The quadricentennial of the arrival of Samuel de Champlain has inspired not only a ginormous festival but dozens of ancillary products devoted to the body of water bearing the French explorer’s name. The almost-great lake entitles Vermont to the moniker “the West Coast of New England” and provides some of the state’s most stunning views. So it’s no wonder lovely Lake Champlain is the subject of recent books.... Read more

When playwright David Mamet and actor William H. Macy launched the Atlantic Theater Company in the 1980s, they made Vermont the troupe’s summer sanctuary.... Read more

Have you ever wanted to share the stage with a musical act, but not in the doe-eyed, finger-snapping way Courteney Cox did in Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancin’ in the Dark” music video? The good people at Dartmouth College’s Hopkins Center for the Arts are making participation possible with this summer’s new “Music Box in the Moore” series, where the worst seat in the house is a mere 14 feet from the talent.... Read more

Since last fall, visitors to the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center at the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain have had the opportunity to step inside a kiosk and record their personal reflections on the lake in a short video clip. The results, uploaded to ECHO’s YouTube channel, run the gamut. One respondent in his mid-forties talks earnestly about the growing global issue of water resources. Another, considerably younger, raps about how fish get their colors.... Read more

In announcing its first biennial exhibit, the Boston-area DeCordova Sculpture Park & Museum says it will be “highlighting artists from across New England” with “an emphasis on quality.” A total of 17 artists have been selected for the show that opens next January: seven from Massachusetts, four from Maine, three from Connecticut, two from Rhode Island, one from New Hampshire ... and zero from Vermont.... Read more

James Irving-Westerman is a licensed electrician and certified welder. He can fix most anything, but in his off hours, he finds another use for his skills.... Read more

No matter how sweet home is, sometimes you just gotta leave it. That’s what the Vermont Stage Company is doing this month. In residence for a decade at Burlington’s cozy FlynnSpace, VSC is taking its 2007 hit Woody Guthrie’s American Song to Middlebury’s newly renovated Town Hall Theater for a July 22-26 run.... Read more

At Seven Days, the spell checker on our Macs does not approve of the word “quadricentennial.” Is it because the program is America-centric, and our still-young country has yet to toast anything 400 years old? And, by the way, have we figured out the proper gift category for a 400th anniversary? (Bone?) Hmmm.... Read more

If you weren’t looking for White Water Gallery, you probably wouldn’t notice it. The place is in a low-slung, asphalt-shingled building known as the “old meat lockers” in the sleepy hamlet of East Hardwick. In the 1950s and ’60s, locals stored their sides of beef in the freezers or lockers in the walkout basement.... Read more

Does an art museum have an obligation to make judgments about what qualifies as “art,” and to exclude works that don’t fit its definition?... Read more