“Frances Perkins Homestead Tour,” Damariscotta

July 13-15, Thursday-Saturday, 6pm, “Much Ado About Nothing,” Bath Shakespeare Festival opens “Much Ado About Nothing,” featuring professional actors and designers from Maine and across the country. The performances are presented in conjunction with the Patten Free Library. This production is sponsored by the Bath Savings Institution. “Much Ado About Nothing” is the ultimate battle of the sexes. Beatrice and Benedick can’t stand love and can’t stand each other. So what is left but for their friends to trick them into falling for each other? “Much Ado is a rollercoaster!” says Director Jeri Pitcher. “There are misunderstandings, mistakes, misinformation, and misguided actions. We go from peace to war to peace again and from love to hate and to love again, seemingly in an instant.” Romance, insults, and mistaken identity are all part of Shakespeare’s most scintillating comedy, $20, $15/seniors and students, $5/under 12, July 13 performance/pay-what-you-can, Patten Free Library, 33 Summer Street, bath. FMI: 207-443-5141, www.bathshakespeare.org.
July 13-15, Thursday-Saturday, 7:30pm, “Guys and Dolls,” set in a mythical New York City, Guys and Dolls is an oddball romantic comedy. Gambler, Nathan Detroit, tries to find the cash to set up the biggest craps game in town while the authorities breathe down his neck; meanwhile, his girlfriend and nightclub performer, Adelaide, laments that they’ve been engaged for fourteen years. Nathan turns to fellow gambler, Sky Masterson, for the dough, and Sky ends up chasing the straight-laced missionary, Sarah Brown, as a result, see site for ticketing details, Maine State Music Theatre, 1 Bath Road, Brunswick. FMI: 207-725-8769, msmt.org.
July 14, Friday, 7:30pm, “Bowdoin International Music Festival presents Anne Akiko Meyers,” the Festival is privileged to have Anne Akiko Meyers, one of the world’s leading violin soloists, at the Festival this year. In addition to performances with great orchestras around the globe, her career achievements count thirty-five albums (including the 2014 Billboard Classical top seller), world premieres of compositions by Corigliano, Higdon, and Rautavaara, among many others, and television features including The Tonight Show. Her performances of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra were met with rave reviews. Also on tonight’s program, Jennifer Higdon’s luminous chamber work, and Mozart’s showpiece for oboe, performed by Festival artist James Austin Smith, $45, Crooker Theater, Brunswick High School, 116 Maquoit Road, Brunswick. FMI: 207-373-1400, bowdoinfestival.org.
July 14, Friday, 8:30pm, “Bartok and Beethoven,” CHIARA STRING QUARTET: Rebecca Fischer, violin; Hyeyung Julie Yoon, violin; Jonah Sirota, viola; Gregory Beaver, cello. A sumptuous concert of music written by composers early in their illustrious careers. No work better illustrates Mendelssohn’s prodigious precocity than the A Minor String Quartet. Both its technical assurance and its depth of feeling belie the composer’s youth. The Chiara String Quartet, returning after their spectacular Bay Chamber debut last season, will perform this major early work with Britten’s youthful divertimenti and Kernis’ first quartet, the subtitle of which refers to the chorus of angels in medieval music theory and philosophy and expresses perfectly the artistic spirit of our 2017 season, $35/adult, $10/under 25, Union Hall Theatre, Rockport. FMI: 207-236-2823, www.baychamberconcerts.org.
July 15, Saturday, 9am tour and 1:30pm tour, “Frances Perkins Homestead Tour,” Have you visited the Frances Perkins Homestead yet? There are three opportunities this summer to enjoy guided tours of this National Historic Landmark that was home to Frances Perkins, first US woman cabinet secretary. See her family’s 1837 Brick House with its 57 acres of fields, gardens, and trails to the Damariscotta River and learn about how this place shaped her New Deal legacy. Two tour times are available each day. The 9:00 AM tour is 3 hours and includes the Homestead and a walk to the Damariscotta River. The 1:30 PM tour is 2 hours and includes only the Homestead. Both tours include participatory discussions led by knowledgeable experts. Transportation from downtown Damariscotta is provided by the Frances Perkins Center, $22, Francis Perkins Center, 170A Main Street, Damariscotta. FMI: 207-563-3374, FrancesPerkinsCenter.org.
July 15-16, Saturday-Sunday, 11am/event begins, “North Atlantic Blues Festival,” an annual two-day blues music festival featuring national blues performers and considered one of the most prestigious on the East Coast. The festival is held at the Public Landing in Rockland, Maine, overlooking the picturesque Rockland Harbor. Some of the top names in blues music have been featured at this prestigious East Coast festival. In addition to all day live entertainment, the festival has vendors selling a wide array of food, drinks and crafts. Saturday evening Main Street is closed to traffic for the NABF Club Crawl. Attendees of legal age, wearing their wristband from the festival are allowed free admission to the many bars and restaurants featuring many of the top regional blues performers. There are also bands performing on Main Street for all ages at no charge, $30-$75, 275 Main Street, Downtown, Rockland. FMI: 207-691-2248, www.northatlanticbluesfestival.com.
July 17, Monday, 7:30pm, “Bowdoin International Music Festival presents Jupiter and Ying Quartets,” musicians from two of the Festival’s resident quartets join forces for an evening of lush Viennese masterpieces. Mozart’s String Quintet, scored for two violas, exposes a dense texture of inner voices and some of Mozart’s most dark, impassioned chamber music writing. On the second half, Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), is performed in its original scoring for sextet, which highlights the work’s unceasing harmonic tension, alternatingly sumptuous and breathless, $45, Studzinski Recital Hall, Bowdoin College, 21 College Street, Brunswick. FMI: 207-373-1400, bowdoinfestival.org.