EV Road Trip Day 12
We returned to our hotel last night and, of course, now Grogu wants to enroll at AOF for the Fall Semester. While I would love to have him join the brotherhood, we gave him a choice: become an Avonian or return to Din Djarin to become a Mandalorian. He needs to think about it.
This morning, we charged at Hartford, CT and deposited a Tesla Cache there where we spotted a hydrogen fill station . We then met Peter Culin and family in Windsor Locks on their way to a family vacation in Martha’s Vineyard. It was an impromptu Scottsdale EVA meetup.
The next stop on our journey takes us to Lenox, Massachusetts, the home of Shakespeare & Company, where my step-father, Paul, was a founding board member and my mother, Frances Martinson, a founding board member of The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Home, also in Lenox. Later, my mother joined the board of Shakespeare & Company as well. My folks spent many of their summers there.
The place is very special to us. Our kids participated one year in Shakespeare & Co.’s Riotous Youth program, “fun and inspiring 1-, 2- and 3-week summer theater programs that introduce students ages 6 to 17 to Shakespeare's language, his stories, characters, and themes using imaginative and playful methods. Riotous Company is a more advanced 3-week program for high school students.”
I also participated in one of their annual Fourth of July public readings of The Declaration of Independence, where I played a South Carolina delegate. Last time we were there, we attended a James Taylor concert at Tanglewood, and my parents’ ashes were interred there on the roots of trees planted in their honor. This is our first trip back since then.
“Shakespeare & Company is a professional live theatre company in the heart of the Berkshires, presenting a vibrant summer performance season featuring the works of Shakespeare in repertory with classic and contemporary plays. The Company offers one of the most extensive actor training programs by a regional theatre in the country and is also home to an award-winning and nationally recognized theatre-in-education program.”
Today, we took in a matinee performance of Shakespeare & Company’s production of the Tony Award-winning playwright Ken Ludwig's Dear Jack, Dear Louise – “the story of two strangers introduced through letters, kept apart by war, and drawn together through shared stories of their lives, hopes, and fears. A comedic and touching look at life in 1942 complete with nods to music, theater, and literature. Dear Jack, Dear Louise was inspired by the World War II courtship of Ludwig’s parents.” It was performed in an outdoor theater (a bit chilly at an overcast breezy 58°F) and was wonderful!
We briefly toured the campus with Allyn Burrows, Shakespeare & Company’s Artistic Director, who served on the Board with my folks.
Note: I was raised on the perorming arts, especially Shakespeare. My step-dad was on the Board of the Manhattan School of Music and the New York Shakespeare Festival (now the Public Theater), of which his cousin, Bert Martinson, was the founding Board Chair. My mother also served on the boards of the Dance Theater of Harlem and the Pearl Theater.
At the age of 19, in the summer of 1973, I worked at the Delacorte Theater in New York’s Central Park (Shakespeare in the Park), where I saw over 30 performances of Hamlet (Stacy Keach, James Earl Jones, Sam Waterston, Colleen Dewhurst, Kathleen Widdoes, and Barnard Hughes), and nearly that many of Much Ado About Nothing (Sam Waterston). I would say that Theatre is in my blood.
