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By ALEX HANSON

WOODSTOCK — Last year, the organizers of Bookstock, the literary festival begun here in 2009, set out a lofty aim.“Our goal,” they wrote in a funding application to the Woodstock Economic Development Commission, “is to make Bookstock one of the most...

By ALEX HANSON

CANAAN — A few summers ago, during the pandemic, Martin Decato and Peter Dionne got together to play music. Decato is a longtime pro, Dionne an avid amateur.They looked around for a good place to make music videos, and didn’t have to look far. They...

By ALEX HANSON

By his own account, Ken Cadow was a reluctant student.His father had been a teacher, but went to work at IBM to earn enough to raise a family. Cadow grew up mostly in Rhode Island.“I learned a lot of stuff with my dad in the shop,” Cadow said in a...

By ALEX HANSON

LEBANON — Jennifer Henderson was a senior in high school in 1999, when City Center Ballet came to life.For years she had been studying at Lebanon Ballet School, which Linda Copp had founded in the mid-1980s. “She had built up a really excellent...

By ALEX HANSON

For much of its history, JAG Productions, the small, White River Junction theater company that specializes in telling stories from deep inside the black, queer, American experience, has had to be nimble. Company founder Jarvis Antonio Green has...

By ALEX HANSON

The journalism and the arts can meet at a fraught crossroads. One relies on facts and on creating an account as close to the truth as possible in the time available. The other is interested in truths that are more personal, less grounded, and time...

By ALEX HANSON

EAST BETHEL — From their cars, parked in a neat row on the grass outside, worshipers walked through the front door of the village’s stately, 200-year-old brick church for a symbolic rebirth.Not only was it Easter Sunday, but some of the 30 or so...

By ALEX HANSON

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — In its relatively short history, We the People Theatre has specialized in sweeping musical theater projects, starting with productions of “1776” and “Working.” The coronavirus pandemic put an end to the company’s momentum,...

By ALEX HANSON

Like any art form, theater can carry a lot of ideological freight. Mercifully, sometimes it just entertains and amuses.And sometimes, it entertains so thoroughly that you forget everything but the present spectacle. That’s what Northern Stage’s...

By ALEX HANSON

John Kuhns arrived at the Valley News at a big moment for the small, busy newspaper.His predecessor as publisher, Willmott “Bin” Lewis, announced in January 1993 that he would step down that spring with Kuhns to replace him. Just before Kuhns started,...

By ALEX HANSON

Having spent untold hours in selectboard and city council meeting rooms around the Upper Valley, I’ve often joked that it would be more fun to write about the meetings held in them as if they were theater, rather than just the mostly humdrum work of...

By ALEX HANSON

BETHEL — It’s a rare annual meeting at which the controversial issues are raised in the “other business” portion just before adjournment.After passing a budget of nearly $14.4 million by a vote of 98-28 on Monday evening, voters from Bethel and...

By ALEX HANSON

Two White River Valley school districts that canceled their annual budget votes will resume discussions at school board meetings in the coming days.Both the Strafford and First Branch Unified school districts opted to call off their planned budget...

By ALEX HANSON

Larry Vanier started taking photographs as a hobby. He already enjoyed hiking and being outdoors, so it was natural to him to start taking a camera along.This was in the 1970s and early ’80s, the apex of film photography. The Upper Valley had a robust...

By ALEX HANSON

Sometimes, a patron would come into the Polka Dot Restaurant and ask, “How much is coffee and a doughnut.”Mary Shatney knew what that question meant and would point to an open seat. Often, she’d make a plate of food — eggs, toast and home fries, maybe...

By ALEX HANSON

Loren David Howard started making movies the way a lot of teens do, by recording concerts his dad took him to and making videos of friends out skateboarding.He didn’t expect to make much out of it, but after a school counselor advised him to think...

By ALEX HANSON

A pair of the most venerable and active Upper Valley performance venues, Lebanon Opera House and Randolph’s Chandler Music Hall, are reopening in the next week after renovations.The opera house, which will reopen with a refreshed lobby and new seats...

By ALEX HANSON

HANOVER — During a rehearsal at Hanover High School a couple of weeks ago, a handful of young actors recited lines an Upper Valley audience wouldn’t expect to hear spoken on a high school stage.“That’s when I had my first panic attack.” “The scariest...

By ALEX HANSON

Some partnerships seem destined from the start. A pair of elementary school friends who get married out of college and stay together forever, or Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, to consider just two scenarios.But most people in enduring relationships...

By ALEX HANSON

BETHEL — Victoria Weber and Davis Dimock first met when they were in college, he at Pomona and she at Pitzer, two small liberal arts colleges in Claremont, Calif., east of Los Angeles. This was in the 1960s.After living in California and performing...