New Play By Press Booster

I just learned today that a new play called "Gray Matters" will be produced this fall in Hartford by the Emerson Theater Collaborative.
The play is by Connecticut playwright Jacques Lamarre, who works promoting the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford.
I happen to know Jacques, who in a previous life also worked promoting both Hartford Stage and Theater Works, two awesome theaters in Hartford. He's a terrific guy with a great sense of humor, a strong faith (I once heard him deliver a sermon, but that's another story) and also a wonderful sense of community.
He was one of the people who helped put together the screening of the documentary about near demise of The Bristol Press early this year at the Twain House. For that alone, he deserves a pat on the back.
But Jacques, who is, shall we say, a little zealous about pushing whatever organization he's working for, has never told me about his own plays.
"Gray Matters," which premiered in New York at the Midtown International Theater Festival over the summer and then played in Mystic this month, runs in Hartford from September 9-11.
According to the Emerson Theater Collaborative, which serves youth, underserved communities and artists in Southeastern Connecticut, the play is a topical new comedy that focuses on what happens to an uninsured, unemployed actor when she loses her memory.
The show will be at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford.Information and tickets for "Gray Matters" can be obtained by visiting EmersonTheaterCollaborative.org. Tickets are $25 ($23 for students and seniors).

Twain House to Host Forum, Film, on the Press

The Press, that's with a capital "p," is the star of the show tomorrow night at the Mark Twain House and Museum.

The new CPTV documentary about the near-demise of your beloved hometown newspaper, The Bristol Press, will be shown for the first time. In addition, there will be a panel discussion that includes some wonderful people, not the least of whom is my own dear husband, Steve Collins.

That alone ought to be worth the price of admission.

If that's not enough, Press Publisher Mike Schroeder is also on the panel, along with Hartford-area media types.

So come one, come all! The auditorium is filling up, I'm told, but there are still seats available. Come to support The Bristol Press, or newspapers, or journalism, or documentaries, to catcall, hoot or applaud the film, to say hello to me, or just to support the museum.

The museum, which is an absolutely awesome place to see all by itself, so if you haven't seen it, you absolutely must go, is celebrating newspapers this month.

The author Sam Clemens, of course, was once a newspaperman. But don't hold that against him. It happens to the best of us.