Stranger Than Fiction
Friday 1 & Saturday 2
Stowe Theatre Guild presents Tru, Jay Presson Allen’s witty and tragic one-man play about the last, lonely years of Truman Capote’s life, at the Stowe Town Hall Theatre. John Weltman plays the title character, who ruminates on the loss of most of his friendships after the publication of chapters from a novel that failed to effectively disguise the author’s real-life inspiration.
Head Overture Heels
Friday 1-Monday 4
Perfect for Fourth of July season — or just early summer exuberance — the Vermont Symphony Orchestra presents its TD Bank 2022 Summer Festival Tour, a slate of outdoor concerts featuring bombastic tunes by the likes of John Williams, John Philip Sousa and Aaron Copland. This week, picnickers at South Pomfret’s Suicide Six Ski Area, Manchester Center’s Hunter Park, Grafton Trails & Outdoor Center, and Shelburne Museum enjoy the show.
With Bells On
Friday 1
Middlebury College’s carillon — an instrument best described as an organ with bells instead of pipes — fills the air with joyful ringing once again. The summerlong Carillon Series kicks off with a performance by Middlebury’s resident carillonneur, George Matthew Jr., who sets the instrument’s 48 bells a-tolling with works by Claude Debussy, Georges Bizet and more.
Face the Music
Saturday 2
At Dartmouth College’s Spaulding Auditorium in Hanover, N.H., Coast Jazz Orchestra opens for a screening of Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story, a 2021 documentary about the joyful, colorful, fanciful 50-year history of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Al Green; Earth, Wind & Fire; and many other greats make appearances in this filmic celebration of the Big Easy’s rich cultural history. A Q&A with codirector Ryan Suffern follows.
Words of a Feather
Sunday 3
Sundog Poetry Center hosts Sundog AMP Afternoon: Art, Music, Poetry, an arts-travaganza at Next Stage Arts in Putney. Picnickers enjoy readings and performances from poets Rage Hezekiah, Kerrin McCadden and Partridge Boswell; music and spoken-word Andalusian band Los Lorcas; and visual artist Liz Hawkes deNiord.
Fellow Citizens
Tuesday 5
The Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh interrogates Independence Day with Reading Frederick Douglass, a public, communal reading of the abolitionist’s famous July 5th speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Attendees are invited to join in, each reading a section of the address in which Douglass called for an end to slavery and true freedom for all Americans.
Innocent Men
Ongoing
“Art From Guantánamo Bay,” a collection of pieces by artists detained at the U.S. prison camp, shows at Catamount Arts Center in St. Johnsbury. The powerful exhibit is composed of nearly 100 works by six men — all of whom were imprisoned without ever having been charged or convicted of a crime. Two are still detained to this day.
This article appears in The Cartoon Issue 2022.









