The man sits alone in his small, dreary apartment, lonely and socially isolated in a time way before cell phones.  Sitting in an easy chair in arm's reach of his beloved record player that even his cleaning lady is forbidden to touch, he invites the audience to listen along to the tunes that carry him away when he's feeling blue and anxious.  "A story and a few good songs are just a little something you have to e...

A play’s title can be many things: suggestive, engaging, nondescript, enticing, or possibly offensive. Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater’s current headliner embodies all of these descriptions in one single word — “Cock.” The young British playwright Mike Bartlett’s attention-grabbing, monosyllabic title came to him while in Mexico witnessing a cock fight. The 2009 play won a Laurence Olivier Award...

CHATHAM – Why, after 31 years, is “Back to the Future” still popular enough that people travel long distances to see it on the big screen and hear its co-creator and one of its stars talk about making the film? “Everybody wonders what were my parents like when they were kids; everybody wonders what was my parents' first date like,” said the film's co-writer and producer Bob Gale during a question and answer se...

The Atwood House Museum will kick off its new summer exhibit “Masters of the Sea,” which tells the story of Chatham’s great days as a 19 th century training ground for the best ship’s captains in the world, on June 17. “Masters of the Sea” relates the fascinating tales of danger and excitement faced by eight sea captains and a sailmaker born in Chatham and Harwich between 1838 and 1854. (The sailmaker, Charle...

CHATHAM – You aren't likely to see it going 88 miles per hour down Main Street, but a 1982 DeLorean is taking many people in town back in time this week. The car, a reproduction of the time machine in the 1985 film “Back to the Future,” is in town as part of in a series of fundraisers centered on the popular movie trilogy benefiting the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. A near-exact copy o...

Music has been the focus of Chris Roberts’ life since his childhood in Wales, which is known for its citizens’ talent for music. The small coal mining village in Wales where he grew up was called Coedpoeth, meaning hot wood. “I had a musical upbringing. There was always music in the family,” he said. His mother and father sang, his mother played the piano and his grandfather played the trumpet. He started sing...

First Night returns in June with an ice cream social and jazz band concert. The event is a thank you to the many Cape residents who have supported First Night throughout the years. The Monomoy Summer Seven Jazz Band, featuring Jeff Hughes, will play for free on Monday, June 19 at the bandstand in Kate Gould Park. The festivities begin with free ice cream provided for all by Buffy's Ice Cream and Emack and Boli...

HARWICH PORT – “Authors love coming to this event because you treat them like rock stars!” Anne LeClaire, an author herself, declared at last week's 12 th annual Day of Words, Wit and Wisdom benefit for WE CAN. The inside crowd cheered, and the “people of the tent” in the outside overflow area were heard cheering also. Nearly 500 women and a healthy smattering of men attended last Thursday's event, kn...

Tom Temple, Chatham’s new director of public works, has a vivid memory of his first day on the job. Monday, Feb. 8 dawned with snow, and not just a dusting. When you are responsible for the 118 lane miles of road and a blizzard of fast-falling snow and high winds wallops the area, you do your best to survive. Temple, who brought more than 30 years experience with the Marlborough Department of Public Works to h...

In January last year, Washington’s National Gallery acquired "The Conscience of Pinkerton," a surreal painting by Doris Lindo Lewis, a pioneering artist with close connections to Chatham. It was chosen out of 17,000 that the National was required to distribute by court order from the Corcoran Museum there. Three years earlier, a painting of hers had appeared in the first-ever international exhibit of American ...

CHATHAM – One hundred spadefoot toad tadpoles not much longer than a fingernail swim in two tanks at the Monomoy Regional Middle School. They’ve been there for about two weeks and are just now developing rear legs, continuing their 45 day metamorphosis, one of the fastest in the amphibian world. They are being head-started as part of a unique program developed by Long Pasture Mass Audubon’s sanctuary director ...

Ireland and the American South have left their mark on Matt Kelley, but make no mistake about it: he’s Harwich born and bred and he’s still Harwich all the way. The former Harwich High School athlete is now Matthew P. Kelley, attorney at law with an office in West Harwich, and deeply involved in the leadership of both the Family Pantry and the Dollars for Scholars committee at Monomoy High School. And when he ...