Playhouse on the Green presents The Rocky Horror Picture Show by Richard O'Brien

Oct. 24 - Nov. 9

Classic kitschy sci-fi and a rock n' roll musical phenomenon.

Friday Oct. 24 at 8 p.m., Saturday Oct. 25 at 8 p.m., Saturday Oct. 25 at midnight, Thursday Oct. 30

at 8 p.m., Friday Oct. 31 at 8 p.m., Friday Oct. 31 at midnight, Saturday Nov. 1 at 8 p.m., Friday Nov. 7 at 8 p.m.,

Saturday Nov. 7 at midnight, Saturday Nov. 8 at 8 p.m.

Tickets $32.

Playhouse on the Green, 177 State St., Bridgeport. Free parking available.
Box office: 866-811-4111 or purchase online: www.playhouseonthegreen.org.

 8 Thursdays, October 2 thru November 20, 3:45 - 4:45 pm Join naturalist Todd DuPont for an eight week after-school program at the Bartlett Arboretum and Gardens where students will have a chance to explore our grounds and learn about the changes that our native plants and animals go through in the autumn months.  Students will participate in plantings, science lab activities, art projects and  nature walks. Ages 5-8. Visit www.bartlettarboretum.org or call 203-322-6971 for details.

Frank & Lori Mercede host Autumn Dreams, an evening of fine food and wine featuring Celebrity Chef Jacques Pépin. Event proceeds benefit Boundless Playgrounds, the leading national nonprofit developer of inclusive playgrounds for children of all abilities.

The Mercede family spearheaded efforts to build a Boundless Playground in their community so all children like their daughters, Jaclyn and Nicola, both with and without disabilities, could play together. Autumn Dreams is their way of saying thanks for making the dream of inclusive play a reality.

Thirty-six artists from fifteen different countries were selected to participate in this next outstanding biennial art exhibit Latin Views 2008, which opens on September 19, at 6:00 pm at the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art at the University of Connecticut's Avery Point Campus, located in the Branford House Mansion.   The Latin Views 2008 will be an extraordinary international celebration of art that will be sure to excite and entertain any art lover.  The exhibit will cover narrative, fantasy, myths, prophesies, spectacle, and the ambiguous territory between the real and unreal.  This exhibit is an invitation to the viewer to enter, explore, and immerse himself in the imaginary world of contemporary Latin artists, which is filled with emotions and imagery. The exhibition will occupy the entire gallery creating the ideal atmosphere to showcase these impressive works of art.   The Latins Views 2008 was curated by the directors and advisors of the LNVA jointly with The Griffis Art Center Board of Trustees and overseen by Julia Pavone, Director of The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art.  The artistic director of Latin Views 2008 is Sharon Griffis, who is also the Director of Griffis Art Center of New London CT and has extensive experience organizing exhibitions throughout Connecticut. Highlighted among the special events of this exhibition is a Panel Discussion organized by the LNVA that will be presented in association with The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art at the Marine Science Building, University of Connecticut at Avery Point on the following day of the opening reception, September 20, 2008 at 1:30 pm. Since its inception in 2003, the Latin Views exhibits have greatly evolved and have become the leading medium offering international contemporary art to southeastern Connecticut.  The exhibit will run from September 19th to November 2nd, 2008.  The opening reception will be on Friday September 19th, from 6.00 to 8.00 pm and the panel discussion will be on September 20th at 1:30 pm.

The most vital acoustic music being today acknowledges its predecessors and lives in the here and now. For four years now, The Duhks, the band of five skilled, high-energy, tattooed twenty-somethings from Winnipeg, Manitoba, has been riveting audiences and winning staunch fans across North America and around the world with just that kind of music.

Since the release of their self-titled, Bela Fleck-produced album in 2005, as well as the consequent re-release of their Canadian debut, Your Daughters and Your Sons, they've won admirers as diverse as David Crosby, Dolly Parton, and Doc Watson. This is not surprising, given their Duhks-alone blend of soul, gospel, North American folk, Brazilian samba, old time country string band, zydeco, and Irish dance music, and the attack they bring to these interwoven acoustic styleswhich might as well be called sheer rock and roll. Their unique sound has also earned them a Juno Award, two Folk Alliance awards, and an Americana Music Association nomination for Best Emerging Artists. Produced in Nashville by bluegrass and folk veteran Tim OBrien and coproduced, as was their last disc, by Grammy award winning engineer and producer Gary Paczosa, the discs eleven tracks flowed into place with newfound ease, strong evidence of this bands growing sense of what a Duhks song sounds like. The band members are quick to agree that this album is both the strongest representation of their regularly electrifying live act yetand a record thats also more direct and tooled to home in on the songs meanings and emotional core.

Thursday, Oct. 30 at 8 p.m.

Memorial Chapel at Wesleyan University

Free Admission

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, hailed as "th most highly-acclaimed playwright of his generation" by Salon.com, participates in a conversation about his wide-ranging and contraoversial body of work. Kushner is best known for his two-part epic Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. He also wrote screenplays for Mike Nichols' fim of Angels in America and Steven Spielberg's Munich. Tackling the most difficult subjects in contemporary history, Kushner rejects ideology in favor of what he calls a "dialectically shaped truth" which, in his view, must be outrageously funny, absolutely agonizing and move society's views forward. He gives voice to characters that have been rendered powerless by the forces of circumstances -- a drag queen dying of AIDS, an uneducated Southern maid, contemporary Afghans -- and his attempt to see all sides of their predicament has a sly subversiveness. Co-sponsored by the Raymond E. Baldwin Lecture Fund and the Little Fund. For more information visit www.wesleyan.edu/cfa.

Westport Arts Center presents:

Optomism

Sept. 26 - Nov. 30

An exhibition examining the role of art as a form of political activism. Open to the public.

Gallery Talkback: Wed, Nov. 12, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

WAC Main Gallery

For more information, contact WAC at 203-222-7070, www.westportartscenter.org, or visit the gallery, M-F 10-4; Sat/Sun 12-4 at 51 Riverside Ave., Westport.

Thursday, Oct. 30, 6:30 p.m.

St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 433 Fairfield Ave., Hartford, CT 06114

"Fashions for Gods and Goddesses" by Stackpole Moore Tryon and CT Furs of New Britain.

Sponsored by Ladies Philoptochos, proceeds to Lea's Foundation for Leukemia Research and other charities.

Donation: $35. For more information visit www.stgeorgecathedral.org

Now through Dec. 14 -

Holidaze: The Real Story of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas

Special exhibit at the Henry Whitfield State Museum

Learn why the Puritans did not celebrate Christmas, the myths behind the First Thanksgiving, and how All Hallow's Eve became a night of costumes and candy. The exhibit is available for viewing during regular museum hours and is included with museum admission.

Woodbury painter Matt Wood returns to nature’s essence
in “Pentimento” exhibition at Good News Cafe & Gallery

Woodbury artist Matt Wood returns to the essence of the subjects he paints from the natural world in his new exhibition titled “Pentimento,” showing through Jan. 5, 2009, at the Good News Cafe and Gallery, 694 Main Street South, Woodbury.

A native of southern California, Wood began his artistic odyssey with painting studies at the University of Iowa influenced by the work of Mauricio Lasansky. Wood notes that his own Polish and Russian heritage, and his marriage to Polish native Joanna Czaderna, have established a natural affinity for Lasansky’s passionate approach to the creative process that seeks to use art as a means to raise personal awareness.

Good News Cafe & Gallery is open from 11:30 am to 10 pm daily; closed Tuesdays.
 

Artistry on the Shoreline Holiday Sale

October 20 - January 11, 2009

Visit our website at www.guilfordartcenter.org.

 Join Joshua Chuang, Assistant Curator of Photographs; Russell Lord, independent scholar; and Nicholas Nixon, photographer, in a stimulating investigation of the history, practice and perception of optical ambiguity. Registration is required. Please call 203-432-9525 to register.

Stamford Theatre Works presents Defiance by John Patrick Shanley

Directed by Patricia R. Floyd

Jan. 28 - Feb. 15

Set in 1971 in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, two U.S. Marine officers, one black and one white, are on a collision course over power, responsibility, and an affair with an enlisted man's wife. Performances on Tuesdays though Saturdays at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturdays at 4 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.; first Sunday and first Tuesday at 7 p.m. Tickets $25 to $43.

Stamford Theatre Works, 200 Strawberry Hill Ave. (campus of Sacred Heart Academy), Stamford.
www.stamfordtheatreworks.org / Box office: 203-359-4414

Westport Arts Center presents:
Not All Rubber Ducks Look Alike

Thurs., Oct. 30 - Sunday, Nov. 30

Studio Party: Thurs., Oct. 30, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m., Studio Gallery

Lucy Sander Sceery's whimsical, charming take on rubber ducks.

Open to the public.

For more information, contact Westport Arts Center at 203-222-7070 or www.westportartscenter.org,
or visit the gallery M-F 10-4 and Sat-Sun 12-4 at 51 Riverside Ave., Westport.

Come along for the adventure of a lifetime!  Join Huck Finn and runaway slave Jim on a musical trip down the Mississippi River in Mark Twain’s classic tale. Along the way you’ll meet a rascally pair of river grifters, a grieving heiress, and of course, Tom Sawyer. A slice of pure Americana - adventurous, humorous, perilous and mythic. Winner of 7 Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

October 7 - 25 and October 30 - November 1

Westport Country Playhouse stages "Of Mice and Men," a classic drama by John Steinbeck. Tony Award-winning designer Michael Yeargen will be scenic designer, with the legendary Jane Greenwood as costume designer. $30 - $65. For more information and tickets, call the box office at (203) 227-4177, or for out-of-town callers toll-free at 888-927-7529, or visit the box office at 25 Powers Court, off Route 1, in Westport, CT. Information about the Playhouse is also available at www.westportplayhouse.org.