Breuer, the artist and filmmaker György Kepes, and architect and journalist, Peter Blake, who was then curator for Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art. All three speakers were engaged in the then-raging debate about whether modern houses should use the materials and methods of vernacular, regional architecture, or employ universal, standardized, machine-made components. Breuer had just finished building his own experimental house in Wellfleet and one for the Kepes family not far away. Both houses were modest-sized, environmentally sensitive, outpo...

The ecological crisis is only a symptom of a deeper spiritual disconnect, one that must be mended to heal the whole. What can we learn from nature about the processes of decay and renewal? What must be decomposed in order for our species to mend its relationship with the Earth? In this keynote conversation bridging the spiritual and ecological, we will hear from Atmos editor-in-chief Willow Defebaugh and philosopher, writer, and founder of The Emergence Network Bayo Akomolafe, as they invite us into a deeper understanding about the transmutations and murmurations our world is faced with today.

Cody Plays is an experiment in creating a play in a matter of a few days with a rotating group of special guests and collaborators created by writer/performer Cody Sullivan. Where is the show taking place this week? What is happening in the world that day? Who can we beg to take a role? The answers to these questions are the frantic, immediate, ephemeral ingredients that Cody uses to facilitate the group creation of each Cody Plays. Cody started the show in Provincetown at The Gifford House, in June 2023. He continues to play in Provincetown and Boston. “The results ar...

As part of our 20S x Atmos weekend Pinar Sinopoulos-Lloyd, Sabrina Imbler, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian, and Willow Defebaugh come together to discuss "Queering Nature". The queer experience is rooted in expression and acceptance—a celebration of all the unique and individual natures that make up the whole of nature, a rich tapestry woven by biodiversity. In this panel discussion, expert voices from the field of queer ecology will explore wonders from around the planet that challenge our human notions of gender and sexuality, who gets to determine the narrative frameworks of biology, and the expansive nature of identity.

Mike Sullivan and friends in a concert featuring masked performances of Stephen Sondheim repertoire with other choral and musical theater works. With performers wearing masks and custom clothing designs, Faces of Celebration meets at the intersection of music, fashion, and art, and explores the variety of ways in which we engage with storytelling and creative expression. The concert is performed in two acts, consisting of local and visiting singers and instrumentalists.

Enjoy a session from our Twenty Summers x Atmos weekend of conversations at the Hawthorne Barn. To rewrite our future, we must right the wrongs of the past and present—including the harm that colonization has authored upon the Earth’s original caretakers and listen to their words of wisdom. In this talk, Indigenous advocates, leaders, and visionaries will invite the audience into a discussion about Native sovereignty, stewardship, reparations, and the landback movement.

Experience an evening in the Barn with Bermuda Search Party! Since their inception in early 2018, Bermuda Search Party (formerly known as The Q-Tip Bandits) have emerged into the Boston music scene as an energetic and vibrant act that continues to touch audience’s hearts while getting them up on their feet. Their smooth yet powerful sound is backed by the raw energy of rock and the coolness and colors of R&B and funk — with palpable grooves coated with savory, soul-inspired riffs, anthemic horns and meaningful lyrics.

Part 3 of 3 of our Ecosystems & Imagination Series, an artist’s interactive approach to future/present visions of the sea coast in the face of sea level rise, and the vulnerability of public space. What are the ecosystems near the water, both human and nature based/ What is public space at the coast for? How will we live here in the future? What will allow this way of life to continue equitably? Markets and festivals, promenades, concerts, waterfront recreation. Presented by Mark Adams, Traven Pelletier, and Center for Coastal Studies.

Part 2 of 3 of our Ecosystems & Imagination Series, an artist’s interactive approach to future/present visions of the sea coast in the face of sea level rise, and the vulnerability of public space. What are the ecosystems near the water, both human and nature based/ What is public space at the coast for? How will we live here in the future? What will allow this way of life to continue equitably? Markets and festivals, promenades, concerts, waterfront recreation. Presented by Mark Adams, Traven Pelletier, and Center for Coastal Studies.

Part 1 of 3 of our Ecosystems & Imagination Series, an artist’s interactive approach to future/present visions of the sea coast in the face of sea level rise, and the vulnerability of public space. What are the ecosystems near the water, both human and nature based/ What is public space at the coast for? How will we live here in the future? What will allow this way of life to continue equitably? Markets and festivals, promenades, concerts, waterfront recreation. Presented by Mark Adams, Traven Pelletier, and Center for Coastal Studies.