Trad and the Parks

Today, I sat in on a meeting about a new park. The Cape Ann Museum is planning on putting in a park in the place of an old, decrepit building and a weedy parking lot. I saw the plans and they are very promising: one of the men in there said that it was a nice way to break up the "urban sprawl" that is downtown Gloucester. While I wouldn't characterize Gloucester in any way as "urban sprawl," I definitely think that a park in place of a run down building and parking lot is a good idea. It seems like lately, parks have been taking over the unused space in Gloucester. Most notably, the notoriously controversial I-4, C-2 lot on Rogers Street as finally been taken over by the city after fifty years of debate. I drive past it every day, and it is definitely an improvement over the disgusting, weedy lot that it was before - now, there are trees and grass is starting to grow a little bit. I think that the farmer's market is actually going to move into the I-4, C-2 lot, which is nice. When the market isn't using it, it will be a public park space.
On another note, I just finished up a story about a play at the Gloucester Stage Company. They will be debuting a new play, titled "Trad," at the beginning of September. This was notable because they actually removed a play from the summer season so that they could run the play. Apparently, it had an extremely successful but extremely short run in Boston before it had to close prematurely due to the actors having other work to do. It is about these really old Irish men who are on a journey across the world looking for one of the guys' long lost son. The idea is that it is a parody of Irish storytelling and culture, and got really rave reviews from the people who actually did get to see it. I hope I will be able to get tickets and come home from college to see it, because it definitely seems like it is worth the time.

Look for my Gloucester Stage article in tomorrow's (May 20) paper!