Archive for the ‘Columns & Essays’ Category

by Mark Sardella (The Wakefield Daily Item) “Gloucester Blue is a comic thriller and has often been compared to a Coen Brothers movie,” says Wakefield native Israel Horovitz about his new play, which opens this week at Gloucester Stage. “I can see why,” he says. “It’s a comedy, but quite dark. The final moments of […]


by Mark Sardella (Wakefield Daily Item) Not even a passing shower could dampen the spirits of the dozens who turned out for the Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2015 dedication of the Dr. Paula M. Mullen Field at the Galvin Middle School in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Teachers and administrative staff past and present joined with friends and family […]


The newest addition to last weekend’s Festival Italia was by far the best part of the event and should immediately be made a permanent fixture of this annual celebration. No, I’m not talking about the Wakefield Civic League booth.


From the opening scene, connections – real, missed and misplaced are on the minds of the three principal characters in The Flick, Massachusetts playwright Annie Baker’s 2014 Pulitzer winning drama at Gloucester Stage now through Sept. 12. As they do their post-movie “walk-through” to sweep up spilled popcorn and other trash in a run-down central […]


Not Cool

14Aug15

Last week, a drunk Lynnfield woman was spotted driving the wrong way on Route 128, heading south on the northbound side of the highway. Luckily, Wakefield Police were able to stop and arrest her before she killed herself or anyone else. She was wasted on a legal drug, alcohol, not (as far as we know) […]


Project Healing Waters “Fly fishing never takes you to an ugly place,” says Wakefield’s Joe Cresta, who runs a local chapter of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, a national program that helps disabled veterans heal through the sport of fly fishing. Fly fishing, Cresta points out, usually involves places like mountains, rivers and lakes.


‘The New Electric Ballroom’ runs through August 15 Enda Walsh’s The New Electric Ballroom, currently at Gloucester Stage is not a conventional play and therefore may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But if you’re up for a bit of a challenge, the rewards of this dark comedy are many. The setting is a tiny […]


If anyone wants an example of a civic group having a positive impact on the town, they need look no further than last July 4. After more than a year of determined, hard work, the new Wakefield Independence Day Committee and its team of volunteers resurrected the largest Independence Day Parade in the state and […]


Fear Factor

03Jul15

“Your decision will decide if Wakefield becomes more like Medford or more like Lynnfield,” attorney Alan Grenier warned the Zoning Board of Appeals last week. Grenier had asked for and was granted an opportunity to present to the Zoning Board the opposition case against building the 130-unit Brightview Senior Living facility proposed on Crescent Street. […]


Gloucester Stage‘s current production, Out of Sterno, is unlike any comedy you’ve seen, and one that you’re almost guaranteed to like. While teetering on the edge of theater of the absurd, Deborah Zoe Laufer’s play hangs on to just enough realism to make the audience believe in and care about its central character, Dotty, who […]