A Poetest and a Performance

The Pine State Pitches performing at the PortFringe Po(e)p-Up event, April 5th, 2025

Hey everyone!

Jess here! I’m a guest writer for this month’s newsletter. I’ve been singing Soprano 2 with the Pitches since the start of the group! When I’m not singing, there’s a good chance I’m wrangling pixels at my day job, acting goofy with the kids I teach theater with, or trying to not fall off treadmills at OrangeTheory (yes, that’s based on a true story).  

It’s finally starting to feel like actual spring here in Maine, which is exciting – any April that has multiple snowstorms is not fun in my book! These past two weeks, I’ve been trying to make the most of it by going on lots of walks in beautiful places. It’s a great reminder to take some time to recharge and enjoy nature even when everything feels hectic!

Speaking of – April has been an extremely busy month for us Pitches! We started the month by performing Uninvited by Alanis Morrisette at PortFringe’s Po(e)p-Up Fringe Festival on April 5th. PortFringe is a delightfully strange theater festival that takes place every year here in Portland during the month of June, and these Pop-Up Fringe Festival performances are fundraisers for the event (typically modeled after a classical work). Several groups performed in this one, and we were assigned various scenes from Edgar Allen Poe’s works. We had to make sure we included at least one line from our scene, but otherwise, we could go wild!

This was a special performance for us in several ways. For one, it was one of our first truly theatrical pieces. Our soloist Lauren A. crushed it as a prisoner sentenced to a lifetime of solitary confinement in her cell. We all had a blast playing her tormentors, whether as mean judges, spooky walls animating to life, or as fates holding the very pit itself. It was something very different for us, and the audience loved it!

We were thrilled we could introduce our Pine State Pitches family to the PortFringe family, especially as Stacey (one of our Alto 2s) is a founder of PortFringe! Major thanks to Lexi, one of our Soprano 2s, for directing us! Seriously, we’re like herding cats at times, so this was no small feat. Hopefully we can have more theatrical Pine State Pitches offerings in the future!

April 5th was also an impactful day for some of us as we attended the Hands Off! Rally in Monument Square before our performance. These Hands Off! Rallies are happening across the USA and the world to protest the drastic cuts made by President Trump’s administration. If you’ve been to some of our past concerts, there’s a good chance you’ve heard us open with What Happens When a Woman Takes Power?, and on that day, some of us wanted to display how we felt politically. The combination of a protest and a performance certainly made a powerful impact on many of us, and it’s one of my favorite Pine State Pitches memories so far.

I want to celebrate our Pitches’ accomplishments as well outside of the group! Between leading roles in shows, musical directing a show, buying a new house, getting into a leadership program, and finishing a year of grad school, we are a driven bunch – all while preparing for multiple concerts coming up!

We’ve been preparing for our spring performance on May 29th! Amber and Holly, our movement coordinators, have been guiding us through formations to help add more movement to our performance, and Amber and Bailey, our social media team, have been coordinating our color scheme for this concert. We’re polishing some of our favorite songs from prior performances, as well as getting ready to launch some new arrangements for you all. We hope to see you at One Longfellow Square on May 29th!