by Hunter Styles | Mar 14, 2016 | Articles, Arts, Music, Stage
When you browse the faded pages of an historical account, local lives don’t always shimmer to the surface. But Hampshire College professor of History Susan Tracy noticed a few intriguing details when she was paging through the 1870 census for Colrain, the small...
by Amanda Drane | Mar 14, 2016 | Articles, News
Stephen Bilia’s Gorilla Vapess is like a candy shop for adults. Vapers smoke at the bar, ordering from a list of two hundred-plus flavors displayed in multi-colored chalk. Squirt bottles full of food-grade flavor concentrates wait to be ordered and mixed with...
by Peter Vancini | Mar 8, 2016 | Articles, News
Every weekday morning, a PVTA van picks up 83-year-old great-grandmother of four Pardelma Hall at her home on Roosevelt Street in Springfield’s North End. For the past seven years, she’s been one of the first to arrive at the Mason Square Senior Center and often one...
by Hunter Styles | Feb 24, 2016 | Articles
When asked to count how many minimum-wage jobs he has worked, Frank Cincotta flips open a notepad, taps his pen, and takes a deep breath. “I’ve been working a lot,” he says. It’s a long list: he has had more than 20 jobs since 2009, nearly all of which paid less than...
by Chris Rohmann | Feb 29, 2016 | Stagestruck
The irony of Anton Chekhov referring to his plays as “comedies” is often remarked. Most of his characters are bored to death and/or deeply unhappy, frustrated by love or circumstance or both, and his plays generally end with a bleak sense of hopelessness. But Linda...