Housatonic hosts Lakeview to start track season
HVRHS's Simon Markow cleared 5-feet 4-inches in his first-ever attempts at the high jump and earned 4th place in the meet against Lakeview High School April 22.
Photo by Riley Klein
Amelia Dodge, center, hustled her way to first place in the 100m hurdles.Photo by Riley Klein
Ryan Segalla, second from right, took first place in the boys 100m, 200m and 400m.Photo by Riley Klein
Runners representing HVRHS, Kent School and Lakeview compete in the 1600m.Photo by Riley Klein
Max Guma, left, and Patrick Money's race in the 300m hurdles was decided by one-tenth of a second.Photo by Riley Klein
Anthony Labbadia placed first in the high jump after successfully clearing 5-feet 8-inches.Photo by Riley Klein
Simon Markow competed in the javelin event for HVRHS.Photo by Riley Klein
Patrick Money soars to 19-feet 7-inches in the long jump.Photo by Riley Klein
HVRHS girls lacrosse watches after practice as classmates compete in the track meet April 22.Photo by Riley Klein
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Celebrating its 45th year, the Grumbling Gryphons will perform at HVRHS Friday, Aug. 1, at 7 p.m.
Photo provided
“We’re a touring company that is participatory,” Elias said with her trademark storytelling cadence. “Even when there’s no pre-performance workshop, it’s still participatory. Always.”
Founded in 1980 “in a little basement apartment on the lower east side with co-founder Vanessa Roe,” said Elias,Grumbling Gryphons (recipients of the 2003 Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award) has long occupied a unique niche: part performance troupe, part educational outreach, part community ritual. Whether dramatizing Greek myths, Native American legends, or original tales about bees and bogs, the company’s ethos centers on inclusion, transformation, and hands-on engagement.
This summer’s camp offers children ages six and up five fast-paced days of storytelling, acting, mask-making, and rehearsal. The first three days will take place at Elias’s own home studio — a tucked-away space filled with costumes, puppets, and instruments — before moving into full performance prep mode.
“In the ideal world, we would have more time,” she laughed. “It’s a lot of pressure to be performing for the public after five days. But we’re going to do our best.”
The gala performance, she explained, is a kind of theatrical mosaic — scenes and excerpts from Grumbling Gryphons’ vast repertoire, some showcasing seasoned adult performers and others giving campers center stage. The cast will include returning campers, newcomers, and guest artists drawn from the Gryphons’ decades-spanning circle of collaborators including mask maker and artist Ellen Moon.
“We’re still figuring out exactly what we’ll do,” said Elias, “but it’s kind of like a smorgasbord… a celebration. And it’s open — if anybody wants to get their kids involved, or even volunteer, we welcome you.”
Photo provided
Elias’s own theater background winds through early improvisational schools, Viennese dance traditions, and experimental spaces like Henry Street Settlement. As a child on Long Island, she studied with jazz pianist Ivan Fiedel and dancer Rosalind Fiedel, eccentric mentors who nurtured her taste for the surreal and spontaneous.
“Mr. Fiedel was a character,” she recalled. “He would smoke a cigar… and take the cigar in his ear and the smoke would come out the other end. I don’t know how he did it.”
Elias built Grumbling Gryphons with this sense of magic — not as a traditional company, but as a living, evolving story in itself. Whether working with preschoolers or middle-schoolers, audiences in botanical gardens or historic town halls, the Gryphons invite kids to become creators — to chant, to improvise, to embody archetypes from ancient lore or environmental parables.
And that’s what this summer’s camp and gala are all about. “It’s more than theater,” Elias said. “It’s myth, poetry, movement — it’s about building self-esteem, imagination. It’s about transformation.”
For more information, to register a child for the 2025 Summer Theater Camp, or to inquire about volunteering, visit grumblinggryphons.org
