MILLBROOK — Theater is blossoming in Millbrook, in large measure because of the Half-Moon Theater, along with some help from the Millbrook High School. Friday and Saturday, June 3 and 4, at 8 p.m., Half-Moon presented the first 10-Minute Play Festival at the Millbrook High School auditorium. The event consisted of 10 (which turned out to be 11) plays, 10 minutes each, with 16 different actors, actresses and playwrights based locally and from New York City.“It’s a really fun way to see a lot of different playwrights and styles, and every playwright has their own sort of voice,” said Geoff Tarson, artistic director of Half-Moon Theater. “I think it’s wonderful because there are so many different plays and it varies so it never gets slow. There is a new one coming in just a few minutes.” All of the plays were written for the 10-Minute Play Festival with a loose theme of city versus country. “Some are very much about that, really almost taking that literally,” said Tarson. “Some are a little subtle, taking that sense a city person has coming into a country environment. Some of them are just very vaguely related to that, sort of entwined.” Along with the plays’ themes of city versus country, the playwrights themselves are a mix of country and city residents. There is no shortage of accomplishments among the playwrights and directors. Ranging from Fulbright scholars to television writers, the playwrights have worked with distinguished actors and in productions of their work around the world.It is no wonder that Annabel Barrett, 19, a Millbrook actress, is happy to be involved with the Half-Moon Theater.“I am young and seeing people who have been doing this a lot longer is just really inspiring. It’s fun because they’re all really my friends,” said Barret. “I have known the entire Half-Moon Theater for years. Everyone is just brilliant and funny, and basically the humor that you see on stage is exactly the way it is in real life.”Though Half-Moon Theater is based out of Poughkeepsie, the relationship with Millbrook is growing.“We have been doing readings in Millbrook for the last two years. We are trying to provide theater for Millbrook that it doesn’t seem to have,” said Tarson. “We have been doing our productions in Poughkeepsie, but we have definitely been trying to increase our audience and our visibility in Millbrook, which has been really supportive.”Though Half-Moon has done readings at the Millbrook Book Festival, Grace Church Parish House and Punch Gallery, the 10-Minute Festival is the first to be done at the Millbrook High School.“The reason we’re doing it at the high school is because we honestly wanted to accommodate more of an audience,” said Tarson. “We are only doing it for two nights, and because it’s a larger cast and so many playwrights, we wanted to make sure there were enough seats.” Tarson said if there were a space available to buy or share with another business, the theater company would like to have a permanent space in the village.“We are a new theater company and we don’t have a lot of money. But we would love to work with Millbrook. If Millbrook was interested in that as well, we feel like we could make Millbrook our home,” he said.Tarson said he hoped that the audience that came to see the 10-Minute Festival enjoyed the variety that the theater has to offer.“Its exciting to see that many plays and styles, and be like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I saw this play that was really wacky and off the wall and this play that was very real and very subtle,’ and that was all one evening,” said Tarson. “I think it’s hopefully really impressive in that way and enjoyable because people will not know what to expect and hopefully they’ll be really pleasantly surprised.”
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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