Sid Bennett

Sidney Bennett  died peacefully December 9, 2025 in the home he had shared with his wife Betsy in Harwich, surrounded by their loving family and her paintings.
Born in Malden, MA on Jul. 23, 1930, he was the youngest son of Max Bennett and Lillian R. Bennett (nee Kaplan).   Immigrants from Lithuania and Ukraine, they ran a butcher shop and delicatessen in Everett, MA.  There they raised four children in the local Jewish community where Max was very active.  Sid and his brother David recounted many stories from this time in the book they co-authored, “Oedipus Max.” 
   Sid graduated from Boston University with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Television and Theatre in 1955 where he met his first wife, Jerry, the mother of his four children.  He was called to military service and was stationed in the US Army post-WW2 occupational force in Germany.  He trained as a radio operator and later directed an Army film on troop deployment that saw him flying across the Atlantic to capture ship embarkation and arrival in Europe.
Subsequently, Sid worked in television in Springfield, MA, and spent two years in Vancouver, Canada teaching technical theatre and lighting design at the University of British Columbia. Sid secured his first US academic position working at Hofstra University on Long Island, where he continued to hone his craft as a lighting designer and professor.  He soon moved his growing family to New Jersey to become Technical Director at the Juilliard School in New York City in 1963.  In this capacity, he also designed the lighting for opera productions and dance concerts, working with contemporary luminaries such as Ming Cho Lee, Christopher West, Andre Previn, Anna Sokolow,  Antony Tudor and Jose Limon.  For the Juilliard’s new home in Lincoln Center, Sid became a significant advisor on design and construction.  
In 1969, Sid and Jerry moved to  Cape Cod permanently after many two-week camping trips with the family to Horton’s and NIckerson State Park.   He worked part-time as a framer and roofer, and eventually opened the eponymous Cape Cod Craftsman, a gift shop on Main Street, Chatham where he was the owner and wood-worker in residence.  Later he was a founding partner of the original Chatham Ice Cream Shoppe, a business he loved but was forced to give up when he refused to raise the price of a cone above 35 cents.  
Sid moved to Boston in 1974 to teach at Boston University.  He fully developed his skill as an equity theatrical lighting designer, working summer stock in Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Boston’s North Shore.  He was made full Professor at BU where he stayed until retirement, Emeritus aged 65. The theatre arts students were fond of Sid as being “the only techy with a sense of humour”.  His  students recall his inimitable personality and teaching style in numerous stories.  Of all his accomplishments, Sid was most proud that so many of his students found professional employment in the theatre or commercial lighting work.  
It was during his time at BU that Sid fell in love with Betsy Boss.  They were married on September 27, 1980.  Following his retirement, he and Betsy returned to the Cape, settling in Harwich in 1994.  Their house became Betsy’s studio - named Frog Pond Studio – and his workshop, office and boat house. He began writing when Betsy was taken by dementia.  He co-produced a detailed catalogue of her prints titled “Betsy Bennett, Artist, A Cape Cod Treasure”, and he later wrote an account of their life and her illness in his third book “Facing Time”, published in his 94th year.
Sid was a keen bluefish and striped bass fisherman – his proudest moment being a 36lb striper off Montauk.  The many outings with friends and family on his 20’ Aquasport named “Boss”, earned him the epithet “Sid Fishes”, and provided the fare for many summer barbecues.   
He also had a great love of cooking and became an avid smoker of ribs, fish, and fowl.  In the week before he died, in a tour de force, aged 95, he smoked two turkeys for Thanksgiving with his family.    
Sid was a thoughtful, selfless man who cared deeply for the people around him.  He developed a laissez-faire attitude to most things - he called it his “F. I. losophy”.  He believed that a laugh is the shortest distance between two people, and promulgated the pun as an art form.  He loved W.C. Fields and William Shakespeare among many others, and quoted them frequently.  Most recently he cited a line from Hamlet (Act V Scene II):   “If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.” 
He is survived by his four children, Stephen, Leslie, Peter and Roger (m. Paula, Joshua, Gisele and Jane), Betsy’s three children Jane, Stephen and Mark, grandchildren Jennifer, Christopher, Sarah, Steve, Ben, Nate, Lily, Tim, Leo, Mimi, and great-children Amber, Dexter, Camryn, Joey, Avery, Lexi, Calvin, Minnie, and Crosby, as well as legions of their partners, numerous cousins, nieces, nephews, and close friends - all of whom know how much he loved them. 
A celebration of Sid’s life will be held every day forthwith and a gathering will be announced at a later date.
Visitors are encouraged to share the bench he dedicated to Betsy overlooking Forest Road Beach in Chatham. 
In lieu of flowers, gifts in his memory should be sent to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) or any charity that supports Harwich Conservation or nursing and hospice care.