Author: Janet

I like to share travel deals, destinations, and travel tips!

Playtime at the Palace – Stamford Center for the Arts

A brand new series featuring bubbles, puppets, slapstick, and more, Playtime at the Palace will continue to delight children of all ages in March and April at Stamford’s Palace Theatre. From Puppet Playground to Story Pirates, entertainers will charm families with up-close-and-personal performances on Sunday afternoons. All shows start at 3 PM and last approximately one hour.

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On March 9, for example the program is Story Pirates (Adults: $20; Children under 12: $15) Stories by kids, for kids! Story Pirates will delight and surprise with puppets, catchy songs and outrageous sketches, all the while motivating kids to pick up a pencil and write down their own fantastic adventures. Story topics run the gamut, from kung fu ninja babies fighting crime to cats flying and tickle-monsters who rule the world.

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The Silent Slapstick (All tickets: $10) program is scheduled for March 30 and is sure to have your kids laughing themselves silly! This program features uproarious ’20s comedy films, presented with a live pianist! Lincoln Center’s famous silent film accompanist/historian Ben Model will present 3 short slapstick silent comedies making this an ideal opportunity to introduce youngsters to inventive visual humor. This program will be presented in the Palace Cinema.

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The P.i.E. Puppets in Education (All tickets: $15) will perform on April 6. This program will show your children how to put on their very own puppet show! The Monkey Boys team will teach them how to create a show with their own stuffed animals and learn how to create puppets through simple construction techniques! Some of these will be used in a short show at the end of the class.

Tickets may be purchased online at www.scalive.org or charged by phone with major credit cards by calling The Palace Box Office at 203-325-4466. Tickets may also be purchased in person at the Palace Theatre box office in downtown Stamford, open Monday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The 2013-2014 season is made possible by Palace Theatre’s Season Sponsors Seaboard Properties, Inc. and the Whittingham Family.

For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

About the Palace Theatre

The vision of the Palace Theatre is to be the regional arts center for exciting entertainment that enhances and enriches the cultural, educational, economic, and social life of the community. The Palace strives to achieve this vision by demonstrating integrity in all work and relationships, providing service and quality in all activities, fostering and promoting diversity of thought, ideas and culture, providing stewardship for the Stamford Arts community, emphasizing outreach in our community, and offering creativity in all endeavors.

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Famous Native American Potter at the Institute for American Indian Studies

The contemporary pottery of Melvin C. Cornshucker of Cherokee descent is being featured at the Institute for American Indian Studies located on 38 Curtis Rd. in Washington CT through the month of March. Cornshucker is an award winning Cherokee potter, who works in stoneware, porcelain and raku clay.

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Mel’s work can be found in collections across the United States, Europe, and Africa, and he has been invited to exhibit at museums in Illinois, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, California, Kansas and now Connecticut. Mel also participates in annual juried shows and exhibitions including the Santa Fe Indian Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Eiteljorg Indian Market in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Pueblo Grande Museum Indian Art Show in Phoenix, Arizona, the Contemporary Indian Art Show at Cahokia, Illinois, and many other notable venues. His work is widely sought in international collections as well as in the United States. His work has been exhibited and sold all over the world from Santa Fe, Arizona to South Africa.

Mel’s work is noted for being unique, functional, and aesthetic art pieces that are decorated primarily with Native American motifs. His signature designs are influenced by the generations of jewelers and weavers in his family. Mel strives to make his stoneware, porcelain and raku clay pieces visually pleasing and functional. It is his desire to create pieces that communicate the Native American spirit both past and present.

Mel, born in Oklahoma but raised in Missouri, comes from an artistic family. His father was a silversmith, his grandfather a rug weaver and his aunts are basket weavers. While attending law school at Southwest Baptist University, he became interested in a ceramics class. After completing the class, he left school to pursue his new passion of pottery making. Within a few years, he became a master potter.Mel owns and operates a studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma where he sells his work and teaches the art of pottery.

This Exhibition is in the “Four Directions” Gift Shop of the Institute for American Indian Studies and runs through March 31, 2014. There is no charge for this exhibition. The museum is open Monday through Saturday 10 am to 5 pm Sunday 12 Noon to 5 pm and the last admission 4:30 pm. For more information http://www.iaismuseum.org. For area information www.litchfieldhills.com

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Kent Shop Hop

Ready to chase away the winter doldrums? The town of Kent in the unspoiled Litchfield Hills of Northwest Connecticut has the answer! The Kent merchants have gotten together to organize a family fun event on March 7, 8 and 9 with something for everyone and they are calling it the Kent Shop Hop.

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Visitors to Kent are invited to stop in at any of the participating shops to pick up a map of shops that offer a treasure trove of bargains, special sales, exciting promotions and special events. As you go from shop to shop be sure to enter the drawing for a fabulous gift basket worth hundreds of dollars.

For more information visit www.kentct.com. For information on Litchfield Hills www.visitlitchfieldhills.com

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Technology-Themed Exhibit At Maritime Garage

Free and open to the public, machines, gadgets, all things technology inspires the artwork at the exhibit at the Maritime Garage Gallery. The exhibit, entitled “Thingamabob”, will run through April 25.

Lewis Cohen, "Play the Dot Game"
Lewis Cohen, “Play the Dot Game”

The concept of the exhibit’s theme is loosely based on the concepts of Rube Goldberg; the Thingamabob is a metaphor for the creative process and how artists feed one method into another when creating works of art. Some of the featured works in the exhibit highlight individual elements while others feature multiple systems.

“Thingamabob” features art that is in the eye of the mechanically inclined and in a group show of artists, including John Jackson of Jefferson, New York, Tom Hlas of Norfolk, CT, Lewis Schaffer from Ridgefield, Deborah Rauh from Westport, Sara Roche from Weston, and others.

John Jackson, "Up the Creek"
John Jackson, “Up the Creek”

The Maritime Garage Gallery, located at 11 North Water Street, is part of the Parking Authority’s “Art in Parking Places” initiative, an effort to support art in public spaces making Norwalk a more vibrant destination. The gallery is free and open to the public from 9:00am -5:00pm Monday through Friday. For more information, call 203- 831-9063, or visit www.norwalkpark.org/public-art

For area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

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TheatreWorks New Milford -Celebrating 50 Years of Neil Simon

On Friday, February 28, TheatreWorks New Milford will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Neil Simon’s first and longest-running theatrical hit, BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, by kicking off its 2014 season with that very show. The curtain goes up at 8:00 p.m. on a three-week run.

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In this classic, comedic romp, newlyweds Paul and Corie Bratter are proof positive that opposites attract. He’s a straight-as-an-arrow lawyer; she’s a free spirit. But they quickly discover married life is no paradise, having to endure a new apartment that’s falling to pieces, surprise visits from Corie’s overly protective mother, and the antics of their eccentric neighbor-in-the-attic, Velasco. Paul doesn’t understand Corie’s impulsiveness, while she wants him to be more spontaneous. Maybe running “barefoot in the park” would be a start?

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Neil Simon is arguably the greatest living comedic American playwright, and this is his first ‘hit’ production, that kept audiences laughing on Broadway for nearly four years straight in the 1960s. There are references to things from the past, and it is set it in 1963 to reflect that, but the comedy never gets old.

The production features six of the finest actors from across the region: Daniel Willey (Harwinton), Jessica Alex (New York, NY), Jeff Savage (Northfield), M.J. Hartell (Brookfield), Jonathan Ross (Thomaston), and Kevin Sosbe (New Milford). Besides Director and Co-Producer, Tom Libonate and Co-Producer, Glenn R. Couture, the show’s crew consists of Co-Producer and Co-Set Designer Richard Pettibone, Costume Designer Susan Pettibone, Technical Director Scott Wyshynski, Stage Manager Kathy Bolster and Assistant Stage Manager Abby Hambidge.

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BAREFOOT IN THE PARK runs March 1, 7,8,9 14,15,16. Curtain time is 8:00 p.m. Fridays & Saturdays, with two 2:00 p.m. Sunday matinees on March 9 and March 16. Tickets for all shows are $23 for reserved seating.

Students and Military personnel with ID will be admitted for just $18.

On Thursday, February 27, senior citizens are invited to a FREE dress rehearsal at 8:00 p.m. Thursday, March 6 at 8:00 p.m. is TheatreWorks’ Pay-What-You-Want night. At this performance, you name the price for your ticket.

Reservations can be made online at WWW.THEATREWORKS.US or by calling the box office at (860) 350-6863.

TheatreWorks is an award-winning, regional theatre company located in the Litchfield Hills on 5 Brookside Avenue, just off Route 202 (next to the CVS), in New Milford, Conn.

For information about the Litchfield Hills, where to stay, dine and what to see visit www.litchfieldhills.com

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Cover Story: The New Yorker in Westport at the Westport Historical Society

The Westport Historical Society located on 25 Avery Place in Westport is hosting an exhibit, Cover Story: The New Yorker in Westport and “Can’t Tell a Book by its Cover…” through April 26.

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This exhibition focus’s on the fact that between 1925 and 1989, 13 New Yorker artists living in and around Westport-Weston produced a remarkable 695 covers for The New Yorker Magazine. Some 44 of the covers actually depict Westport scenes.

These two exhibits share the covers and the story-behind-the-story, focusing on the influence of The New Yorker’s “idea man” turned Art Editor , James Geraghty, who–with wife Eva–first lived on Rayfield Rd, Westport before moving to Old Redding Rd. in Weston. Throughout the Geraghty era (1939 to 1973), often with an element of wit, The New Yorker’s cover images mirrored the commuter lifestyle of his Connecticut-based artists, including Garrett Price, James Daugherty, Perry Barlow, Alice Harvey, Helen Hokinson, Edna Eicke, Arthur Getz, Reginald Massie, Whitney Darrow, Jr., Charles Saxon, Albert Hubbell, Donald Reilly and John Norment. Curator Eve Potts draws from artifacts, anecdotes and correspondence provided by the families of Geraghty and these artists, who also did innumerable drawings for the magazine.

Never, as visitors will see in “Can’t Tell a Book by its Cover…” in the Mollie Donovan Gallery, was that more true than the Aug. 31, 1946 New Yorker, a single-story issue. The story? Hiroshima, by writer John Hersey, who shortly thereafter moved to Turkey Hill South (the home later sold to Andy & Martha Stewart) in Westport.

Hersey , considered the “Father of the New Journalism,” not only was a member of Geraghty’s local New Yorker Friday afternoon bowling team (Westport Bowling Lanes, in winter) and golf team (Longshore, in summer), he served for a period of time on the Town of Westport Board of Education.

The Westport Historical Society is open Monday – Friday 10 – 4 p.m.and Saturday 12 – 4 p.m. For more information http://westporthistory.org. For information on Fairfield County www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

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