Vermont Theatre Company (VTC) is proud to announce its 2024 season, its 40th year of providing the Brattleboro area with quality theater made by and for the community.
This year, say VTC organizers, they return to some of the troupe's lasting traditions while starting new ones.
• The season begins with their first-ever 24-Hour Play Festival. Four writers, four directors, and a cast of actors will have only 24 hours to write, rehearse, and perform four original short plays. It's a theatrical high-wire act that will celebrate the creativity of the Brattleboro area's theatermakers. Location: Evening Star Grange in Dummerston. Date: TBA
• In June, VTC will present its 33rd Shakespeare in the Park production, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Shakespeare's play tells the story of Roman senators as they face existential questions about democracy, loyalty, and the consequences of political ambition.
The Vermont Jazz Center will offer learning opportunities open to the public for this winter and spring. Most sessions are 10 weeks long and begin the week of Feb. 11. In-person courses include Youth Jazz Ensemble, Anna Patton's Soubrette Choir, Latin Jazz Ensemble, two levels of Claire Arenius's Blue...
Downtown Brattleboro Alliance presents the seventh annual Brattleboro Luv Crawl on Thursday, Feb. 8, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. All are invited to get in the spirit of Valentine's Day and join Brattleboro's version of a community pub crawl. Participants can check out 14 downtown shops for the special...
The Actors Theatre Playhouse in West Chesterfield, New Hampshire, announces auditions for its first production of the 2024 season, the Ten Minute Play Festival, which runs for 10 performances Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, June 6–24, with a matinee on Sunday. June 9. Auditions will be held in the Brooks Memorial Library's Community Room on Monday, Feb. 5, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 10, from 2 to 5 p.m. Those interested in auditioning should contact Jim Bombicino...
Sandglass Theater presents its annual Winter Sunshine Series this February. All are invited to come celebrate the magic and warmth of puppetry for young audiences with four sensational puppet companies from Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, and Vermont. Dedicated to serving children and families through the art of puppetry, Sandglass will host a different live performance every Saturday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. throughout the month. To join in the magic, 8- to 14-year-olds can attend Sandglass's own Puppet Camp taught...
Rockingham Free Public Library (RFPL) organizers ask, "Do you have a shirt missing a button, a favorite wool sock with a hole in it, or a tote bag with a loose handle? Don't we all?" They suggest there's no need for one to get rid of these items - or repair them all by their lonesome - when they can fix their things, or learn to do so, in the company of friends and neighbors. Beginning on Saturday, February 3,
The communities of Windham and Bennington counties are full of extraordinary individuals who are working to make a difference. The public is invited to help honor and celebrate the next generation of leaders (ages 21 to 40) by submitting a nomination for this year's Southern Vermont Emerging Leaders awards. Nominations are due Friday, March 15, and can be submitted using a brief online form at bit.ly/750-leaders. Each year since 2018, the Southern Vermont Young Professionals (a program of Brattleboro Development...
Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts, 181–183 Main St., celebrates the new year with a large group exhibit, "18 Artists - 44 Days," opening with an artist reception Saturday, Feb. 3, from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibition continues through March 17 and features a diverse selection of paintings, prints, ceramics and sculpture by Mucuy Bolles, Eric Boyer, David Brewster, Fran Bull, Bruce Campbell, Liz Chalfin, Willa Cox, Gay Malin, Emily Mason, Chuck Olson, Susan Osgood, Erika Radich, Donald Saaf, Deidre Scherer, Helen...
Palaver Strings' Beehive Chamber Series presents "Nightingale in a Tree," Friday, Feb. 2, at 7 p.m. at the Brattleboro Music Center (BMC). Palaver Strings welcomes Fredy Clue, a nyckelharpa player, composer, and multi-instrumentalist from Sweden. Clue says their music takes inspiration from the forests, oceans, birds, and animals alike. Joined by Maine's Jamie Oshima, a guitarist, Palaver Strings will premiere Clue's new arrangements for nyckelharpa and strings. It will pair Clue's music with Philip Glass's String Quartet No. 4, written...
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) invites the public to join artist Hannah Morris, in person, on Thursday, Feb. 8, at 7 p.m. for a discussion of her work, which is on view in the exhibit "Moveable Objects" through April 30. Enlarged images of several of Morris's collage paintings are featured on the museum's facade, visible to all who pass by, and the paintings themselves are on view inside the building. Morris's work depicts lively scenes of community life:
Brattleboro boys' basketball coach Winston Sailsman Jr. has said all season that his team has often had two problems in games - committing too many turnovers and not finishing strong in the final minutes. After a come-from-behind 52-51 win over the Burr & Burton Bulldogs on Jan. 26 at the BUHS gym, the Bears took care of both problems. They took better care of the ball, Sailsman said, cutting the number of turnovers in half against the Bulldogs with just...
Rolf Parker-Houghton is program coordinator with Building a Positive Community, which offers programs that serve youth and families, including substance-use prevention, though he has written this piece as a concerned private citizen and not in his official capacity. Parker-Houghton helps health care professionals get the information they need to help people sign up for smoking cessation classes. He also works with people who are addicted to nicotine to help find the help they need. He also works with interns and...
Abenaki and non-Abenaki at the Living Earth Action Group–sponsored gathering in Westminster West Jan. 21 exemplified "community" in the broadest of terms. Abenaki present relayed experiences from their history that recounted millennia-deep cultural roots throughout northern New England and southeastern Canada, as well as the nearly-five-century history of destructive encroachment on their lands. Efforts of invading colonial powers yielded, among other things, modern isolation among Abenaki bands. From distant lands, resultant imposed political boundaries and subsequent rules slowly tore the...
As an employee who works in downtown Brattleboro, and as a sibling who has watched their brother struggle through addiction and recovery, I am hopeful about the conversations beginning around Brattleboro becoming a site for an overdose prevention center (OPC). This touches close to my heart, because for many years, I lived in fear of receiving a phone call that my brother had died from an overdose. That is not an experience I would wish on anyone. However, it has...
Michelle Bos-Lun is a second-term member of the Vermont House of Representatives, co-representing the Windham-3 district, which includes her hometown of Westminster as well as Rockingham and Brookline. On Dec. 29, I left my house at 4:45 a.m. and headed to Harlem with two legislative colleagues, Rep. Tristan Roberts (D-Halifax) and Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (P/D-Chittenden-Central District) for a visit to the OnPoint NYC, the only overdose prevention center in the U.S., with two locations in New York City (though multiple...
It's mighty presumptuous to tell the members of the Brattleboro Area Jewish Community they are demonstrating "white fragility" when expressing their fears in the current political environment. I believe equating the slogans of "Black Lives Matter" and "From the River to the Sea" and the movements behind them is a false equivalency. BLM is positive, life-affirming, and inclusive. FTRTTS is negative, hateful, and exclusive. Israel's attacks on Hamas in Gaza are horrific, overreaching, clumsy, vengeful, and probably illegal, but they...
Jim Freedman is a leadership consultant whose latest book, published in 2020, is Becoming a Leader: Identity, Influence, and the Power of Reflection. The words of Ben Franklin at the signing of our Constitution in 1787 - "A republic, if you can keep it," his response to the question, "What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" - have never held more meaning. Keeping our democracy in good working order is always a work in progress. For that reason,
When Johnny Gandelsman performs at Next Stage Arts on Wednesday, Feb. 7, the Grammy award–winning violin virtuoso, composer, producer, and former member of the Silkroad Ensemble will perform works that respond to the turbulent and disconnected time of the early pandemic and the murder of George Floyd. In his anthology, "This Is America: Part II," Gandelsman tackles big issues like Covid lockdowns, the push for racial justice in the aftermath of Floyd's death while in police custody, climate change, and...
The former Marlboro College campus, which remains the home of the Marlboro Music Festival in July and August, will soon have students again. Potash Hill (potashhill.org), the nonprofit that purchased the campus of the former Marlboro College in 2021, has diligently worked to see that its grounds and buildings continue to be used by various groups for events, workshops, classes, retreats, and creative programming, according to Potash Hill Managing Director Brian Mooney. Mooney said that, in early December, Potash Hill...
As a social worker who lives in Brattleboro, I fully support our town becoming a site for an overdose prevention center (OPC). For nearly 10 years, I have worked as a health educator and then as a social worker with teenagers grappling with the devastating effects of addiction and recovery on their parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, beloved community members, friends, and chosen family. A through-line message that I have heard over and over from these youth: If it were up...
Kindergarten sign-ups begin in Brattleboro BRATTLEBORO - The three elementary schools have begun kindergarten registration for children who turn age 5 before Sept. 1, 2024. Information and links to all forms are at wsesu.org; click the Enrollment tab. Families who would like to request paper copies can contact Kerri Beebe at 802-579-1013 or kbeebe@wsesdvt.org. For children who attend private early education programs that partner with the school district, their packets can be found at their program. Registration paperwork should be...
College news • Jaia Caron of Bellows Falls, Leah Madore of Williamsville, and Kylie Reed of Jacksonville were all named to the fall 2023 Dean's List at Russell Sage College in Troy, New York. • Ruby Powers of Dummerston was named to the Dean's List for the fall 2023 semester at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. • Ansley Henderson of Brookline, Maxwell Hooke of Grafton, and Griffin Waryas of Bellows Falls were all named to the fall 2023 Dean's...
Attorney General Charity Clark has resolved an investigation into security deposit withholdings at five motels - including the Quality Inn in Brattleboro - housing Vermonters through the state's Transitional Housing Program (known informally the "motel program"). The settlement provides $300,000 in restitution for qualified former occupants of the program who stayed in motels owned by Anil Sachdev or by companies he controls, along with advance requirements that he give proper notice should deposit monies be held and confirmation of billing...
Four Windham County historic sites are among the 19 municipalities and nonprofit organizations in six counties which will collectively receive $319,090 to help with the restoration and rehabilitation of landmarks and important historic buildings and structures. These grants will help to leverage more than $1.5 million in additional efforts, according to the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation (VDHP) and the Vermont Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. "The projects funded in 2024 involve some of Vermont's most iconic historic buildings and...
Kerry Secrest and her brother, Christian Stromberg, agree that the war in Ukraine matters to the world. "In 1906, my Lithuanian great-grandparents arrived in the U.S., fleeing the Russians as well," explains Secrest, of Brattleboro, who serves as honorary consul of Lithuania to Vermont. "Growing up, we only knew Lithuania as an occupied country, and living two years there under Soviet occupation, I saw firsthand the awful consequences," adds Secrest, who calls the fall of the Soviet Union from 1988...
Librarians are known for their compassion, but it may be wearing them down. Brooks Memorial Library has always been a welcoming place for the community. But the population of those experiencing homelessness, drug dependency, and mental health problems has increased in Brattleboro, bringing with it new challenges for patrons and a library that is mission-driven to serve them. Now the library is receiving some help from Health Care and Rehabilitative Services (HCRS) for a few hours, two days a week.
Several members and allies of the Southern Vermont Elnu Abenaki held a packed informational meeting on Jan. 21 in response to controversies regarding their tribal integrity and to answer questions about this from the public. The meeting, hosted at the Westminster West Congregational Church, was organized by the Living Earth Action Group (LEAG), a citizen's group based in Westminster West which focuses on promoting sustainability and spirituality. The LEAG website said the meeting "is about the controversy created by the...
More than two years after the Windham Southeast School District hired an attorney to investigate allegations of sexual abuse in the district, the investigation has apparently come to an abrupt ending, creating disappointment, sadness, frustration, and anger in the community. At the WSESD board's Jan. 23 meeting, Chair Kelly Young read a brief statement: "This Board engaged Aimee Goddard, Esq. to conduct a privileged and confidential investigation. Attorney Goddard analyzed allegations of sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and retaliation.