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Indigo Room launches with weekend events
Oct 08, 2025
Morgan James performing the first sneak preview event (with Doug Wamble) in March.
Christina Lane
The Indigo Room is a new event space in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, adjacent to the Mahaiwe Theater, with a capacity of 50 to 100, depending on the seating arrangement. With a flexible stage, the venue can be set up to meet most production needs and is fully equipped with top-notch sound and lighting systems.
Though it has already hosted a few soft openings, The Indigo Room officially opens Sunday, Oct. 12, with a ribbon-cutting at 1 p.m., part of a weekend of grand opening events.
A traditional Chinese lion dance will be performed to bring good luck. Red envelopes will be available for attendees to present their good wishes, and an apple cider toast will be raised in celebration. Guests will receive a commemorative souvenir.
On Friday, Oct. 10, comedian Kevin McCaffrey performs at 7 p.m. Drag Bingo with Miranda Moirai will take place later that night at 9:30 p.m.
Tony-nominated jazz and pop singer Ann Hampton Callaway will feature highlights from her hit shows “The Streisand Songbook, Ann Hampton Callaway Sings the ‘70s,” “The Linda Ronstadt Songbook,” “To Ella with Love,” “From Sassy to Divine: The Sarah Vaughan Project” and “Finding Beauty: Inspired Classics and Originals” on Saturday, Oct. 11, at 8 p.m.
On Sunday, Oct. 12, at 11 a.m., there will be a free family concert with Arlo Guthrie’s longtime drummer, Terry A La Berry. Also on Sunday, blues musician Guy Davis will perform at 8 p.m. Davis is a two-time Grammy nominee for best traditional blues. A musician, actor, author and songwriter, Davis uses roots, blues, folk, rock, rap, spoken word and world music to address social injustice, touching on historical events and common life struggles.
The Indigo Room has a capacity of 50 to 100, depending on the seating arrangement. Christina Lane
Tickets are available at mahaiwe.org, or by calling or visiting the box office at 14 Castle St., Wednesday through Saturday, from noon to 4 p.m. The phone number is 413-528-0100.
The Indigo Room will also leave space in its programming for local artists — a welcome addition to Great Barrington’s cultural scene, especially since the departure of smaller venues like Club Helsinki in recent years.
“It is a continuation of the high-caliber work and customer care that audiences expect of the Mahaiwe, while expanding what we can do. It’s an intimate social space where you can find live comedy, an array of musical performances, as well as family-friendly entertainment and everything in between,” said Executive Director Janis Martinson.
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SHARON, Conn. — The Sharon Audubon Center, located at 325 Cornwall Bridge Road is once again offering Lizzie Mae’s brand bird seed to customers at a special discounted price through a fall pre-order bird seed sale in order to stock up for feeding the birds over the winter.
Seed varieties include a special custom Northwest Corner Blend, black oil sunflower, sunflower chips, finch favorite, woodpecker favorite, cardinal favorite, chickadee and nuthatch favorite, shell-free medley, in-shell peanuts, and various types of suet cakes. Descriptions of each variety can be found on the online order form.
Orders can be made online through the link on the Sharon Audubon Center website (audubon.org/sharon) and Facebook page, or by mailing in a completed form and payment. All orders and payments must be received by Oct. 20.
Additional bags may be purchased on the day of pick-up but will be sold at regular price.
Customers will be notified by phone or email when the orders are in, and seed can then be picked up during Audubon’s current regular business hours (Thursday to Saturday from 1 to 4:30 p.m.) or by appointment by making arrangements in advance with a staff member.
All pre-ordered seed must be picked up by Nov. 29.
Contact Wendy at 860-364-0520 x105 or wendy.miller@audubon.org.
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Breaking ground for the project that will convert the Community Center in Sharon into four affordable apartments are, from left: Richard Baumann, chairman of Sharon Housing Trust, First Selectman Casey Flanagan, Commissioner of Housing Selia Mosquera-Bruno and State Rep. Maria Horn (D-64).
Ruth Epstein
SHARON — The turning of the dirt signaled the hope for four families to find their dream of affordable housing.
A groundbreaking ceremony took place on Sept. 29 at the former Community Center on Gay Street (Route 41) where the Sharon Housing Trust is planning to place four affordable units. Dignitaries, including Commissioner of Housing Selia Mosquera-Bruno, were in attendance, along with many Sharon residents and members of affordable housing organizations from around the region.
Richard Baumann, chairman of the trust, began by explaining the trust already owns three buildings contiguous to the center, each containing two affordable apartments.
“The former owner kept them affordable and we’re building on that,” he said, emphasizing the generosity of so many people. “He sold them to us below market value and then took the mortgage. We still had a shortfall of $100,000 and an anonymous person gave us a bridge loan that we were later able to pay back.” Several times Baumann talked about the remarkable way in which this is all coming together.
The building was the former Masonic temple, which is owned by the town. It has leased it to the trust for 99 years.
“The next remarkable thing was that the town applied for a $1 million grant from the state and didn’t get it,” he said. “We rolled the projects together (rehabbing the center and upgrading the six apartments) and the state doubled our money. We now have $2 million to do them.”
He then introduced Sharon resident Lyden Miller, a world-renowned landscape designer, who will donate her expertise in creating the look of the grounds.
First Selectman Casey Flanagan, looking up at the structure, said it has served the community for nearly 100 years and now will continue to do so in a different form.
“Sharon is a town that values its character, its history and most importantly its people,” he said. “We recognize that for our community to thrive, we must ensure that families, seniors and young professionals can afford to live here. Whether it’s through renovation of existing properties thoughtful development or creative use of town-owned land, we’re committed to solutions that preserve Sharon’s charm while making it more accessible to those who want to call it home.”
He said this project is a creative solution that reflects both fiscal responsibility and compassion.
State Rep. Maria Horn, D-64, said, “I get such pleasure out of the frequency of these groundbreakings.”
Mosquera-Bruno, after some ribbing from Baumann, promised she’d try to expedite the funding.
“Congratulations to this milestone and we thank the governor and legislature for their support of housing,” said Mosquero-Bruno. “The reality is we’re putting more shovels in the ground than ever before.”
Following the ceremony, the annual Housing Summit, sponsored by Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity was held next door at Sharon Center School. Affordable housing organizations manned booths on the school grounds, showcasing their projects in great detail.
Those attending the annual Housing Summit in Sharon view the displays of affordable housing organizations around the county. Ruth Epstien
The program then moved indoors where Jocelyn Ayer, director of LCCHO, addressed the crowd and said they are working on 18 projects in 12 towns. Water bottles with the slogan “Put US back in housing” were distributed.
Mosquera-Bruno gave statistics about all the affordable units that have, or are going up, around the state. Nandini Natarnjan, CEO of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, who works closely with the commissioner, said solutions to housing have to fit the size and scale of the people and towns here.
“Home ownership is a dream for so many,” she said. “Our purpose is not just about giving mortgages, but sustaining civic life. It’s about creating futures for the young and older populations.”
Horn spoke about housing on a personal level, saying “Some people we know and love are getting bounced out of their homes. They are intricate pieces of our community and it’s important to remember them.”
The dialogue than shifted to House Bill 5002with Horn expressing her disappointment that it was vetoed by Gov. Ned Lamont. The bill aimed to implement reforms to make it easier for affordable housing initiatives. Horn and others see this as a setback and she hopes there will be a special session of the legislature to address the matter.
An informal survey on the most engaging display by an affordable housing group and the most informative was held. Norfolk captured the first and Salisbury the second.
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The label bearing the hotly disputed “Gulf of America” designation was changed via an order by LaBonne’s Markets to its wholesaler.
Amy Lake
SALISBURY — Within a day of Salisbury shoppers complaining about a frozen shrimp label bearing the federally-mandated “Gulf of America” place name, LaBonne’s Markets had already had it changed.
Rob LaBonne III, president of the four-location grocery store chain, said the label alteration had actually been ordered long before complaints began in town.
“As a grocery store, we have to be everything to everybody,” LaBonne said. “We have people from all walks of life and political backgrounds who work for us, shop with us.”
LaBonne explained that although a flood of emails and calls – about 20, he reported — came in on Monday, Sept. 22 to complain about the packaging, the store had actually ordered the label to be changed about a month prior in response to a complaint from a customer at the Prospect location, one of the grocery store’s three other locations in Connecticut.
The concentrated outcry in Salisbury came as the result of Sharon resident and political organizer Jill Drew writing about the shrimp label in her twice-per-week email blast “Today’s Action,” which reaches hundreds of subscribers across the region. The outrage stems from President Trump’s January executive order to rename the body of water, which has been referred to as the Gulf of Mexico for more than 400 years and is not owned by any one nation. Only federal agencies within the U.S. are legally bound to use the title.
LaBonne said that while the response was intense, he called back everyone who reached out and found that they quickly appreciated the misunderstanding.
“Everyone I talked to was like, ‘no, we knew you guys wouldn’t do this,’” he said. “We don’t want to get mixed up with people thinking we’re making a political statement with bagged shrimp,” he added, reiterating that the company had acted on the issue well before the Sept. 22 complaints came in.
He explained that the label, which had actually been on the shelves since June, was not LaBonne’s doing but the result of the distributor following Google Maps’ usage of the title as well as an attempt to indicate that the shrimp were harvested in the U.S. rather than abroad. LaBonne said that the store requested the label change immediately after the complaint at the Prospect location, but that the distributor had to sell through the remaining stock bearing the “Gulf of America” label.
Even so, the day that the complaints came in, the store had the distributor print blank labels to cover the ones still in the aisle. The new labels, which are circulating now, eliminate the “Gulf of America” title and simply say “Product of the USA” to indicate their origin.
Salisbury resident Amy Lake, who was the first to bring the issue to Drew’s attention, said she was surprised to see what she saw as nationalist overreach showing up in LaBonne’s, which is a cherished community business.
Lake said that she was “kind of shaken by what [she] saw as jingoism in the aisle,” and was moved to act. She emphasized that the residential voice, and consumer choice, are the “tools of democracy.”
“It’s an act of courage to speak out as a public citizen and say this doesn’t fly here,” she said, expressing her gratitude for all the other shoppers who made their opinions known.
She also thanked the grocery store for its quick action. “I just have to credit LaBonne’s responsiveness to the community… within 24 hours they had addressed our complaint.”
Drew similarly praised the store’s handling of the issue and lauded its affirmation that “politics doesn’t belong in the grocery aisle,” in her words.
“I appreciate that he personally called members of the community who complained,” said Drew. “We didn’t have an argument; we had a conversation. Our country needs more of these conversations across many issues.”
LaBonne said the personal conversations are what makes LaBonne’s the community store that it is. “I encourage people to either reply or give us a call,” he said.
“We’re happy to hear everybody out. We never turn anyone away, and we want to always be better and make sure people feel comfortable shopping with us.”
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