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Arts & Entertainment

Antique Autos At The Air Museum; Comstock Ferre Birthday Bash; Kids Theater in West Hartford

Enrich your life, June 2 – 8, 2011

Antique Auto Show at Air Museum 

Model T's, hot rods, muscle cars, show cars from the 1930s, '40s and more are on view as part of the Antique Auto Show to be held June 5 at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks. Co-sponsored by the Connecticut Council of Car Clubs, this is one of the state's larger antique auto shows of the year. 

Admission is included with the regular museum entrance fee. The New England Air Museum is at 36 Perimeter Road, Windsor Locks. For more information, visit www.neam.org or call 860-623-3305

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Comstock Ferre Celebrates 200 Years

Old-time music, 19th century costumes, vendors demonstrating everything from historic crafts to the making of CowPots, farmers, speakers, refreshments, and a greenhouse full of seedlings are all part of the attraction when Wethersfield's Comstock Ferre seed company marks its 200th anniversary with a Birthday Bash. The June 5 event includes talks by Sal Gibertie, and former Martha Stewart Living editor and garden blogger extraordinaire Margaret Roach, among others, and a screening of Queen of the Sun, a film about the plight of bees. Food vendors include GMonkey, the nation's first all-vegetarian/vegan/eco mobile food truck; Skinny Pines, a wood-fired pizza truck; Hartford Baking Co.; Billings Forge; Farmer's Cow, and Chet's Italian Ice. 

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Activities run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. For a complete schedule, visit www.comstockferre.com.  

Hill-Stead Sunken Garden Poetry Festival

Farmington's Hill-Stead Museum presents its 19th season of readings by world-class poets. The annual Sunken Garden Poetry Festival commences June 8 with award-winning North Carolina-native and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Tony Hoagland whose collections include Unincorporated Personas in the Late Honda DynastyWhat Narcissism Means to MeDonkey Gospel; and Sweet Ruin. Also reading is West Hartford's Patricia Hale, 2011 Sunken Garden Prize first place winner, whose work has appeared in publications including Calyx, H.O.W. Journal, Sow's Ear, Dogwood, and Long River Run. Live music by Ol School, an 11-piece horn band that plays hits by Tower of Power, Stevie Wonder, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and Chicago, completes the evening's entertainment.

Gates open at 4:30 p.m. Performances begin at 6:30 p.m. and continue through 8:30 p.m. in the Hill-Stead's Sunken Garden. Attendees are invited to bring food or purchase it on site. Admission is free. On-site parking is $10 per vehicle. Bring a blanket or folding chair for seating in and around the garden. In the event of rain, performances move indoors or are held outdoors under a tent. The Hill-Stead is at 35 Mountain Road, Farmington. For more information, visit www.hillstead.org or call 860-677-4787.

Kid's Entertainment at Playhouse

Have you ever met a kid who is afraid to try, certain that he or she will fail? Consider taking the tyke to I Think I Can, the positive-thinking production headlining this week at West Hartford's Playhouse on Park. Created by Bruce Bowden, Barry Miller and Kathryn Schutz Miller, I Think I Can features Becky Watkins, a child who is holding herself back until her house cat, Professor, takes her on a magical adventure full of possibilities. The 45-minute play is directed by Darlene Zoller. It is recommended for pre-school through 3rd grade. 

Performance dates are June 1 through 5. Tickets range from $13 to $15. Playhouse on Park is at 244 Park Road, West Hartford. For more information, visit www.playhouseonpark.org or call 860-523-5900 x10.

Quilt Program at Stanley-Whitman

Quilts from the 18th to early 20th centuries are the focus of Women's Voices: An Introduction to Antique Quilts, a one-day, hands-on workshop presented by Farmington's Stanley-Whitman House. Joann Zeisner, education coordinator and former American Quilt Society appraiser, leads the June 5 workshop, which covers the variety in quilt patterns fabric and construction; basics in dating, hand- and machine-stitching; and how to recognize a fake. Participants are invited to tour the Stanley-Whitman house following the workshop  to see a mid-18th-century whole piece quilt in the process of creation.

The workshop runs from 1 to 3 p.m. Cost is $12. Registration is required by June 3.  The Stanley-Whitman House is at 37 High St., Farmington. For more information, visit www.stanleywhitman.org or call 860-677-9222.

Maestro Cumming's Grand Goodbye

If you were leaving your post as music director after nine years with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, wouldn't you want to pull out all the stops? Outgoing Hartford Symphony music director Edward Cumming does just that when he conducts his Grand Finale Concert on June 4 at Hartford's Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. Cumming's  adieu calls forth the combined forces of the Hartford Chorale, CONCORA, the Connecticut Children's Chorus, and soloists Jessica Winn and Stephen Tharp, as well as the Bushnell's original Hartford-made Austin Organ performing Berlioz's Te Deum and the American premiere of Stephen Montague's Requiem: The Trumpets Sounded Calling Them to the Other Side.  

Concert time is 8 p.m. From 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., audience members are invited to a pre-concert discussion with Maestro Cumming. Tickets prices range from $30 to $70. Student tickets are $10. For reservations or more information, contact HSO ticket services at 860-244-2999 or visit www.hartfordsymphony.orgThe Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts is at 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. For tickets and more information, visitwww.bushnell.org or call the box office at 860-987-5900

A Concert Inspired by Connecticut Naturalism 

The beauty of Connecticut's natural resources is celebrated through a concert of contemporary masterworks featuring the Hartford Symphony Orchestra Earth Trio, cellist Jeffrey Krieger, flutist Greig Shearer, and pianist Gary Chapman. The concert event begins with an Artists Forum at Firebox Restaurant in Hartford with Krieger and composer Michael Gatonska. It is followed by a concert at the studio at Billings Forge Community Works. Program highlights include Le Merle Noir by Olivier Messian; Vox Balanae ("Voice of the Whale") by George Crumb;  and On Connecticut Naturalism by Gatonska, which originates from notes taken while hiking and bicycling through the state.

The event is free. Firebox Restaurant is at 539 Broad St., Hartford. Billings Forge is next door at the same address. Call 860-548-9877.

Jimmy Webb at Infinity Hall 

Wichita Lineman . . . By the Time I Get to Phoenix . . . Up, Up and Away . . . Get in the car already. Legendary pop tunesmith Jimmy Webb returns to West Norfolk's Infinity Hall for a June 9 concert. Webb is the only artist ever to receive Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration.

Show time is 8 p.m. Tickets are $35 and $45. For reservations or more information, visit www.infinityhall.com or call 866-666-6306. Infinity Hall is at 20 Greenwoods Road, West Norfolk.

Nureyev by Wyeth at New Britain Museum

Monet had his haystacks. Andy Warhol had his soup cans. And James Wyeth had Rudolf Nureyev. The results of Wyeth's fascination with his subject can be seen inRudolph Nureyev by James Wyeth, a new exhibition opening June 3 at the New Britain Museum of American Art in New Britain. Wyeth, the third generation of an American art dynasty that includes his father, Andrew Wyeth, and his grandfather, N.C. Wyeth, previously painted birds, animals, and landscapes. His portraiture included canvases depicting presidents Jimmy Carter and John F. Kennedy. Nureyev is a subject Wyeth observed for an entire year. He followed the famous ballet dancer from rehearsal hall to the stage and into his dressing room. Nureyev also sat for portraits at Wyeth's Pennsylvania farm, critiquing the artist's work as it was created. The paintings in the exhibition date from 1977 to 2003, and they include 15 works in mixed media and sketchbook images. Also on view are a costume worn by Nureyev, and a pair of the dancer's ballet slippers. 

Rudolph Nureyev by James Wyeth runs from June 3 through July 31. An opening reception is scheduled for June 3 from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. The New Britain Museum of American Art is at 56 Lexington St., New Britain. For more information, visit www.nbmaa.org or call 860-229-0257.

 Mamet's Race at TheaterWorks

Can't we all just get along? Not so easily if the new TheaterWorks production of David Mamet's Race is any clue. Mamet's drama finds three attorney's – one white and two black – called upon to defend a wealthy white executive against charges he raped a black woman. What gets put on trial are the principals' biases and assumptions about race relations in America. As Mamet puts it, "Race, like sex, is a subject in which it is near impossible to tell the truth." Tazewell Thompson, who staged TheaterWorks' productions of Broke-ology, God of Carnage, and A Steady Rain, directs.

Race runs from June 3 through July 10. TheaterWorks is at  233 Pearl St., Hartford. For tickets and more information, visit www.theaterworkshartford.org or call 860-527-7838.

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