Community

This week’s front page showcases stories about how the citizens of the Northwest Corner are making it a better place to live. Debra Aleksinas details efforts to protect environmentally and aesthetically sensitive land in the Salmon Kill River Valley. Natalia Zukerman profiles a crusader for social justice and women’s health.

In Compass, in the third part of a series about the healing power of theater, Lee Davies writes about how The Sharon Playhouse has been instrumental in bringing invigorating, in-person experiences to us.

These stories remind us how our friends and neighbors are making a difference.

More than 170 people raised $800,000 so that the Salisbury Association Land Trust could purchase 14 acres of farmland property in the Salmon Kill Valley. The valley and the creek itself have long been considered some of the most beautiful and ecologically valuable resources in Connecticut, Aleksinas writes. As Jeanette Weber, president of the Salisbury Association says, “We are very grateful to have received donations from so many people in the community.”

From many to one. Our community also needs to appreciate what one woman has done for many. Betsey Mauro, the departing executive director of Project SAGE, leaves behind a strong, community-based organization that supports, advocates for, guides and educates the victims of relationship violence through services and outreach programs in the Northwest Corner. When Mauro began in 2016, the organization was called Women’s Support Services. It has since changed its name to Project SAGE. Mauro expanded the organization and created a network that reaches far beyond Lakeville. “Whether I’m in a church or I’ve been in this role here, it’s all about how we lift up people and also challenge the systems that are unfair, that keep people from accessing their full selves,” Mauro says.

In Part III of Davies’ series on the role of theater in a community, Lee writes about how the Sharon Playhouse is partnering with local support groups, including Project Sage on the 2023 production of “Oliver!” Last fall, The Sharon Playhouse teamed up with The Salisbury Forum and this newspaper to co-sponsor a panel discussion about its production of “Lifespan of a Fact” on the hot issue of truth in journalism. It also worked with the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon to make its “Little Women” community read a success. During the 2023 season, Davies reports that The Sharon Playhouse provided jobs for 250 professional theater artists, actors, technicians, musicians and educators; welcomed 16,000 patrons; and offered over 95 live performances of 22 theater productions.

The hard work people put in matters. It makes the Northwest Corner a wonderful place to live. We are grateful for all their many efforts.

Latest News

Angela Derrico Carabine

SHARON — Angela Derrick Carabine, 74, died May 16, 2025, at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the wife of Michael Carabine and mother of Caitlin Carabine McLean.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated on June 6 at 11:00 a.m. at Saint Katri (St Bernards Church) Church. Burial will follow at St. Bernards Cemetery. A complete obituary can be found on the website of the Kenny Funeral home kennyfuneralhomes.com.

Revisiting ‘The Killing Fields’ with Sam Waterston

Sam Waterston

Jennifer Almquist

On June 7 at 3 p.m., the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington will host a benefit screening of “The Killing Fields,” Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama about the Khmer Rouge and the two journalists, Cambodian Dith Pran and New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, whose story carried the weight of a nation’s tragedy.

The film, which earned three Academy Awards and seven nominations — including one for Best Actor for Sam Waterston — will be followed by a rare conversation between Waterston and his longtime collaborator and acclaimed television and theater director Matthew Penn.

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The art of place: maps by Scott Reinhard

Scott Reinhard, graphic designer, cartographer, former Graphics Editor at the New York Times, took time out from setting up his show “Here, Here, Here, Here- Maps as Art” to explain his process of working.Here he explains one of the “Heres”, the Hunt Library’s location on earth (the orange dot below his hand).

obin Roraback

Map lovers know that as well as providing the vital functions of location and guidance, maps can also be works of art.With an exhibition titled “Here, Here, Here, Here — Maps as Art,” Scott Reinhard, graphic designer and cartographer, shows this to be true. The exhibition opens on June 7 at the David M. Hunt Library at 63 Main St., Falls Village, and will be the first solo exhibition for Reinhard.

Reinhard explained how he came to be a mapmaker. “Mapping as a part of my career was somewhat unexpected.I took an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), the technological side of mapmaking, when I was in graduate school for graphic design at North Carolina State.GIS opened up a whole new world, new tools, and data as a medium to play with.”

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