The Middletown Public Library is holding an after-dark candlelight tour of Belcourt of Newport on Friday, Oct. 2, as a fundraiser for its new building project. Guides will lead visitors through the Bellevue Avenue mansion by candlelight, covering its Gilded Age history and architecture along with the ghost stories the property has collected over the […]
Arts & Culture
A look at What’s Up in arts and culture in Newport, Rhode Island, and beyond.
Posted inArts & Culture
Newport String Project opens its 14th season with 15-minute concerts for an audience of one
The Newport String Project opens its 14th season on Sunday, Sept. 20, with Pocket Concerts, a day of 15-minute performances played for a single listener or a small group. Musicians from the Newport String Quartet perform alongside guest artists, with programs mixing familiar repertoire and original music. Instruments this year include vibraphone, electronics and viola […]
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Newport Classical opens its chamber season Sept. 18 with a quartet that plays banjos and mandolins too
Newport Classical opens its sixth full-season Chamber Series on Friday, Sept. 18, with the Austin-based quartet Invoke, the first of twelve concerts running through early June at Newport Classical Recital Hall, 42 Dearborn St. Invoke is a string quartet that doesn’t stay one — the group plays banjo and mandolin alongside the usual strings and […]
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Jane Pickens runs a week of 1960s cinema starting Friday, opening with a Beatles tribute band
The Jane Pickens Theater & Event Center will screen 10 films from the 1960s over seven days beginning Friday, Sept. 4, with three of the nights paired with live music. The festival opens with Studio Two, a Boston-based tribute to the early Beatles, performing at 7 p.m., followed by a restored print of “A Hard […]
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Teton Gravity Research ski film screens at the Jane Pickens on Nov. 11
Teton Gravity Research will screen its 31st annual ski film, “Actually, It Is Rocket Science,” at the Jane Pickens Theatre on Wednesday, Nov. 11. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the 120-minute film at 7:30. The film was shot across Bute Inlet in British Columbia, Haines in Alaska, Japan, Finland, Andorra, Montana, Jackson Hole and […]
Posted inArts & Culture, History
On This Day – August 28, 1987: Actor John Huston dies in Middletown
On this day in 1987, film director, screenwriter and actor, John Huston, died in Middletown, Rhode Island from pneumonia as a complication of lung disease. Huston was in Rhode Island and rented a home in Middletown for his work as producer and co-writer of Mr. North (1998), the last film he would ever work on. Huston […]
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Puddingstone Music adds two September concerts at Rough Point
Puddingstone Music has announced two September concerts at Rough Point, following sold-out performances in August. Pianist David Kaplan performs “Quasi una Fantasia” on Saturday, Sept. 12. The program explores the territory between composition and improvisation, drawing on works with improvisatory qualities either in how they’re performed or how they were written. The title comes from […]
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This Day in RI History: August 26, 1949 – Bob Cowsill is born
Happy Birthday Bob Cowsill! The guitar/vocalist of the Newport-based family band The Cowsills was born on August 26th, 1949. Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, Bob spent some of his youth in Ohio, before the family moved to Rhode Island in the early 1960’s. https://youtu.be/HCqg-vhiBAc Based in Newport, The Cowsills achieved national success in the 1960’s, behind […]
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Newport Sings opens fall enrollment for teen and adult choruses
Newport Sings is enrolling teens and adults for two fall choral programs on Aquidneck Island, both free or offered on a sliding scale with no audition required. The programs are Aquidneck Singers, a multigenerational treble chorus for sopranos and altos, and Quorus, which the organization describes as the first and only LGBTQIA+ all-voices chorus in […]
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Tiverton Public Library’s September lineup: silent film, author visits and a book club at a cat café
TIVERTON — The Tiverton Public Library has released its September schedule of adult programs, ranging from a live-accompanied silent film screening to a book club that meets in a cat café. Film and music. Buster Keaton’s 1928 comedy “The Cameraman” screens Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 6 p.m., with Richard Hughes introducing the film and accompanying […]
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Tiverton library opens StoryWalk trail with Sept. 19 celebration
The Tiverton Public Library will hold a grand opening for its new StoryWalk on Saturday, Sept. 19, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. StoryWalk mounts the pages of a children’s picture book on signs along a walking path, so visitors read the story a page at a time as they move through the trail. The […]
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Jamestown Community Theatre holding auditions for Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along”
Jamestown Community Theatre will hold auditions for “Merrily We Roll Along” on Thursday, Sept. 3, at the Jamestown Recreation Center, opening the company’s 36th season. The musical, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by George Furth, follows composer Franklin Shepard, who achieves professional success at steep personal cost. The story unfolds […]
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Groove Merchants close out NIMFest season at King Park on Sunday
Groove Merchants headline the final NIMFest concert of the 2026 season on Sunday, Aug. 23, from 3 to 6 p.m. at the King Park Gazebo, 125 Wellington Ave. The show is free and open to the public, weather permitting. The Newport-based six-piece plays a funk-inflected take on pop and jazz, moving between laid-back grooves, hard-hitting […]
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Newport OUT hosts White Party Drag Brunch at Stoneacre over Labor Day weekend
Newport OUT will host a White Party Drag Brunch at Stoneacre Brasserie on Sunday, Sept. 6, a Miami-inspired celebration closing out the summer over Labor Day weekend. Gigi Glam returns to host and perform, joined by Kennedy Plaza and Shania Taint. Adriana, a new addition to the Newport OUT drag roster, will also perform. Reservations […]
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Comedian Juston McKinney coming to the JPT in November
Spectacle Live will present comedian Juston McKinney on Saturday, Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m. at The JPT Film & Event Center. McKinney has made multiple appearances on “The Tonight Show” under both Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, and has released two Comedy Central specials and two Amazon Prime specials, including “Parentally Challenged.” He has performed […]
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Ghost Hunters’ Amy Bruni brings haunted cookbook to Portsmouth’s Valley Inn
Charter Books and the Newport Ladies Book Club will host paranormal investigator and author Amy Bruni at the Valley Inn Restaurant on Monday, Aug. 24, to celebrate her new cookbook, “Cuisine to Kill For.” The venue is in the book. The Valley Inn, a 17th-century colonial property at 2221 West Main Road, is tied to […]
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
Newport Classical brings audience-driven concerts to Dearborn Street in October
Newport Classical will present Ensemble Mélange in two free concerts on Sunday, Oct. 18, at 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. at the Newport Classical Recital Hall, 42 Dearborn St. The concerts hand the programming over to the audience. The ensemble arrives with a menu of more than 30 selections spanning classical, jazz, Latin and Broadway, […]
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Chicago tribute act Beginnings coming to the JPT in November
Spectacle Live will present Beginnings – A Celebration of the Music of Chicago on Saturday, Nov. 28, at 7:30 p.m. at The JPT Film & Event Center. Tickets go on sale Friday, Aug. 14, at 10 a.m. at JanePickens.com or by phone at 1-800-657-8774. The tribute act performs the catalog of Rock and Roll Hall […]
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Dave Matthews Band coming to Providence in November, months after Newport Folk surprise
Dave Matthews Band will play the Amica Mutual Pavilion on Nov. 9 as part of a fall tour announced Tuesday, bringing the frontman back to Rhode Island less than four months after his unannounced solo appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. Matthews made his Newport Folk debut on July 26, joining Nathaniel Rateliff & Friends […]
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Soul City brings horn-driven dance party to King Park for NIMFest on Aug. 16
Soul City headlines the next NIMFest concert on Sunday, Aug. 16, from 3 to 6 p.m. at the King Park Gazebo, 125 Wellington Ave. The show is free and open to the public, weather permitting. The horn-driven party band has been playing since 1988 and has built a reputation across New England for packed dance […]
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Garrison Keillor at 84: ‘I could go on doing this for a while’
The schedule called for fifteen minutes with Garrison Keillor. It ended up being a half-hour private concert. Keillor brings “Garrison Keillor Tonight” to the Jane Pickens Theater on September 20. “I’m doing pretty well,” he said at the start of the conversation. “I’m making progress on a new book. As long as one has a […]
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Academy Players stages ’80s jukebox musical ‘Rock of Ages’
Chelsea Morgan is drawn to directing “huge, exciting, dance-heavy musicals with a large cast.” The jukebox musical “Rock of Ages” checks all those boxes for Morgan and her husband, Adam. Last summer, they directed “The Wedding Singer” at Academy Players in Providence. “I knew I wanted to do something with those same qualities this summer,” […]
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Free Fort Adams lecture to explore Irish role in the American Revolution
The Fort Adams Trust and the Museum of Newport Irish History will present a free public lecture on the Irish and Irish-American role in the American Revolution at Fort Adams on Sunday, Aug. 16. “From Revolution to Ramparts: Irish and Irish-American Influence on the American Revolution and Fort Adams” features historian Christian McBurney, author of […]