Marlon Carey opens an especially dramatic night of Secrets and Lies with the famous soliloquy delivered by Shakespeare’s “biggest liar,” Iago. It is the first time that most of the adults in the audience have seen Marlon, but he is very familiar to their children because he hosts thematically-aligned programs downstairs (a new kind of Upstairs/Downstairs) so that the evenings are meaningful and fun for the whole family. Encouraged and guided by Director of Religious Education, LIsa Maria Steinberg, these children’s programs have become a regular facet of Voices shows. One especial benefit of “downstairs” programs is clear: the “Upstairs” programs can offer highly personal and provocative stories that would be uncomfortable or inappropriate for many children. This show interweaves many such stories.
Marlon Carey
Poet
Marlon Carey is a Poet, Educator, Actor, and Entertainer. Carey has taught Poetry and Creative Writing workshops in schools for several years in the New England Area. Named “Best Hip Hop Poet” by the Cambridge Poetry Awards two years in a row, he has also been the Boston Cantab Lounge’s “Grand Slam Champion” and the Lizard Lounge Boston’s “King.” He is co-founder of Shakespeare to Hip Hop and a TED alum. He is the husband of a fabulous woman, and father of 3 amazing children and one 16-year-old cat.
Elizabeth Walsh
Singer
Elizabeth Walsh has lived in Lexington for 15 years. She is the soprano section leader of the First Parish in Lexington choir, and is a member of the a cappella group Fretless. Before she moved to Lexington, she had a career in musical theater based in New York City. She has sung leads in Broadway musicals at the New York City Opera, off-Broadway, and in national tours. She appeared as Fiona in Brigadoon at the North Shore Musical Theater.
Jim Shaw
Speaker
Jim Shaw, a third generation Lexingtonian, is Publisher of Lexington’s Colonial Times Magazine, and currently serves as Board Chair for the Lexington Chamber of Commerce. He also is a board member for LexMedia, the Lexington Rotary Club, and the Merrimack Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau. Prior to starting the Colonial Times in 1995, he was political director for Senator Edward Kennedy, and spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority.
Susan Cohn-Child
Storyteller
Susan Cohn-Child is a Grants and Contracts Officer at Harvard Medical School. Susan has volunteered for many years advocating and fundraising for the National MS Society. She began storytelling a year ago and has performed for the Moth, Massmouth and Fugitive Stories. She is drawn to storytelling at this time when people are increasingly alienated from each other, finding that it connects people by highlighting “what makes us all human and connects us.”
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Rev Anne Mason
Storyteller
Anne Mason is the Senior Minister at First Parish in Lexington. Anne spent her early career in music and theater in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, including roles as artistic director for the Lancaster Opera Company and Director of Music at the Unitarian Universalist Church. Called to ministry, she attended Lancaster Theological Seminary, interned in pastoral care at Hershey Medical Center, and upon graduation was called as Senior Minister at the UU Church in Lancaster.
Brian Herrick
Storyteller
Brian Herrick, MD graduated from Tufts University
and Dartmouth Medical School. He did his residency at the University of Rochester in Family Medicine, and completed a fellowship in faculty development at UCSF. Brian is board-certified in Clinical Informatics and is the Chief Medical Information Officer at Cambridge Health Alliance. On the faculty of Tufts University and Harvard University, he is the senior physician overseeing Information Technology within the Alliance.
Len Morse-Fortier
Speaker
Len Morse-Fortier is a structural engineer with a Ph.D. from Princeton. His doctoral thesis focused on the engineering mechanics of violins. He now practices as a forensic engineer, diagnosing broken and/or unhappy buildings. Len taught in architecture programs at Notre Dame and MIT and received the 2017 Forensic Engineering Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers. He has attended First Parish since 1990, and co-chaired its Facilities Committee.
Suzanne Adams
Storyteller
Suzanne Ketchum Adams has been a member of First Parish in Lexington for 18 years. She is the archivist at Project SAVE Armenian Photograph Archives in Watertown. Suzanne’s first foray into storytelling was at Voices on the Green in October 2017. She has since appeared on WGBH’s Stories from the Stage, as a finalist at Massmouth’s 2018 Big Mouth Off, and earlier this week at The Moth’s Grand Slam at the Huntington Theatre in Boston.
Erik Butler
Storyteller
Erik Payne Butler, a Lexington resident of 40 years, is currently a Distinguished Scholar at Education Devel- opment Center. He has been a professor (Brandeis and Michigan State), a government policymaker (Boston City Hall, Carter White House), a non-profit leader (Pine Street Inn, Bay State Skills Corporation), and an international consultant for youth development, foster care, and juvenile justice programs in Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and Eastern Europe.
Elizabeth Walsh
Rip Jackson
Musicians