SIX the Musical—“Divorced, Beheaded . . .”

Six: The Musical, Teen Edition, rehearsal. Photo credit: Susan B. Apel

. . . died, divorced, beheaded, survived.” It’s the refrain that schoolchildren learn to describe the fates of the six wives of Henry VIII. SIX the Musical is the award-winning stage production that tells the tale of the queens’ lives, reimagined as a sort of goth-glam competition that compares the relative ups and downs of each queen’s time with husband Henry.

SIX the Musical (Teen Edition) is the latest production of the Trumbull Hall Troupe, a theatre group for young people founded twenty-one years ago by author Jodi Picoult, Marjorie Rose, and Ellen Wilber. Set to open for a three night run at Briggs Opera House in White River Junction, Vermont (August 15, 16, 17), the musical, with six actors/singers, is currently in rehearsal. I was invited to take a peek.

The actors are members of the Trumbull Hall Troupe, high school students or recent graduates now in college or college-bound in the fall. They come from all over the Upper Valley, including Hanover, Wilder, Norwich, White River Junction, Cornish, and Quechee. When asked to fill me in on each of their characters, they were sharp on their history, providing thumbnail sketches of each of the wives. All of them love the community fostered by the experience of being in the theater and are stage veterans, having appeared in previous productions at Trumbull Hall, North Country Community Theater, high school plays, and Northern Stage.

Queens, left to right: Lia Hammond, Ava Bucci, Amelia Whipple, Cora Winslow, Maddie Garrow, Macy Bettwieser. On the left, Music Director Alicia Stein. Photo credit: Fabi Hammond

Lia Hammond is Anne Boleyn, an historical figure with whom Lia has been fascinated for some time. Ava Bucci portrays Anne of Cleves, who may have gotten the best deal of all after being spurned by the king. She sings of the wealth bestowed upon her by Henry and her relative freedom to do as she pleases. Amelia Whipple is in the role of Jane Seymour, who died in childbirth after giving Henry his only male heir. She may have been the only wife whom Henry mourned.

Maddie Garrow, whose love of the stage began at age 4, is wife #1, Catherine of Aragon. Catherine Parr is portrayed by Cora Winslow; Cora is headed to college to study music education and vocal performing. Macy Bettwieser takes the role of Katherine Howard; historians are divided on whether her first name begins with a K or a C. Spelling was not uniform in Henry’s time.

As talented as the actors are, there is also a team of adult volunteers to shepherd the project to completion, including Director Lanni Luce West. During the rehearsal, Alejandro Figueroa claimed a corner of the room to map out some choreography. Fabi Hammond snapped photos and is handling social media. The costumer Theresa Westage was quietly unpacking and arranging pairs of flashy studded boots behind each actor. And Alicia Stein, music director, was in front, putting the singers through warmup exercises and musical numbers. She’s encouraging, cajoling, correcting, hands in constant motion on the keyboard or in the air, following up each segment with a determined “Moving on!” Rehearsal time is a precious commodity.

The reason for founding Trumbull Hall Troupe was not only a desire to provide a quality theater experience for young actors, but to give young people a sense of empowerment by providing them with a means to help others. Proceeds raised through ticket sales are funneled to three different local charities, described here.

More information, including how to purchase tickets now on sale, is available on the THT website.

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Amélie. Did you love the movie? See it on stage. Northern Stage’s Summer Musical Theater Intensive “is bringing the magic of Amélie to life with a vibrant cast of young artists who will transport you straight to the whimsical streets of Paris.” Performances begin July 29, tickets are on sale now.

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We are closing in on a total of 3200 subscribers.

The Hopkins Center for the Arts helps support Artful and joins Artful in celebrating those who love, make and share the art in our community. View the Hop’s 25/26 season.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.

The Junction Dance Festival To Open: 19 Workshops, 21 Choreographers, 5 Performances

Subtle Rage, TJDF 2024. Photo credit: Kay McCabe

It’s not just that the Upper Valley is home to such vibrant arts, it’s that the arts here continue to grow, change, multiply, succeed and then succeed again. A prime example? The Junction Dance Festival, about to commence its 2025 season. (July 12 to 20). President and Director Elizabeth Kurylo has been shepherding the festival from the beginning, and recently commented on its rapid evolution into a series of events that will span both states:

“This is our 4^th annual Junction Dance Festival. What began as a modest three-day event has grown into a six-day celebration, featuring 19 free workshops across Lebanon, WRJ, and Barre, [Lebanon Ballet School, AVA Gallery, Dartmouth Health's Aging Resource Center in NH, and DANCE AND Movement Center, and Briggs Opera House], and showcasing the work of 21 choreographers in 5 distinctive performances. We are extremely grateful of the generosity of donors who made this journey possible.”

Moms and Babies Dance, TJDF 2023. Photo credit: Kay McCabe

You are invited to “Unleash Your Inner Dancer,” or alternatively, to spectate. The possibilities are too many to list. You may want to take a moment to review the entire program here for listings, dates, and times.

Of special interest is the performance of "Thumbelina" by Avant Vermont Dance on the Green in Norwich VT on July 12th;

Guest artist: Meshi Chavez, Butoh artist. Butoh is a Japanese dance form that emerged in response to the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He will teach a Butoh workshop and perform on July 19^th at Briggs Opera House, along with 8 other artists. https://www.middlebury.edu/college/people/meshi-chavez

Guest artist: Rachel Bernsen. Rachel will be performing July 14^th along with the group "soft rocks", and teaching a Contemplative Dance Practice on July 15th at Briggs Opera House. https://www.rachelbernsen.com/home.html

And Guest Artist Michael Bodel will teach a workshop and perform on July 20th at Briggs Opera House along with ChoreoLab residents Sonia Plumb, Elias Francis, Chloe Shafer and Angelina Labate. Michael is this year’s Vermont Dance Alliance artist in residence. When Michael last appeared in Artful, it was in a story about his performance and choreography of “Forecasts and Findings,” a piece where he danced with, among other things, one hundred pounds of grain. This performance for TJDF involves something lighter—cardboard. https://www.vermontdance.org/institute-for-folding.

“If in life you stumble, make it part of the dance.” —River Maria Urke

TJDF is in part supported by the Vermont Arts Council, Vermont Community Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Photo just above, “the institute for folding” by Michael Bodel with Hanna Satterlee and Caitlin Morgan. Vermont Dance Alliance resident artist project in development.

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We are closing in on a total of 3200 subscribers.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.

And the 2025 Vermont Prize Goes To . . .

And a call to Upper Valley Vermont artists!

Jonathan Gitelson, “Mascoutin Indian (Muscatine, IA)” (2024). Inkjet print 24-18 inches

. . . Jonathan Gitelson, of Brattleboro, Vermont.

What is the Vermont Prize? It is a collaboration among representatives from four Vermont arts institutions: The Current in Stowe, the Hall Art Foundation in Reading, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, and Burlington City Arts, along with one special guest curator, who review submissions from visual artists working and living in Vermont and award recognition and a $5000 prize to one artist each year.

Relatively new, its first award was given in 2022. Gitelson joins previous winners Will Kasso Condry (2022) of Brandon, Terry Ekasala (2023) of East Burke, and Sarah Amos (2024) of Enosburg Falls.

Gitelson’s latest photography project had an unsettling beginning:

“A primary landmark in my hometown of Mount Kisco, NY, is a statue featuring our namesake, “Chief Kisco.” The statue was erected in 1907 and soon became a central part of the town’s identity. The Chief’s image has appeared on municipal vehicles and uniforms and has been a source of regional folklore for generations.

​It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned that “Chief Kisco” was actually a fictional character and that the statue was one of an estimated 25 replicas that were created as civic statues and distributed throughout the United States. The statue that we called “Chief Kisco” was originally sold by the title, “Indian Chief No. 53.””

Denise Markonish, this years’s special guest curator, Martin Friedman Chief Curator at New York’s Madison Square Park and former Chief Curator at MASS MoCA, says of Gitelson’s work:

“ . . . Gitelson asks us to reconsider how local stories spread and, regardless of truth, become attached to monuments. He also points to the clumsy colonialist attempts at attribution in the United States, where one tribal leader can stand in for all. In the last few years, the reckoning with monuments across the country and the increasing complexity of democracy provide a platform for Gitelson’s work to remind us to always interrogate the world.”

Gitelson has worked in a variety of artistic mediums for over 20 years, including photography, artist books, video, installation, public art, works on paper, and web-based projects. In a written statement accompanying his Vermont Prize application, he said, “I create work that explores the wonder and the strangeness found in the seeming ordinariness of everyday life… In this political moment ripe with a nostalgic longing for a past that oftentimes never actually existed, I’m interested in how cultural mythologies persist and continue to impact our understanding of our national and regional identity and history.”

Upper Valley artists (who live and work in Vermont) may want to consider applying for next’s year’s prize. More information is available here. No submission fee required.

(Photo with permission of The Vermont Prize)

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We are closing in on a total of 3200 subscribers.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.

SALVAGE Kicks Off the Season at Dorset Theatre Festival

Marcia DeBonis and Eva Kaminsky in Salvage by Lena Kaminsky, directed by M. Bevin O’Gara, Dorset Theatre Festival. Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson (2025)

It’s not necessarily about Vermont or the larger Upper Valley, but it could be.

Lena Kaminsky’s play Salvage, recently opened at the Dorset Theatre Festival, is set in a small town dump, where castoffs, both material and human, are discarded and just possibly redeemed.

Carla (Eva Kaminsky, the playwright’s sister in real life) arrives back in the small town where her mother still owns the family home. It’s a desultory return for middle-aged Carla after having lost her job. She appears, guarded, at the local transfer station with a carload of mirrors and meets Kenny (Robbie Sublett) who gives her the grand tour and peppers her with questions that are mostly unwelcome.

Nonetheless, in true small town fashion, Carla and Kenny begin to find connections between them, because the personal history of small towns is always revealed in a game of who knows whom. When a second dump employee, Elaine (Marcia DeBonis) appears, the web expands even further when the two women discover that Carla’s former high-school teacher played a significant role in both of their lives.

Eva Kaminsky in Salvage by Lena Kaminsky, directed by M. Bevin O’Gara, Dorset Theatre Festival. Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson (2025)

One standout of this production is the writing. The dialogue is true, not stylized. It reads like any ordinary conversation. The same is true of the acting. All of the characters seem to be people you have known, or know, behaving in ways that are familiar: the intonation in their voices, the gestures, the back-and-forth of misunderstandings.

The set by Christopher and Justin Swader is just about perfect. Plastics, paper, aluminum cans, each segregated into its own respective niche. And then there is the “treasures” area, where certain discarded items of possible value are free for the taking. A globe remains an unadopted treasure throughout the production, most assuredly geographically out of date. No dump is silent; the noise of cans and bottles being tossed is authentic, though from time to time the clatter managed to step on the dialogue.

Do not expect overly dramatic scenes in which the actors get to chew the scenery. The playwright is skilled at keeping a steady pace, an unrolling of the action and character development that, like the dialogue, feels natural. The characters’ lives are moving, changing, as their relationships with one another deepen. They search for and appear to find their footing, and in the end, to hold some small hope.

Because the characters, the set, and the dialog are so relatable, the play is a comedy, rooted in recognition that invites the audience to sympathize and laugh at the vicissitudes of coping with modern life. Scenes between Carla and her computer as she is trying to build a career as a specialist in essential oils are particularly funny. Lena Kaminsky states: “Much like the rural town that inspired this play, I think the themes of community and connection will resonate with the audience here, and folks will leave feeling hopeful.“

Salvage runs through July 5 at the Dorset Playhouse in Dorset, Vermont. Tickets and more information are available here.

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Part of the Marble House Project. Photo credit: Keith C. Irwin

If you go, here are some other Dorset/Manchester area attractions: The Marble House Project, (pictured above), an artists’ retreat (so picturesque) that is currently accepting applications from artists of all kinds, and, like this blog, is unique in including culinary arts as one of the categories in its residencies; an in-town quarry swimming hole; Southern Vermont Arts Center, where you can dine, as we did, at its in-house restaurant, curATE café, while taking a gander at the construction of a new building that will house the Lyman Orton (he of Vermont Country Store fame) collection of Vermont art, previously reviewed here; Hildene, former summer home and gardens of Robert Todd Lincoln and his wife Mary Harlan Lincoln; and lastly, numerous outlet stores including Orvis, Eddie Bauer, and Eileen Fisher.

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We are closing in on a total of 3200 subscribers.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.

A World-Class Homecoming: Oak Hill Music Festival Returns to the Upper Valley

Beginning on Monday, June 23

When I am not writing here, I am often writing elsewhere. Today, this includes a delightful (if I may say so) article I authored for Image Magazine, just published.

Oak Hill Music Festival is a group of young, world-class musicians who are returning to the UV for their fourth summer festival next week. They perform together, cook together, and luxuriate in just being in the Upper Valley even if for too brief a time.

“ . . . the Oak Hill performances ‘are thrilling, live-wire, and joyful. The group of musicians that Leah and Niv have assembled brings a combination of artistry, technical brilliance, and verve that is hard to beat.’” —Zach Sheets, flutist

Take a look at the article (click here) for more information, ticketing, and concert dates and times, including two open rehearsals (June 23, 2:00 pm, Roth Center; June 27, 3:00 pm, Howe Library). Concerts require tickets, open rehearsals are free. (For easier reading, use the bar below the page of the online magazine to move quickly to page 74. Then enlarge to full screen.)

And learn how founder and Hanover High grad Leah Kohn learned to love the bassoon as a child, almost by happenstance.

Photos by Kata Sasvari Photography

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We are closing in on a total of 3200 subscribers.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.