CHATHAM – In early May, Chatham Friends of Trees celebrated its 40th year as a nonprofit by holding an Arbor Day event at the community center. This event was a good opportunity for DeeDee Holt, a long-serving member of Friends of Trees, and other locals like Stephanie Ellis, the executive director at Wildcare, to inform the community on the importance of trees to the environment and wildlife. For the last ...

"The Miracle Worker," which opened on May 11 at the Chatham Drama Guild, is both interesting and insightful. Directed by Pam Banas, the play is set in Alabama during the 1880s and is based upon the true story of 8-year-old Helen Keller – blind, deaf, and mute since infancy – and her new teacher, Annie Sullivan. Thrown into tantrums, rage and violence as a result of her inability to communicate, Helen is in dang...

Frank, Charley and Mary have been friends for decades, friends through thick and thin, from poverty to fame and success. “Who’s like us? Damn few!” We first meet them in 1976, and it’s soon apparent there has been some kind of falling out between the three. How did they get here? In Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along” this trio merrily and sometimes not so merrily go back in time stopping every few years u...

CHATHAM – Watching just the trailer for “I'll Push You,” a documentary that screens at the Chatham Orpheum Theater May 24, conveys the emotional depth of the experience Justin Skeesuck and Patrick Gray went through when they traveled the El Camino de Santiago in 2014. Filming the two friends' journey also changed the life of director Terry Parish. “When you're on the journey with them you are also a pilgrim of...

Whether between a teacher and a student, a mother and a child or a reader and a story, a moment of connection can be nothing short of miraculous. From May 11 to 27, these connections and more will be celebrated as the Chatham Drama Guild presents “The Miracle Worker,” the inspiring story of the young deaf-blind Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan. The performances will be made even more special by the ...

It's that time of year again. On Saturday, May 12 the sixth annual Cape Cod Women's Music Festival (CCWMF) will once again light up the stage – and the outdoor tent – at The Cape Playhouse in Dennis. This year's lineup is sure to bring down the house while raising funds for Cape Wellness Collaborative (CWC) to provide free integrative therapies to those facing cancer on Cape Cod and the Islands. This year, with...

There’s nothing worse for a play to be than mediocre. Luckily, Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Trial By Jury” is anything but, a fact that holds especially true with the current performance by the Eventide Theater Company. If you haven’t heard of the Eventide Theater Company, you might not be alone; they consider themselves to be Dennis’ little secret, an unfortunate fact given the fantastic performances I witnessed o...

From May 23 to 26, the organization known as Destination Imagination will hold its annual global competition at the University of Tennessee and will once again host a team from Cape Cod. Destination Imagination (DI) is an innovative problem-solving competition composed mainly of high school and middle school students. It is meant to be highly challenging and competitive in order to sort out the students who wo...

About 25 years after she first debuted as a singer in Chatham’s churches, mezzo-soprano Ashley Wade will return to perform in Chatham as a part of the choral ensemble Lyricora and then in a second, solo concert this spring. “I really was raised in music on Cape Cod, and that’s rare and special,” Wade, 35, said during a telephone interview from her home in Dover, N.H. last week. “I’ve been studying voice and si...

HARWICH — ArtWeek begins at the cultural center on Saturday under the title “Harwich Is Creative.” That creativity will be on display for 10 days with numerous demonstrations, performances and exhibits. This is the first year Harwich is participating in the festival that began in Boston in 2013, started by the Boch Center, and has spread to 155 towns and neighborhoods across the state. The Ha...

Fisherman Mike Russo examined a decades-old clamming rake he had brought from the garage into the kitchen. His soot-colored cat George sniffed it warily. “I paid a lot of bills with that sum’ bitch,” he said with a grin. Russo said the first rake he bought, he tore the teeth right off when he went quahogging. Ron Ribb took one look at that rake, then at burly Russo, and said he’d fix the problem. He built a...

The Hungry Traveler, the popular five-week documentary film series produced by Carol Yindra as part of the Eldredge Public Library Learning Series, whets your appetite again this year as it returns to Chatham’s Orpheum Theatre beginning Wednesday, May 2 at 10 a.m. The five-documentary series is socially informative as it highlights culinary tours of exotic foods, delectable wines, interesting locations and col...