Inspirational Artwork at Saugatuck Elementary School
In another installation of art from the WAAC and Westport Public Schools, passersby were greeted to blooming flowers and beautiful words of encouragement along Riverside Avenue at Saugatuck Elementary School. The work was created by Westport students from all schools and of all ages.
Staples High School, Westport Public Schools Presents: “America’s Voices” to 3rd-5th Graders
Coleytown Elementary School students stand with their yard sign artwork among a field of signs from the other Westport elementary schoolsPress ReleaseThe Staples Amati Chamber Orchestra pre-records “American Landscape”The Staples High School Music Department and Westport Public Schools will present “America’s Voices” to Westport students Grades 3-5, April 5-9. “America’s Voices” celebrates and showcases the diverse population of musicians and artists within our country and our schools. After several months of immersive studies of varied music and art, elementary students will view a video series spanning from April 5-9 featuring:
Staples music ensembles pre-recorded pieces from diverse American composers
Westport public school student art grades 3-5 and 9-12
A traveling town-wide lawn sign exhibit, beginning at the elementary schools on April 3, visually expressing the Voices of our public school students, in partnership with the Westport Arts Advisory Committee and Poet Laureate, Diane Lowman
Family folk song submissions celebrating Westport’s diverse cultures, recorded at home by elementary students and families
This collaborative effort, previously called the Westport Youth Concert, has been renamed the Westport Youth Arts Collaborative to encompass the cross-curricular involvement in the making of this production. Not only does the program expose students Grades 3-5 to the exemplary musicians at Staples High School, but also builds their understanding of diversity and the uniqueness of global cultures. The multi-discipline initiative has developed partnerships in our community with organizations such as the Westport Library, Westport Arts Advisory Committee, WestPAC and PTA Cultural Arts.
For more information about this collaborative event and Staples Music go to staplesmusic.org.
WAAC Culture Corner: Eggshells for April
Prepared by WAAC Member and Westport Poet Laureate Diane Lowman Welcome back to the Westport Local Press’s Westport Arts Advisory Committee’s “Culture Corner.” Each month, the WAAC will scour our 33.45 square miles and highlight one of the many artists – visual, written, performance, and other – who call Westport home. These artists create a spectrum of color that shines over town like the rainbows often seen over the Saugatuck, so we have made “color” our theme. Our profiles will feature art that, however tightly or tenuously, connects to a color.
For April, that color is eggshell white, not because of its ubiquity in home decorators’ palettes, but because it nods to the ovate object that figures prominently in two of the month’s celebrations as well as in our featured artist’s work. The egg (and please be prepared for proliferating puns), symbolic of rebirth and new life, shows up on lawns and in baskets at Easter, and on Seder plates at Passover, and by the thousands in this artisan’s home.
Linn Cassetta (http://www.linncassettadesign.com/), whose egg creations can be seen in the storefront 24/7 gallery at 47 Main Street until April 5, majored in apparel both as an undergrad at RISD, and for her MA at London’s Royal College of Art. The first American to graduate from the latter, Cassetta also studied apparel design there. Her designs garnered the attention of Vogue editors and shoe designers alike, and following a stint at Andrew Geller Shoes, she developed her eponymous – Linn Callahan -apparel label.
After a career move to a Japanese fabric manufacturer took her all around the world for work, Linn reinvented herself as a decorative painter so she could spend more time here in Westport with her family. Her fascination with eggs began during her childhood in bucolic Western Pennsylvania. There, she spent many hours helping out at her aunt’s farm and began to appreciate both the shape and promise of the egg. She learned how to “candle” the eggs to determine their condition. This experience, and her deep comfort with the sights and sounds of nature, led her to focus on the form and function of the egg in her art, including a photographic collaboration with her son which explores fresh and frozen eggs (the yolks sink in the former and rise in the latter). Some of these currently hang on the walls at Sherwood Diner.
Linn has amassed a collection of thousands of eggs and has created egg images in many media, including painting, photography, and prints. For egg-ample the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, she began making encaustic collagraphs by sinking eggshells into plates – and has sold both the prints and the plates, which are, themselves, works of art.
Both her collection and her work is eggs-traordinary, and we’d encourage you to have a look at it, both in downtown Westport, and on her website.
Westport Country Playhouse, Hartford Stage Artistic Directors to Enjoy “Cocktails With Mark” Virtual Conversation
Mark Lamos, Westport Country Playhouse Artistic Director. Photo by Bruce PlotkinPress ReleaseMelia Bensussen, Artistic Director for Hartford Stage Westport Country Playhouse will present “Cocktails with Mark,” a virtual conversation hosted by Mark Lamos, Playhouse artistic director, on Thursday, March 11, at 7 p.m. Lamos’ guest will be Melia Bensussen, Hartford Stage artistic director. The free-of-charge event will be streamed on Facebook (Westport Country Playhouse), and YouTube (WestportPlayhouse), running approximately 20 minutes.
Bensussen began her tenure as the first female artistic director of Hartford Stage in 2019. She was about to present her first season of productions shortly before the pandemic forced a shutdown of all performing arts institutions. Lamos, who has been artistic director at Westport Country Playhouse since 2009, was artistic director at Hartford Stage from 1980 through 1997.
“Melia's first professional job was at Hartford Stage when I served as artistic director there,” said Lamos. “She was director Emily Mann's assistant on a production of Ibsen's ‘A Doll House,’ in which I acted the role of Dr. Rank. I'm so proud of her subsequent career and her new leadership role at the Stage Company.
“We'll be chatting about Melia's complex and fascinating roots as part of what she calls ‘a typically complicated modern family’ and her move from Mexico to the U.S. as a teenager; her perspective on being a woman in the American theater; her study in Israel; and very much more. Please join us for what will prove a lively and enlightening cocktail hour.”
Bensussen is an Obie Award-winning director and artistic leader who has directed extensively at leading theaters across the U.S., as well as Puerto Rico, Asia, and Europe. Raised in Mexico City, Bensussen is fluent in Spanish and has translated and adapted a variety of texts, including her edition of the Langston Hughes translation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s “Blood Wedding.” Her acclaimed work with new plays has taken her to the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, New York Stage and Film, and other new play programs across the country. A graduate of Brown University, Bensussen currently serves as the chair of the arts advisory board for the Princess Grace Foundation and for the past 11 years has chaired the performing arts department at Emerson College. She also serves on the executive board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC). http://meliabensussen.com/
Lamos has helmed many plays at Westport Country Playhouse since 2008, earning Connecticut Critics Circle Awards for his direction of “She Loves Me” (2010), “Into the Woods” (2012), “The Dining Room” (2013), “Man of La Mancha” (2018), and “Mlima’s Tale” (2019). Under Lamos’ artistic direction, the Playhouse was named “Theater Company of the Year” by The Wall Street Journal in 2013. Lamos’ extensive New York credits include “Our Country's Good,” for which he received a Tony Award nomination. A former artistic director at Hartford Stage, he earned the 1989 Tony Award for the theater's body of work. He was awarded the Connecticut Medal for the Arts as well as honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, University of Hartford, and Trinity College. In 2016 he was the recipient of the John Houseman Award.
“Cocktails with Mark,” featuring conversations with theater artists and Playhouse favorites, will continue during the Playhouse’s 2021 season; future dates to be announced.
Due to the global pandemic, the Playhouse campus remains closed since March 2020. The 2021 Season is scheduled to begin in April, online and in-person. Playhouse management will be following the science and the State of Connecticut Department of Health guidelines in deciding when and how to safely open its buildings to the public.
For Westport Country Playhouse information, visit westportplayhouse.org, leave a message on the box office voicemail at (203) 227-4177, or email at boxoffice@westportplayhouse.org. The Playhouse’s physical box office is closed during the pandemic, but staff is working from home, returning phone messages and answering emails. Please understand with the high volume of inquiries, it may take up to 72 hours to respond. Stay connected to the Playhouse on Facebook (Westport Country Playhouse), follow on Twitter (@WCPlayhouse), and on YouTube (WestportPlayhouse).