What is possible when you get to the root?: The peer-run Wildflower Alliance redefines mental health care, leaves the system in the dust
By Melissa Karen Sances For the Valley Advocate Her phone pinged and a grey bubble rose to the surface: “Are you ready to come back?” The answer was supposed to be yes. She should return and recover. All she had to do was find the right cocktail, her doctor had said,...
Staying in the game: Veteran actors and teachers Raye and Candace Birk are still involved with theater after decades of performance
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Looking for some talented older actors who can play a wide range of roles? Who have decades of experience in theater, film and television? Raye Birk and Candace Barrett Birk are at your service. The Florence couple, relatively new...
A song for the ages: Easthampton Theater Company presents ‘Torch Song,’ an iconic work of queer theater
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer Ever since the November 2022 elections, politicians in over a dozen Republican-controlled states have seemed to compete with each other in attacking parts of the LGBTQ community: banning or restricting gender-affirming medical care for...
Is Northampton still lesbian mecca? Why we must keep queer spaces alive in Northampton
By KATE LAUGHLIN and GRACE XU For the Advocate Walking into the Majestic Saloon in Northampton feels like a breath of fresh, albeit heavily perfumed, air. The pink and purple lighting with a constant loop of popular drag queens Trixie and Katya on the TV signals that...
Almost showtime: 33 Hawley, Northampton’s community arts center, is putting on its finishing touches
By STEVE PFARRER Staff Writer It’s been a long run — but the finish line is now in view. The Northampton Community Arts Trust building, largely or partly shuttered for most of this year, is poised to reopen, as work to make the final improvements in the...
Taking up arms to help others: Western Mass Arm Wrestling League puts athletics, theater on display in the name of philanthropy
By EMILY THURLOW For the Advocate A woman dressed in pajamas walks into a Cottage Street bar and challenges a random stranger to an arm-wrestling match. The circumstances sound like the set-up of a joke. It’s not. That woman is Rose Lynch of Easthampton, and over the...
Mixtape: First Night performers, Lexi Weege and JJ Slater’s albums reviewed
By JENNIFER LEVESQUE For the Advocate Notorious for her vocal range, local singer/songwriter Lexi Weege releases her second solo record, “lw.” Weege started performing when she was really young with her mother’s traveling cabaret show. “I was exposed to all types of...
Reviving a local treasure: Parlor Room raising renovation funds to fix up Iron Horse Music Hall; reopening set for May 1
By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL Staff Writer When Chris Freeman was in eighth grade, his father took him to the Iron Horse Music Hall for his first concert at the venue, where he was immediately entranced by the atmosphere, sitting at one of the tables by the wall plastered...
Weed Utopia
By ROBIN GOLDSTEIN For the Advocate Weed Utopia is not a specific set of rules for growing weed or government policies. It is a patchwork of places and moments in history when weed has elevated the amount of love between people in the world, often against all odds....
Monte Belmonte Wines: Vivacious effervescence: Champagne in essence
By MONTE BELMONTE For the Advocate Dom Pérignon, the Benedictine monk, did not invent Champagne. But if you’ve seen his commercials with Lady Gaga, he will be happy to charge you $250 or more a bottle for it. Champagne is, first, a place. A place which our monk...
Theater Matters with Jarice Hanson: Holiday favorites blend old and new traditions
By JARICE HANSON For the Advocate For theater aficionados December has been rich with holiday performances that run the gamut from musical reviews to the classics, and occasionally, campy reminders that the holidays bring out the child in all of us. This year, three...
Sessions
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The Lost Tribe on the Valley Advocate Sessions Stage
The Lost Tribe is a CT-based band that’s led by a drum trio and combines world music jazz with Afro-funk.
The V-Spot: Oops, I Had a Threesome
Being a unicorn can be a real sticky place to be, to say the very…very…least.
Pick of the Day 3/24: Darlingside at the Academy of Music
f you like folk and bluegrass and haunting vocals you shouldn’t miss Darlingside’s tour stop at the Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton.
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Stagestruck: What I Did on My Summer Staycation
In the usual summer theater season, I’ll see dozens of plays and put hundreds of miles on the odometer. But in this most unusual summer, the car stayed mostly in the driveway and I stayed mostly in the house. I did get to over two dozen shows – or rather, they were...
