It’s not exactly being billed as a Dresden Dolls reunion, but Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione will be on stage together once more next month to pay musical tribute to late writer Rebecca Rosenthal. The evening, “A Tribute to Rebecca Rosenthal: A Night of Music, Art & Remembering,” is set for October 7 at the Somerville Theatre and is presented by Palmer and Viglione, as well as Palmer’s husband, accomplished author Neil Gaiman, and other friends of Becca’s. Tickets go on sale tomorrow at 10am.
The Dresden Dolls reunited at the Wilbur Theatre for two nights in November 2010, which saw the Boston cabaret-punk duo performing their two studio albums in their entirety. This appearance won’t be an official Dresden Dolls reunion, but we’re told Palmer and Viglione are likely to perform a song or two together. The Dolls broke up in 2008, with Palmer going on to have a successful solo career and become a pioneering force in social media, while Viglione has crafted as impressive resume as well, currently drumming for the Violent Femmes.
Tickets to the Rebecca Rosenthal Tribute go on sale tomorrow at 10am. Reserved seat tickets are $25, with a limited number of Gold Circle seats available at $100 that include an after-show meet and greet plus a limited edition art poster signed by the participating performers. All proceeds are to benefit the Rebecca Samay Rosenthal ’07 Memorial Special Collections Fund at Smith College.
Gaiman and Palmer will MC the evening, and other performers include communicator Siena Oristaglio, vocalist Jessica Allyn, singer/songwriter Marykate O’Neil, accordionist Jason Webley, ukulele balladeer Emilyn Brodsky, Michael Pope and Kara Trott, with more to be announced.
Rosenthal was a Smith College grad who passed away October of last year at the age of 27. According to the benefit’s organizers: “Becca was a prolific writer, ardent reader, and lover of books. While a student at Smith, Becca worked in the Mortimer Rare Book Room and in the Archives, focusing on the work of Sylvia Plath. At the time of her death, she was in the MLS program at Simmons College in Boston, focusing on Archival Science. Becca’s life was a daily inspiration filled with curiosity and the seemingly endless search for ‘more.'”
The Rebecca Samay Rosenthal ’07 Memorial Special Collections Fund will be established “to provide internships for students enrolled in library special collections concentrations (including but not exclusive to the Archives and Book Studies concentrations) and/or to provide general internship and research funds for student work in special collections… It is for the benefit of students working in the Archives or the Rare Book Room, where Becca spent so much of her time being the hipster librarian they all knew she would one day actually become (and get paid to do).