“Montreal is the place to be!” The somewhat modified line from the “Green Acres” theme describes the coming week in Montreal to a tee. For one, the Cinemania Film Festival, North America’s most acclaimed French film festival with Vermont ties, opens on Wednesday with a Woody Allen-esque comedy à la française. A classic American tragedy, with a familiar top director opens at the Centaur on Friday, while the Opera de Montréal begins a new production of one of the most universally entertaining comic operas on Saturday.

Comedy en français

Cinemania was created 15 years ago by Maidy Teitelbaum, who spends half her time at her Waitsfield home, during the depths of French-Anglo conflict in Quebec. The French weren’t allowing English subtitles on French films and Anglos like Teitelbaum were miffed. So she started a film festival.

The conflict has died down, but Cinemania has come to be one of the foremost French film festivals in North America.

In 2007, it presented the North American premiere of “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” which subsequently became a box office hit throughout the United State and Canada. Last year, the Dardenne brothers’ riveting “Lorna’s Silence,” an almost tragic tale of the European immigrant crisis starring Arta Dobroshi, had its North American premiere, and will be a highlight of the next Green Mountain Film Festival.

This year’s opening film is a bit different, a twisted comedy inspired by Allen as well as Buster Keaton, Emmanuel Mouret’s “Fais-moi plaisir! (Please Me, Please Me).” Mouret, who will be on hand to introduce the film, plays an endearing oaf who is so obsessed with another woman that his girlfriend insists he consummate the passion – so he will get over it.

This year’s guest of honor will be the legendary French director and political activist Costa-Gravas (born Constantinos Gravas in Greece in 1933). In addition to a public master class, he will present a re-mastering of his classic 1969 “Z,” starring Yves Montand. He will also be on hand for the Canadian premiere of his 2009 tale of an immigrant’s woe,” “Eden is West.”

Another intriguing film is “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky,” Jan Kounen’s imagining of the tumultuous love affair between the great fashion designer and the greatest composer of the 20th century, set in the opulent 1920s Paris. From Nov. 5 to 15, Cinemania will present 28 French films with English subtitles – 15 North American premieres, five Canadian and eight Quebec.

All screenings will be at the Imperial Cinema, 1430 rue de Bleury (near the corner of St. Catherine). Individual film admission is $10.50 Canadian, $8.50 for students and seniors; for schedule and information, go online to www.cinemaniafilmfestival.com.

Dark and darker

“Death and the Maiden,” winner of the 1991 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Play, is Ariel Dorfman’s now classic psychological thriller set in an unnamed country, likely Chile. A former political prisoner finds herself with the man whom she thinks participated in her torture and rape to Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” string quartet. She kidnaps him in order to extract a confession, while her husband, a lawyer for the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, is torn between his wife and the law. As the married couple seeks the truth from the clouded past, the tension builds to a startling conclusion.

The Centaur Theatre’s production, which runs Nov. 5-Dec. 6 at its Old Montreal playhouse (around the corner from Notre Dame), will be directed by Gordon McCall. More than a year ago the Canadian- born director left his position of more than a decade as the Centaur’s artistic director to become theater professor at Purdue University. Last month, McCall directed a production of Evelyne de la Chenelière’s “Strawberries in January” at Burlington’s Champlain College using local professional actors. The production proved compelling and the actors found McCall inspiring.

The Centaur Theatre is Montreal’s top English-language theater, and McCall is one of the finest directors around, so “Death and the Maiden” should be a powerful experience. Performances are at 8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday (except Dec. 2 at 7 p.m.), plus 2 p.m. matinees on Saturdays and some Sundays. Tickets are $43.50-$38.50 Canadian, $36 for seniors; $24 for students; call (514) 288-3161, or go online to www.centaurtheatre.com.

And into the light

“The Magic Flute,” Mozart’s fantasy opera, has something for everyone. On one level, it’s a fairy tale on two levels – one for children, and a subtly darker and more sexual one for adults; it’s a layered tale of Masonic morality full of symbolism; and it’s a sublimely beautiful and entertaining musical masterpiece. Any way you look at it it’s entertaining – and touching.

It’s also Mozart’s only opera that was written for and premiered in a vaudeville house.

The Opéra de Montréal production, which opens Saturday, Nov. 7, features an all-Canadian cast. Familiar to central Vermont audiences for her Violetta in the Green Mountain Opera Festival’s 2008 “La Traviata,” as well as concert appearances, soprano Aline Kutan sill sing the virtuoso role of the terrible Queen of the Night. The beautifully lyrical soprano Karina Gauvin will play Princess Pamina, while the oh-so-human bird-catcher Papageno will be the rich-sounding baritone Aaron St. Clair Nicholson. The oh-so-earnest Prince Tamino will be sung by tenor John Tessier, while the magnificent Sirastro will be portrayed by bass Richard Hagen.

Using sets and costumes by the famed David Hockney, Kelly Robinson will direct. Quebec conductor Alain Trudel will be in the pit with the Metropolitan Orchestra – and the Opéra de Montréal Chorus on stage.

If you’ve seen “The Magic Flute,” I don’t need to convince you to see it again. If you haven’t, it’s about time. You won’t regret it.

Performances at Place des Arts’ Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier are: Nov, 7, 11, 14, 16 and 19, at 8 p.m., plus 2 p.m. on Nov. 21. Tickets start at $48 (with discounts for 30 and younger); call 1-866-842-2112, or go online to www.operademontreal.com.

By TOM HUNTINGTON Arts Correspondent – Published: October 23, 2009

One of the major highlights of the 2006 Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, standout drummer Dafnis Prieto returns to FlynnSpace on Thursday in support of his excellent new CD, “Live at Jazz Standard NYC.”

Joining Prieto in his sextet are saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum, saxophonist Felipe Lamoglia, trumpeter Ralph Alessi, bassist Yunior Terry and pianist Manuel Valera.

Born in Cuba, Prieto, 35, moved to New York City in the late 1990s at the age of 25, making a name for himself on the strength of his dexterous drumming and compelling compositions that draw upon everything from Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz to classical and hard bop.

Called “easily the most impressive young drummer to come on the jazz scene during the past decade” by All About Jazz, Prieto has been “an essential fixture on New York’s Latin jazz scene” who “has gradually been establishing his reputation as a composer,” according to The New York Times.

After forming his own five-piece in the early 2000s, Prieto released his debut CD, “About the Monks,” in 2005 to widespread acclaim. A follow-up, “Absolute Quintet” – also the name of his diverse five-piece group that wowed the FlynnSpace crowd in 2006 — was released the following year. “Taking the Soul for a Walk,” released last year, was Prieto’s first on his own record label.

“Prieto is a virtuoso behind a trap set but it’s his creative writing and unselfish leadership that sets him apart from his peers,” said All About Jazz.

“An elaborate hybrid of Afro-Cuban rhythms and sophisticated jazz harmonies, Prieto’s compositions are complex, multi-layered affairs that surpass conventional notions of Latin jazz without sacrificing accessibility.”

CHESTER — With monsters, madmen, mysticism and magic, the Green Mountain Festival Series will kick off its 25th season in style Saturday with “A Haunted Night.”

For a quarter-century, the series has brought artists, musicians and performers to Chester and has helped Okemo Valley residents escape the doldrums of cabin fever.

“It’s pretty crazy that this series has been going on for 25 years in this small rural community,” said series President Kathleen Willis, noting that all proceeds from the series are used to provide grants to bring artists into area schools.

Saturday’s event will feature a pair of former Chester residents: author and storyteller Joseph A. Citro and magician and musician Scott Morley.

Citro has been a commentator on Vermont Public Radio since 1992 and is the author of 10 books, both fiction and nonfiction, about ghosts, monsters and other oddities in New England. His newest book, “The Vermont Monster Guide,” features illustrations by former “Swamp Thing” artist and current Center for Cartoon Studies teacher Stephen R. Bissette.

“I’m going to talk a little bit about coming from Chester and how my life turned to writing and how Chester influenced my path,” said Citro, who graduated from Chester High School in 1966.

Citro will also discuss things that go bump in the night and send shivers down the spines of Vermonters, and what makes those stories different from accounts of ghosts and monsters from other regions.

“There seems to be a uniformity of monster types across the country, but it’s really the attitudes of Vermonters that make these stories unique,” he said.

Saturday’s show will also feature Scott Morley and his partner Britni Orcutt, who will perform “Houdini: A Tribute to the Master Mystifier.”

Morley, 34, grew up in Chester and Springfield – performing magic at parties and other events — and later moved to New York City to pursue a career as a musician, where he learned to fall back on his childhood hobby.

“It was hard to make a living as a piano player and there was more of a demand in New York City for magicians,” Morley said.

Four years ago, he met his fiancée, Orcutt, and the two began to create longer shows that incorporate music and magic.

Saturday’s show will feature both original and period music — as well as period costumes — as Morley and Orcutt assume the roles of Harry and Bess Houdini and perform magic and famous stunts such as “The Straightjacket Escape.”

“We wanted to give people more than just a historical retrospective,” Morley said. “We want to give people a feeling of what it would be like to see Houdini.”

Saturday’s show begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Green Mountain Union High School auditorium.

Advance tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for students and seniors. Tickets are $2 more when purchased at the door. For a list of ticket outlets and more information, visit www.greenmountainfestivalseries.com.

josh.ogorman@rutlandherald.com

Why does the artist’s process fascinate? What is the mystery that exists between moment of inspiration and final brushstroke? How does a final, polished word interact with all the fragments of ideas required to fill a page?

Talking about art, its creation, inspiration and processes is of serious importance in a society. Societies where individual expression is suppressed, or access to art and its history of change is relegated to certain social tiers, is one headed for death. Or, at the least, is headed toward complete cultural stagnation and unawareness of self.

To not only present art in its showcased state — whether that be on a stage, in a gallery or in a newspaper — but to also create arenas for its public dissection, is to remove its veil and make it approachable as the life-affirming and life-changing instrument that it is.

It is this simple practice of talking about art in a controlled environment that creates new adherents, furthers the oeuvre of established artists and allows significant leaps for those who are emerging.

Examples include everything from the multitude of arts-industry professional conferences held in lavish hotels, to a salon on a rural library lawn after closing. It can separate a progressive and self-aware society from the dregs — and it merely requires the age-old idea of community, a designated leader and a goal of exploration.

In the coming week, three events exemplify this sort of dedication to remaining expressively vital, which is a cornerstone of Vermont communities. Three areas of creativity will be attacked from the inside out: painting, poetry and journalism.

Tonight at 7:30, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center presents Artist Talk with Ralph DeAnna. DeAnna’s current show at BMAC is titled “Time and Motion: Paintings,” and runs through Nov. 8.

DeAnna, a Brattleboro resident, approximates reality through a deconstruction of the human experience of time. Through the muted, blurred unraveling of one moment — single scenes depicted from multiple points of view, a seeming continuum within a static frame — he creates a snapshot of temporal experience through visual means. On the BMAC Web site it states very simply, “Ralph DeAnna is chasing time.”

He’s admitted to being heavily influenced by French author Marcel Proust’s attempts to “see” time through the constant disentangling of memory, made famous through Proust’s seven-volume tome, “À la Recherche du Temps Perdu” (“Remembrance of Things Past”), written between 1912 and his death in 1922.

Proust’s eye for sprawling detail, the way he could take the lace on a woman’s dress and from it extract the downfall of France’s moral character some several pages down the line, his obsession with the reporting of personal minutiae within the flow of an event … To think of such things being translated with paint is mind-boggling. And DeAnna wants to talk about it.

In discussing his process with the public ($6 general, $4 seniors, $3 students and free for BMAC members), he aims to highlight, in his words, how “the pictures are made up of a series of impressions which are fleeting; they appear to follow one another like memories of a journey, contained in time, perhaps connected or related to other experiences, other times. Instead of an iconic, self-contained image, my paintings suggest a temporal reality that is not yet complete.”

On Sunday, Oct. 18, the poetry of Robert Frost is tackled, as is the deep influence New England environs had on his work.

The Robert Frost Stone House Museum sits in South Shaftsbury, minutes from his Bennington gravesite. Built in 1769, the quaint colonial-style house’s famed “Frost period” occurred from 1920 to 1929, when the California-born, Massachusetts-raised poet lived and worked in Vermont for a time. His first Pulitzer-winning volume, called “New Hampshire” (1923), was composed in bulk there.

Frost’s haunting, meditative naturalist themes come alive on these seven acres that in 2002 opened as an extensive museum in his honor and that of his New England legacy. Frost spent many years in Derry, Plymouth, and Franconia, N.H.; Boston and Cambridge, Mass.; and Ripton in addition to the South Shafstbury site.

Tyler Resch, author of 14 books on regional history and culture, presents “A Nature Walk to Paran Creek with Historical Footnotes Along the Way” as a part of the Museum’s Sunday Afternoons with Robert Frost series.

The series occurs one Sunday per month at 2 p.m.; programs take place at the Little Red Barn behind the Museum. Resch’s presentation begins at the Barn and proceeds as a guided tour with botanical, ecological and historical commentary, with insight into Frost’s various works composed while on the grounds. The rain date for the free event is Oct. 25.

On Monday, Oct. 19, an art form often looked upon much differently than the above examples gets a moment under the microscope at Rockingham Public Library in Bellows Falls. At 5 p.m., Vermont Independent Media presents another installment of its Media Mentoring Project workshop series, Jeff Potter’s “Needles in the Haystack.”

Since January 2008 Potter has acted as editor of The Commons, a Windham County monthly newspaper.

Potter is an accomplished writer and editor who has had his hands in everything from poetry book design to hard news, through endeavors such as his own company, Potter Publishing Studio, and the newspaper he began in Massachusetts in 2004, the Shelburne Falls Independent.

Potter knows the tightrope-walk of taking facts and cultural observances and offering a version to the public through the quagmire of personal word-smithing — a version that is factually airtight and functioning under the strict guidelines of professional journalism, yet readable in a new era of the blurred lines of creative nonfiction. Modern journalism is a dance between research, quotation and apt metaphor functioning together on several levels, across multimedia platforms.

In “Needles in the Haystacks,” Potter leads an interactive session on finding the truth online and using it in writing and reporting, with acknowledgement to the Internet as the bold new force in information-gathering and dissemination. Studying the combination of wordplay and factual discernment will be paramount. The event is free and open to the public.

In a world changing as rapidly as ours, keeping a pulse on how creative people ingest, calculate, reconfigure and regurgitate that world — thereby keeping us aware of ourselves — is perhaps one of the noblest duties.

Clara Rose Thornton is a freelance cultural critic and arts journalist originally hailing from Chicago who now lives in an artists’ colony in Bellows Falls. She can be reached at clara@inkblotcomplex.com, or through her Web site, clararosethornton.com.

BURLINGTON – When audiences watch a string quartet on stage, performing with the ultimate intimacy found in music, few imagine the soap opera it takes to get to that sublime moment – full of turmoil, drudgery, egos, and even sex and drugs. Mark Hollinger’s 2006 drama, “Opus,” tells the story of a fictional string quartet in turmoil, and not only does he get it right, he tells the tale so directly that it can fascinate someone who has never even heard a string quartet.

Vermont Stage Company, the Flynn Center’s resident professional theater company, opened its 2009-2010 season with a riveting production that packs a wallop. There is scarcely a less-than-fascinating moment in this very even production, full of the humor and drama of music-making – and life.

The play opens with a very nervous young violist, Grace, auditioning before the three remaining members of the renowned (fictional) Lazara Quartet. Immediately, she is confronted by each member’s eccentricities as she decides whether to join the ensemble, her lifetime dream but an iffy way to make a living. Finally, she agrees to give up an audition with the Pittsburgh Symphony – a much more dependable job – to perform as an individual, rather than one of a large group.

In string quartets, each player has a separate, usually equal part. The Lazara Quartet, like most American quartets, operates as a democracy, each member with a vote. (European quartets tend to be more first violin-dominated.) Add to this that the four must travel together constantly, often seeing each other more than they see their spouses. Therein lies plenty of opportunity for drama, both in real life and this play.

Grace, who apparently is very good, is greeted with enthusiasm by the three, but gradually she realizes the shadow of her predecessor looms. Dorian, once the first violinist but now demoted to violist (most violinists can play both instruments), was the ensemble’s only real genius, but the other three felt that his neurotic tantrums were destroying the ensemble.

As the story unfolds, there is plenty of underlying drama: The prissy Elliot, now first violinist, and Dorian were longtime lovers; second violinist Alan lost his marriage over his on-the-road trysts; and the shadow of cancer looms over the cellist Carl, a devoted family man.

The story unfolds as the quartet prepares Beethoven’s String Quartet, Opus 131 (one of the composer’s “Late Quartets,” a sublime masterpiece that can be almost as difficult for the audience as the players) for a performance at the White House. In one of the play’s many humorous moments, it becomes clear that the president is George Bush, whom all loathe.

All comes to a head after the performance. The play’s climax is a bit overwrought, but the trip there was well worth it – whether you know classical music or not.

It is clear that the playwright was a violist as there is only one line that comes near to being a viola joke: A string quartet is made up of one good violinist, one bad violinist, someone who wants to be a violinist (the violist), and finally, someone who doesn’t even like violin (the cellist).

Vermont Stage’s production, directed by Jason Jacobs, feels amazingly authentic and is one of Vermont Stage’s most even and consistent productions in recent memory. With the help of Vermont Symphony violinist (and fiddler) David Gusakov, the players’ attitude toward their instruments and the music was fairly accurate.

Ethan Bowen does an incredible job of evoking the inner turmoil of the neurotic genius Dorian. He is countered by the intense control freak of Wayne Tetrick as Elliot. Craig Maravich’s portrayal of the quartet’s Romeo, Carl, seemed entirely natural and convincing, save for his becoming histrionic in the final scene after never being so before (and this may be due to direction or the script). Jack Bradt, an actor very familiar to central Vermonters, delivered a layered and fully dimensional portrayal of Carl, possibly the quartet’s sanest member.

The stage was set effectively by an attractive design by Jenny Fulton, including a backdrop of a hand-written score, lighting by John Forbes and sound design by Joel Abbott. (The fine recording used for musical interludes was created by the Vertigo String Quartet for the Arden Theatre Company, which premiered the play.)

“Opus,” with the metaphor of a string quartet, explores the turmoil in all our lives.

By STEPHANIE M. PETERS
STAFF WRITER – Published: October 8, 2009
In the theater world, the term “noises off” refers to sounds coming from offstage. It’s a fitting name then for the 1982 play by British playwright Michael Frayne, a hilarious farce more about how the backstage antics of a luckless troupe of actors affect their onstage performances in the awful British sex comedy called “Nothing On” in which they’re touring.

Over the next two weekends, the Marble Valley Players will bring the show – and certainly much laughter – to the stage of the West Rutland Town Hall Theater.

The production represents a departure from the types of shows the group is accustomed to putting on, as well as a challenge to its actors, according to publicity chairwoman Judy Wideawake.

With Tim Rice, who has starred in a past production of the show, at the directorial helm, however, the Marble Valley Players are in good hands heading into the show.

“I’ve always loved this play and I thought it would be really nice to have Rutland put it on,” Rice said Tuesday.

“The big differences about this show are that it’s very physically demanding on the actors and the set is very complicated,” he said. “It’s a two-story set, so we have a full staircase (the actors) have to run up and down and there are eight doors they have to go in and out of. There are sight gags, it’s fast paced … it’s not often you see community theater do a two-story set like this.”

Rice credits Ray Courcelle’s hard work in building the set, but notes that “a lot of people worked very hard behind the scenes to get this done.”

“Noises Off” will star Gary Thompson as director Lloyd Dallas and an acting troupe, including Mikki Lane as the dotty actress Dotty, who has trouble remembering her lines, Martin Bones as the elderly, alcoholic and nearly deaf Selsdon, Julie Redington as brunette bombshell Brooke, Mark Zelis as the inarticulate Gary, Leif Erickson as the overly nervous Frederick and Tammy Brown as the ever-game Belinda. Judi Tompkins and William Byrd round out the cast as innocent crew members drawn into the onstage comedy.

For those looking for a basis of comparison, Rice points to an early-’90s film adaptation’s casting of Carol Burnett in a lead role as an indication of the type of humor audiences can expect from the performances.

The show will open at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the West Rutland Town Hall Theater and continue with performances at the same time Saturday and Oct. 16 and 17. There will also be a 2 p.m. matinee Sunday. Tickets are $12 and general admission. They’re available at the door or can be purchased in advance at the West Rutland Town Office, the Paramount Theatre Box Office or online at paramountvt.org. For more information, call the box office at 775-0903.

stephanie.peters@rutlandherald.com

Charlotte Gillam really wanted the Marble Valley Players to do “The Man Who Came to Dinner.”

“I have always loved this play,” she said. “For a couple years I’ve been trying to convince them to do it, but we could never get anyone to direct it.”

So, the actress said she decided to direct it herself, recruiting fellow performer Valerie Gravelle to co-direct. The first-time directors will open the play by George Kaufman and Moss Hart on Friday at West Rutland Town Hall Theater.

The play tells the story of 1930s radio personality Sheridan Whiteside who, immobilized by an injury, takes over a Midwestern house he had simply visited for dinner. It was first produced on Broadway in 1939, and was a film starring Bette Davis followed in 1942.

Whiteside is based on Kaufman’s fellow Algonquin Round Table member Alexander Woollcott. Woollcott owned a summer home on Neshobe Island on Lake Bomoseen, where many celebrities of the 1920s and ’30s accompanied him on weekend excursions.

“This play is like the epitome of name-dropping,” Marble Valley Players publicity chairwoman Judy Wideawake said. “We’re even including a glossary in the program because so many names are dropped.”

Woollcott was also known for his cutting wit, a master of the comedic insult. Fans of the television series “House” will find themselves on familiar ground as Whiteside terrorizes those around him.

“I just think it’s very funny,” Gillam said. “I love that era, the ’30s and the ’40s. It depicts that time and the crazy characters in it.”

During a dress rehearsal Monday, Martin Bones portrayed Whiteside, slinging barbs from a vintage wheelchair in the middle of detailed set recreating a 1930s middle-class living room.

“Who are those two harpies standing there like the kiss of death?” he inquired about a pair of admirers in the back of the room. His doctor is dismissed as a “corner druggist,” the house as a “moldy mortuary” and the library as a “drafty sewer.”

Gillam said she grappled with having a 26-member cast.

“To have everyone here on any given night seems a big challenge,” she said.

Becoming a director, Gillam said, has also required her to get over discomfort at telling people what to do.

“I’m usually listening to directors,” she said. “This has been a good cast, a lot of camaraderie and not a lot of divas.”

Showtimes are 8 p.m. March 20 and 21, with a 2 p.m. matinee March 15. Tickets are $12 and may be purchased at the door or in advance at the West Rutland Town Hall and Paramount Theatre box office. Tickets are also available online at www.paramountlive.org.

gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com

For Susan Baker and the Rutland Youth Theatre group under her direction, December is the busiest, but most wonderful time of year.

After weeks of rehearsals, 50 schoolchildren ranging from age 5 to 17 from Rutland and the surrounding area performed the “Best Christmas Pageant Ever” show at the Paramount Theatre.

Baker, an adjunct professor of theatre at Castleton State College, has headed the comedic performance with a classic message for years.

This year, the show featured something new, according to Becky Sowards of the Rutland Recreation and Parks Department.

“They’ll use a real baby this year,” Sowards said Wednesday.

The “pageant,” a classic tale based on a book written by Barbara Robinson, tells the story of a church and its traditional pageant being turned on its head, when a new church member takes it over and fails to recruit the usual cast.

Instead, the new director chooses the Hardman family, a group “from the other side of the tracks,” and the story goes from there, Sowards said.

Sowards called it a “sentimental comedy.”

She said she expected a larger turnout this year due to increased parent involvement.

The proceeds from ticket sales go directly back to the Rutland Youth Theatre program, according to Sowards. “I’m a real fan,” she said.

Rutland Youth Theatre is administered by the Rutland Recreation and Parks Department and according to the group’s Web site, www.rutlandyouththeatre.com, is dedicated to providing quality workshop, rehearsal and performance experiences for children and teenagers living in central Vermont.

The group produces four major shows a year in various venues, offer year-round workshops for all age groups, summer day camps and special field trip opportunities.

The Paramount Theatre is located at 30 Center St. in Rutland.

Contact Cristina Kumka at cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com.

By Dawson Raspuzzi Herald Staff

The jolliest holiday of the year is built around tradition, and at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland it will be no different, as the Vermont Actors’ Repertory Theatre continues its annual holiday production of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”

The story portraying the true meaning of Christmas will play out on the historic downtown stage Thursday and Friday evening, as core actors with ART and local actors carry on the four-year tradition.

“I think our feeling when we started was that we want to do something around the holiday and were hoping to create a holiday tradition for Rutland,” said Sandra Gartner, an ART production director. “We’re hoping that ‘A Christmas Carol’ becomes like ‘oh yeah, I have seen it before but it’s a holiday tradition’ and they keep coming back.”

Although Peter Marsh’s original adaptation of the Dickens’ classic, telling the story of Scrooge venturing into Christmas past, present and future, never changes, there will be many differences in this year’s production from previous years.

“For an audience who likes the show and has seen it before, they can come see how somebody does Scrooge different than the past year,” said Marsh, the assistant director. “They come knowing the story anyway, it’s not like they come to see what’s going to happen, they come to see what this particular take is on the production.”

A new cast and director will certainly put their own spin on it this year as Tom Smith is directing the holiday classic for the first time after acting the role of Scrooge the past two years.

“It’s an adaptation of what we’ve been doing and I’ve tweaked it in different ways,” said Smith, who is also a chemistry teacher at Fair Haven Union High School.

One of Smith’s ideas when taking over the directing role was to add another dimension to the play by adding a platform on one side of the stage where Scrooge’s office is in the beginning of the play and his grave later in the story.

“I thought it would be interesting to have a sense of height on the stage, it’s also a sense of power when someone is on that platform,” Smith said.

Some minor changes were happening as late as Tuesday evening, just the second time the cast was able to rehearse on the Paramount stage after moving out of a classroom setting.

“Having been here before I remembered the stage … but to sit in the theater and see different angles some things have to be adjusted,” he said.

Gartner said having seen the story retold on the Paramount stage the previous three years she’s noticed an evolution over that time.

“We’ve added some more music and a little bit more choreography this year and I think it tends to get a little brighter each year,” said Gartner, who plays the first spirit in this year’s production. “We still are very respectful of the Dickens language and focus on the social time of England at the time and the child labor laws and the poor laws, but it seems each year we get a little more brightness of the play.”

The number of narrators has also changed over the years from two to four, with this year’s number being set in the median.

The props and special effects continue to grow each year also, as the stage will transcend into a winter evening with snow descending down on the stage as characters step outside in the city and fog accompanies spirits when they enter.

The cast of 25 varies in age from 6 to 70 and is made up of many core actors with ART and some first-time actors with the company, Gartner said.

“It’s a great mix of people who have had some experience on the professional level and the community level,” she said.

One of the new cast members taking the lead role of Scrooge this year is Martin Bones, who’s recently played the parts of Alfie Doolittle in “My Fair Lady” and Dr. Scott in “The Rocky Horror Show.”

For the first of three shows the cast performed a Wednesday matinee in front of hundreds of area schoolchildren, similar to previous years. today and Friday performances begin at 8 p.m. and tickets are available at the Paramount Theatre box office ranging in price from $10-$18.

The family-oriented holiday production is a great way to get into the holiday spirit, members of the cast said.

“It appeals to generations of people because the sense of the holiday spirit, and it shows how we are on a journey together in this world and how we get through it together,” Gartner said. “It’s a story of hope; a hope people are capable of change and capable of finding the inner kindness and it says ‘I really should reach out to someone else’ and I hope that’s the spirit people take away from it.”

Contact Dawson Raspuzzi at dawson.raspuzzi@rutlandherald.com.

CHESTER — It was time to pull out those bobby socks and poodle skirts, because the 1950s musical comedy show “Laughing with the Legends” was at Green Mountain Union High School.

“The series was really started to bring arts to the community in the winter,” said volunteer Sara Colgan. “We try and bring different types of artists, but song-and-dance shows are really popular.”

Proceeds from this show and others in the series are used to underwrite grants to bring arts into area classrooms. This year, the series has given out $20,000 in grants, Colgan said.

Brian and Joey Gurl are the husband-and-wife musical duo behind the show. While based in North Carolina, they both have deep roots in the area. Brian Gurl hails from Lebanon, N.H., and Joey Gurl is from Woodstock, and her four children graduated from Woodstock Union High School.

The two met when Joey hired Brian to play piano to accompany her singing act in Killington. The two also operated a theater in Wilmington for eight years during the late-1980s and the mid-1990s. Despite their long history in the area, Saturday will be the first time they will bring this show to Vermont.

“It’s a very high-energy comedy theatrical show,” Brian said, when reached on the road on his way to Vermont after performing three shows in Florida earlier in the week.

Through a series of rapid-fire costume changes, Brian and Joey impersonated no fewer than 15 notable 1950s icons, including Lucille Ball, Ed Sullivan, Marilyn Monroe, and of course the King himself, Elvis Presley.

“Eight-, 12-, 14-year-old kids enjoy the show, even though they might not recognize some of the characters,” Brian Gurl said, noting the show is appropriate for all ages.

Contact Josh O’Gorman at josh.ogorman@rutlandherald.com.

A 12-year-old girl leaned on the spools of a cotton mill in North Pownal, her stern and strong face marred with dirt.

The year was 1910.

A man named Lewis Hine, tasked with investigating child labor and gathering evidence of it for the National Child Labor Committee from behind a bulky camera lens, stumbled upon the girl, Adeline “Addie” M. Card LaVigne.

He asked the mill’s manager to take a photo of the machinery with a different agenda in mind — capturing the image of hardworking Addie instead.

LaVigne was one of roughly 5,000 images Hine captured of children working in factories, mills and farms for two decades, from the early 1900s through 1920, as a schoolteacher turned investigator for the Committee.

Founded in 1904, the Committee’s mission was to expose the more than 2 million child workers under the age of 15 nationwide who were deprived of normal childhoods because they had to support their families by working low-wage factory jobs following the Civil War.

Hine’s image of Addie and other child workers from across the country exposed more than an epidemic of kids working in hazardous and unhealthy conditions — it was the reflection of an America where an entire generation was on the verge of losing the opportunity to get an education because they were forced to help make ends meet.

Mount St. Joseph Academy senior Alessandra Hodulik says she’ll never know what it really feels like to be deprived of the opportunity to go to school.

But by portraying Addie in numerous play rehearsals since September and in a stage performance this weekend, Hodulik said she’s going to give it a try.

“I had to go from rehearsing the life of a girl that barely gets three meals a day, to my life where three meals a days is guaranteed and it’s something I don’t focus on because it’s always been there,” Hodulik said Wednesday.

“Despite everything she’s denied she’s able to maintain as a strong-willed person whose focus is bettering herself.”

Hodulik is one of 23 students from MSJ and Christ the King who will perform an adaptation of Elizabeth’s Winthrop’s novel “Counting on Grace,” a story inspired by Addie’s photo, on a thrust stage in the Jennifer Bagley Theater deep inside Mount St. Joseph Academy on Friday and Saturday.

MSJ’s Shoestring Company and Drama Director Jennifer Bagley are hoping to expose Addie’s story, Hine’s images and Winthrop’s meaningful written interruption, by performing a dramatic adaptation of “Counting on Grace” for members of the Rutland area community to see.

It’s a historic Vermont tale worth re-telling, with a fictionalized and hopeful happy ending, said Bagley, the school’s drama teacher for 13 years.

Bagley, who read Winthrop’s book this summer and was inspired to adapt its themes into a play for the MSJ stage, said this show carries a greater meaning for her student-actors because it’s about Vermont and it’s real.

From Pownal to Manchester to Winooski, women and children working tirelessly in the mills was the norm in Vermont in the early 1900s.

“I first exposed students to Hine’s photos and asked them what they thought,” Bagley said.

Their responses: “dreary,” “shocking,” “melancholy,” “sad,” and “depressed.”

From that day forward, student-actors made Addie (renamed Grace Forcier by Winthrop) their very own Anne Frank.

“Based off those pictures and looking at the script and interrupting Hine’s role toward Grace and his compassion toward her,” is how MSJ junior Tyler Sanborn said he embraced the role of photographer, activist and investigator, Lewis Hine.

An audience is welcomed to see the culmination of the work by Bagley and the students — from MSJ’s realistic interruptions of Hine’s photographs down to the last button on Addie’s dirty smock to spinners in the cotton mill.

The Shoestring Company has performed a number of notable plays including “Robin Hood,” “The Diary of Anne Frank” and “The Complete History of America,” through the years and “Counting on Grace,” is sure to be another memorable drama, possibly even one for the history books, Bagley said.

“Counting on Grace” reflects the struggle and triumph of Addie and other child mill workers like her, real-life stories ultimately leading to child labor being reduced then abolished in America.

“These are interesting people and you want to give kids characters they can believe in,” Bagley said, flanked by nearly duplicate images of her present-day students in costume and photos of child laborers.

“It’s also about universal themes we deal with everyday — loyalty and how to find yourself, how to hang onto your identity and the practicality of education.”

Admission to all three MSJ “Counting on Grace” performances this weekend is free.

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with a 2 p.m. matinee Saturday. There will be an opportunity to offer freewill donations to local charities.

Contact Cristina Kumka@cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com.

By Dawson Raspuzzi Herald Staff

Seventy years after it was written by Thornton Wilder and then performed across the country, the timeless portrayal of everyday New England life in the classic “Our Town” will come to the Bennington Center for the Arts .

The production is a collaboration between theater students at the college, professionals from Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington, and a couple of Poultney children.

The production marks the first time GMC has teamed with Oldcastle and the first time “Our Town” has been performed at the college since the 1940s, said theater professor John Nassivera.

“‘Our Town’ is a huge cast so professional companies can almost never afford to do the show because the cast is so big, and colleges can come up with the people, but if you don’t have the age difference between the parents and stage manager and the kids you don’t have a play,” Nassivera said. “By combining the two you can come up with an excellent production, the best of both worlds.”

Held in the recently refurbished Ackley Theatre, professional actors — who have all performed in past productions of “Our Town” — fill the roles of the two sets of parents and the stage manager, while the majority of other parts are filled by students in the college’s theater department.

“I love working with students and professionals. Students see how the professionals work — this is how you approach your parts, this is how you learn your lines, this is how you take notes … and then it’s a burst of enthusiasm from the kids that we get excited about,” said director Eric Peterson, the founding artistic director of the Oldcastle Theatre.

“The students all improve dramatically. It’s a wonderful lesson to them,” he said.

This will be Peterson’s second time directing the play in a joint production with college students, with the first time 25 years ago. He said he’s since developed a deeper appreciation for the play.

“It’s just so real, they are people, characters, situations we can recognize. It’s about falling in love, dying, it’s about family … it has all the varieties of life,” Peterson said.

The production is special to Paula Mann, a GMC theater professor who plays Professor Willard in the play, as her first professional acting role many years ago was Emily Webb, the main character in the play.

“For me, I just think it’s a wonderful play and a great play to do in New England,” Mann said. “The message of the play really is that we need to realize life while we’re living it.”

It is fitting to have a 70th anniversary production in Vermont, Mann said, as the play is set in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners, based on the town of Peterborough, N.H., just across the North Connecticut River, where Wilder wrote much of the play.

A special guest will be in the audience on opening night. Peter Davis will be seeing “Our Town” for the second time since playing a newsboy in the original national tour of the play in 1939, and on the big screen in Sam Wood’s film when he was 12 years old.

Davis, who now lives in Dorset, played alongside his brother, Tim, who portrayed the other newsboy, as well as stars of the big screen William Holden, Martha Scott, Fay Bainter and Thomas Mitchell in the 1940 film.

After winning the role on the production’s West Coast tour, where it competed with John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” Davis said he and the rest of the cast never imagined “Our Town” would become as popular as it is today — now being one of the most-performed productions at high school and college levels.

“The original play, which has become such an American classic, was not as successful in Los Angeles, basically because it was a movie town … and without scenery the Hollywood people didn’t get it,” Davis said. “I don’t think any of us at the time, even Thornton Wilder, ever dreamed it would become the icon it has become — the sort of modern classic.”

Now 70 years, Davis said he’s still amazed to hear about it being continually performed.

“The source of its continuing popularity is that it touches people because it is so real and comes so close to touching the daily life, the common lives of Americans — it’s just very real and very New England,” he said.

Davis said he’s only seen “Our Town” performed one time when he wasn’t in the cast, approximately 30 years ago in Washington, D.C., and he is anxious to see it again.

The play will also be presented at the Bennington Center for the Arts at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 21 and 22 and tickets for those performances can be bought in advance at 447-0564.

Contact Dawson Raspuzzi at dawson.raspuzzi@rutlandherald.com.

The longest continuously operating community theater group in the state, the Marble Valley Players, took center stage in West Rutland for three days, performing Ivan Menchell’s “The Cemetery Club.”

The witty comedy for all ages is set in a cemetery and tells the story of three Jewish widows who visit the graves of their deceased husbands each month until an eligible widower is thrown into the mix.

As sparks fly, two of the widows feel the need to move past the spouses’ headstones to a new life. The production communicates with hope that love does indeed last after it is lost and no age or time can get in its way.

It will be the Marble Valley Players’ first production of “The Cemetery Club” since organizing around the turn of the century in Proctor as the Community Players.

“This is a story of letting go as we get older,” said Nancy Manney, the director of the production, but there’s also a fair share of comedy in the mix, she said.

“The one-liners are wonderful, but it’s also very poignant,” said Judy Wideawake, the group’s spokeswoman. “It’s definitely going to be entertaining and funny.”

Her first time directing a full-length play, Manney said the process has been a great learning experience, made easier by the well-versed actors she picked for the roles.

“They’ve all worked really, really hard and are really dedicated. It’s a long show with just a few players so they have a lot of lines to learn,” Manney said. “It’s coming along great; it’s really been an incredible experience for me.”

Last year, Manney directed a 20-minute production and from the experience she said she wanted to challenge herself by directing “The Cemetery Club,” a play that has been many years in the making.

After seeing the production put on by another community theater group a few years ago, Manney said, she was motivated to direct her adaptation of the production.

“I’ve had the cast on my mind for a long time … I had worked with all of these people at one time or another,” she said.

Since rehearsals began three months ago, the cast has rehearsed three nights a week and Manney said on opening night the audience will be amazed with the production, even if it’s not the exact same as another director’s variation.

“I’ve seen one other production and I really think our play is way different than theirs,” she said. “I don’t know what the difference is but I think it’s just in the cast and how the cast portrays the characters. These people have really gelled as friends and have a great amount of camaraderie … which is very important.”

The play features Judi Tompkins playing the role of the flirtatious Lucille, Charlotte Gillam playing the dedicated widow Doris, Gail O’Brien as the independent Ida, and Kerry Spradlin as Sam, the eligible widower.

Contact Dawson Raspuzzi at dawson.raspuzzi@rutlandherald.com

Castleton State College will be getting the Broadway treatment for its latest show, “You Can’t Take It With You.”

In her CSC directorial debut, Broadway actress Susan Haefner will be dusting the Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy with her big-league expertise, standing in this semester to teach acting and direct the show. The Theatre Arts Department production runs Nov. 12 to 16 at the Casella Theater.

Temporarily replacing Harry McEnerny, the head of the department, who is visiting London with students for the semester, Haefner, a Weston Playhouse member since 1991, steers a cast of 17. The cast includes four teachers, she says, to be as age specific as possible in the show.

The three-act, lighthearted period comedy takes place in a big house near Columbia University, owned by a kooky New York City family.

Like so many great plays, “You Can’t Take It With You” provokes thought and invites audience members to look inside and examine their own beliefs and values — all in between belly laughs, of course.

Haefner says the 1936 comedy — which was made into an Academy Award-winning movie in 1938, directed by Frank Capra — was written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.

Haefner says the play has some stunning synergies with today’s unsteady economy and financial hardships.

“It is a comedy, but it has a big message for all of us,” she said.

“The whole play is about making choices about what you want to do rather than what you have to do to get ahead in life. It’s very parallel to what’s happening with our economy now, the rich versus the poor, and what we value in life.”

Haefner, 43, who has been acting professionally for 22 years, said she fell in love with Vermont when she came to Manchester’s Southern Vermont Arts Center to do her first show in Vermont, “The Fantasticks,” in 1988. That led to being introduced to members at the Weston Playhouse, and she joined the company three years later, finding excuses to come back time and time again. She has since done 16 shows at Weston, and directed three cabaret shows there. She is currently directing her third cabaret at CSC’s Fireside Café also.

Haefner, who also sings and dances — including tap — on stage, has performed in three Broadway shows: “State Fair” in 1996, “Thoroughly Modern Millie” in 2002 and “42nd Street” from 2003-05. She also performed in “Damn Yankees” starring Jerry Lewis on a national tour and in London.

Her early love for the stage caused her to quit university at SUNY Ferdonia in 1985 to perform at Walt Disney World, where she performed in a dinner show three times a day, including playing the part of “Flora” for the much-loved “Hoop-De-Doo Musical Review.”

“My time backstage there I spent doing Shakespeare monologues. I realized I would much rather be studying acting.” So she went back to school to do a master of fine arts degree in acting at Florida State University.

Haefner said the cast portrays a bevy of characters who are “eccentric” and “goofy at times.”

“But they’re just having a ball … There’s a nice pocket of very funny actors who are really skilled comedians and they’re doing wonderful, very specific work,” she said. “I do cabarets so comedy is very important to me.”

She says much work has been put into the multilevel set, and prop-collecting took on a life of its own.

“It’s such a prop-heavy show. We are beg, borrowing and stealing everything we can find from the whole State of Vermont,” she laughed.

Haefner describes the premise of “You Can’t Take It With You” as a reaction to the Great Depression.

“It’s about a family who chooses to live a life not dictated by Wall Street.”

She throws out a line in the play that resonates.

“How many of us would be willing to settle when we’re young for what we eventually get.”

The Rochester, N.Y.-born Haefner marvels at the parallels between the show and what’s happening in the world today. She said she decided upon the show before the financial meltdown that took over Wall Street as of late, but then the show really became relevant.

“I chose the show for personal reasons,” she said. “And then the economy went crazy. I live in New York City and it gets harder and harder to keep up … people there are constantly climbing the ladder and trying to get ahead. I know a lot of people who are struggling to get ahead and not concentrating on what they want. And also with the election, and a new administration coming up, I chose it based on values versus what you think you have to do to get ahead.”

Haefner said this is her first time directing the show, but she acted in it 10 years ago in a production in Virginia, starring as Essie, the ballet dancer.

“I’m saying all this serious stuff, but it’s a hilarious comedy,” she said. “I believe the best comedies have this type of heart beneath it.”

“You Can’t Take It With You” takes the stage at CSC’s theater nightly at 8 p.m. Nov. 12 through 16, with a 2 p.m. matinee Nov. 16.

Tickets are $10 for the public, $5 for the college community.

For tickets and more information, call the box office at 468-1119.

Contact Jennifer Bill at jennifer.bill@rutlandherald.com.

Jim Lowe Staff Writer

BURLINGTON — Lisa Kron’s “Well” starts out as a somewhat silly comedy but soon turns into a serious drama because it’s real.

Vermont Stage Company opened its 15th season of professional theater in Burlington last week with a production of this funny, endearing memoir.

Kron’s autobiographical play is ostensibly about illness and integration, both racial and personal, but ultimately it’s about coming to grips with oneself. Isn’t that what all theater of any consequence is all about?

The play opens with Lisa announcing her intention to begin a theatrical exploration of illness and how some people get well and others don’t. Her immediate complication is that her invalid mother, Ann, is right there, sitting in her bed slippers in her La-Z-Boy, questioning her daughter every step of the way.

Lisa grew up as a member of a Jewish family in the first racially integrated neighborhood in Lansing, Mich. She tells the story of her childhood there. The immediate focus is on the allergies that her mother claims brought her down and Ann’s own fight with those allergies, which she seems to have won.

Much of Ann’s childhood is told with the addition of cartoon-like characters, including friends and memories, as well as fellow patients at a Chicago allergy clinic that Lisa attended while in college. But, it is when, finally, they represent the actors that Lisa has hired for her “theatrical exploration” that this play becomes truly compelling.

At Thursday’s preview performance, Vermont Stage Company’s production took a little while to take off, but when it did, it was riveting and ultimately rewarding. Now in residence in the Flynn Center’s FlynnSpace, the company is entering its 15th season of professional theater in the Burlington area.

Directed by Jim Gaylord, the production is largely dependent upon two characters, Lisa and her mother, Ann, and the Vermont Stage production benefits from two particularly fine actresses. Lisa Barnes looked and sounded like the part of Lisa, a young, smart and sure-of-herself suburban Jewish woman, but it took a little time before she was comfortable enough to be convincing. Ann, played by Dale Soules, also took a little time to sound authentic. But once they got going, it proved a wonderfully contentious — albeit fun — ride to the end.

Most successful was the two actresses playing on each other. Therein was the real drama and comedy — and you couldn’t help but relate to both.

The actors playing the other roles — Chris Caswell, Edgar Davis, Winnie Looby and Jason Lorber — were entertaining in their cartoon-like characters and successfully serious in certain moments. The scene and costume design by Jenny Fulton was attractive, but the staging seemed occasionally awkward in the intimate FlynnSpace.

“Well” is a compelling and entertaining opener for Vermont Stage’s 15th season.

By Jim Lowe Staff Writer

Even if you have already seen David Budbill’s “Judevine,” you haven’t seen what it has become in the new Lost Nation Theater production.

For each time the Wolcott poet’s gritty Vermont drama is produced, it evolves into another — no more or less compelling — play.

Lost Nation Theater recently brought the production to Rutland’s Paramount Theatre and to Middlebury Town Hall Theatre.

Lost Nation’s production is its second in two years, and this year’s is noticeably different from last year’s. But it is important that this evolution has come about entirely with Budbill’s collaboration.

Fortunately, characters such as the witty and optimistic logger Antoine, who still carries much of the story, remain. Tommy, the hurting Vietnam vet still hooks up with Grace, the well-meaning mother who can’t seem to make anything work. And the story of the elderly Raymond and Ann, whose love lasts forever, is just as heartwarming as ever.

In fact, virtually all of Budbill’s original characters remain in the mythical Northeast Kingdom town of Judevine. But by using different parts of the “Judevine” poems, we see a different side of some of these characters, often a bawdier, rowdier and more realistic side.

Directed by Kim Bent, Lost Nation Theater’s founder, this production’s excellent cast also generated a different flavor through its unique interpretations of the characters at the Sept. 18 preview performance.

Not all the changes enhanced the play. Some of the ritualistic unison chanting was hard to understand and of little or no dramatic value. There was also occasional silliness — as opposed to the real humor that can be found in this hardscrabble existence — that cuts into the work’s dramatic effectiveness. Still, the Lost Nation production tells the Judevine story in a truly compelling way.

The story of Judevine is told largely by the characters of the flatlander poet David — Budbill, of course — and the colorful Antoine in a series of vignettes. This town that is so poor that those who are living in it aren’t quite aware of the fact. There’s also plenty of humor, mainly people laughing at themselves.

The characters are very real and mostly very dimensional, and that is where this theater piece finds its substantial power.

Asher Nicholson makes for a realistic, down-to-earth David, but then successfully morphs into the troubled Tommy, delivering both characters with depth. Ben Ash’s Antoine, save for a little too much slapstick, delivers a convincing portrayal of this fascinating character, particularly when Antoine is forced to face the crises in his life.

Abby Paige delivers a powerful performance as Grace, a poverty-burdened single mother who loves and cares and gets nowhere. Mark Roberts, too, gives a strong performance as Doug, whose unhappiness with his own life turns him into a bigot.

Bridget Butler and Robert Nuner are most attractive as the elderly Raymond and Ann, but manage myriad characters with similar skill. In general, excepting some moments of overacting, the performances were fine throughout.

The physical production was simple, attractive and effective. Bent’s staging included a few platforms and a pastoral backdrop of Vermont mountains by Donna Stafford. Roberts, one of the actors, created the “Jude-a-Phone,” a complex metal sculpture that is also a welding shop and a musical percussion instrument. (It has to be seen — and heard — to be believed.) Simple costumes by Cora Fauser and effectively dramatic lighting round out the picture.

“Judevine,” in Lost Nation Theater’s new production, remains a colorful and authentic part of Vermont.

The sixth incarnation of the Puppets in the Green Mountains festival pulled the heartstrings of audiencespulled this past weekend.

The festival was founded by Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass in 1997.

They are also the co-artistic directors of Sandglass Theater in Putney, which since 1982 has toured 24 countries with their puppet shows. When they decided to create their own festival, they drew from the many festivals they played overseas as examples of what to do or not to do.

“When we decided to start a puppet festival, we decided to take the things that worked best and the things that fit our community,” Eric Bass said. “It was important to us that the festival be for the community, and not just for the people in the (puppet) field.”

During the festival, performers stay with host families within walking distance of the Sandglass Theater and dine together during communal meals either at the homes of the host families or at local restaurants.

“The community provides meals together every night. We have kind of a movable feast,” Bass said. “It creates a great feeling among the puppeteers.”

It also helps to form lifelong relationships between the international guests and their host families.

“They will form lifelong friendships that will last for years, and they will continue to see each other long after the festival,” Bass said. “We want people to see a wonderful part of America and to love it and to bring back to their countries a good report about the kind people they met.”

This year’s puppeteers come from four different continents and will perform in Bellows Falls, Brattleboro and Putney, in venues ranging from traditional theaters to an apple orchard.

“The puppets are all martial artists and they leap through the air,” Bass said. “It’s just amazing to see.”

French puppet company Vélo Théâtre will perform “There’s a Rabbit in the Moon,” a show designed especially for young children, at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday at the Latchis Theater.

By Jim Lowe Times Argus Staff

Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” has been characterized as an internal battle between moral integrity and the desire for revenge as well as that of perception versus reality. Regardless, it is one of the blackest and most powerful works in English literature.

Shakespeare & Company, a respected professional touring theater company based in Lenox, Mass., presented its visually and theatrically powerful production of this great tragedy Friday at the Paramount Theatre.

Hamlet, the young crown prince of Denmark, is angry. His father, the king, is dead and Claudius, his father’s brother, has taken not only the throne but he’s married Hamlet’s mother, the queen, as well. Hamlet is visited by his father’s ghost, who demands revenge, claiming Claudius has murdered him.

Hamlet, finding himself torn between his mother and honoring his father’s request, goes mad. Feigned or real, Hamlet’s madness leads him to fumble and stumble, driving his beloved Ophelia to her demise before Claudius’ order that Hamlet be killed brings matters to a head.

Seen at its first dress rehearsal at the Paramount, the Shakespeare & Company production, despite a few flawed characterizations, delivered the fascination of this tragedy. Director Eleanor Holdridge’s concept illustrated and underscored the emotional bleakness while the action remained riveting to the end.

The black set (designed by Ed Check) surrounded by lines of fluorescent lights, with a chrome-like structure, sets the scene for the sinister goings-on. Contemporary dress (by Jessica Ford), musical accents, sudden thunderbolts of sound (by Scott Killian) and bleak lighting (by Les Dickert) complete the picture.

Jason Asprey (with an oddly Cockney-like accent) created a very human, rather than slick, Hamlet. He was quite successful in delivering the prince’s confusion as to what he was supposed to be doing as he lashed out here and there. It was quite convincing.

Tina Packer, a renowned actress, and Asprey’s mother in real life, delivered a powerful performance as Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, torn between love of her son and love of her new husband. There was, however, none of the sexual tension when the triangle between Hamlet, Gertrude and Claudius is seen as an Oedipal conflict. Nigel Gore’s underplaying of Claudius’ lust for power made it all the more powerful.

Elizabeth Raetz’ Ophelia, too, was convincing and gave dimension to the doomed lover, though her costumes were a bit odd. Her father, Polonius, was given reality by a solid and convincing performance by Dennis Krausnik.

But Kevin O’Donnell substituted histrionics for passion as Ophelia’s brother, Laertes. Unfortunately, a number of the younger actors resorted to this inauthentic and unconvincing approach, but usually just for a moment or so. Jake Waid, though, gave an unusual depth and authenticity to Hamlet’s friend, Horatio.

Throughout, this production by Shakespeare & Company is of a high level, and truly delivers the tragedy of “Hamlet.”

By Josh O’Gorman Herald Staff

Seventeenth-century prose will meet early 20th-century Ireland when the Weston Playhouse Theater Co. closed its summer season with William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”

It was the second Shakespeare production at the playhouse in nine years — besides “Twelfth Night” in 1999 — said producing director Steve Stettler.

“We’ve done so few (Shakespeare plays) because Shakespeare requires a large cast and requires such a long rehearsal time because of the language,” Stettler said, but “As You Like It” provides a balance to the more serious themes of earlier plays this season, like “Doubt” and “The Light in the Piazza.”

“The comedies are enjoyable and we know they go over well in the summer, plus we wanted something to complement the season,” Stettler said.

Director Brendon Fox chose to set the play in early 20th-century Ireland, a choice Stettler found pleasing.

“I love the choice of Ireland. Sometimes, people will impose something upon Shakespeare — ‘Let’s stage “Hamlet” on the moon’ — but it works when you find a historical framework to make it resonate,” Stettler said. “The character of Rosalind is really an early feminist, and early 20th century was an important time for women’s suffrage.”

Fox agreed, saying, “If Rosalind and Celia were kind of like the birds in the gilded cage, I think that fits with the early 20th-century period.”

Fox said he took a trip to Ireland and found the themes of the play to match the country.

“There’s so much talk about love and the poetry of love and there’s so much of that in Ireland,” Fox said. “Also, there’s storytelling and a sense of melancholy present in the play and the country.”

Pen said for a musical composer, “As You Like It” offered her lots of opportunity because it has the most number of songs of any Shakespeare play.

“The general notion is that it’s a very musical work, so it gave me a larger musical canvas than other Shakespeare plays,” Pen said. “For me, it’s way of reconnecting with the greatest writer in literature. I’m a musical writer and I’m used to working with my own words, so it’s fun to wrangle with his lyrics. I try to subvert them and then I usually give in.”

Of her music for the play, Pen said, “I wanted to give a feel for — without particularly imitating — Irish music.”

“As You Like It” will be open to the public until Sept. 6. The following week, Stettler said, the cast will perform for students from more than 30 different schools.

The playhouse will then take the show on the road, performing throughout Vermont and New England, thanks in part to a $20,000 grant for the National Endowment for the Arts.

“There are people who will travel to Weston to see us during the summer, but not everybody can and during the tour we try to reach as much of the state as possible,” Stettler said.

“I’m thrilled that Weston is doing another Shakespeare and I’m honored to be a part of it,” Fox said. “It’s a very rich tapestry of a play and I think there’s something for everyone.”

Contact Josh O’Gorman at josh.ogorman@rutlandherald.com.

By Anne Lawrence Guyon

Spectacle, experimental, physical, traditional. These are the various theatrical forms that actor and mask designer Kali Quinn, co-founder of GUTWorks Theater, recently used to describe the company’s highly acclaimed stage production, “This is the Place of Parting,” which will be performed throughout Windham County starting Aug. 29 at the Bellows Falls Opera House.

Written by Neil Knox and directed by Daniel Burmester, the play is an amalgam of diverse sensibilities and methodologies, tackling everything from fear and death to joy and renewal or, as Quinn puts it, “It’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ meets ‘The Wizard of Oz’ meets ‘The Matrix’.”

Examining challenges familiar to everyone, such as grief, guilt, faith and loss of love, the storyline revolves around the experience of an author, played by Joe Raik, who wrestles with issues of his own mortality while writing about the end of the world.

Derived from the Latin “terminus est” — which literally translates to “ending is”— “This is the Place of Parting” is a bold, multidimensional journey that addresses universal themes in the human experience through acting, movement, puppets, music and imagery. According to Quinn, who formed GUTWorks in New York City two years ago with Burmester and actor Jonathan Maloney before moving it to Southern Vermont earlier this year, the play is inclusive, innovative and versatile.

“It reaches a broad audience,” she says, “and gives every audience member a way in, whether you like rock music, traditional theater or if you enjoy visual art. There are photos on a screen, fabrics that become oceans, a huge lion puppet, a live band and recycled materials where a trunk becomes a desk, a box in a scientific experiment, and then a pulpit from which someone gives a sermon, so it’s a visceral experience.”

Within the narrative arc of the play, scale serves as a prominent device. “The play involves heightened characters, make-up and costumes,” Quinn said, “with a larger than life lion, zookeeper and priest playing out an epic story, all coming together, fighting to overcome this preacher.”

As she told me more about the expansive nature of the show, with its multitude of elements, including poetic text, film, dance, local instrumental trio Amargosa, handmade masks and props that are put to multiple use, it all started sounding like more than simply theater. I found myself thinking of heroic multimedia extravaganzas by Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, Robert Ashley and Rachel Rosenthal, whose work pushes beyond even experimental theater into that once-controversial yet now often venerated realm of “performance art.”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines performance art as “a nontraditional art form often with political or topical themes that typically features a live presentation to an audience … and draws on such arts as acting, poetry, music, dance or painting.”

Though Quinn considers “This is the Place of Parting” to fit squarely under the aegis of theater, the creative courage of the piece and the collective expertise of its players push it beyond those parameters. A dozen accomplished actors, writers, techies, choreographers and theatrical artists bring an astounding range of professional experience to the stage, from Dell’Arte International, the Shakespeare Theater of D.C. and classical ballet training to photography, multimedia design and circus arts, placing GUTWorks in the domain of great performance art, in its purest, most delightfully unconventional and omni-sensorial form.

I suppose it’s a case of semantics, but as someone who’s always believed that performance art, when done well, allows audience members to flex their intellect and observational skills in fresh, invigorating ways, I think it behooves an eclectic company like this to shine a bright light on the art of the work itself — the distinct artistry within the performance.

Performance art at its best is simply metatheater, reaching beyond the scope of the theatrical realm by orchestrating an experience that’s bigger than the stage, the actors, the audience and the two hours they spend together while the lights are down. When realized with true vision and expertise, performance art not only tears down that old fourth wall, but sends everyone home with a slightly altered perspective on the world, on themselves and each other.

Some of the earliest performance art I ever saw was Anderson’s “United States,” Ashley’s “Atalanta (Acts of God)” and Monk’s “Dolmen Music” in the mid-1980s when lesser talents with big hair and egos to match managed to malign the art form. Unfortunately, some vestiges of misguided attempts at artytainment, which involved everything from abysmal acting to novice opera to curious usages of canned fruit, seem to remain even to the point of artists themselves wishing to distance themselves from the term.

The good news is simply that high-caliber, sophisticated works by unconventional companies like GUTWorks are serving to redefine both theater and performance art, devising an entirely new brand of live drama. It is performance and it is art, blending fearless writing, skilled thespians, inventive visuals and pioneering music into one complex, visionary feast comprised of various characters, concepts, images and sounds.

The flow of “This is the Place of Parting” is, in and of itself, original.

“It starts out with two-minute film,” Quinn explains, “which is the Rosebud of the story. The author is writing about the end of the world and, in doing so, he comes to a near-death experience and is battling with his own decisions about finding meaning in his life. The rest of the play is in his mind, with a preacher, a zookeeper saving the last lion on planet and a young grieving mother, all characters who help him realize he should live. It’s a celebration of the human experience and a lot of it is up for interpretation, like believing that the film really is Africa extending out 1,000 miles.”

Quinn’s powerful one-woman stage show, “Vamping,” which she performed in New York last year, showcased her remarkable acting prowess as she told the story of her grandmother’s battle with dementia, and if that is any indication, this new production will deliver on its promise that “On the edge between life and death, humanity’s quest for meaning begins …”

Enthused not only about having brought GUTWorks itself to Southern Vermont, but the thematic pertinence and impact of “This is the Place of Parting,” Quinn attests that its amalgam of elements and messages will compel audience members to explore difficult but important questions.

“It’s a celebration of the human experience,” she avows, “and asks how we each find meaning in our lives. How do people interpret faith and if there is no God, then what? What keeps us ticking? It doesn’t make a decision, but just rejoices that we’re all alive.”

In addition to the Aug. 29 performance at the Bellows Falls Opera House, “This is the Place of Parting” will play at the New England Youth Theater on Sept. 3 and the Vermont Academy in Saxtons River on Sept. 4.

Note to readers: As I have other journalistic ventures under way, I need to make the Sover Scene bi-weekly going forward, but will still have my finger on the arts and culture pulse, so please look for it every other Thursday starting today. Thank you for being such devoted readers and keep your comments coming!

Online: www.gutworks.org

Annie: www.annieguyoncommunications.com

Archive: www.rutlandherald.

typepad.com/soverscene

By Jim Lowe Times Argus Staff

LEBANON, N.H. — Who else could tear your heart out and leave you asking for more? Giacomo Puccini, perhaps more than any other opera composer, tears at the heart strings — sensually and beautifully.

Opera North opened a production of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” last Saturday at the Lebanon Opera House that did just that. Brilliantly sung and beautiful to behold, Saturday’s opening night performance reveled in the drama and tragedy as only opera can. “Madame Butterfly” will be presented in repertory with Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”

“Madame Butterfly,” set at the end of the 19th century, is the tale of a 15-year-old geisha who enters earnestly into a marriage with a U.S. Navy officer, who sees it only as a pretext for sex. Act I is full of joy, as Cio-Cio San, known as Madame Butterfly, marries Capt. B.F. Pinkerton, though she has to renounce her religion and family, and he is warned by Sharpless, the American consul, of Butterfly’s earnestness.

In Act II, Butterfly and her faithful servant Suzuki await Pinkerton’s return. It has been three years, and Sharpless comes to warn them that Pinkerton will likely never return, only to find that there is a child. In Act III, all the parties come together for the tragic finale.

Opera North’s production, conducted by Louis Burkot and directed by Ron Luchsinger, proved successful pretty much throughout. The lead singing was close to spectacular and the staging was dramatic and elegant.

Russian-born soprano Olga Chernisheva sang Madame Butterfly with a dramatic voice, and beautifully. She proved convincing and successfully matched the big-voiced men she was cast against.

Young American tenor Hugo Vera, with his brilliant and truly heroic voice, was well cast. Diego Matamoros, who recently made his Metropolitan Opera debut, was an assertive Sharpless, with an unusually brilliant baritone. In the beginning, there was an “anything you can sing, I can sing louder” attitude between the two men, but when singing with Butterfly, the sound was brilliant and beautiful.

Mezzo-soprano Cynthia Hanna sang well and was effective as Butterfly’s maid Suzuki. The supporting cast varied somewhat vocally, but all were effective, including the chorus, in the overall dramatic effect.

The dramatic effect was truly enhanced by the simple and elegant set by Yoshinori Tanokura, with dramatic lighting by David Gelhar and beautiful period costumes by Patricia Hibbert.

This was a beautifully heart-wrenching “Madame Butterfly.”

by Dawson Raspuzzi

Rutland Youth Theatre is taking its Shakespeare in the Park show on the road for five performances in the next four days.

The cast of 11, ranging in age from 13 to 18, will perform William Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” tonight at Tinmouth School, followed by performances in Middlebury, Belmont and two in Rutland.

The cast is primarily made up of experienced actors, many of whom have performed together with the Youth Theatre for the past four or five years.

The handful of newcomers to the group have performed with their schools or other groups, which director Susan Baker said gave her confidence to choose one of Shakespeare’s more difficult plays.

Baker said she has wanted to direct “The Winter’s Tale” for many years and the cast has done a great job during rehearsals.

“The language for ‘The Winter’s Tale’ is extremely complex so it’s hard for them … but I would say they have come incredibly far since we got the cast in the middle of June.”

With 25 characters and 11 members, many actors must play multiple roles and wear different costumes.

Baker said she’s adapted the play in part to trim it down to a two-hour production although the theme and language remains the same.

Baker said that every time she directs one of Shakespeare’s plays, she’s impressed by how dedicated her actors are to the productions and the dialect.

“Together they discover what’s going on and what the words mean,” Baker said. “It’s like learning a foreign language for them, and I’m always amazed at how much they learn it.”

Last year was Rutland Youth Theatre’s first time performing outside of Rutland, which Baker said was a success for the most part. This year the group returns to all of the same locations, with the addition of Tinmouth.

Along with tonight’s play at 6:30 p.m. the group performs at the Middlebury Village Green at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Belmont Village Green at 2 p.m. Saturday and at the Godnick Senior Center at 6:30 p.m. Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday.

This summer’s productions began Tuesday with a performance at the Dana Recreation Center in Rutland and Wednesday at the Meeting House in Shrewsbury.

Contact Dawson Raspuzzi at dawson.raspuzzi@rutlandherald.com.

By Jim Lowe

WESTON — At a decaying New York City high school, Miss Sun, an aspiring actress, is brought in to teach theater to perhaps the worst class of 10th graders in the entire school system.

She attempts to get them to put on a play, and for the six weeks allotted to the project, she cajoles, fights, runs from and loves her difficult charges.

Elizabeth Wilson plays all 17 characters with an easy virtuosity in the Weston Playhouse production of “No Child …,” Nilaja Sun’s one-woman show, through Aug. 10 at the Weston Rod & Gun Club. However, there isn’t anything easy about this heart-wrenching and dramatic story, but there is plenty of humor in this excellent production.

“No Child …” is based on Sun’s own experience in the New York City school system. Set at Malcolm X High School in the Bronx, Miss Sun is charged with teaching theater to a class of kids who aren’t likely to make it through life.

The school janitor, who narrates the story, describes the kids as delinquents; the principal calls them “challenging,” but adds, “I believe in them”; and the students describe themselves as convicts, marched past metal detectors, with little control over their lives.

First, Miss Sun is confronted by the fact that most students don’t arrive for class until halfway through the period. And, when they do, they’re more interested in mocking her earnestness than anything she has to offer.

Miss Sun wants the class to learn the Timberlake Wertenbaker play, “Our Country’s Good” (based on Thomas Keneally’s novel, “The Playmaker”), in which 18th-century British marines and their charges, convicts at an Australian penal colony, attempt to put on a play. After announcing the project, Miss Sun has second thoughts as to whether the play has any value for these ghetto youngsters, but the students themselves point out that their lives are like the convicts’ with few if any choices.

Miss Sun and her students endure more tragedies, issues and problems that those in most school districts. At one point, she decides to quit, but finds that there is a wonderful reason to persevere.

This is a wonderful play and, directed by Johanna Gruenhut, Wilson does a truly convincing job of, not only portraying these myriad characters, but of conveying this heart-wrenching and heart-warming story. Occasionally, character delineations were a little fuzzy at Sunday’s performance, but only very occasionally.

Wilson created these 17 characters, not only with subtle and not-so-subtle changes in voice and dialect, but by seemingly changing her body. It’s hard, though, to imagine the diminutive Wilson as a male janitor, but perhaps a female one?

The production is minimal, but the decaying schoolroom set by Timothy Mackabee, seemingly authentic costume by Rachel Kurland, effective lighting by Travis McHale, and unobtrusive sound design by Kimberly Fuhr all contribute to the statement. This is an entertaining but powerful production.

by Dawson Raspuzzi

The Poultney Summer Theatre Company will present its production of William Shakespeare’s comedy “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” eight times between tonight and Aug. 3.

Under the direction of Gary Meitrott, the founder of the summer theater group, a cast of 12 people have been rehearsing since June.

The diverse cast ranges in age from 20 to 65 and in experience from never having previously set foot on a stage, much less performed Shakespeare, to seasoned veterans who have been acting for a good portion of their lives, Meitrott said. However, none have performed with this group for more than one prior production.

The wide array of actors gives the production a unique perspective and experience for the audience, Meitrott said.

“I love (the diversity), one of the problems we have with this culture is, I think, we settle in with our peer groups way too much … so different groups coming together to do theater in general I find incredibly healthy,” he said.

Meitrott said the more experienced actors have helped instruct those with less experience and he is finding hidden talent in the cast.

“Those with more experience are really helping the people who have not done Shakespeare, to help mold them into seeking within themselves to find a sense of confidence and a sense of connecting their emotional body to the character they are playing,” Meitrott said, “and I create a safe environment for them to explore that”

This summer’s production is the fifth year the nonprofit group has put on a production on stage behind St. Raphael Church in Poultney.

Previous productions have included Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Twelfth Night,” and after last year’s play it was Meitrott’s intention to do a more challenging production of “Richard III” although a limited number of actors made the production impossible.

Because only a dozen characters are in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” it made the play a perfect fit for the cast, although not less difficult to perform.

“To me, Shakespeare is like doing theater that is Olympic quality, in the sense of what Shakespeare asks of his actors… he really stretches our ability to articulate and put together complex images,” Meitrott said.

“One of my main themes is to show how entertaining (Shakespeare) is, how he really stretches his audience to what is really being said and I back that up with all of my direction that is very physically oriented.”

Meitrott said in terms of the physicality of his productions, his belief is even if someone in the audience doesn’t understand a word of the play he still hopes that person can be entertained by the play.

“If done well, theater is a full experience of your stomach muscles laughing and your intellect being challenged,” he said.

All productions begin at 7:30 p.m. and are scheduled July 24-27, July 31, and Aug. 1-3. Tickets cost $10 for adults and $8 for students and seniors. Productions are weather permitting.

For more information visit www.poultneysummertheatre.com.

Contact Dawson Raspuzzi at dawson.raspuzi@rutlandherald.com.

by Anne Guyon

Right about now, when we’re smack dab in the middle of summer break, we parents start peeking ahead in the calendar just to confirm when school starts up again.

This is partially because we can’t believe how fast the weeks are speeding by and we want to make sure to get in as much kid time as we can before they’re swallowed up again by classes, homework, friends and extra-curricular activities.

We also glance at September because we’re starting to run out of ideas — and, let’s face it, energy — for stimulating family fun. Despite the unrivaled joys of parenting immersion afforded by summertime, we’re all starting to feel a little tuckered out right about now. Well, I am anyway.

We’ve swam, kayaked, gone to the beach, the river, the drive-in, on picnics, bike rides, hikes and walks, out for pizza, burgers, Chinese food and ice cream. We’ve had barbecues, birthday parties, tea parties and sleepovers.

We’ve done all kinds of projects at home, from making jewelry, comic books and cookies to fairy houses, forts and ant farms (though, admittedly, the ants did most of that work). We’ve played chess, Boggle, Scrabble, Parcheesi, Sorry, Whoonu, Egyptology, Clue, Yahtzee, card games, catch, basketball and Frisbee more times than I can count. Heck, I even learned key aerodynamic principals while constructing sophisticated fleets of paper airplanes with my son and the art of making miniature clay dollhouse food with my daughter.

In addition to all these stimulating pastimes, our house has been bustling with a steady stream of wonderful visitors. Friends and relatives have come from Germany, California and D.C. with more yet to arrive from Kyoto and the U.K.

We have a few lakeside days slated with my aunt in Maine and various upcoming get-togethers with other families. And yet, despite these plans and the sea of books, art supplies, toys, sports equipment and games that we call home, I won’t be entirely surprised if those four little words we parents loathe (and that I attempt to outlaw) will soon infiltrate the airwaves: “There’s nothing to do.”

Au contraire, little Janes and Johnnys everywhere — there is plenty to do in this bastion of culturally rich creativity, starting with local theater.

Opening tonight, the Dorset Theater Festival brings a three-week run of “A Year With Frog and Toad” to Vermont audiences of all ages, under the guidance of Off-Broadway’s celebrated director Lear deBessonet. A hit during the 2003 Broadway season, this visually and musically rich amalgam of Arnold Lobels’ beloved tales of Frog and Toad offers a sweet, amusing look at the importance of friendship.

From Friday through Sunday, the New England Youth Theatre in Brattleboro fills the stage with slightly wackier merriment in a rendition of “Aladdin and his Magic Lamp” that has young actors employing the delightfully lighthearted clown-and-mime methods of local thespian legends Gould & Stearns. Intended for audiences older than 4, the show includes kids impersonating tornadoes, crystal balls and sultans amidst an atmosphere of melodramatic mystery and inventive comedy.

Also on the bill at NEYT this weekend is a production of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the classic Hans Christian Andersen gem that has a vain ruler parading pompously among his people convinced he’s cloaked in exquisite finery when he is in fact wearing only a plain shirt (and every kid loves the opportunity for a little flagrant snickering).

On Aug. 16 and 17, dramatically choreographed teenage rebellion comes to NYET with “West Side Story,” Bernstein and Sondheim’s heart-tugging, finger-snapping portrait of love that prevails amid simmering gang conflicts and racial strife in 1950s-era New York City. Framed around the tragic Romeo and Juliet archetype, this is a quintessential American musical that has appeal for both genders, as it confronts issues of the familial pressures and powerful emotions with which young people so often wrestle.

Main Street Arts in Saxtons River also offers theatrical adventures for children, starting with “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” on Aug. 9 and 10.

A musical adaptation of the 13th-century German folktale, made famous by the Brothers Grimm, it tells the story of the dastardly rat-catcher who promises residents he will rid the village of vermin by leading the creatures to the river with his music.

When he is not paid, the reward promised to him, he then uses his pipe to lure children away from the village as well. Various versions have been recorded throughout history and it’s my guess that the Main Street Arts interpretation will brim with vibrant song, imaginative sets and boundless energy, as always.

The following weekend, on Aug. 15 and 16, MSA, in partnership with River Theater, will host a colorful evening of cabaret, with teens from surrounding communities performing musical numbers and scenes from a variety of plays.

Along with great live theater, there are also several outstanding museum exhibits that are either specifically for children or sure to capture their attention, if not inspire them to dig yet deeper into the crayon box or pull out the watercolors once they’re back home.

At the Brattleboro Art and Museum Center, the Activity Gallery is lined with exquisite illustrations by Caldecott Medal winning author, Chris Van Allsburg. Most known for the rich aesthetics and thrilling adventure he created in “The Polar Express,” Van Allsburg’s original artwork also includes scenes from “The Mysteries of Harris Burdick,” “Two Bad Ants” and “The Sweetest Fig.” As always, there’s a kids’ drawing table at the center of the gallery with books and supplies to help spark imaginations.

At the Bennington Museum, baseball fans can view prized artifacts such as bats used by Ted Williams, Babe Ruth and Manny Ramirez as well as Joe DiMaggio’s jersey and Jackie Robinson’s contract in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame: A Summer of Baseball in Bennington.”

Vermont’s own obsession with the game is also spotlighted, with archive photos and memorabilia of local community baseball fields, farm teams and the much-celebrated Northern League. Vintage baseball cards and modern renderings on the subject by Baseball Hall of Fame and Upper Deck artist Mike Schacht will also be on display.

Another terrific afternoon destination with the kids is the Southern Vermont Art Center, currently showing work by renowned photorealist painter Janet Fish, whose ability to capture shifts in light, color, texture and depths of field is remarkable and riveting. With subject matter that includes beach parties, picnics and tag sales, it’s a vibrantly hued, meticulously rendered take on everyday experiences as seen through one of the lens of one of the country’s most proficient contemporary painters.

Don’t forget to explore the possibilities at local art schools as well. Most offer great workshops for kids throughout the summer, keeping their creative wheels well-oiled until school starts up again.

So, if you’re a parent who’s starting to hear the occasional whingings and bleatings that there’s nothing to do, consider yourself equipped with a hefty roster of retorts to that preposterous notion.

Online: www.neyt.org

www.mainstreetarts.org

www.dorsettheatrefestival.org

Annie: www.annieguyoncommunications.com

Archive: www.rutlandherald.typepad.com/soverscene