Entertainment
June in Vermont means gorgeous weather and a bountiful arts-and-entertainment calendar
What’s not to like about June? The weather in Vermont is gorgeous and the arts-and-entertainment calendar is as full as that swimming pool you’re jumping at the chance to jump into. The concert scene is thriving indoors and out, theater companies are debuting their summer seasons and comedians are threating to make you bust a gut just as you’re filling your gut with all those delectable barbecued comestibles.
We’ve already highlighted some events – the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, the outdoor concert season and Pride celebrations among them – so we’re giving those scant attention here. That lets us focus on these 30 entertaining activities to send you into summer on the perfect note.
Vermont Ballet Theater celebrates dance
1 and 6:30 p.m. Saturday, June 1, the Vermont Ballet Theater Company presents its annual springtime “Celebration of Dance” for two performances, the Flynn, Burlington. $17.78-$28. www.flynnvt.org
French film in Burlington
7 p.m. Saturday, June 1, the Vermont International Film Festival shows the 1967 noir-ish French film “Le Samourai” by director Jean-Pierre Melville, The Screening Room at VTIFF, Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington. $5-$10. www.vtiff.org
Two concerts, one chorus
7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 1, the Vermont Choral Union presents the first of two performances of its program “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing! The Anglican Tradition” featuring baritone Sumner Thompson, College Street Congregational Church, Burlington. That will be followed at 4 p.m. Sunday, June 2, Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Burlington. $30-$40; free for students and children. www.vtchoralunion.org
Comic storytelling in Burlington
7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 1, 2 p.m. Sunday, June 2, author, comic storyteller and innkeeper Cindy Pierce delivers two more performances of her solo show “Keeping It Inn,” Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington. $25. www.cindy-pierce.com
Lost Nation Theater updates Chekhov
7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 1, Lost Nation Theater continues its run of “Three Sisters Four Women,” a reimagining of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” through Sunday, June 16, Montpelier City Hall Arts Center. $10-$30. www.lostnationtheater.org
Nation of Language at Higher Ground
8:30 p.m. Saturday, June 1, the neo-new-wave group Nation of Language headlines a show that includes Ian Sweet, Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington. $20 in advance, $25 day of show. www.highergroundmusic.com
The Aphasia Choir returns
2 p.m. Sunday, June 2, Vermont-based group The Aphasia Choir, directed by Karen McFeeters and consisting of survivors of brain injury who sing despite difficulty speaking, performs in concert, South Burlington High School auditorium. Free. www.karenmcfeeters.com
Bread & Puppet opens museum, performs
2 p.m. Sunday, June 2, Bread & Puppet Theater opens its museum for the season with performances including a brand-new show, “The Whole Kit and Caboodle,” created by founder Peter Schumann and company, Bread & Puppet Farm, Glover. $10. www.breadandpuppet.org
Opera company presents Donizetti
2 p.m. Sunday, June 2, the Opera Company of Middlebury continues its productions of Donizetti’s “La Fille du Regiment (The Daughter of the Regiment),” followed by full performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 6 and 2 p.m. Saturday, June 8, and a scaled-down cover performance at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 4, Town Hall Theater, Middlebury. $39 for cover performance, $61-$94 for full performances. www.townhalltheater.org
Burlington Discover Jazz Festival begins
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 5, the five-day Burlington Discover Jazz Festival starts with vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant and opening act Melanie Charles, the Flynn, Burlington. $42-$84. www.flynnvt.org
Jazzy June at the Lantern
6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 6, in the midst of the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, jazz happens in the mountains, too, when harmonic Vermont group The Blue Gardenias plays the monthly Jazz at the Lantern series, Brass Lantern Inn, Stowe. $35-$45. www.facebook.com/fireflyproductionsvt
Horton Heat’s a sell-out
7:30 p.m. Sunday, June 9, country-rocker Reverend Horton Heat follows The Surfrajettes at the Higher Ground Ballroom, South Burlington. Sold out. www.highergroundmusic.com
Weston Theater Company bounces back
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 12, the Weston Theater Company suffered significant flood damage last summer that has left its iconic Playhouse out of commission for this summer, so the company will open its season with the Frankie Valli-inspired musical “Jersey Boys” through July 7 at its Walker Farm site. $25-$79. www.westontheater.org
Another theater company, another Frankie
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 12-Saturday, June 15, 2 p.m. Saturday, June 15-Sunday, June 16, VermontStage wraps up its 2023-24 season as it always does with “The Bake Off,” which this year asks three directors and three casts to show their approach to the Terrence McNally play “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center, Burlington. $34-$64. www.vermontstage.org
Hasan Minhaj visits the Flynn
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 12, Netflix and “The Daily Show” star Hasan Minhaj brings his brand of humor to the Flynn, Burlington. $49.50-$99.50. www.flynnvt.org
Comedy erupts in Burlington
7 p.m. Friday, June 14, scientist-turned-comic Ben Miller was the artist in residence last year at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and he mines that experience for the stand-up routine he’ll present at the Off Center for the Dramatic Arts, Burlington. $12. www.offcentervt.com
Jon Langford hits Bellows Falls
7:30 p.m. Friday, June 14, musician Jon Langford, who goes way back to post-punk-era bands including The Mekons and Three Johns, arrives with his current band the Bright Shiners at Ciao Popolo, Bellows Falls. $25-$50. www.bellowsfallsoperahouse.com
Improv from Mochrie, Sherwood
7:30 p.m. Friday, June 14, improvisational comedians Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood wing it on stage at the Flynn, Burlington. $42-$63. www.flynnvt.org
Improv piano in South Hero
3 p.m. Sunday, June 16, improvisational pianist Jacqueline Schwab, known for her work on Ken Burns’ series “The Civil War” and other PBS documentaries, performs a Father’s Day concert titled “I Lift My Lamp – Illuminations from Immigrant America” that includes local guest singers Ernestine Tuyishime and Christine Aziza, Congregational Church of South Hero. Free-will donations, part of which will benefit the U.S. Committee on Refugees and Immigrants – Vermont. www.jacquelineschwab.com
Stowe welcomes KT Tunstall
7 p.m. Wednesday, June 19, Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, who before she became a hitmaker with songs like “Suddenly I See” and “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” busked for a time on the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington, returns to Vermont for a concert at the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center, Stowe. $40-$65. www.sprucepeakarts.org
Bonnie Raitt, back at the Flynn
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 19, blues-rock legend Bonnie Raitt joins opener James Hunter as she returns to the Flynn, Burlington. Sold out. www.flynnvt.org
‘The Sound of Music,’ where it belongs
7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 20-Saturday, June 22, 2 p.m. Saturday, June 22, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Theatre join forces to present a concert version of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music,” based on the lives of the von Trapp family and presented at the location where they settled after leaving Austria, the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe. $49 for Saturday matinee; other performances are sold out. www.flynnvt.org
Bookstock replaced by poetry festival
Friday, June 21-Saturday, June 22, though the annual Bookstock festival of authors has ended its 15-year run, it will be replaced by the Woodstock Poetry Festival, which features appearances Friday, June 21 by Alexandria Hall, Cate Marvin and Regie Gibson and Saturday, June 22 by Robert Pinsky, Sara London, Ellen Bryant Voigt and Jeffrey Harrison, among others, The North Chapel, Woodstock. Free. www.sundogpoetry.org
Martin McDonagh play starts Dorset season
7:30 p.m. Friday, June 21, the Dorset Theatre Festival begins its summer season with “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” which displays playwright Martin McDonagh’s forte of stark drama peppered with caustic humor, through Saturday, July 6, Dorset Playhouse. $56-$61. www.dorsettheatrefestival.org
New exhibits at The Current
4-7 p.m. Saturday, June 22, opening receptions for two exhibitions running through Oct. 19 – “Climate Imprints,” curated by members of the EFA Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, and “Taking Time,” a solo exhibition of work by multidisciplinary artist Chakaia Booker, take place at The Current, Stowe. Free. www.thecurrentnow.org
Chamber music festival begins
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 25, the 20th-anniversary season of the Green Mountain Chamber Music Festival, which runs through July 21, begins with a concert by the Balourdet String Quartet, Elley-Long Music Center, Colchester. $35; free for students. www.gmcmf.org
‘Spamalot’ in a barn
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 25-Saturday, June 29, 2:30 p.m. Saturday, June 29, Vermont Repertory Theatre celebrates its first anniversary by presenting “Monty Python’s Spamalot,” Isham Family Farms, Williston. $25-$30. www.vermontrep.com
Friday with Fantastic Cat
7:30 p.m. Friday, June 28, the quirky singer-songwriter amalgam Fantastic Cat lands in the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington. $20 in advance, $25 day of show. www.highergroundmusic.com
Guster’s night at a museum
6 p.m. Saturday, June 29, New England rock band Guster – featuring a couple of Vermonters, Ryan Miller and Luke Reynolds – is joined by local acts James Kochalka Superstar and the Zeno Mountain Band for the Concerts on the Green series presented by Higher Ground, Shelburne Museum. $55 in advance, $59 day of show, free for children 12 and under. www.highergroundmusic.com
Foam Brewers hosts Babehoven
7 p.m. Sunday, June 30, the Hudson, New York indie-rock group Babehoven joins Burlington-based Lily Seabird for a show at Foam Brewers, Burlington. $15. www.foambrewers.com
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.
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