Guilford Play Seems Eerily Familiar

For its fall production, Guilford Center Stage will present a staged reading of”It Can’t Happen Here” by Sinclair Lewis. There will be three performances October 18-20 at Broad Brook Community Center in Guilford.

Todd Mandell and Richard Wizansky will direct a cast of 11 community actors in this adaptation for the stage by Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen.


Local Artist Cynthia Parker-Houghton Chosen to Design Brattleboro Words Trail Maps

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont, October 4, 2019: In the fall of 2020, lovers of literature and local history will be able to experience the Brattleboro Words Trail — self-guided walking, biking, and driving tours exploring the peoples, places, and history of words in our region. The Words Trail will be available digitally, on mobile devices, as well as on beautifully rendered, physical maps.


Amazing Animal Balloons

A Japanese artist creates amazing animal sculptures out of balloons.

Masayoshi Matsumoto, 29, has created a wide range of intricate figures from the animal kingdom, including a monkey, an ostrich, a parrot, an octopus, a hermit crab, a deer, an ant and a buffalo.


Shine Your Light on Changing the Race Dance

Join InterPlay and special guest, Oakland dancer and activist Sonyika Rahim, for “Changing the Race Dance,” a night of racial justice work through singing, dancing, drumming, and storytelling.

Soyinka Rahim, GSP, is a Grassroots Spiritual Practitioner, and the founder of BIBOLOVE, which stands for breathe in, breathe out love. She is a performing artist, a Conference Weaver, and an InterPlay Leader from Oakland, California.


After School Drawing Class for Older Kids

Do you have a kid or know a kid who loves to draw and wants to get really, really good at it? The Drawing Studio is offering a Drawing Skills for Older Kids (9 and up) class on Thursdays from 330 to 5 beginning September 19th. There will be a healthy snack, lots of drawing materials and all the help they need to fulfill their drawing visions. Kids will also be given a sketch box and sketch book so they can work at home or during a boring Algebra class.


Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Asian Cultural Center of Vermont (ACCVT) presents the 21st annual Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (Zhongqiu Jie) which is celebrated in China, Korea, Vietnam and other places around the world. Celebrate the Autumn Moon Festival with crafts, songs, food, taiji, paper lanterns, Chinese exercises, the Korean rope tug and more.


Shoot the Moon Theater Company Presents “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” September 20-21, 27-28 at Hooker Dunham Theater

Shoot the Moon Theater Company has earned a reputation for out-of-the-box presentations during its four years as the company in-residence at the Hooker Dunham Theater, but this next project may be their boldest yet.

White Rabbit Red Rabbit is an internationally acclaimed one-person play by Nassim Soleimanpour with very rigid guidelines for how it can be performed. The first being that the actor is not allowed to read the script until they open the sealed copy waiting for them on stage.


Baker Street Readers Announce Second Season of Sherlock Holmes Stories

BRATTLEBORO, VT – The Baker Street Readers will return to the Hooker-Dunham Theater for a second season of dramatic readings of Sherlock Holmes stories this fall.

In their first season, the Readers presented a short story from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original collection “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” once a month from January to June. Each reading featured Tony Grobe as John Watson and James Gelter as Sherlock Holmes. The first season alone included twenty guest performers and reached an audience of more than three hundred.


Secrets to Plein Air Painting with Mark Boedges 

Join us for this wonderful workshop with Mark, a member of The Putney Painters,  as he demonstrates how to simplify aspects of plein air painting for a deeper impact. He offers demos that demonstrate color, value, edges, temperature and when, where and how to utilize transparent vs. opaque paint for controlling planes that you wish to recede and advance.  Each day usually begins with a teaching demo on the property followed by students painting and individual instruction and support.


Zachary Stephens Retiring From In-Sight Photography

It is with a mix of sadness and gratitude that we announce Zachary Stephens’ departure as Program Director of In-Sight Photography Project, effective August 30, 2019. Since 2013, Zach has played a critical role in the development and success of our programming. While we will miss him, we wish him the best of luck in his new teaching endeavors. We want to thank him for the 6 years of dedicated service which involved many significant accomplishments.


Friday Gala Concert at the Southern Vermont Dance Festival

The Southern Vermont Dance Festival is excited to announce the Friday Gala Concert at 8 pm on Friday, July 19th at the Latchis Theater.  Artists from around the country will join us for an incredible performance, full of dancers and choreographers at the top of their field. The Gala will feature a variety of modern and contemporary dance styles that explore interesting social themes with rich, beautiful movement.


Sat. 2:00 Reception for Sylvia Ryder’s Art Exhibit at All Souls Church

West Brattleboro, Vt. — On Saturday, July 6, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., the All Souls Arts Committee invites the general public to an opening reception for “Bitter & Sweet: An Artist’s Journey,” the new show installed in the church’s foyer and other gallery spaces through the end of August.

Featured artist Sylvia Chun Yin Ryder was born in Taiwan. It was obvious from an early age that she was artistically gifted, and she chose Fine Arts for her major at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei. Soon after, however, she decided to pursue ballet as a career. While this choice didn’t fully blossom as she had hoped, she did share her interest as a part-time dance teacher for awhile.


Lyell Castonguay: Tributes

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is pleased to announce the artist opening and reception for “Lyell Castonguay: Tributes,” an exhibition of woodblock prints Saturday, June 15, 5-7 pm. The show continues through July 28, and an Artist Talk is scheduled for July 14, 5 pm.

Castonguay is co-founder, along with Carand Burnet, of BIG INK, a unique, travelling, nationally recognized woodblock printmaking partnership providing audiences an opportunity to create large – up to 8 feet – hand pulled woodcuts.


D-Generation: An Exaltaion of Larks

BRATTLEBORO- After seven years of touring, Sandglass bids farewell to their award-winning show, D-Generation: An Exaltation of Larks, on May 24th and 25th at 7:30pm at the New England Youth Theater in Brattleboro. Tickets are $18 general and $16 for students and seniors. NEYT is a fully accessible theater.

From playful story circles to dark private terror… From lyrical inner visions to demanding confrontations… From the reflections of caregivers to the fragmented memories of residents of care facilities… D-Generation evokes a complex world of people living with dementia.


Vermont Publisher Returns to Support Rural LGBTQ and POC Voices & A Call for Submissions

BRATTLEBORO, Vermont, May 10, 2019: It might be an understatement to say that America is filled with literary magazines—each one trying to carve its own niche as it relates to the scene. However Desmond Peeples—a Brattleboro-born writer, artist, and editor—has a different kind of vision. Peeples and a growing team of creatives are launching Mount Island, a literary magazine focused on supporting rural LGBTQ and POC writers and artists. What Mount Island brings to the table is a dedication to the visibility of rural voices that are too often muffled or erased. The magazine seeks to bridge the rural-urban gap by first connecting and empowering our most marginalized rural communities.


Vt Watercolor Society Exhibit Opens May 4 at 2:00

West Brattleboro, Vt. — The Arts Committee of All Souls Church invites the general public to an opening reception at West Village Meeting House on Saturday, May 4, 2:00-4:00 p.m., for “The Flow of Watercolor,” an exhibit by nine members of the Connecticut Valley Hub of the Vermont Watercolor Society (VWS). Showing their works in the foyer and other gallery spaces through the end of June are Carolyn Allbee, Carole-Anne Centre, Maisie Crowther, Nancy DiMauro, John Dimick, Kathy Greve, Steve Lloyd, Molly Martin, and Cath Stockbridge.

A 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, VWS was founded by a small group of painters in 1995 and today has over 240 members throughout the state. The group’s mission is to promote awareness and appreciation of watercolor to its membership at all levels of ability and to the community by providing opportunities and venues for participation, education, fellowship, and exhibitions.


“Alice” Play Next Weekend in Guilford

“Alice,” a Musical Play, opens the fifth season at Guilford Center Stage, on April 26-28, at the Broad Brook Community Center in Guilford. The work is performed as a tribute to an iconic 1978 outdoor production in Guilford. Performances are Friday and Saturday evenings, at 7:30 pm, and Sunday afternoon at 2 pm. Tickets are $12 general admission.


David Rohn: Watercolors

David Rohn was born in Chicago in 1934 and grew up in the small town of Ludington, along the shore of Lake Michigan. He graduated from the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Design and stepped into a creative life richly lived as cartoonist, puppeteer, printmaker, teacher and painter.

Running parallel to his explorations in abstract painting and printmaking, and during his tenure at Windham College in Putney, Vermont, in the mid-1960s and ’70s, David’s watercolor painting gave relief from the more formal demands and cultural mandates of artistic invention and novelty of non-figurative oil painting. The delicate washes and expansive passages of color represent liberation from an art world of expectation and judgement. His modest still-lifes are deceptively loose and easy, and we’re comforted by the associations we bring to his unassuming and familiar scenes.


On Losing Notre Dame

Notre Dame de Paris by Maximillian Luce

When the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris burned yesterday, it was more than a religious icon that was lost. For workers, women, artists, tourists, the city of Paris and all of France, Notre Dame was both monument and living symbol of human aspiration and French spirit.

Notre Dame has always been remembered for the prodigious labors of the generations of workmen and artisans who created it. It was ordinary people who built it and, in large part, it is their legacy that went up in flames.