Tag: Atwood

Come See Annie Kids at Plum Cove Elementary school #GloucesterMA June 9, 10

Posted on by Catherine

Great notice and wonderful Paul Bilodeau rehearsal photos in the Gloucester Daily Times today! Performances this week on Thursday, June 9, and Friday, June 10, at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are FREE but reservations necessary dbiondo@gloucesterschools.com

Read the article and see more photographs here

Front page Gloucester Daily Times June 8, 2022

Plum Cove Elementary School: Spring 2022 musical performed by 4th and 5th grade students under the direction of Heidi Dallin. The photo caption notes Miss Hannigan played by Evelyn Taplett and Annie played by Bianca Numerosi.

Can you remember an elementary school performance or arts educator*? Chances are if you attended elementary school in Gloucester, you can. Gloucester has a long, strong and colorful history of professional theater artists enriching community theater for young and old, and prioritizing arts education in area schools. It’s no surprise that East Gloucester Elementary School (EGS)– only blocks away from Rocky Neck and former sites of Atwoods’ Playhouse-on-the-Moors, Little Theater, and Bass Rocks Theater–included a theater and stadium seating for little ones right in the school. Productions have been mounted in all the schools, and evidence shows year round activity in some decades. Poets and playwrights, choreographers, industry professionals (stage direction, lighting, costume design, etc), and insiders engage and collaborate. Nan Webber inspired generations at the GHS drama department and on Cape Ann. Heidi Dallin has devoted 30+ years to youth theater development.

Congratulations to all involved with this Annie Kids production! Enjoy this magic time.

*note: I don’t, but I did not grow up here. A couple of early memories that come to mind are the children’s museum recycle arts and crafts shop (fill a shopping bag), and seeing the Fantasticks at Priscilla Beach Theater, Plymouth, MA, summer vacation ca.1972-74.

What if…a section of Dogtown brush was cleared away? If you missed Chris Leahy at Sawyer Free Library last week come to a summit by Essex County Greenbelt & Mass Audubon at Cape Ann Museum March 4

Posted on by Catherine

“This Saturday morning forum is offered in collaboration with Essex County Greenbelt, Friends of Dogtown, Lanesville Community Center and Mass Audubon and held at Cape Ann Museum. The forum will be moderated by Ed Becker, President of the Essex County Greenbelt Association.”

Register here

UPDATE: Cape Ann TV is scheduled to film the event!

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Edward Hopper Cape Ann Pasture watercolor drawing (ca.1928) was gifted to Yale University in 1930

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East Gloucester Atwood’s Gallery on the Moors as seen on the left in 1921–open vistas at that time

 

Chris Leahy gave a presentation at Gloucester Lyceum & Sawyer Free Library on February 23, 2017: Dogtown- the Biography of a Landscape: 750 Million Years Ago to the Present
A photographic history through slides presented by the Gloucester Lyceum and the Friends of the Library. Mary Weissblum opened the program.

Chris broadly covered the history of the local landscape from an ecological bent with a bias to birds and blueberry picking, naturally. New England is a patchwork of forested landscapes. He stressed the evolution of bio diversity and succession phenomenon when the earth and climate change. “Nature takes a lot of courses.” He focused on Dogtown, “a very special place”, and possible merits of land stewardship geared at fostering greater biodiversity. Perhaps some of the core acres could be coaxed to grasslands as when parts of Gloucester were described as moors? Characteristic wildlife, butterflies, and birds no longer present may swing back.  There were many philosophical takeaways and tips: he recommends visiting the dioramas “Changes in New England Landscape” display at Harvard Forest HQ in Petersham.

“Isolation of islands is a main driver of evolution”

“Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary in Worcester has the highest concentration* of native butterflies in all of Massachusetts because of secondary habitats.”  *of Mass Audubon’s c.40,000 acres of wildlife sanctuaries statewide. “The fact that Brook Meadow Brook is in greater Worcester, rather than a forested wilderness, underscores the value of secondary habitats.”

“1830– roughly the time of Thoreau (1817-1862)– was the maximum period of clearing thus the heyday for grasslands…As farmsteads were abandoned, stages of forests return.”

Below are photos from February 23, 2017. I added some images of art inspired by Dogtown. I also pulled out a photograph by Frank L Cox, David Cox’s father, of Gallery on the Moors  (then) compared with a photo of mine from 2011 to illustrate how the picturesque description wasn’t isolated to Dogtown.

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Edward Hopper, Cape Ann Granite, 1928, oil on canvas can we get this painting into the Cape Ann Museum collection?

dogtown-cape-ann-massachuestts-by-louise-upton-brumback-o-c-vose-galleryLouise Upton Brumback (1867-1929), Dogtown- Cape Ann, 1920 oil on canvas

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