MIDDLEBURY — The Henry Sheldon Museum kicks off its “Behind the Yellow Wallpaper” series this Thursday with a staged reading performed by professional actors.

This is a relaxed summer series that uses “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, as a starting point to explore ideas around mental health, gender, creativity and history. Through casual discussions, guest speakers, and presentations, this series will connect the story to real materials from the museum’s archives and ephemera collection.

This series will meet every other Thursday from 12:30-2 p.m. at the Henry Sheldon Museum. Admission is free but pre-registration is preferred. Register online at tinyurl.com/SheldonSummer2026.

This Thursday’s presentation will include a live reading of an audio drama “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Amy Bennett-Zendzian. First published in 1892, “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a semi-autobiographic short story centering a young mother’s struggle with postpartum depression. The story follows a young mother who is subjected to a stifling “rest cure” by her physician husband. Isolated in a secluded estate, forbidden to write, and trapped in a room with peeling yellow wallpaper, she slowly spirals into madness as she obsesses over a figure she imagines trapped behind the paper.

Vanessa Dunleavy will portray “Charlotte” and Andrew Ritter portrays “The Husband.” It will be directed by Michole Biancosino, assistant directed by Jane Zhang.

This story serves as the starting point to the series and paves the way to connecting key themes from the text to the museum’s archival and ephemera collections.

Other brown bag presentations in this series are:

July 23

“Wallpaper Revealed: The Artistry of Wallpaper.” Participants will look at the artisanship that goes into making wallpaper, reframing how it is viewed as purely decorative to a more specialized artform in its own right. From pigments that caused sickness and even fatalities, to printing production and conservation, how can we understand wallpaper, as a product intended for at-home enjoyment, to be in conversation with art on a broader scale.

Guest speaker to be announced.

August 6

“The Madwoman in the Attic: Colonial and Racial Implications on Mental Health.” Centered around a discussion of “The Wide Sargasso Sea” by Jean Rhys, this week’s installment will explore the intersection of race, mental health, and art.

Written as somewhat of a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre,” “The Wide Sargasso Sea” reframes the narrative of the madwoman in the attic by asking what drove her mad in the first place? This book provides a jumping off point for a discussion of how gender, race, and colonialism all factor into mental health, as well as our understanding of how colonialism and race factor into western art and literature.

Presentation by Allison Cardon and Alexandra Weimer.

August 20

“Out from behind The Yellow Wallpaper: Voices of Vermont Women in Mental Institutions from the Museum’s archives.”

What did it look like to receive mental health treatment as a woman in the 19th century? This week participants will discuss letters sent from Addison County women receiving treatment in New England sanitariums. These firsthand accounts will provide important context for discussions around gender and mental health treatment in Vermont, both historic and contemporary.

Presentation by Dr. Melissa Dubroff.