What a weekend in Chestertown! It started Thursday night. At 6:30 pm, Washington College’s free Riverfront Concert series kicked off with folk music by The Honey Dewdrops. It was a lovely evening – a little hot but with a breeze off the river. The concerts take place beside the Chester River at the foot of High Street, on the lawn behind the Custom House, home of Washington College’s Starr Center for the American Experience. Just shy of a hundred people were there, sitting on the grass, leaning against the trees, or relaxing in the folding canvas chairs they brought with them. There were quite a few kids dancing on the lawn. You could watch the river flow gently by. The only glitch was the humidity causing the PA system to short out. After a couple of tries, the performers invited everyone to come up closer and then they played unamplified. That actually made the concert feel more intimate. Wortman’s voice rang clear on both originals and well-known folk songs. There are two more in the Riverfront Concerts.
But the Riverfront Concert was just the beginning of the music and magic. On Friday, June 23, you had your choice of indoor theater or outdoor theater. At the Garfield Center for the Arts on High Street, it was opening night for Short Attention Span Theatre , in which eight short plays, each about ten minutes long, were performed. The idea is that if you don’t like one, if this play loses your attention, well, the next one will be along in under ten minutes!
While Short Attention Span was just opening it’s three-week run indoors at the Garfield, over at Wilmer Park, Shore Shakespeare was celebrating the end of their triumphant tour of the Eastern Shore with a magical production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, full of fairies, enchantments, love triangles, and noble passions. The weather cooperated beautifully with nearly 200 in attendance at each of the weekend’s performances, Friday and Sunday. The tour took A Midsummer Night’s Dream to six locations on the Eastern Shore, finishing up this past weekend with two free performances at Wilmer Park in Chestertown.
On Saturday, there was a ribbon-cutting for the re-naming of the neighborhood park in the Washington Park area of Chestertown. Formerly just referred to as “Washington Park” – which would make it redundantly “Washington Park” Park – it is now officially the “Louise D. Carpenter Park”. Councilman Sam Shoge was on hand to help cut the ribbon along with community members who had worked hard to upgrade the facilities. There is a basketball court, new benches, and a large swing and climbing set. In its own way, it was a magical moment for community members who helped bring it about.
Later on Saturday morning, the Fort Delaware Coronet Band, dressed in authentic Civil War uniforms, joined the Kent County Community Marching Band and local re-enactors in a short parade, followed by a ceremony recognizing the veterans of America’s Civil War. Thomas Hayman, who organized the event, laid flowers at the 1917 Civil War Monument and the more recent 1999 monument to the USCT, United States Colored Troops from Kent County. Then the Fort Delaware band played songs from the Civil War Era on period instruments. Nearby was a “living history” exhibit with uniforms, guns, items for camping and cooking, and other items, all originals or authentic reproductions from the era.
If that wasn’t enough music for you, not to worry. At 7 p.m., the inaugural concert for the 2017 summer season of Music in the Park started with The Andovers Trio presenting “A Half Century of Hits.” It was a lively evening of good old rock-n-roll plus a few country tunes!
The Short Attention Span Theater 10-minute play festival at the Garfield is a perennial favorite with local theater-goers, with plays “just long enough.” And if your attention span is even shorter, why the one-minute plays in the lobby of the Garfield might be just your thing! Hey, Wait a Minute was a set of five “One-Minute” plays in the lobby for the audience to enjoy while waiting for the doors to open for the main attraction. Short Attention Span Theatre has two more weekends, Friday and Saturday evenings with 3:00 pm matinees on Sunday.
Yes, the weekend in Chestertown, Thursday through Sunday, June 22-25, was a wondrous one – full or music and magic for everyone.
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