much ado about nothing

Last night Janet brought a good portion of her scrumptious blueberry harvest to the Connecticut College Arboretum, where we all enjoyed Shakespeare-under-the-Stars with our niece Bonnie and her children, Kia and Khari. We had a delightful evening watching and laughing at the abundant witticisms in the dialog of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Flock Theatre put on an entertaining performance, with Anne Flemmang’s portrayal of Beatrice particularly winning. The humidity had been oppressive all day, but evening brought a refreshing cool breeze across the arboretum’s pond, and the bats and dragonflies flitting about were keeping the mosquito population well under control.

As we left we were given another container of blueberries! Thank you, Janet! So for breakfast this morning Tim whipped up some blueberry pancakes which we all loved, and we can now recommend Cherrybrook Kitchen Gluten Free Dreams Pancake & Waffle Mix whole-heartedly as a good choice for those of us allergic to wheat. We brought out the pure maple syrup we got at the Hebron Maple Festival in March. Yummy…

We also learned that Kia and Khari are proud members of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Both are very informed about the big cats and which ones do well and breed well in captivity and which ones conservationists are having more trouble helping. They are also very familiar with Shakespeare’s plays. We had such a good time getting to know them a little more and we may be seeing them again for The Tempest in August!

For future reference I’m listing all the plays we’ve seen put on by Flock Theatre (Artistic Director, Derron Wood) at Connecticut College Arboretum:

2002 – Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
2006 – Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare
2008 – Lysistrata by Aristophanes
2009 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare
2010 – Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare