Middlebury Acting Company locks in a new yuletide tradition

In 1843, author Charles Dickens became so troubled by the plight of England’s poor that he considered publishing a pamphlet. A pamphlet!! What can save the world better than … a pamphlet? Lucky for us, Dickens suddenly got a better idea. He wrote his story “A Christmas Carol,” about a wealthy London miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, who has a startling spiritual awakening, and changes his mind and heart about Christmas and everything else. Scrooge’s overnight journey from “Bah, humbug!” to “God bless us, every one!” … (read more)

Back in 2008, the brave and unlikely start-up Opera Company of Middlebury unveiled its first fully staged production in the renovated Town Hall Theater, Puccini’s “La Bohème.”

A key part of Middlebury Acting Company’s mission, under Melissa Lourie’s direction, has always been to find and perform new contemporary work. Their annual New Play Festival, and their series of staged readings, are a good start. But MACo also takes on t … (read more)

In a small town on the Jersey shore, a frightened family reports that a 14-year-old boy has disappeared. Police detective Chuck DeSantis quickly deduces that this is no ordinary missing-persons case. The child is a relative newcomer to the town but turns … (read more)

David Weinstock has been the shepherd of several poetry groups, including the Otter Creek Poetry Workshop, which has met every Thursday (except Thanksgiving) for the past 27 years.

Russian author Anton Chekhov in his short life wrote a thousand stories and 14 plays. His last play was “The Cherry Orchard,” first produced in Moscow by Konstantin Stanislavsky.

America is painfully divided, politically and socially. The nightly news is full of violence and turmoil. But Derrick Wang’s opera “Scalia/Ginsburg” offers a ray of hope, featuring two real-life leaders from opposite ends of the political spectrum, a man … (read more)

Gymnasts and ballerinas can go world-class in their teens, but an opera singer is a different kind of athlete. According to Sarah Cullins, Opera Company of Middlebury (OCM) director of Young Artist Programs, it’s all about the vocal cords. 

It begins the way all rom-coms do: Two single people “meet cute.” Picking flowers on a mountainside in the Tyrolean Alps, Marie topples off a cliff, but has the good luck to fall safely into the arms of Tonio, a local peasant.

Even if you haven’t a drop of Irish blood in your veins, you have Irish music in your mind, perhaps far more than you realize.

From the magical moment just before Christmas of 1843 when Charles Dickens released his novella “A Christmas Carol,” it was an instant bestseller.

Great opera doesn’t need to be about anything — sometimes all we crave is unforgettable music and fabulous voices. But Opera Company of Middlebury’s “Glory Denied,” opening Sept. 27 at Town Hall Theater in Middlebury, offers more and should not be missed.

Literary historian Kim Roberts recently told the Washington Post that Vermont is the American state with the highest proportion of writers.

Ratified in 1788, permanently inked in cursive script on broad sheets of parchment, the U.S. Constitution might look like settled history, a totally done deal.

The Opera Company of Middlebury’s production opens on June 2 and should not be missed. Not only is the music as powerful as you’d expect, but the 19th century politics are also hauntingly current to us today.