“Deep, polished, artistic skill in service of illumination, inspiration and thought-provoking insights. While the stories are timeless, they feel more relevant than ever.” ~Gary Dunning, Executive Director & Board President, Vivo Performing Arts (formerly Celebrity Series of Boston), Boston MA

“Explodes with artistry, refinement and excitement” ~Hebrew Union College, OH

“Regie sings and chants for all of us. Nobody gets left out.” ~Kurt Vonnegut

“...a needed tonic in our polarized times.” ~Eve Bridburg, Executive Director, Grub Street, Boston MA

About the Show

Different Ships, Same Boat is an interactive, multidisciplinary performance combining powerful spoken word, music and song to explore the multifaceted ways Americans risk, live, love and laugh. Unfolding through a series of chapters—each curating real world stories—Massachusetts Poet Laureate and former Poetry Slam Champion Regie Gibson and composer/storycatcher Guy Mendilow guide audiences with podcast-like narration, at turns humorous, poignant or poetic, over an evocative musical score. With stories from small towns, cities and ports of entry, along with music spanning lyrical American blues and songs from older homes from which today's Americans came (e.g., Ottoman Jews from present-day Greece and Hungary), Different Ships, Same Boat offers a stirring exploration of the joys, tensions and complexities of who we are and who we wish to be.

“We may have all come on different ships, but we are in the same boat now.” When Martin Luther King, Jr. said this, America was in turmoil as to WHAT and WHO is to be considered a REAL American. It is not lost on us that, at various points in this country's history, three of the five company members would have been dismissed as NOT AMERICAN, whether effectively, legally or both.

Recent events, and the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, give us a chance to pause and reflect: What might it mean to love and celebrate not just America, but Americans? Different Ships, Same Boat addresses this question through moving personal stories—brought to life through powerful spoken word, musical score and song—stories that give flesh, blood and bone to the small, living histories that make up this country. Different Ships, Same Boat explores real-world inspirations, aspirations and trepidations of people who make America what it is, to bring each other's humanity into sharper relief—and to better enable civic healing.

Watch the trailer here.

About the Guy Mendilow Ensemble (GME)

The GME is a multi-faceted collaboration of world-class musicians, singers, orators and artists who weave deeply moving musical tales. Honored with multiple awards, including from the National Endowment for the Arts, the GME utilizes a broad musical palette, gorgeous vocal harmonies and pan-cultural influences. 

For more information take a look at their website here.

About Regie Gibson

Massachusetts' inaugural poet laureate, literary performer, playwright, actor and widely anthologized poet Regie Gibson presents and lectures throughout the US, Cuba and Europe. Honors include US National Poetry Slam Champion, the international Europa in Versi Award, TEDx speaker and poet-in-residence at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Gibson collaborates and performs with music/vocal ensembles (e.g., Handel and Haydn) and symphonies (e.g., Lexington Symphony), and is featured in the film Love Jones, written about his life. Gibson serves as project advisor to organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts (e.g., Mere Distinction of Color) and the Red Cross-Red Crescent Climate Centre (Netherlands) on issues of humanitarianism, climate change, nonpartisanship and the legacy of slavery.

Regie Gibson and GME have collaborated since 2017 and have co-written/directed six productions.

For more information about Regie see his website here.

Regie Gibson

About Guy Mendilow

Guy Mendilow was raised in a multicultural immigrant family steeped in conversation, exploring experiences and ideas from a variety of perspectives, albeit from different fields—from literature and political science to Montessori education and, in Mendilow's case, music and story. 

Mendilow began touring domestically and internationally with the American Boychoir at age ten, with 200+ annual concerts in venues from Carnegie Hall and Boston Symphony Hall to remote rural churches. Since 1996, he has designed and facilitated residencies in communities ranging from the Navajo Reservation and rural Midwest to performing arts organizations (Celebrity Series of Boston), business schools (Babson College), universities (Harvard), urban K–12 schools and communities of faith (interfaith antiracism initiatives with Temple Israel of Boston/Bethel AME).

Mendilow earned his Master of Music and International Dalcroze Certification from Longy School of Music and is a candidate for the highest Dalcroze degree achievable in the USA with the Dalcroze School of Music and Movement (Dallas, TX). A citizen of Israel, the UK and the USA, Mendilow has called Boston home since 2003.

Guy Mendilow. Photo credit: Elizabeth Friar Photography

About Chris Baum

Chris Baum is a contemporary violinist, composer and educator who "ushers the violin into fresh sonic territory" (NPR). A pioneer of modern string technique, his strength lies in his versatility, consistently pushing boundaries while molding his playing to fit ensembles and genres often deemed unsuitable for the instrument. The Boston Globe calls him "viciously talented… teemed with color and creativity." Trained in a demanding classical environment, Baum expanded his musical vocabulary at Berklee College of Music, where he graduated with honors with a degree in film scoring and composition. Baum's list of credits includes collaborations with Bent Knee, The Dear Hunter, Leprous, Ben Levin, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Amanda Palmer, Dropkick Murphys, Richard Henshall, Symmetry, Art Decade, Jherek Bischoff and the Video Game Orchestra. Chris Baum joined GME in 2014. See his website here.

Chris Baum. Photo credit: Elizabeth Friar Photography

About Courtney Swain

A native of Japan, Courtney Swain began her music career in 2008 when she landed in Boston, MA. Most recognized as the singer and keyboard player of Boston band Bent Knee, she has released five albums with the group, in addition to four albums under her solo project. In the last decade, touring and performing has taken her around North America many times, across the Atlantic to Europe, and to her native country, Japan. As a vocalist she has been featured in Mortal Kombat 11, as well as in collaborations with HAKEN, Car Bomb, Childish Japes, Gatherers, Apartment Sessions, Jocie Adams, Ben Levin Group, Elder Flux, Video Game Orchestra, Guy Mendilow Ensemble and more.

Based in Rhode Island since 2015, Swain was recently selected for a prestigious fellowship with the Rhode Island Foundation. She actively writes and performs in many genres. Though her work with Bent Knee is rooted in rock and experimental music, her solo material is a mélange of styles in indie, singer-songwriter, folk and electronic. Recently she has written and recorded contemporary classical pieces for chamber ensembles, and she is a familiar face in the Rhode Island/Southern Massachusetts musical theater scene as a pit orchestra keyboardist and music director. Wearing the many hats of touring musician, composer, voice teacher and accompanist, Swain also entertains many non-musical interests: yoga, biking, meditation, mystery novels, being a cat mom, cooking, photography, drawing, watercolor, home fermentation… and the list goes on. Swain and GME have collaborated since 2017. See her website here.

Courtney Swain

About Arts for Social Cohesion (ASC)

Different Ships, Same Boat is part of Arts for Social Cohesion. Through moving multidisciplinary performances, arts-based residencies and cohesion processes, ASC is a pioneering organization strengthening relationships within and between communities. Arts for Social Cohesion specializes in making it easy, fun and safe for people to connect emotionally, share experiences and identities across difference, increase empathy and create a sense of WE.

Co-directed by composer, educator and social-change architect Guy Mendilow and literary performer Regie Gibson, ASC's team of artists, facilitators, writers, composers and theatrical designers is committed to the notion that the arts and artists have vital roles to play in seemingly disparate civic realms. 

They draw on practices and perspectives from three generations of family initiatives, verified by replicated social psychology studies, showing that—when carefully timed, tailored and targeted—even seemingly small experiences can catalyze positive feedback loops with surprisingly long-lasting impacts. To learn more about ASC visit their website here.

Photo credit: Robert Torres Photography

For questions, contact Tamara Thiel Prizant at [email protected]