>> BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen, coming up on Open Studio: the stars of Sing Street give their all to make a new musical about hope.

>> The mic stand, I've chipped both of my two front teeth with the mic (laughing): hitting me in the face, but it's been worth it, it's been hella fun.

>> BOWEN: Then we enter the immersive world of King Tut's tomb.

All that plus our weekly round-up of everything to see in Arts This Week.

It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ It's one of the few fortunes of the pandemic that when the new musical Sing Street couldn't open on Broadway, it opened here with the Huntington Theatre company.

It's based on the film of the same name and is set in 1982 Dublin.

Times are tough, the economy is hurting, and Conor, a teenager, is watching as his family pulls apart.

Until he meets Raphina, and he tries to woo her by asking her to be a model in the music video for his new band.

Problem being he actually has to create a band.

In a moment, we'll meet the stars of Sing Street.

Courtnee Carter, Adam Bregman, thank you so much for joining us.

Give me a sense of your take on the show with your character Conor.

This is 1982 in Dublin.

Times are really tough.

What is he facing?

>> Well, the whole country is in... is in like a hole, as one of the characters says, it's in recession.

There was some contextual research and the context grounds the character.

But I think the nice thing about the story is it's not all about the context.

It's a universal kind of story.

He's facing the kind of struggles that kids today would be facing that kids in the 1980s and before were facing.

His family's falling apart.

He's on the cusp of, you know, between being a child and being an adult and having to make decisions for himself.

It's a very universal story.

And so I think that's why people can relate to it.

>> BOWEN: And where does your character come in?

She seems like the picture of strength when things aren't necessarily happening well for her either.

>> Right.

I mean, Raphina, is... she really is a wildflower growing through concrete in this like terrible, terrible time.

And she's just trying to make something of herself because she's just had such a terrible life.

And she heals through Conor's music.

>> BOWEN: Well, it's so interesting that music is so... is the universal element here.

We can all relate to music.

We all have music as a soundtrack to our lives and a coping mechanism.

How do you find your... How do you see it used in this show and how does it relate to who you are?

>> So what I find quite interesting about the show is it's a musical, and the normal basis of like a musical is once, you know, you have... you're too emotional to speak, you sing.

And in this story, when things get too tough, he writes a song, and then he like lives through this music, and he releases, and he gets out his troubles, and his... his longings and his dreams through this music.

It's very much like a coping mechanism as well as like an expression of just pure happiness.

>> BOWEN: What about you, has music... what... what kind of place in your life has it been?

>> I mean, music is huge in my life.

Growing up, my late grandfather was an opera singer, and my grandmother is a jazz singer.

So music has always been a part of my life and it's, it's my way to escape.

It's...

I listen to music before auditions.

It is a way to calm me down.

And it's, it's very inspirational to me.

Yeah, and I, I love to sing.

It's one of... it...

Sometimes I sing when I'm feeling sad or, you know, just want to get something out and, you know, yeah, music is, is a huge part of my life.

>> BOWEN: I was so struck by even the way you're, you're swinging the mic stand last night.

It was so natural to you.

Does it feel natural?

>> Um... it's not actually very '80s, but I watched some Elvis some Elvis videos.

You know, the way that... that, that there have been frontmen through the generations that I've played with.

We've had...

I've had...

I've had mics break.

So we broke a mic, like snapped it in half, the mic stand.

I've chipped both of my two front teeth with the mic hitting me in the face.

Um... but it's been worth it, it's been hella fun.

>> BOWEN: They're, they're fixed already it looks like.

>> No, they're, they're small, they are very small chips.

>> BOWEN: What about you?

You have to... you have to be a supermodel.

>> I watched a lot of Whitney Houston, and a lot of Janet Jackson, and like Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell.

Like people who were really in at the time, and just kind of studied their things.

But like doing Raphina's version of it because she wants to be a model, but I don't think she's actually that great at doing it yet.

>> BOWEN: I was wondering because this is a new musical, essentially, I know it's had at least one other iteration in New York, but so much of it was shaped between New York and then launching here at the Huntington.

What... are you... do you bring yourself to this role?

I mean, you're, you're in many ways, defining these characters.

>> Absolutely.

I mean, whenever I approach a character, it has to come from a real place, from within me.

Because I am the person who's playing it.

So the first thing that I try to do is to find what relate... what can I relate to that Raphina has gone through, or what, what in my life can I sort of, um...

I call it an "as if," like as if this has happened to me in my life.

This is Raphina's version of it.

So yeah, I mean, definitely I bring my whole heart into it and I try to bring my life experiences, and yeah, to make her as authentic as possible.

>> BOWEN: Well, finally, let me ask you about the music.

I mean Kate Bush is having a moment right now.

You're bringing us back into the '80s.

>> Yes.

Good timing, isn't it?

>> BOWEN: Your group is singlehandedly going to launch us back into Depeche Mode and Duran Duran.

How is it to be in that music?

>> Oh, the music is... it's so... like it makes you feel so good.

It's just so... (exhales) what's the word?

Like raw, and just kind of like edgy, and it makes you feel cool listening to it, and it really puts you in that, that sort of time space.

And it's, yeah, it's, it's just... it's, it's really thrilling to listen to.

We were, before opening yesterday, we played the whole '80s playlist to like get us into it, and it's just... it's such a good time for music.

Like just icons, freakin' Whitney Houston, and geez, like, yeah, yeah, great time for music.

>> BOWEN: Let alone sing it.

>> You know, we go from like kind of edgy rock to kind of ballads.

And I think that's one of the best things about the show.

It doesn't have a... like a style you can put your finger on.

It's completely changing, like constantly.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

>> And so it's never boring.

You know, there's a show... there's a song for every mood.

>> Yeah!

>> And for every... every emotion there's a song.

It's brilliant.

>> Yeah, it's quite a journey, yeah.

>> BOWEN: Well, congratulations on a fantastic show.

And it's been such a treat to speak with both of you.

>> Yeah...

Thank you.

>> Thank you.

Appreciate it.

>> Thank you.

Thank you.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: I'm here in Boston's South End where we can see an Egyptian influence is taking hold courtesy of some teenage artists working with the city.

But, if we head just down the block, we can actually enter ancient Egypt.

100 years ago, sifting through the Egyptian sands, Howard Carter made the find of a lifetime.

He discovered the ancient tomb of King Tutankhamun.

Now we have a chance to take in that find for ourselves virtually in the exhibition Beyond King Tut.

♪ ♪ Mark Lach, thank you for touring us through Beyond King Tut.

First, remind us the significance of King Tut and why he is so enchanting all these many years later.

>> Yeah, you know, this is a king, a royal, that would have gotten lost in the pages of history if it wasn't for this amazing discovery 100 years ago.

It was said that the Valley of the Kings, where these tombs had been discovered over the years, was exhausted, was the word.

Meaning there's nothing left to be found.

And through the persistence of the Egyptians, and the British archaeologist Howard Carter, he kept pushing and pushing and believing that there was another tomb at least to be found.

The moment of that discovery when they pushed through the wall, and someone said, "Can you see anything?"

And he said, "Yes, wonderful things."

But this was a window into the Egyptian past, into ancient Egypt, like has never been seen before, even to this day.

So that discovery on November 4, 1922, significant intact tomb, and a very insignificant king, Tutankhamun now is the most famous Egyptian king.

>> BOWEN: Well you bring us into this.

This is where the immersive part comes in.

How do you begin to evoke, especially in this passage, where we get the sense of moving into a tomb what the experience is?

>> Across from me is an image of the Valley of the Kings, where, you know, those tombs were some discovered, yet to be discovered, the tomb of Tutankhamun.

And then we want to bring you through, much like Carter experienced it, not only that moment of discovery, but the excitement felt around the world, the celebrities that turned out to come to the entry of the tomb.

And then, of course, it was many, many months-- years, really-- as Carter worked into the tomb and everything inside was removed, photographed, cataloged, and then brought to Cairo.

>> BOWEN: And before we head in to see these images, I mean, even now here in 2022, it's enchanting.

What was it like when these spread across the world?

You said celebrities showed up at the tomb opening.

What was it like?

>> Well, I think then, as now, we're fascinated with Egypt, we're fascinated with ancient Egypt.

And that idea that there was a tomb discovered that was never meant to be discovered, was never meant to be found and entered, really, and to know that it was intact, all the things that were put inside were still there, it was headline news all around the world.

This new, intact tomb was found, and that's why we talk about Tutankhamun still today.

>> BOWEN: All right.

Shall we head in?

>> Sure.

Let's go.

Let's take a look.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Mark, now we've magically appeared in the Tomb Room.

We should point out that all of the artifacts have gone back to Egypt because this is the 100th anniversary.

But what's the essence?

What's the spirit of the discovery in the tomb that you bring us here?

>> Well, you know, we talked about in the last gallery the "insignificance" of Tutankhamun.

His tomb was that way, as well, it was a very small tomb.

It was only four rooms, and they were small rooms, but they were, as we said, chock full of things.

But the second to last room really discovered was the burial chamber.

And that's the area we're in now.

This is obviously a theatrical replica of the shrine.

It's to scale, but it was over the top of what ultimately was the solid gold coffin.

And, to bring these walls to life, I think especially it was the only room... is the only room in the tomb that had painted walls.

These have been photographed in, in ultra-high definition.

And now we show them a little bigger than life so you can see the detail.

But you come into this room, I think, and get a sense of what it was like to actually be inside with these painted walls in what, what is called the burial chamber.

>> BOWEN: Well, I was quite struck to get a sense of his childhood, which you give us here, including-- I don't know why I find this so enchanting-- but he loved board games.

But, as any child does, I as an adult love board games.

>> Exactly.

We show you some amazing photographs of a very tiny game that he most likely carried in his pocket called senet.

But it was played by children, it was played by adults, and now can be played by the guests here at the exhibition.

We've kind of enlarged it to make it a bigger experience in the middle of the next gallery.

He was a kid, remember, and that's part of the fascination, obviously, nine-year-old when he became king.

>> BOWEN: And you reminds us of that as we realize that we're looking at a child here.

And do we have a sense of was he actually a ruler?

>> I sit at the feet of the folks that really know this stuff.

At least by title and by name, but the elders that were around him had a great deal of influence.

Now he died when he was 18 or 19 years old.

So it can be correctly assumed by that time, later, in his teens, for instance, he was asserting himself more as a leader.

But certainly becoming king at nine and having a very powerful-- talk about significant kings, Akhenaten, his father, who... most known for changing the worship system.

It's the first time in recorded history that a single deity was worshipped or, or the Egyptians were told to worship the God of the Sun.

Well, that didn't go over very well.

And poor little King Tut, when he became king at nine, he had to deal with a lot of that backlash.

So the elders, I'm sure, were in his ear all the time controlling a lot of what was going on.

>> BOWEN: All right.

Shall we go to the afterlife?

>> Let's go.

Let's see it.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Mark, you take us on a journey here.

We're sitting on the vessel itself.

What happens in this gallery?

>> Yes.

We have 22-foot walls here.

We have a theatrical representation, a scenic representation of a boat.

And ancient Egyptians believed that you would journey through the afterlife, to the afterlife, on a boat.

That's why there were so many model boats in Tut's tomb.

And to this day, of course, if you visit Egypt, you're going to sail down the Nile.

And that's going to be a memorable experience.

So that's why we brought the boat into the centerpiece here.

>> BOWEN: Where do we sit with immersive experiences adjacent to the museum world?

You just said this will never replace the experience of actually seeing the actual artifacts.

But as these come up together, sometimes you do hear of a tension between the museums and these experiences.

How do you see this playing out?

>> I certainly am a believer that there's a place for both.

And as I watch guests go through, especially folks that maybe aren't at museums every couple of weeks, you know, this is a new experience and bringing, in this case, the story of Tutankhamun to life in a way that our guests maybe didn't expect.

And I think, certainly if we dated back a couple of years, that none of us expected would be part of the, the exhibition experience, the learning experience, and to be touched emotionally by a story.

That's what this does.

I don't think there's any denying that.

>> BOWEN: Well, Mark Locke, thank you for guiding us through.

We do get to come back from the afterlife, right?

>> Yes.

We're going to make it, I think.

Stay... stay attached to this vessel and we'll make it through.

>> Bowen (chuckling): All right.

Thank you so much.

♪ ♪ Time now for Arts This Week, your weekly download of all things arts and culture in and around town.

SpeakEasy Stage Company launches its season in a small Wyoming town.

That's where the new play Heroes of the Fourth Turning is set.

It's 2017, only a week since the violent and deadly riots in Charlottesville put the nation on edge.

It is in this charged atmosphere where four young Catholic conservatives reunite at their alma mater.

Late into the night, after some of them have been drinking, they hash out their conservative ideology.

Can they be both pro-life and empathetic to abortion providers?

Is there space to respect the LGBTQ community?

Basically, where do they sit in what they see is a country increasingly dominated by liberal thought?

At the extreme end, one of the Trump supporting, Steve Bannon-idea spewing characters argues it's enough to brace for a coming war-- cultural or perhaps worse.

The play is written by Will Arbery and was a 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Drama.

Now in his 30s, Arbery grew up mostly in Texas, in a conservative Catholic family.

So this is an inside look at conservativism from a playwright raised on it.

He's created a work that's nuanced, insightful, and prone to provocation.

But it's also a heavily talky play with more discourse than narrative structure.

Like tuning into Fox News chatter, not on-air, but in the green room where things might be even more unscripted and unguarded.

Even so, it's valuable for the two-hour deep dive into conservative DNA.

Arguably, that which half the country is built on, but which rarely gets space in the American theater.

♪ ♪ The Kennedy Greenway features one of the biggest canvases in Boston.

Every year, the exterior of a building there is turned over to a different artist.

Now, for the first time, the artist is a Bostonian.

He is Rob "ProBlak" Gibbs, Boston's man of murals, as I've taken to calling him, who is authoring the city with his giant depictions of positivity throughout the Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods.

The Greenway mural is no exception.

Here we find a young girl crouched in a front of a boombox.

There's a vibrant green lawn beneath her feet, bright yellow sun shining overhead.

As a kid from the '80s, Rob told me the boombox was a source of the Saturday soundtrack and how news and stories were amplified.

But returning to that positivity I just mentioned, the girl we see on the mural is his daughter Bobbie.

She's staring out at a city that could be hers.

And, to me, that's the most charming and resonant element of the mural.

As Rob also told me, his four-year-old daughter is now so used to her father's work and seeing herself living large, she just assumes that's the way life is supposed to be.

As it should be.

♪ ♪ Rose B. Simpson, an artist whose work ranges from ceramic sculpture, to performance, to automotive design, has a new solo show at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

It features 11 of her large ceramic sculptures populating one very dramatically lit gallery.

Stepping into the space, we find Simpson's figures in all manner of psychological and emotional states.

Simpson's work is rooted in her own experiences as a Native American woman coming of age in a country which is ripe, she has said, with objectification and stereotyping.

Where an inordinate number of Indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing.

Where Indigenous children had their cultures erased from them.

The figures we find are manifestations of all that.

They are stoic, staring straight out into the world, often with an aesthetic Simpson intends to appear post-apocalyptic.

All in clay, the works literally bear Simpson's fingerprints.

And together they tell a story with an emotion and tone that is likely to stay with you for a very long time.

♪ ♪ If you walk along the Boston Harborwalk and into the Charlestown Navy Yard, you'll encounter 20 sculptures.

And they will stop you in your tracks, because that's exactly what local artist Michael Alfano wants you to do.

It's titled Of Many Minds and Alfano is challenging us to think in a different mindset.

These sculptures are paired with quotes from an array of activists, thinkers, and scientists.

People like Amanda Gorman, Albert Einstein, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The sculptures are visual, intellectual, and soulful prompts to consider our place in the world alongside each other.

His work titled Blown features a face stoically confronting headwinds.

It's accompanied by this quote Jesse Jackson: "We must be pulled by our dreams rather than our memories."

And then there is this fabulous framing these works have-- out in the open air, with blue skies and open water as a backdrop.

So follow the breeze and take a stroll to savor this free outdoor exhibition.

♪ ♪ And here's what I'm looking forward to next week: Boston Ballet leaps into its new season with a program titled My Obsession.

It features a staggering duet by Helen Pickett that is a study in love.

And Stephen Galloway's Devil's Eye set to the music by The Rolling Stones, giving the ballet a rocking bounce.

That's it for this week in arts and culture, I'll see you here, and at the Boston Ballet, next week.

Now we're off to Akron, Ohio where an organization there is giving new meaning to street art-- turning empty storefronts into pop-up museums.

This story comes to us from PBS member station WVIZ in Cleveland, Ohio.

>> Activist Jane Jacobs wrote, "Think of a city and what comes to mind?

"Its streets.

"If a city's streets look interesting, "the city looks interesting.

If they look dull, the city looks dull."

That quote became inspiration for Curated Storefront, an organization in Akron founded in 2016 as an effort to revitalize the downtown area through art.

>> My vision was to activate empty or disused spaces in downtown Akron.

We're all about bringing more interest to the city of Akron and elevating it through the arts.

♪ ♪ When we started, we had one space at the corner of Market Street and High Street, and that's now been developed into a brewery.

So we felt successful in our first time out, and then we've slowly moved down Main Street South, and we've programmed over 26 buildings since we started.

>> The ultimate goal of Curated Storefront is to bring commercial development to downtown Akron.

So far, it's been working.

Eleven buildings activated by the organization have been redeveloped.

The other objective?

Preserving history.

>> And unfortunately, our cities have erased a lot of our history in Akron, so.

They haven't done as good a job as I think they could have preserving some of their historical architecture, which if you walk up and down Main Street, there's lots of empty lots where some grand buildings used to stand.

I was born in 1954 in Akron.

And, growing up, I remember going downtown as a child to O'Neill's and Polsky's.

Just about everything that happened for retail and socially happened downtown.

The Christmas windows were always a big draw, and there was always something lively going on in those windows.

So I thought it would be nice to do something in the arts, but also something that would help bring downtown back to-- differently-- but its former glory.

>> As this year's FRONT triennial expands its footprint in the Akron area, a partnership with Curated Storefront seemed natural, and another great way to bring more art into empty buildings.

>> In the first edition, the only local Akron location was the Akron Art Museum, and so it was really important to FRONT that this time there be a more robust footprint here in Akron.

And so the partnership with Curated Storefront was born because Curated Storefront has a sort of amazing capacity to be spread out across the city and be in all the unusual places.

Quaker Square was the obvious choice for that.

One floor of Quaker Square is devoted to the front presentation, and the second floor is a series of other Curated Storefront exhibitions.

>> In 1932, Quaker Square was built as the headquarters of the Quaker Oats Company.

Its iconic silos were redeveloped in the late '70s as a hotel with offices, shops, restaurants, and extensive model train displays.

Today, it's used for storage and dormitories by the University of Akron.

And on the ground floor is where you'll find Curated Storefront.

>> This building is such an icon on the skyline of Akron, and it's such a nostalgic place for so many members of the community.

So it's really exciting to reactivate it, and turn it into a dynamic arts venue, and invite everyone back in.

>> It's kind of an advantage because we have a blank slate here.

There's so much empty space that we have a lot of freedom to do things that you couldn't do in a, in a city where everything's already commercially populated.

>> Northeast Ohio is surprisingly vibrant and has a lot of interesting cultural institutions and a lot of energy.

There is so much possibility here and a lot of energy to make that all happen.

♪ ♪ >> Curated Storefront features several artists in this year's FRONT Triennial.

Cleveland-based Charmaine Spencer uses natural materials to create large-scale sculptures.

And Chakaia Booker from New York uses a Rubber City staple-- used tires-- to create abstract pieces which will be on display during the triennial.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: That is all for this edition of Open Studio.

Next week, the very emotional reactions to seeing the Obama portraits in person.

>> (voice breaking): I wanted to cry.

(shuddered breath) He's... an incredible president.

>> BOWEN: As always, you can visit us online at GBH.org/OpenStudio.

And you can see us first on YouTube.com/GBHNews.

Remember to follow us on Instagram and Twitter @OpenStudioGBH.

I'm @TheJaredBowen.

I'm Jared Bowen, thanks for watching.

♪ ♪