Students are returning to the classroom, and there’s no shortage of ways for Vermonters to connect, learn and have a good time. We’ve compiled seven must-do events, including Shakespeare Alive! A Bard-Based Variety Show from local favorites Stand Up Shakespeare.
Play It Coolidge Saturday 3 & Sunday 4 The Plymouth Folk & Blues Festival, a rootsy shindig 17 years strong, once again visits the Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site with a lineup that includes Craig Bickhardt (pictured), Sarah King, the Speckers and Reggie Harris. Early birds on Saturday get a pre-show: Shakespeare Alive! A Bard-Based Variety Show from local favorites Stand Up Shakespeare. Flavor Town Saturday 3 Downtown Bennington transforms into Garlic Town, USA, a celebration of all things allium — and a stinkin’ good time. Between live music, magic shows, face painting and cocktail pours, vendors serve up pungent specialties such as garlic scape pickles, funky aiolis, black garlic salt and wearable garlic crowns. Media Studies Opens Thursday 1 Vermonters planning a hop across the border would be remiss not to stop by the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, where multimedia artist Shary Boyle’s solo show, “Outside the Palace of Me,” opens on Thursday, with an artist lecture on the previous evening. Boyle’s sculptures, drawings and moving automatons draw on the theater language of costumes and set design to ask questions about identity and technology in our rapidly changing world. Volcano Man’s Land Thursday 1 Vermont International Film Festival screens an explosive new documentary, Fire of Love, at the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center’s Film House. This incomparably unique tour de force uses footage captured by Maurice and Katia Krafft, two married French scientists who died in a volcanic eruption in 1991, to depict the otherworldly grandeur of volcanoes. Night at the Museum Friday 2 Shelburne Museum hosts its final Free First Friday Eve, opening its grounds and exhibits to one and all. There’s a meet and greet with David Stromeyer, the artist behind the museum’s newest outdoor sculpture, and the lush lawns provide the setting for food trucks, flowing taps, lawn games and live music from reggae-funk band the Reflexions. As Duck Would Have It Sunday 4 Mad River Valley Rotary hosts Waitsfield’s wackiest, quackiest fundraiser: the Duck Race. More donations buy you more rubber duckies, which take off from the Lareau Park swimming hole and head down the river; the owners of the first 10 fake fowl to cross the finish line win cash prizes. Donations benefit the Rotary’s charity work with organizations including Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, Mad River Chorale and the Warren Public Library. Fruit and a Half Tuesday 6…