Pontine Theatre Receives Lincoln Financial Foundation Grant to Serve NH Seniors

Thanks to a $4,000 grant from the Lincoln Financial Foundation, Pontine Theatre is presenting scenes from its original staging of The Story of a Bad Boy at assisted living communities and senior centers throughout New Hampshire. Published in 1869, The Story of a Bad Boy, is a memoir by Portsmouth native, Thomas Bailey Aldrich. With an innovative use of toy theatre figures and projected images, Pontine Co-Artistic Directors, Greg Gathers and Marguerite Mathews, tell the autobiographical story of a lively boy and his companions in mid-19th century Portsmouth. Aldrich's boyhood home, the Aldrich Memorial, is now part of Strawbery Banke Museum,

The Story of a Bad Boy was a considered to be a groundbreaking work when it was published. Still in print, the memoir brought Aldrich international renown. Hailed as the first realistic depiction of childhood in American fiction, it is considered an inspiration for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Aldrich's friend Mark Twain.

Pontine's program will serve the needs of seniors who are unable to travel to enjoy cultural events. The company brings the program to fourteen sites in ten New Hampshire communities during the months of May and June 2017:

• Maple Suites, Dover NH

• Gerrish Manor, Boscawen NH

• Langdon Place, Keene NH

• Mt View Senior Center, Bradford NH

• Wentworth Home Assisted Retirement Community, Dover, NH

• Senior Center, Dover NH

• Senior Center, Pittsfield NH

• Harvest Hill, Lebanon NH

• Granite Ledges, Concord NH

• Langdon Place, Dover NH

• Littleton Area Senior Center, Littleton NH

• Sugar Hill Retirement Community, Wolfeboro NH

• Bentley Commons, Bedford NH

• Woodcrest Village Assisted Living, New London NH

Pontine Theatre, a resident company at Portsmouth's Strawbery Banke Museum, is also supported by grants from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Getz Fund of Citizens Bank.

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