SO MUCH GOOD STUFF, UPPER VALLEY!
Friday
A little lunch music with Jennifer Turbes, viola and Rose Hegele, soprano. Upper Valley Music Center’s regular noontime feature: “This concert highlights the rich repertoire written for these two musical voices, including classical and contemporary compositions,” they write. At UVMC.
At River Roost Brewery in WRJ, Dead Men Strumming (Corey Unger and Dan Weintraub) will celebrate the Spring Equinox with your favorite Grateful Dead music. 5-8 pm.
KIS Thrift in Wilder celebrates its grand opening with music. True, it’s been open a year, but they’ve gotta christen the stage sometime, right? The Caring Babies (Matt Mazur) starts things off at 6 pm, then makes way for Sir Babygirl, who “elevates your consciousness at a reasonable hour. Maybe swag. Maybe deals. Rumors of hot dogs abound.” Everything wraps by 8.
Cindy Pierce and “Glitchy Business” at Artistree. A chronicle of the humorist and storyteller’s life, tracing the events—”both the ordinary and the extraordinary—that shaped her path, including stories about growing up as the youngest of seven in an inn, navigating relationships, parenting mishaps, and the ongoing adventure of being human.” 7 pm both Friday and Saturday in the Grange Theater, adults only.
The Mascoma Players open The Wizard of Oz. Yep, that one: young Dorothy Gale and her companions, off to see the Wizard in the Emerald City. Oh, also, there’s a witch. And magical silver shoes (don’t be taken aback). With music, singing, and dancing. In the Community Auditorium at Mascoma Valley HS, Friday and Saturday at 7 pm, Sunday at 2 pm.
Into the Woods opens at White River Valley HS. The musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine may follow the fairy tale adventures of a childless baker and his wife trying to reverse a witch’s curse, a lonely maiden named Cinderella, a boy out to sell his cow, and a little girl in a red cape, but gosh, things get complicated. 7:30 pm Friday, 12:30 and 7:30 pm Saturday at the high school in S. Royalton.
BarnArts opens The Art of Dining. Tina Howe’s play, first produced in the 1970s, is set in a home-converted restaurant on the Jersey shore, traversing a single evening at The Golden Carousel as the couple who own it and their guests eat, talk, bicker, and put their anxieties on full display. Directed by Linda Treash, with BarnArts regulars and newcomers and a lot of food. Barnard Town Hall, 7:30 pm Friday and Saturday both this week and next, Sundays at 2 pm, and next Thursday at 7:30 pm.
Huey at Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover. As they write, “Born and raised in Atlanta, GA, Huey’s songwriting is deeply in southern folk music. Heart-clenching and poignant lyrics, married with folk, sometimes even jazz, melodies.” 8 pm.
Saturday
123 Andrés at the Hop. The Grammy and Latin Grammy-winning duo of PBS Kids fame—Colombians Andrés and Christina—brings songs in Spanish and English, with a mix of sounds from all over Latin America. 2 pm in Spaulding with a post-show meet and greet in the Courtyard Cafe.
Reception for "Meandering Mold: Messages from a Garden Library" at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock. Lyn Swett Miller’s new exhibition of photographs traces up close the decomposition of books in “a forgotten corner” of her garden. 2 pm.
At Hanover High School, the Navy Band Northeast Pops Ensemble honors Vietnam veterans. 30 top-flight wind and percussion musicians showcase “a vibrant blend of American spirit and musical artistry, with programs spanning patriotic favorites, beloved Broadway hits, and timeless wind band classics.” With photos of local Vietnam vets on display in the atrium. 2 pm.
Billings Farm’s Woodstock Film Series screens Natchez. The final film in this season’s series, the documentary captures dueling visions of the antebellum South, “an unsettling clash between history and memory in a small Mississippi town. This film is a layered mosaic of people contending with the weight of the past in a place where the past is always present.” 3 pm both Saturday and Sunday.
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein at the Chandler. For her return to the Chandler’s Steinway, the classical pianist brings a program featuring J.S. Bach’s Inventions, which she recorded in 2014 for Sony Classical, as well as three compositions recorded on her 2020 album “A Character of Quiet”: Etude No. 2 and Etude No. 16 by Philip Glass, and Sonata in B-flat, D 960 by Franz Schubert. 3 pm.
Karaoke Bandstand at the Main Street Museum in WRJ. Live band karaoke—you choose the song, they’ve got you covered. 6 pm, sign up here.
Both Sides Now at Lebanon Opera House. Created by and starring Robbie Schaefer and Danielle Wertz, the cabaret-style performance channels Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. It is, LOH says, “at once a piece of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and of right now. It offers us a story about the messiness of being human, of lives persistently lived at the edge of growth, and of finding the courage to turn toward one another.” 7:30 pm.
Sunday
Fundraiser for Hartland’s Shute Farm at The Public House in Quechee. Back in February, the Shute family’s farm-garage burned down, taking with it the tools, welder, drill press, skid steer and other machinery, and supplies. For the fundraiser, Short Notice will bring the music, and local vendors will hold a raffle. Noon to 4 pm.
US Navy Band Northeast Pops Ensemble plays Claremont. If you miss them on Saturday in Hanover, they’ll be at the Claremont Opera House Sunday at 2 pm.
Annemieke McLane at the United Church of Strafford with three Beethoven sonatas. Or as she puts it: “It is March with mud, but also first-seen buds!/ The whirlwind of the seasons,/ the turmoil of emotions,/ Diving in with three sonatas by Beethoven,/ The Tempest, Moonlight, and the Pathétique.” 4 pm, donations at the door. No link.
Randolph’s Playhouse Movie Theater screens The Spitfire Grill. It’s a 30th anniversary screening of Lee David Slotoff’s film starring Ellen Burstyn, Marcia Gay Harden, and Alison Elliott about a young woman freshly released from prison who gets a job at a small-town Maine grill. Only it was actually filmed in Peacham, and one of the local casting directors was now-filmmaker Bess O’Brien (along with her husband, Jay Craven). O’Brien will be on hand to talk things over with the audience afterward, in Alia Quart Khan’s latest Hollywood VT presentation. 6 pm.
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