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By ALEX HANSON

Two White River Valley school districts that canceled their annual budget votes will resume discussions at school board meetings in the coming days.Both the Strafford and First Branch Unified school districts opted to call off their planned budget...

By ALEX HANSON

Larry Vanier started taking photographs as a hobby. He already enjoyed hiking and being outdoors, so it was natural to him to start taking a camera along.This was in the 1970s and early ’80s, the apex of film photography. The Upper Valley had a robust...

By ALEX HANSON

Sometimes, a patron would come into the Polka Dot Restaurant and ask, “How much is coffee and a doughnut.”Mary Shatney knew what that question meant and would point to an open seat. Often, she’d make a plate of food — eggs, toast and home fries, maybe...

By ALEX HANSON

Loren David Howard started making movies the way a lot of teens do, by recording concerts his dad took him to and making videos of friends out skateboarding.He didn’t expect to make much out of it, but after a school counselor advised him to think...

By ALEX HANSON

A pair of the most venerable and active Upper Valley performance venues, Lebanon Opera House and Randolph’s Chandler Music Hall, are reopening in the next week after renovations.The opera house, which will reopen with a refreshed lobby and new seats...

By ALEX HANSON

HANOVER — During a rehearsal at Hanover High School a couple of weeks ago, a handful of young actors recited lines an Upper Valley audience wouldn’t expect to hear spoken on a high school stage.“That’s when I had my first panic attack.” “The scariest...

By ALEX HANSON

Some partnerships seem destined from the start. A pair of elementary school friends who get married out of college and stay together forever, or Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, to consider just two scenarios.But most people in enduring relationships...

By ALEX HANSON

Among teaching jobs in the Upper Valley, landing a post at Marion Cross School in Norwich has long been considered a plum.One of the wealthiest towns in the state, and with a high level of education attributable in part to its proximity to Dartmouth...

By ALEX HANSON

There is something humbling, and a bit exciting, about seeing one’s work turn into a period piece during one’s lifetime. It’s a reflection not on the work but on the pace of change.Thirty years ago, life was very different for LGBTQ Americans. “Don’t...

By ALEX HANSON

CLAREMONT — One of the most talked-about politicians in recent memory is bringing his campaign to the city on Saturday.But not many Claremont residents seem all that eager to talk about him. A reporter strolling around town Wednesday encountered three...

By ALEX HANSON

For a small community theater, Parish Players has had some pretty big shows over the last year.Last fall, a production of “The Play That Goes Wrong,” filled the house, as did the annual festival of 10-minute plays in February. And in April, a...

By ALEX HANSON

SOUTH STRAFFORD — The assignment for a Newton School first grade class on a recent Tuesday morning started with a walk.Before the 16 pupils began to climb the hill behind the school, Becky Proulx, an outdoor educator, warned them to stay away from a...

By ALEX HANSON

The sheer number of options is going to pose problems for people who want to be entertained away from their streaming services this weekend. You’re going to have to make some decisions, people.The good thing, I guess, is that the quantity is matched...

By ALEX HANSON

For a long time, Angie Follensbee-Hall carried in the back of her mind the idea of opening an art gallery with a studio attached.She saw it as a place where she could both make and show her art work, which consists of her own handmade paper combined...

By ALEX HANSON

In planning this year’s Nexus Festival, Lebanon Opera House Executive Director Joe Clifford wanted to expand the roster of Upper Valley-based acts and the offerings for children and family.When the free, three-day festival kicks off on Friday,...

By ALEX HANSON

Floating out there on the internet is a Broadway World interview with Kennedy Caughell.Conducted just before the national tour of “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” began a four-day run in Thousand Oaks, Calif., the interview recounts how much...

By ALEX HANSON

BETHEL — Victoria Weber and Davis Dimock first met when they were in college, he at Pomona and she at Pitzer, two small liberal arts colleges in Claremont, Calif., east of Los Angeles. This was in the 1960s.After living in California and performing...

By ALEX HANSON

TUNBRIDGE — In Friday morning’s bright sunshine, Gordie Barnaby surveyed the flood-damaged Tunbridge Fairgrounds and said it could have been worse.In fact, it has been worse, as recently as 2019, when ice jammed the First Branch of the White River and...

By ALEX HANSON

It’s a mark of how arbitrary severe weather can be that this week’s heavy rain treated Chelsea and Thetford — just a couple towns apart — so differently.In Chelsea, the First Branch of the White River cut into Route 110, and a sign south of Chelsea...

By ALEX HANSON

It’s been five years since Opera North first united opera with the circus arts. The productions, performed under a tent at Blow-Me-Down Farm in Cornish, show no signs of letting up.“The fun part is to create a new concept every year,” Evans Haile,...