Connecticut Travel

WOTOWN THE MUSICAL presented by Worklight Productions is coming to the Palace Theater May 11 – 13 for four performances. Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.palacetheaterct.org, by phone at 203-346-2000, or in person at the Box Office, 100 East Main St. Group orders of 10 or more may be placed by calling 203.346.3011

Featuring more than 40 classic hits such as “My Girl” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” MOTOWN THE MUSICAL tells the story behind the hits as Diana, Smokey, Berry and the whole Motown family fight against the odds to create the soundtrack of change in America.

Directed by Charles Randolph-Wright, MOTOWN THE MUSICAL is the true American dream story of Motown founder Berry Gordy’s journey from featherweight boxer to the heavyweight music mogul who launched the careers of Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and so many more. MOTOWN THE MUSICAL’s arrangements and orchestrations are by Grammy and Tony Award® nominee Ethan Popp (Rock of Ages), who also serves as music supervisor in reproducing the classic “Sound of Young America,” with co-orchestrations and additional arrangements by Tony Award® nominee Bryan Crook (“Smash”) and dance arrangements by Zane Mark (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels).

MOTOWN THE MUSICAL was originally produced by Tony Award® winning producer Kevin McCollum (Rent, In the Heights, Avenue Q), Chairman and CEO of SONY Music Entertainment Doug Morris and Motown Founder Berry Gordy, in association with Work Light Productions. For more information, visit www.MotownTheMusical.com.

About the Palace Theater

The Palace’s primary purpose is to revitalize the Greater Waterbury community through the presentation of the performing arts and educational initiatives in collaboration with area cultural and educational institutions. Its mission is to preserve and operate the historic Palace Theater as a performing arts center and community gathering place that provides a focal point of cultural activity and educational outreach for diverse audiences. For more information, visit: www.palacetheaterct.org.

Did you know that Saturday, April 28 is Independent Bookshop Day? Independent Bookstore Day marks its fourth year of celebrating independent bookstores
nationwide on Saturday, April 28th, with literary parties around the country. The Hickory Stick Bookshop will be celebrating with refreshments, giveaways, and activities throughout the day, as well as two book signings: Deborah Dayal and Rose Petruzzi will sign Dancing Inside, a book of poetry with watercolor illustrations, at 1pm; Bibi Gaston will sign Gifford Pinchot and the First Foresters at 2:30pm, coinciding with
The Steep Rock Association’s Family Workshop Weekend.

The Hickory Stick Bookshop will also offer exclusive day-of merchandise created especially for Independent Bookstore Day by major publishers and authors. Since its inception in 2014, more than 200 authors have demonstrated their support for independent bookstores by donating work for Bookstore Day.

The 2018 IBD author ambassador Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You) says, “My favorite thing about independent bookstores is that they all have their own distinct personalities: each reflects not just the tastes but also the ideals of its community. From the second you walk in, you get a sense of what the people who shop there know and enjoy—as well as what’s currently on their minds, what they want to learn, and what they value: in short, what kinds of people they want to be. Bookstores are more than just repositories of knowledge, they’re living, breathing, evolving representations of our best selves. I love Independent Bookstore Day because it asks readers, writers, and booksellers to join in celebrating all that bookstores represent. It’s a gathering to remind ourselves that the written word can change both us and the world, and of what’s possible when we all come together.”

This event is free and open to the public. For more information please call The Hickory Stick Bookshop at 860-868-0525, email books@hickorystickbookshop.com, or visit www.hickorystickbookshop.com.

Have you ever wondered how Native Americans survived in the wilderness without any modern tools? If you have, then make sure to attend the flintknapping workshop at the Institute for American Indian Studies on 38 Curtis Road in Washington with Jeff Kalin, a primitive technologist on Saturday, April 28 and Sunday, April 29 from 12 noon to 3 p.m.

About Flintknapping
Flintknapping is the age-old traditional way that Native Americans created sharp-edged tools and weapons from stone. The use of implements made from flint was widely practiced in New England because their survival depended on a material, like flint that could be used to produce sharp tools.

The first step in the flint knapping process is to quarry large pieces of chert or flint. The use of flint to make weapons and tools has been used by humans for at least two million years. The composition of flint when fractured causes it to break into sharp-edged pieces. Native Americans recognized this property of flint and learned how to fashion it into knife blades, spear points, arrowheads, scrapers, axes, drills and other sharp implements using a method known as flintknapping. If these tools were broken or damaged while being used they were sometimes reshaped into smaller tools that could be used in a similar way.

After finding a piece of flint it is hit with a hammerstone to break off a flake to make a tool or weapon. This tool is then roughed out and the general shape is made, this shape is referred to as a preform. The next step entails a striking tool made of an antler, bone or stone that is used to shape the stone into a weapon or tool. This is followed by pressure flaking by pressing an antler or stone end to the edges to sharpen the piece. The implement can be sharpened even more by striking the edge in a downward motion, the thinner the flint, the sharper the tool or weapon.

Flintknapping Workshop with Jeff Kalin, Cherokee

At this workshop, on April 28 and April 29 participants will discover the fascinating history of Native American flintknapping from primitive technologist expert, Jeff Kalin, of Cherokee ancestry. During the workshop, Kalin will explain the historic importance of flintknapping and how it was critical to the well being of the tribe as the implements produced touched every aspect of daily life by providing implements to use in hunting, fishing, making clothes, canoes, and structures.

Participants will learn percussion and flaking techniques from Kalin that will turn an ordinary piece of flint into a useful tool. This workshop is best for adults and children 15 and older. Call the Institute at 860-868-0518 or email media@iaismuseum.org to reserve your spot because this popular workshop is expected to sell out.

About Jeff Kalin

Jeff Kalin has more than 25 years of experience in the field of primitive technologies and is a consultant to museum curators and archaeologists in the analysis of artifacts. He is a recognized expert in Clovis point replication and other types of stone tools.

He has constructed prehistoric sets and props for filmmakers and his pottery, handcrafted from river clay is in many public and private collections. Kalin has built nearly 200 aboriginal structures, either free-standing or congregated in villages.

The Institute for American Indian Studies

Located on 15 woodland acres the IAIS has an outdoor Three Sisters and Healing Plants Gardens as well as a replicated 16th c. Algonkian Village. Inside the museum, authentic artifacts are displayed in permanent, semi-permanent and temporary exhibits from prehistory to the present that allows visitors a walk through time. The Institute for American Indian Studies is located on 38 Curtis Road in Washington Connecticut and can be reached online or by calling 860-868-0518.

The Institute for American Indian Studies preserves and educates through discovery and creativity the diverse traditions, vitality, and knowledge of Native American cultures. Through archaeology, the IAIS is able to build new understandings of the world and history of Native Americans, the focus is on stewardship and preservation. This is achieved through workshops, special events, and education for students of all ages.

Celebrate the wonders of nature that we can find right outside our own homes – if we would just put down our devices – in “Backyard Wilderness,” a gorgeous new IMAX®  at The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk.

In The Maritime Aquarium’s 30-year history, “Backyard Wilderness” may be the IMAX movie that is most relevant to Aquarium audiences – and not only because the movie was filmed just over the state line in Westchester County, N.Y. The movie shows how we are so absorbed in the digital realm that we overlook a menagerie of real wildlife right outside our back door, including deer, coyotes, wood ducks, frogs, salamanders, raccoons, hummingbirds and more.

From March 25 to June 29, show times are 11 a.m. and 1 & 3 p.m. Times will change June 30.

It will play in the largest IMAX Theater in Connecticut, with a screen that’s six stories high and eight stories wide. But there’s more to the movie than just the IMAX format’s enormous scale, image clarity and surround sound. “Backyard Wilderness” captures the beauty of a suburban wilderness in rare intimacy – with IMAX cameras mounted inside dens and nests, moving along forest floor and pond bottom, and (through time-lapse and slow-motion) revealing marvels of nature unavailable to the human eye.

The story of “Backyard Wilderness” follows a young girl and her modern family, who are blind to the real-life spectacle around them; who instead are absorbed by an array of electronic devices in their busy lives. When the girl gradually discovers the intricate secrets that nature has hidden so close to her front door, audiences experience the joy she finds in her interactions with this new world.

The film reminds us that Wi-Fi is not the only connection that matters and that, sometimes, in ordinary places, you can uncover extraordinary things that can transform you forever – you just need to step outside.

Educators can find classroom resources and learn how the movie can help to fulfill U.S. Next Generation Science Standards at http://www.backyardwildernessfilm.com.

“Backyard Wilderness” is an SK Films release of an Arise Media/Archipelago Films production. Based in Ossining, N.Y., Archipelago Films was created by Academy Award-nominated, Emmy-Award-winning filmmakers Susan Todd and Andrew Young. Their non-profit company, Arise Media, was formed to make innovative media about the most urgent social and environmental challenges facing the planet, and to inspire a new appreciation for our own interconnected role in nature.

Get more information about “Backyard Wilderness,” watch the trailer, buy tickets and more at www.maritimeaquarium.org.

“Because the movie was filmed in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., its geography and animal life will be familiar to anyone in Connecticut and eastern New York who has ever walked in a forest park – or their own wooded back yard,” said Aquarium spokesman Dave Sigworth. “But the movie lets us see into these animals’ lives in intimate ways – which is a neat trick: creating an intimate feeling on a six-story screen.”

We are looking for the first signs of Spring in Litchfield Hills and Fairfield County so we decided to watch for daffodils that herald spring with their bright yellow blooms. We expect spring’s blooming bonanza to erupt in color over the next three or four weeks.

In the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut, thousands of daffodils will bloom in the next three to four weeks over ten acres of woodlands and fields at Laurel Ridge Foundation in Northfield and we will be there to check their progress.

A walk among the daffodils at Laurel Ridge Foundation is a rare early spring outing in an unspoiled oasis. The wild natural landscape of gently sloping woodland, fields, and aged stonewalls overlooks a small lake dotted with two tiny islands. The parkland and one of the islands is completely carpeted with gold and white blossoms, a glorious sight that is nirvana for photographers.

In Fairfield County, we are keeping tabs on Weir Farm National Historic Site in Wilton CT. Most daffodils here are found on the historic property surrounding the Visitor Center. You will also find them in open fields and growing alongside the site’s many stone walls.

Once the home and workplace of J. Alden Weir (1852-1919), Weir Farm is now considered to be the best-preserved landscape associated with American Impressionism.

The 31st Bruce Museum Gala will be “Jewels of the Jungle” on May 12 at Greenwich Country Club. Formerly known as the Renaissance Ball, this annual benefit raises critical funds that not only support the Bruce’s ongoing art and science exhibitions and educational programs, but also will refresh its science offerings, strengthen its potential in the arts, and expand its educational reach.

Organized by a team of committee members and museum staff, the event is led by Gala Co-Chairs Katie Fong Biglin, Kim Kassin, and Shelly Tretter Lynch. The honorary Gala Chair is Avril Graham, Executive Fashion & Beauty Editor at Harper’s Bazaar.

The 31st Bruce Museum Gala is a creative black-tie event that celebrates the contributions made by all the philanthropists, arts leaders, elected officials, and Museum supporters expected to attend. The Gala also provides a time to toast the evening’s honorees, Lucile and Richard J. Glasebrook and Gale and Robert H. Lawrence, Jr., who will be recognized for their longstanding commitment, leadership, and generosity to the Bruce Museum.

The eye-catching décor conceived by Renny & Reed and Sebass Events & Entertainment will pay tribute to the Bruce Museum’s recent exhibition Treasures of the Earth: Mineral Masterpieces from the Robert R. Wiener Collection and the upcoming exhibition National Geographic Photo Ark: Photographs by Joel Sartore, opening on June 2.

The 31st Bruce Museum Gala is open to the public, but reservations are required. To purchase tickets online, visit brucemuseum.org and click “Reservations.” For more information or to receive an invitation to the Gala, contact Brooke Benedetto; bbenedetto@brucemuseum.org or 203-413-6761.