April/May 2026

If you missed the last entry, you can find it here: March 2026

April 1st: (Passover) Went to Dracut Community Chorus rehearsal.

April 2nd: Hosted trivia.

April 8th: Had a Points of Light meeting (more on Points of Light Festival below)

April 9th: Hosted trivia.

April 10th: Brad and I split 20 different chilis (sample size, but still!) at DIY Lowell’s Chill Night. 20 organizations, restaurants, and individuals from the community brought their best chili or stew for the annual cook-off, an impressive (and filling) turnout.

April 11th: Went to see Dracut High School’s production of The Old Man and The Old Moon! Super fun and interesting show with an allegorical plot and all sorts of fun elements like foley sound and shadow puppetry. The students did a wonderful job, I had so much fun watching them have so much fun on stage. Later, Brad’s cousin got married! So we got all gussied up for a great evening celebrating family.

April 13th: Historical Society Meeting with local historian Richard Howe. Richard is the author of Lowell: A Concise History, and he shared a very interesting presentation on topics expounded upon in the book.

April 16th: Hosted trivia.

April 19th: Attended the MAP Board Meeting. Then Brad and I went to Harmony Hall for a 101 on the projector/sound system.

April 20th: Filmed historical surprise with Barbara (you’ll see more about this in the May 11th entry)

April 22nd: Had a Points of Light meeting. Then went to Dracut Community Chorus rehearsal at Harmony Hall!

April 23rd: Hosted trivia.

April 25th: Held the first session of the Dracut Youth Theatre Circle!!!!! DYTC is a free program for middle schoolers and our first experiment with programming in Dracut. Five young people signed up for this pilot session of the program.

April 26th: Had the pleasure of manning the Dracut Historical Society from 1-3. Quite a few visitors! A distant Coburn, who was interested in the history of the house and his ancestors who’d lived there. Two pairs of mothers and daughters walked through the house, pointing at things. Really lovely afternoon.

April 29th: Went to Dracut Community Chorus rehearsal.

April 30th: Hosted trivia.

May 1st: Had a phone interview with Historic New England. Brad went to see High School Musical at Lowell Catholic School, where his cousin Jessica is the Dean. Jessica’s daughter Julia choreographed the show!

May 2nd: Held the second session of the Dracut Youth Theatre Circle!!! We introduced the ideas of “Environment” and “Character” last week, but figured we should give them a couple examples before diving further into experimentation. So we brought with us examples from our own work: our Environment from the B-Side, The Piazza, and Brad’s character The Draketeer! Seeing a full scale Environment like The Piazza and seeing Brad embody a character of his own creation helped get their brains going for more experimenting.

After wrapping up DYTC for the day, we headed to Lowell. On Brad’s docket: The Town & The City Festival! This music festival in Lowell brings local and regional musicians together annually in May. Brad’s cousin Sean came into town from California to play a reunion show with his former band The Deliriants as part of the festival, and Brad got there just in time to catch the encore!

On my docket: Points of Light Festival!! I helped at the Information/Welcome Booth and helped takedown/clean up after the festival was over. This was my first festival and it was so cool to see all the decorated lanterns floating down the canal. And something to look forward to: next year is the 10th anniversary of the festival!

May 5th: Had my in-person interview with Historic New England. Later, I attended the Greater Lowell Community Foundation’s ArtsElevate celebration at Chelmsford Center for the Arts. Through ArtsElevate, GLCF partnered with four youth-serving organizations to pilot embedded artist programs designed to improve youth wellness through creative engagement. It was super cool to hear about how these pilot programs went and to hear about the successes of these embedded artists in their communities.

May 6th: Went to Dracut Community Chorus rehearsal.

May 7th: Hosted trivia.

May 9th: Third session of Dracut Youth Theatre Circle at Harmony Hall! I met one on one with each participant to get a feel for whether they know what they want to work on for the remaining time (environment or character). While I had meetings, the participants had the following assignment: make a fort together! Joy ensued, as I hoped.

May 11th: Dracut Historical Society meeting- Brad and I become official Board Members! And George Washington visits! (In April, Barbara filmed Brad reciting a speech from the point of view of George Washington, speaking about his friend from Dracut, James Mitchell Varnum. She edited the video and projects it onto the white sculpted bust of the 1st President to present as part of the museum’s Revolutionary War exhibits. This whole project was kept secret until the reveal at this meeting! Everyone was tickled and impressed, it’s like the Hall of Presidents right here in Dracut!)

May 13th: Dracut Community Chorus concert! America In Colors was the theme- American composers and songwriters, and songs that have colors in the title/chorus like Blue Skies and Big Yellow Taxi. I had a solo- the first verse of Light of a Clear Blue Morning by Dolly Parton. I had such a great time and can hardly wait to start again in the fall for the next concert!

May 16th: Family Fun Day at Beaver Brook Farm Market! Followed by the fourth session of Dracut Youth Theatre Circle. A gorgeous day out, made me excited for summer.

May 17th: Went to Brad’s cousin Heidi’s daughter Myley’s dance recital!

May 23rd: Fourth session of Dracut Youth Theatre Circle - in the Varnum Meeting Room at the Dracut Historical Society! Toured the Coburn House with the DYTC members. Inspo abounding, mostly for horror movies set in a distant, dusty past… Then we worked on nailing down the concepts for everyone’s characters and began looking online for costume elements and supplies they’ll want to complete their characters.

May 28th/29th: Was hired to be the new Program Assistant for Historic New England’s new Haverhill Center! Had my first days of training.

May 30th: Fifth session of Dracut Youth Theatre Circle at Harmony Hall. Distributed the costume items and supplies that were ordered for each participant, and began trying on and adding on to costumes!