The Rendezvous bar in Turners Falls cleaned up at this year's Valley Advocate "Best of" reader's poll. This is great, because:

• The Voo is owned by a bunch of friends of mine.
  
• Maybe it means they are successfully re-branding Turners Falls into the much hipper "tfma," at least a little. (Can you gentrify a neighborhood just a little?)
  
• I didn't have to ( Read more... )

As we got out of the car, we saw Mark wheeling a wheelbarrow full of debris through the parking lot. "Do you need a hand?" I asked. Last night, L. and I had gone over to the Rendezvous in Turners Falls to see our friends who had been devoured by the renovation efforts at their soon-to-be-opened bar. It turns out, despite the rumors, they didn't ( Read more... )

My second story on the One Acts by the Arena Civic Theater troupe at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls this weekend and last weekend appeared in The Recorder this morning. (See my blog post about the first article, which appeared in Preview Massachusetts magazine.) Unfortunately, the story is not available on the website. But here are the opening ( Read more... )

“Throwing art” is how Jessamyn Smyth puts it. It’s about not waiting for grant funding or institutional support, but getting the work in front of people right there in your neighborhood, however you can.

When the Arena Civic Theater company took on a program of short plays and monologues by Smyth and Richard Ballon for its June slot, it collected ( Read more... )