Paint & Stages

The Florence Griswold Museum, in Old Lyme, Conn., is hosting a most appropriate exhibit this summer: “Impressionist Giverny: American Painters in France, 1885-1915” (now through July 27). In the late 19th century, the home of Miss Florence Griswold was a popular refuge for artists, and that legacy is revived with a painting exhibition that emphasizes the artistic allure of the countryside. On loan from the Chicago-based Terra Foundation for American Art, which runs the Musée d’Art Américain in Giverny, France, the show offers a thorough look at the paintings that came out of a single, well-trafficked belle époque art colony.The works, which come from an era when daubing at one’s easel in the middle of a French field was considered the height of chic, aren’t all masterpieces. But Giverny did attract at least two important American painters, Theodore Robinson and Frederick Frieseke. And as the Griswold’s head curator, Amy Kurtz Lansing, said, “American artists really developed their own version of Impressionism.”The influence of earlier art colonies — notably Barbizon, where the style was tighter brushwork and an earthier palette — is evident in the early works from Giverny, where approximately 70% of the resident artists were American. The expat community painted the villagers generally ignored by fellow Giverny resident Claude Monet and explored the relationship between figures and landscapes more than their French Impressionist counterparts did.The show also works as the chronicle of a movement — one that began with a trickle of new arrivals barely aware that Monet was their neighbor, then swelled with second-home buyers wanting cachet and a backyard they could sketch in. And the Griswold Museum wisely makes the most of the parallels between Giverny and its own history.Left to run her estate on her own, Griswold turned her family’s Georgian mansion into an artist’s colony in 1899. The Lyme Art Colony, as it was known, was closely modeled on the communities of Barbizon and Giverny and became a major hub of American Impressionism. Griswold’s boardinghouse came to mirror Giverny’s main hotel, where the long-term foreign guests hung their work on the walls, played afternoon tennis, and convinced the proprietors to add Boston baked beans to the menu.In 2006, the Griswold Museum underwent a restoration that more or less transformed the space from a gallery into a museum, a shift that makes perfect sense in light of the Giverny show. Downstairs in the main house, period rooms re-create the boardinghouse as it would have appeared in 1910, the colony’s apogee. Upstairs, an ongoing exhibition of photographs and items covers the colony’s history.As at Giverny, artists created some lovely paintings at Lyme; they undoubtedly treasured their time there, even if they generally broke more rules at the billiard table than they did on the canvas. And why shouldn’t they have cherished it? Especially when the lilies of the valley are out, fleeing from New York to a Connecticut art colony can seem quite sensible.* * *This summer, the renovated Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Conn., will have a homecoming of sorts. The current co-artistic directors, Anne Keefe and Joanne Woodward, the duo who saw the playhouse through its $17 million makeover three years ago, then stepped down, retook the reins as interim artistic directors earlier this year, following the departure of Tazewell Thompson. Since January, they have been tending to the production schedule. One major change to the summer lineup has resulted: Instead of presenting the Tennessee Williams play “Sweet Bird of Youth,” the playhouse will show “Tryst,” an Edwardian thriller by Karoline Leach (August 5 through August 23).“It wasn’t a play that sang to either of us,” Ms. Keefe said of the Williams play, adding that she and Ms. Woodward (who declined to comment) had been eager for some time to work with the director Joe Brancato. The play is about a London con artist (played by Mark Shanahan) who specializes in well-to-do spinsters. They had also been keen to lure Mr. Shanahan — who is currently starring in the Broadway version of “The 39 Steps” and is well-known in Westport for his roles in “Sedition,” “Journey’s End,” and “David Copperfield” — back to the playhouse.Ms. Keefe added that she and Ms. Woodward were reluctant to put the theater’s staff through a production as large as “Sweet Bird of Youth,” which calls for a cast of almost 20. By contrast, “Tryst” is a two-character play.For some musical fare, the song-and-dance revue “Hot ‘n Cole: A Cole Porter Celebration!” (through June 28) offers a pair of pianos, six actors, and 48 songs. Featuring arrangements by Bruce Coyle, the show will be directed by the two-time Tony Award-winner James Naughton. The list of songs ranges from “Night and Day” and “It’s De-Lovely” to lesser-known melodies such as “The Tale of the Oyster.” Ms. Keefe described the show as a tip of the hat to the theater’s older audience, but added: “The truth is that almost anybody who hears Cole Porter loves Cole Porter.”The chaotic headquarters of a golf magazine is the setting of “Scramble!” (July 8 through July 26) an office comedy by the playwright-in-residence (and former Tennis magazine contributor) David Wiltse, Ms. Keefe’s husband. It’s a classic three-door farce, full of reckless flings and precision-timed mishaps. “It’s all about who’s going to get caught doing something naughty,” Ms. Keefe said. “Pure silliness.” The cast includes “Saturday Night Live” alum Rachel Dratch.Throughout the summer, the playhouse will also host Monday night readings — including a June 16 reading of Noël Coward’s “Fallen Angels” featuring another “SNL” alum, Jane Curtin.* * *Just 75 miles up the coast, Waterford’s Eugene O’Neill Theater Center is the place for summer theater workshops. Known for nurturing playwrights (including Wendy Wasserstein and Wole Soyinka) and creating a productive space in which they can work, the center hosts summer conferences devoted to musical theater, puppetry, and playwriting. The doors will open to the public for five plays — including Alex Lewin’s “The Near East” and Jason Grote’s “Box Americana” — being performed as part of the National Playwrights Conference (July 3 through July 27). During late June and July, the center will also put on four musicals and two puppetry shows. Between July 30 and August 10, Penny Fuller, Amanda Green, John Epperson (better known as Lypsinka), and the former Ronettes lead singer Ronnie Spector take the stage as part of the Cabaret & Performance Conference.

Paint & Stages

Paint & Stages

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