CHATHAM — For Chatham teen Alexis Comeau, 2017 went down as the year of her first great adventure. And it won’t be her last. Following months of research and work, Comeau and her boyfriend embarked on a cross-country trip in early September, driving a custom-outfitted cargo van from Cape Cod to California and back and returning in time for Christmas. Her parents set aside their worries for their 18-year-o...

For Madhavi Venkatesan, greater understanding of the relationship between sustainability and economics is the key to saving the environment. One aspect of that is plastic bottles; specifically, educating people on their cost and working toward a Cape-wide ban. The Cape Cod is the perfect place to demonstrate how a plastic bottle ban can help both the economy and the environment, said the Brewster resident, and...

HARWICH ─ The Family Pantry of Cape Cod is typically closed on Sundays, but Dec. 17 was different. It was Toy Day, an annual event that this year will allow more than 600 families to celebrate Christmas with a little something special. Pulling off the feat that is Toy Day requires immense dedication and determination, not to mention planning, the latter of which begins in at the start of September, long befo...

HARWICH ─ Judy Collins is well aware that, given the country's current political climate, tensions are high. She hopes her music will help, and she's bringing her best to her Dec. 19 concert at Monomoy Regional High School. “It will be me singing everything I know,” said the award winning singer-songwriter. There will be Sondheim, 'Both Sides Now,' a lot of my hits.” Collins has been a beloved folk songst...

Imagine living in a fog of fear and suspicion in war-torn Brussels during the very first years of your life. This is the experience Francoise Webb of Harwich Port describes. Webb has written about her young years during World War II in her new memoir “Safe from the Madness.” “It was horrific what they did—and to witness that brutality,” she said during a telephone interview last week, speaking about the Naz...

“Bah Humbug!” Got a dose of the holiday blues? What’s so special about Christmas anyway, you say? Sounds like you need a healthy dollop of Scrooge’s journey through the past, present and Christmases yet to come. The Cape Cod Theatre Company, home of the Harwich Junior Theatre, comes to the rescue by giving us Eric Hill's adaptation of Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol,” a welcome distraction for all during t...

  Everywhere you look in Second Glance Thrift Boutique in West Harwich you see beautifully-decorated Christmas trees – large and small, white and green. Support Helping Neighbors Women’s clothes in red, green and black, suitable for any holiday gathering you might be planning to attend, are hanging nearb...

If you've attended a screening in the Chatham Orpheum Theater's Art and Music Film Series, you've see the work of Brandon DeTraglia. The “Featured Artists Series,” commissioned by the Orpheum, links Cape artists to the wider artistic world with an under-10-minute personal profile that plays before each of the feature documentaries, which focus on classic artist, art galleries or musical performances. DeTraglia...

The Academy of Performing Arts is getting into the Christmas spirit early this year with some beloved holiday characters. Their completely child-focused show is a mixture of two Christmas readings and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The homegrown celebration starts off with Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” professionally narrated by Richard Wilber. The Grinch is dramatically played by Alison Colli...

It's really interesting, even intriguing, how things (they are called gifts if we want them, or other unusual words, if we don't) end up in a museum. Viewing these potential donations is usually pre-arranged by a phone call. The caller indicates they have a number of things that might be of historical interest. To the potential donor, everything has sentimental value. "We are moving and want to donate our item...

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep…” Playwright Alison Weller chose from Juliet’s words to Romeo as the title for her play that opened this past week at the Cape Rep Theatre in Brewster because the sea is indeed “Boundless.” A fisherman’s love for the sea is also boundless. Despite the obvious obstacles of the dangers on the sea, and now the strangling modern rules and regulations, a fisher...

The battle to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, as detailed in the documentary “Power Struggle,” has a lot of parallels with the effort to close the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Plymouth. But the Pilgrim story has significant differences, noted filmmaker Robbie Leppzer. Whereas the voices of citizens and the Vermont legislature played a major role in the closure of Vermont Yankee – although Entergy, th...