The transition from bare trees to a landscape filled with green leaves and colorful flowers never ceases to amaze me. It seems to happen overnight, though of course it is much more gradual than that. Like many things, it simply hits a tipping point. Walking along the edge of a marsh I noticed that although the dead stalks and leaves of the grasses and reeds were still standing, the new green growth was grow...

     On June 1, singer and guitarist Liz Simmons of the award-winning folk/roots band Low Lily will join forces with cellist Casey Murray of the quartet Corner House for a night of folk and roots music in Orleans. During this Brick Hill House Concert performance, Simmons will share music from her solo album “Poets.”      Born in San Francisco to itinerant musician parents, Simmons s...

     Nauset Regional High School students are getting the chance to perform on one of the area’s most beloved stages, while their drama teacher experiences a homecoming, as the school’s production of “The Drowsy Chaperone” takes the Cape Rep Theatre stage through May 27.      Cape Rep Theatre is hosting Nauset High School’s spring musical while their campus is under construction. The venue is a familiar one fo...

When author Joseph Gibbs was working on his debut novel “Frank” (Brogan Camden, 2022), he had two high-profile literary mentors, both of whom he met while working as a bartender in Florida. The first was John Knowles, author of the 1960 coming-of-age novel “A Separate Peace,” who would come in to the restaurant on slow days, allowing the pair to talk. “He was an amazing man, with a southern, almost aristocr...

     HARWICH – Olivia Sims has completed a Girl Scout Gold Award Project, the highest-level achievement a Girl Scout can earn. In the process, she brightened the day of hundreds of area seniors.      To be considered for the Gold Award, high-school-age Girl Scouts must complete a Gold Award Project that works to address an issue she’s passionate about in a way that produces a meaningful and lasting change in...

     It’s that time of year again!      Cape Playhouse is preparing to launch a summer season with something to delight everyone, from jazz lovers to Jane Austin aficionados, from fans of the Four Seasons to those who gush over Gershwin, with favorites ranging from King Arthur to Sherlock Holmes.      “For the 2023 season, much like every season, we look to create a balance between light-hearted plays, comedi...

The highlight of gardening for me has always been planting trees. It’s truly one of the most rewarding experiences as you get to see your tree grow and mature through the years. Planting a tree can work great to commemorate an event, whether it be a birth, a memorial, or just for fun. It can be a big part of one’s life. When I was born, my parents’ friends gave them two gorgeous fir trees as a gift, and through t...

Every town needs a hero, and that’s exactly what we get in “Robin Hood,” the hysterically funny show that has taken over the stage at the Academy of Performing Arts in Orleans. The new adaptation of the timeless tale was flawlessly written and directed by local artist and carpenter Mark Roderick, who humbly opened the show with an homage to longtime APA collaborator and board member Jonathan Ryder. Ryder wa...

May is the month Cape Cod birders wait for all winter long. After they’ve counted the rafts of winter ducks such as eiders and scoters until their eyeballs ache, after they’ve searched the waves for seabirds blown a bit off course until every wave looks like wings, and spotted every gray, black, and white bird in the thickets and brambles, they’re ready for some flits and bits of color in the new leaves of sprin...

     On Sunday, May 21 the Chatham Music Club will present “A Moveable Feast,” a unique concert event to benefit Monomoy Community Services.      The event will consist of three consecutive pipe organ concerts, each performed in one of three of Chatham’s Main Street churches. Each concert will be about 30 minutes in length, with a 30 minute window in between, allowing attendees to make their way to the next ve...

Here it is May and outdoors everything is greening up. As we tend to our gardens and lawns it becomes obvious quickly that a lot of those green things are what we unceremoniously call weeds. For some people, this stimulates an overwhelming urge to kill every single one of them. Here’s the thing, though. A weed is only a plant we don’t love, a plant that grows where we don’t want it. If you’ve been following th...

On my way to a woodland I love, especially in the spring wildflower season, I stopped at another favorite place, a beach bordered by dunes. The dunes were bursting with flower buds and the greening of the grasses and leaves, and the muted colors made me swoon. There were pinks and maroons, uncountable greens tinged with blue, purple, and red, as well as golds and silvers popping up through the sand everywhere I ...