If you didn’t know Bill Blachly was the founder and host of Unadilla Theatre in Marshfield, you might mistake him for a member of the cast. At 99, with a free-range head of white hair and an arresting gaze, he peers out over the theater’s remote hill-farm home like a Shakespearean elder. He could be Prospero from The Tempest, preparing…
Vermonters were reeling after two days of torrential rain brought widespread flooding to rural towns, swamped the Capital City, trapped residents and destroyed livelihoods. The deluge drew comparisons to Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, a $750 million catastrophe whose memory still haunts Vermonters as the worst flood in nearly a century. In some areas, this…
A celebration of Joan’s life will take place at 2 p.m., Saturday, July 22, 2023, at Elley-Long Music Center at Saint Michael’s College. Watch Stuck in Vermont’s tribute to Joan. Related Stories
State officials are closely monitoring the water levels behind the three flood control dams along the Winooski River as a new round of storms reaches Vermont. The Wrightsville Dam north of the Montpelier city line was of particular concern during flooding on Monday and Tuesday, when water rose to within a foot of the dam’s…
Please join us for a celebration of Betsy Preston’s life on Saturday, July 22, 2023, 10 a.m., at the Malletts Bay Congregational Church, 1672 W. Lakeshore Dr., Colchester, VT.
Normally, modern contractors don’t aspire to using medieval techniques and materials. For Will Wallace-Gusakov, doing so was the career opportunity of a lifetime. The 39-year-old carpenter from Lincoln spent the past six months in Normandy, France, swinging a Gothic-style broadax, hand-hewing oak beams and chiseling wood joinery as part of a massive reconstruction effort that’s…
Smoke from Canadian wildfires has created dangerous air quality indexes recently, prompting artists to think about the climate crisis in new ways. Loom Ensemble, an interdisciplinary professional theater company based in Springfield, is one example. Its new work, Tell Me How You Breathe, explores eco-activism, social justice and public health through the topics of breathing…
I’m Not Alone Thanks for the write-up [“Bar None: Qbar Aims to Unite the Upper Valley’s LGBTQ Community, One Guerilla-Style Pop-Up at a Time,” June 28]. I just wanted to clarify that QBar Upper Valley was a joint venture — not just mine. Heath Lisle, Michelle Wang and I gathered this ragtag group of queers!…
In 1980, a small-town Texas homemaker named Candace Lynn Montgomery killed her friend Betty Gore with 41 strokes of an ax. Montgomery claimed she acted in self-defense; after hearing testimony about her vexed relationship with the victim and her childhood trauma, the jury found her not guilty. What does this strange tale have to do…
new in theaters THE BLACKENING: When seven Black friends find themselves trapped in a creepy cabin in the woods, they can’t all die first, can they? That’s the question posed by this genre-savvy horror comedy starring Grace Byers and Jermaine Fowler. Tim Story (Shaft) directed. (97 min, R. Sunset) THE MIRACLE CLUB: Three generations of…
Maybe life should imitate art. When Hanschen leans forward to kiss Ernst in Full Circle Theater Collaborative’s production of teen rock musical Spring Awakening, the anxiety, fumbling and embarrassment that might mar a real-life first kiss don’t exist. Hanschen knows exactly how to proceed. “We seek eye contact,” said Daniel Gibson, the 18-year-old Burlington actor…
With the number of books in print increasing every year, book awards play the vital role of highlighting volumes that otherwise could elude notice in the ongoing avalanche of publications. New releases may get a brief spate of attention, but books stay in print and circulation only because readers keep passing them around, booksellers and…
Vermont’s naturalists are hard to find. They tend to spend a lot of time alone in the woods. Still, University of Vermont field naturalist Alicia Daniel suspected they might be longing to meet and learn from one another. And she thought she knew a way to lure them out. “The bait was ‘We’re going to…
Dear Reverend, I am 20 years old, and my fiancé is 41. I really love him, and the age difference wasn’t an issue. But ever since I agreed to marry him, I started considering the age gap. Do you think it will be an issue? Cree Del Robee (woman, 20) Dear Cree Del Robee, This…
Those keeping a close eye on live concerts in Vermont might have noticed a ton of area dates for the Garifuna Collective. The Belize-based band has recently played shows in Bradford, Waterbury and Manchester, and it’s scheduled to play the Middlebury Festival on the Green on Wednesday, July 12, and the Afro-Caribbean Dance Party presented…
No musician wants to be part of a “Where are they now?” conversation. When artists are fortunate to score a big hit or two but don’t push on and drop a bunch of classic albums and stay in the charts, there’s a rather unfair perception that their careers are less than a success. Just ask…
(Self-released, digital) I wish there were catalogs for senses. That way, you could look up “lavender” and experience its scent, or look up “loons on a lake” and hear their call. If a catalog for sounds existed and you looked up “Vermont bluegrass,” I think you might hear Dave O’s latest record, Schoolhouse Sessions. This…
(Self-released, digital) I have to admit, I was expecting something far stranger when I took this assignment. Maybe it’s just the name: Mushroom Teeth. The heavy-ass metal duo includes John Notaro on guitar and Lucas Hall on drums. Their debut features Bradley Woodward on bass, but the plan is to highlight different bass players on…
CANCER (Jun. 21-Jul. 22): “The Simpsons” animated show has been on TV for 34 seasons. Ten-year-old Bart Simpson is one of the stars. He is a mischievous rascal who’s ingenious in defying authority. Sometimes teachers catch him in his rebellious acts and punish him by making him write apologetic affirmations on the classroom blackboard. For…
You’re reading the third version of my “From the Publisher” column. I wrote the first one on Sunday afternoon, after editing what was supposed to be this week’s cover story about Unadilla Theatre in Marshfield. The piece gave me a chance to recall my first trip down Blachly Road in the mid-1990s, pre-GPS. A few miles in, I was convinced I’d made…
A new exhibition at the Current in Stowe, “A Place of Memory,” has a serious mission. In their works, the five artists “reclaim their own ancestral stories, asking the viewer to rethink how we present history and, therefore, our values,” according to the gallery’s introduction. Needing to “reclaim,” of course, implies that something was taken…
When asked why the characters in his paintings have prominent derrières, dug Nap said he didn’t know. Yet there’s a precedent: “When I was about 8 years old, I liked to draw cowboys with a neighbor and, for some reason, we gave them big butts,” Nap said in a phone call. “It was just, ‘Oh,…
This week and next, people who happen to be shopping for chocolate or dishes on the Church Street Marketplace might find themselves suddenly serenaded by a bit of Ludwig van Beethoven in the next aisle. The Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, a four-week summer music academy for string students at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester,…
In a phone interview on Tuesday morning, Thomas Christopher Greene, owner of Hugo’s Bar & Grill at 118 Main Street in Montpelier, said he had not yet been able to reach his restaurant to evaluate the flood damage, but he had seen photos of “incredibly high” water in front of the building. “I can’t imagine…
Even before the rain relented and flood waters started to recede, Vermonters began organizing to help their neighbors who were hit by the historic deluge. “VT Flooding 2023 Response and Recovery Mutual Aid,” a Facebook group Wendy Rice created on Monday night, had more than 2,500 members by midday on Tuesday. On the Facebook page,…
In 1923, the year that Calvin Coolidge became the second Vermonter to serve as U.S. president, Florence and Richard Jones started selling doughnuts on Terrill Street in Rutland. They distributed puffy circles of fried dough and other sweets on a quiet street in the bustling city then known as the marble capital of the country…
On June 10, the Ramirez family opened Los Jefes in Suite 15 at 133 North Main Street in St. Albans, the former site of Kathmandu Restaurant. Los Jefes celebrates the family’s Mexican roots and aims to share what Yahir Ramirez, 19, described as “good Mexican … something people have been longing for for a long…
Three years after the original Hen of the Wood opened at Waterbury’s 92 Stowe Street in 2005, Mark Bittman of the New York Times penned an effusive love letter to what he declared “among the most beautiful little restaurants I know.” Bittman detailed the setting “in a former mill next to a rushing stream” where…
Updated on July 11, 2023. Volunteers put on overalls and boots Monday morning and headed over to Intervale Community Farm for an emergency harvest as the Winooski River surged toward flood stage. By early afternoon, muddy adults and children alike had filled crates upon crates of beets and carrots. Andy Jones, the farm manager, said…
Rising Star Wednesday 19 The beloved summer concert series at Middlesex’s Martha Pellerin & Andy Shapiro Memorial Bandstand continues with an appearance by renowned South American pop star Nomfusi. The singer-songwriter lends her powerful vocals and infectious energy to music that blends the Xhosa traditions of her childhood with Afro-soul and danceable beats. World Music…
