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Wellesley South Little League team wins state championship

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The Wellesley South Little League baseball team wasn’t fazed by losing its opening game in the state tournament, and went on to win three straight and capture the title with a 9-3 victory over Pittsfield on Sunday in Westwood. Mark Henshon homered twice in the game to give Wellesley an early lift. The win earns the team a trip to Bristol, Ct., for regionals, as the team aims to make it to Williamsport, Penn., for the Little League World Series next month.

It looks as if Wellesley will play on Monday, Aug. 8, and games will be televised by ESPN3. Wellesley South last made it this far in 2012.

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Linden Square, Wellesley
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Toomey Much: Wellesley South baseball team cracks state final four

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Jack Toomey homer Wellesley South
Wellesley South’s Jack Toomey gets congrats from teammates after homering (Photo by Maura Wayman Photography)

 

The Wellesley South baseball team of 11- and 12-year-olds dropped their first game during last week’s Section 3 tournament, but with the pressure on, won the next two to advance to the finals, which Wellesley also won. The victory earned Wellesley South a ticket to this week’s state championship in Westwood and a possible shot at the New England tourney and eventually the Little League World Series next month in Pennsylvania.

In sectional play, Wellesley fell 9-3 to Medfield, then defeated Savin Hill 12-0 and Medford Blue 11-4 to set up rematch vs. Medford Blue in the finals. On the strength of two two-run Jack Toomey homers, Wellesley beat Medford 8-4.

If you happen to be in the Westwood area, here’s the schedule for this week’s state tournament games at Morrison Park, 510 East Street.  Wellesley South plays at 7:15pm on Thursday against Fairhaven/Acushnet (District 6), Friday at 7PM against Pittsfield American (District 1) and Saturday at 3PM against Beverly (District 15).  If Wellesley finishes in the top two it will play in the State Championship game on Sunday at Noon.

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London Harness, Wellesley

Wellesley South Little League team wins state championship

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The Wellesley South Little League team came from behind and won 4-3 via a walk-off double vs. Acton-Boxboro in Worcester on Monday night to cap its state championship run. It’s the first time a Wellesley team has won the state title. (Photos via Boston Globe here).

Next up: The New England regional championship, in Bristol, Conn. If Wellesley can win there, it would represent New England in Williamsport, Pa., for the Little League World Series tournament.

Wellesley’s first game in the next round is Saturday, August 4th at 2:00pm vs. Maine’s state champions.  The team is guaranteed at least two games on NESN and the New England Championship game — if they make it that far — will be on ESPN (Aug. 11th).

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Stretch Lab, Wellesley

Beyond Wellesley: this South Natick, Massachusetts garden brings on the drama

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“When you love something, you don’t look at your watch or the clock. You don’t think about the time. When you love something you just do it,” said Karen Coffman as we looked out at her South Natick garden all dressed up for fall in purples, yellows, oranges, reds, and browns. “I put in the time in the garden, and I love it. I also have really good help. My husband is strong, built like an offensive lineman, and is willing. We’ve lived here since 1995, and I’ve been gardening the whole time.”

Natick garden, Karen Coffman
South Natick gardener, Karen Coffman. She grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri and comes from a long line of mid-western farmers. Karen says  she’s the first generation off the farm. “I learned a lot about the instincts of gardening from my parents.”

Karen hasn’t always had her dream garden. For 11 years before she landed in South Natick, she and her husband called Wellesley home. She liked the town, but found the gardening an exercise in frustration. “There were just too many trees shading my property,” she said. “I couldn’t get the six hours of sun per day that I needed without chopping down my neighbor’s trees. I told Lonnie I needed more sun for a garden.”

She found the perfect property that abutted acres and acres of apple orchards and, most importantly, it was a place where she could get direct sun for the necessary 6 – 8 hours per day. Still, the 1⅓-acre space wasn’t exactly ready for its close-up. “When we got here we cut down 37 swamp maples,” Karen said.

Natick garden, Karen Coffman
Deciduous trees, evergreens, shrubs, grasses, and perennials are layered to create a painterly effect.

With the shade eliminated, the sun poured onto the lot. That was one box checked.

Next, there was the matter of the lack of organic matter. “You know how they say in real estate it’s all about location, location, location?” Karen asked. “Well, in gardening it’s all about the soil, the soil, the soil. The soil was so poor here I knew nothing would grow.”

So she had truckloads of the offending dirt hauled away. “Then I ordered the best loam and filled the yard back in. My budget was 75% spent and I hadn’t bought a single plant. But I had to do it. The land tells you what to do if you pay attention.”

Once the dirt deed was done, another box was checked off. Karen was just a couple more steps away from realizing her dream.

Natick garden, Karen Coffman

Soil and sun are all very well and good, but a garden can’t grow without water. Since, as you can probably tell by now, Karen goes big or goes home, she had an 850-foot well drilled. “With the kind of investment I was making in this garden, I wasn’t willing to just let everything go during periods of drought.”

With the infrastructure in place, it was time to have fun and bring on the drama. Not a problem for someone who trained as an opera singer for 12 years. In fact, both Karen and her husband Lonnie trained at Indiana University. After graduation, they went to New York City and tried to break into the business.

Natick garden, Karen Coffman
Karen sources most of her plant materials from Fran’s Flowers. “Fran believes in people first,” she says.

“I did the starving artist bit for three years. Then I came to a fork in the road and made a decision to go into the tech  industry, I went into business and entered the sales side of things. I had sold pianos before, and had been good at it then. I found I was still good at sales and that’s what I built my career around.”

But she never lost her love of all things theatrical, and compares the topography of her garden to a raked stage. That’s a set that slopes upward, away from the audience, giving those at the back a better view than if all the seats were at the same level, which explains why so much of the garden is visible from no matter where you stand. As I looked out from the back deck, I could see how the garden layout moved from orchestra pit to mezzanine to balcony.

Unsurprisingly, this was not by accident. Karen considers herself a student of gardening, but says, “I’m not a designer. Never claimed to be one. So I got help from someone who knew what he was doing.”

Natick garden, Karen Coffman
Over 70 boxwoods make up the hedge at the back of the property.

Enter landscape architect Thomas Wirth who fit in 40 specimen trees to replace the felled maples; added a koi pond; used the existing gazebo as an architectural element; and created flow and balance throughout.

Although the garden was professionally designed, it’s continually evolving. Karen adds here and subtracts there as the muse dictates and aesthetics allow. “My major considerations when planning and working in the garden are height, texture, bloom time, and maintenance,” she says. “It’s an experiment, number one. It’s a puzzle, number 2. If something doesn’t work, if it’s only pretty for a brief bloom time and then ugly for the rest of the year, out it goes.”

As you can see, she’s ruthless. Karen says it’s the only way and cites her decades in executive recruiting as good preparation for ripping out uncooperative plants. “Now that was a ruthless business,” she says.

Natick garden, Karen Coffman
The gazebo, tucked away behind the koi pond, came with the property. A dwarf variety of Sargent Crabapple tree frames the scene.

My tour over, Karen sends me off with a red Solo cup full of dahlias and other autumn gems that she clipped with her number 2 Felcos as we strolled the grounds.

“Don’t forget to let me know which plants you want divisions from,” she calls out as I leave.

Oh, don’t worry, Karen. That’s an offer nobody could refuse.

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Beyond Wellesley: Theater review, “Once” at SpeakEasy Stage in Boston’s South End

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To enter SpeakEasy Stage at the Calderwood Pavilion in Boston’s South End for the venue’s Spring musical is to enter an Irish pub in a successful search for good craic. The word is pronounced “crack”, which is one reason you don’t hear anyone in the States ask, “where’s the craic”, as the Irish do when they’re looking for an entertaining way to pass the time. But if you can give yourself over to the Gaelic way of understanding the word, well you’ll be all right, then at Once, the story of Guy and Girl who meet on the streets of Dublin and make beautiful music together.

Once, SpeakEasy Stage
Nile Scott Hawver and Mackenzie Lesser-Roy. Photo credit: Maggie Hall Photography

As the audience searches for their seats, a merry ensemble cast made up of ten triple-threat talents plays jaunty tunes, dances jigs, and lends a general air of convivial fun to the scene. All that and good acting, too, in this Tony Award-wining play based on the motion picture, with music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. Playing through April 8 at the theater located at 527 Tremont Street, Once is the romantic and wistful love story of a lonely and recently heartbroken Guy. He’s artistically blocked in his music and about to set down his guitar forever, when he meets Girl on the streets of Dublin. She’s an immigrant, a Czechoslovakian powerhouse who didn’t come all the way to Ireland to let people she first finds, and then believes in, quit.

Tis himself

Guy, played with a melancholy air by Nile Scott Hawver, is a lost soul, questioning every decision he’s ever made in his life. Why bother to play music? Why does he still live with his father over the vacuum repair shop? (Yes, the obvious jokes about sucking are made.) What is he doing in this world? This is quarter-life crisis stuff, and could grow quickly tiresome if Hawver didn’t let the audience see in fits and starts that somewhere under all that hang-dog is someone who once had dreams. It’s two steps forward and one step back for Guy, but Hawver keeps us pulling for him rather than letting us become exasperated by Guy’s occasional backslide into a place of stuck.

Girl, an accomplished pianist without a piano of her own, enters Guy’s life as a whirlwind of hope and determination. “Where do you get your energy?” Guy asks. “I’m a young mother,” Girl says. “We are a special breed.” Mackenzie Lesser-Roy delivers this and many lines with perkiness, but that’s not all that Lesser-Roy brings to the role. Underneath, she shows us a Girl with a strong resolve that is alternately ascribed to her upbringing (“I am always serious. I am Czech”) and her obligation complications, revealed to the audience hint-by-hint. In just five days, Girl becomes Guy’s muse, a positive force who changes his life for the better. Ultimately, though, she is a muse and a force who cannot make herself fully available to him.

But the ones that we love aren’t the ones that love us…

And that’s love according to piano shop owner Billy, played with fire and emotion by Billy Butler who is sometimes a marshmallow, sometimes long-suffering, and sometimes fighting-Irish bombastic. Marshmallow Billy lets Girl play piano in his shop, just so that he can occupy the same space as her. Resigned Billy tells Guy, “You’re a love thief. I respect you for that.” Selfish Billy kicks the whole band out of his shop when they are rehearsing for the big recording studio date. He even calls the banker (played by Jeff Song as a skeptic with a heart of gold and an artist’s soul) financing the venture a wanker. Yep, banker the wanker. It’s got a certain ring to it.

Billy Meleady and Kathy St. George, with cast. Photo credit: Maggie Hall Photography

It all adds up to a musical love story with a thread of melancholy that runs throughout. It’s the classic scenario: Guy meets Girl. Guy is transformed by Girl. Guy loses girl, never having gotten her in the first place. Then Guy crosses the pond, because like they say in that other little play, Hamilton, “In New York you can be a new man.”

Similar to SpeakEasy Stage’s last Spring’s musical, Bridges Over Madison County, love asserts itself as the most powerful force in the world, but due to life circumstances the characters are able to harness only part of that power. What’s that old story about Einstein saying we productively use only 10% of our brain? If that’s true, is it also possible that we properly channel only 10% of the love inside us? If so, as far as I can tell the other 90% sort of runs wild, or disappears into the ether, or explodes in seemingly unrelated ways, which is largely how love goes in this play.

Once is directed by SpeakEasy General Manager Paul Melone who keeps the up and down tempo of the play largely up, in no small part due to the band of musicians who appear onstage and make merry, even when Guy is clearly struggling. Although the play is all about Guy and Girl, the entire cast is very much in evidence throughout, either playing music or acting in a scene. No surprise that the best part of this musical  is the songs, especially “Falling Slowly,” the film version of which won an Academy Award in 2007 for Best Original song. The play also won eight Tony awards including Best Musical in 2012. At SpeakEasy, the company was particularly on its game during Act 2’s beautiful “Gold.”

I get by with a little help from my friends

Reza, the game flatmate every Girl needs for a BFF, who “seduces men for fun” (played with a surprisingly not incongruous Czech joie de vivre by Marta Rymer); Andrej, (with unfettered emotion by Jacob Brandt), who’s come to Ireland to play big; and Da (by Billy Meleady, with solid practicality and great love for Guy, his son) were stand-out supporting actors, easy to love especially when they’re folk dancing in the kitchen.

Marta Rymer, Chris Coffey, Jacob Brandt, and Kathy St George. Photo credit: Maggie Hall Photography

The sets brought you into well-worn and comfortable rooms, places where songs are sung, life has its ups and downs, and people support each other through disappointment and cheer each other when fortunes rise. Music is always in evidence. When you’re not listening to songs, you’re noticing the instruments in every corner, the trumpets hanging on the wall, the speakers in the back of the room. The straight-back chairs, often moved around, convey a sense of impermanence. No one is sitting around in one place for too long in this play, so there’s no need for upholstered comfort. All the characters, in one way or another, are in a period of change.

Also, the reverse subtitles were a creative touch. At times we’re given to understand that the Czech characters are speaking in their native language. What we hear is English. What we see is the Czech language projected onto the wall behind them.

Lots of f-bombs in the play, so if you’re sensitive to language, or you’d rather not expose your younger kids, you’ve been warned. Theater-loving high school students would enjoy Once. But the audience who might most appreciate it are the sorts looking for a different way to get their Irish on as St. Patrick’s Day approaches. Taking in Once is a great alternative to celebrating the saint who drove the snakes out of Ireland, without overindulging with green beer or Shamrock Shakes, or playing along with that silly Unicorn song. Been there, done that. If you want a crowd-pleasing musical that gives audiences a lovely theater experience, then go to SpeakEasy Stage instead, do that.

Once

With: Jacob Brandt* (Andrej); Billy Butler (Billy); Clara Cochran (Ivonka); Chris Coffey (Svec); Nile Scott Hawver* (Guy); Mackenzie Lesser-Roy* (Girl); Billy Meleady* (Da); Robert X. Newman (Emcee); Marta Rymer (Reza); Stephen Shore* (Eamon); Jeff Song* (Bank Manager); Kathy St. George* (Baruska); Ellie van Amerongen* (Ex-girlfriend).

Directed by Paul Melone; Music Direction by Steven Ladd Jones; Choreography by Ilyse Robbins; Scenic Design by Eric Levenson**; Costume Design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt; Lighting Design by Karen Perlow**; Sound Design by Andrew Duncan Will; Production Stage Manager, L. Arkansas Light*; Assistant Stage Manager, Lauren Burke*

* Member of Actors’ Equity Associaton
** Member of United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829

UPDATE: SpeakEasy Stage Company has added seven more performances of its acclaimed production of the Tony Award-winning musical Once. The show will now play through Sunday, April 7, 2019. The entire original cast will remain for the additional week. Tickets for the extended run go on sale Friday, March 8, at noon.

SpeakEasy Stage, 527 Tremont St., Boston, 617-933-8600

The theater is handicapped accessible.

MORE:

Theater review: Well, at Wellesley Repertory Theatre

Theater review: Between Riverside and Crazy at SpeakEasy Stage in Boston

Theater review: Our American Hamlet at Babson College in Wellesley

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Here we go again: Wellesley eco-activists now rally around South 41

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South 41DISCLAIMER (Ran on April Fools’ Day, 2015)

Buoyed by the success of their Save the North 40 campaign this past year in which they convinced Wellesley College to settle for the Town’s $35 million offer, local activists are moving on to the next frontier: Saving the little known South 41.

The environmental activists, in an effort to be sustainable, are busily recycling the familiar orange North 40 signs that have dotted organic lawns across Wellesley over the past year into South 41 signs. This morning we spotted the first one in the wild, as shown here.

“Saving the North 40 has preserved community farms, an historic chain-link fence (circa 1875) as well as open space that most people in town will never visit,” said one activist, who begged to be named. “Since the town okayed the North 40 purchase at the start of March, we’ve been itching for a new cause. The South 41 will preserve the town’s oft-overlooked community groundhog farms and mud baths.”

One eco-activist, first grader Honey Hunnewell, said it’s about time the South 41 got its due.

“I’ve been passionate about this issue for years,” she said in her very own words, while munching on a native species salad.  “We’ve got a challenging journey ahead, but it’s worth whatever sacrifices it takes.”

South 41 activists later this month are planning a “map-in” during which they will seek community input to define exactly where the South 41 is.

For more information, please visit here.

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Wellesley Little League U10 South Team wins SYBL championship

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Front Row, L to R: Wyatt Barlage, Jack Toomey, Luke Zides, Mark Henshon, John Gianakis, Jack Fox-Wiviott Second Row, L-R: Adam Beyer, Troy Guiffre, Joseph Fadule, Christopher McGreal, Jackson McChesney, Kyle McCausland Back Row, L-R: Assistant Coach Steve Wiviott, Head Coach David Rosenblatt, Assistant Coach Mike McGreal, Assistant Coach Evan Zides
Front Row, L to R: Wyatt Barlage, Jack Toomey, Luke Zides, Mark Henshon, John Gianakis, Jack Fox-Wiviott
Second Row, L-R: Adam Beyer, Troy Guiffre, Joseph Fadule, Christopher McGreal, Jackson McChesney, Kyle McCausland
Back Row, L-R: Assistant Coach Steve Wiviott, Head Coach David Rosenblatt, Assistant Coach Mike McGreal, Assistant Coach Evan Zides

(Submitted by a Wellesley Little League fan…)

The Wellesley Little League U10 South Team capped a successful summer season on Saturday night by winning the Suburban Youth Baseball League U10 A Championship, 5-3, in extra innings against a very competitive Norwood team.  The win came in dramatic fashion in the bottom of the 7th inning on a walk off, two run home run blast by Jack Fox-Wiviott.

The Raiders took an early 2 -0 lead in the bottom of the first inning on hits by Mark Henshon, Jack Toomey, and Jackson McChesney and held the lead through three innings on an impressive pitching performance by McChesney.  Norwood took the lead 3-2 in the top of the 4th inning but the Raiders battled back to tie it up in the bottom half of that inning.  The Raiders held Norwood scoreless for the next three innings on solid defense and terrific pitching performances by Adam Beyer and Chris McGreal. Then, in the bottom of the 7th, after a leadoff walk by Toomey, Fox-Wiviott connected for the game winning home run.  Head coach David Rosenblatt, complimented the team on rising to the challenge of the high level of competition in the playoff games.

Saturday night’s win was the highlight of the Raiders’ impressive summer season.  The team marched through the SYBL Playoffs by ousting Pembroke, defending SYBL Champions Braintree American, and Milton National before clinching the Championship game against Norwood.   The Raiders summer season highlights also included a win at the First Annual Sharon Father’s Day Tournament in June and a second place finish in the Mansfield Summer Classic Tournament in July.

Fall baseball registration has opened, by the way.

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