Fugitive Stories and Old Frog Pond Farm in Harvard are partnering again for four afternoons on the farm. August’s theme is “Epiphany.”

Hearing a true story in a live performance is fun, moving, and transformative. Every event brings surprises. As always, Fugitive’s featured tellers include Moth and Massmouth Story Slam Winners and Champions, theater professionals, comedians, authors, podcast producers, teachers, and university professors. Several folks from the local community will also be telling their tales, some for the first time.

$15/online • $20/door • Tickets

Online sales end at noon on the event date. Plenty of tickets at the door.

Seating starts at 2:30pm. Storytelling starts at 3pm. We recommend purchasing tickets in advance. This is an outdoor event (weather permitting).

If the weather is extreme, we will be presenting at Five Sparks in Harvard. If light rain is forecast, we’ll all stay nice and dry under a number of canopies. Please visit this calendar listing by noon on the day of the show for updates.

Please put Old Frog Pond Farm, Harvard, in your GPS. (The street address sometimes take you to the other side of the woods.)

ABOUT OUR CO-HOST, OLD FROG POND FARM
Old Frog Pond Farm is a 25-acre farm in Harvard and one of the few Certified Organic Orchards in Massachusetts. In the fall they open for pick your own apples and raspberries. Every year, the farm hosts an Annual Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit and gathers for Plein Air Poetry.

Visitors to the farm can purchase a ticket to take a self-guided tour around the pond and through the woods discovering the sculpture, native plants, and abundant wildlife that’s makes their home here. The self-serve farm stand is filled with fresh certified organic produce. fruit@oldfrogpondfarm.com

FEATURED FUGITIVE TELLERS
In addition to several local, hand-picked tellers, Fugitive brings regional, award-winning storytellers (see below).

Susanne Schmidt
Susanne is a comedic storyteller and a producer for The Moth. Her work has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, National Public Radio and HBO’s Inspiration Room.

Robin Schoenthaler
Robin has been a storyteller for about a decade and has been with Fugitive since 2018. In 2019 she won a Moth Grand Slam Championship and she is never going to stop talking about it — ever. She is also an award-winning essayist — mostly about love, loss, life, death, and Covid. Robin’s day job for 28 years was as a cancer doctor with MGH at Emerson Hospital in their Department of Radiation Oncology. She now helps people with second opinions about their cancers while she travels the world. Learn more about Robin at www.DrRobin.org. 

Susan Cohn-Child
Susan is a bit of everything. She sings alto in a choir (though she’s a little bitter that she can no longer sing soprano), is a devoted member of a book group for 18 years, is a world traveler when funds and time allow, and is a daughter, a sister, a spouse, and mother of two aspiring adults. She wrote her first story in 2018 and hasn’t looked back. Susan has told stories at The Moth, is a feature teller at Fugitive Stories, and is a Massmouth audience pick winner. She loves the authenticity of the story telling community and the connections that storytelling creates between people

Rachel Gans-Boriskin
Rachel is a partner at NOVL, a strategic management consulting firm specializing in workforce development. A former Communications Professor, she has performed at many storytelling venues in the Boston area including GBH’s “Stories from the Stage.” She lives in Central Mass with her husband, two children, seven chickens, two cats, and two neurotic Pomeranians. 

 Meg Stafford
Meg is an award-winning author of two memoirs — They are Topic of Cancer: Riding the Waves of the Big C, and Who Will Accompany You? My Mother-Daughter Journeys Far From Home and Close to the Heart — a columnist and observer of humans’ and animals’ delightful quirks, and was a featured teller on GBH’s “Stories from the Stage.” A social worker in private practice for many years, she hears powerful stories on a regular basis and always appreciates the connective tissue that telling our truths creates. And, she embraces the notion that the shortest distance between two people is a laugh. Meg can be reached at http://www.MegStafford.com. 

Swing dance is alive and well at Sanctuary in Maynard. This one is for both experienced dancers and swing dance wannabes. Sanctuary, a recently converted church, features a full stage, an enormous dance floor, and one of the best bars west of Boston.

From 6–7pm, we feature instruction with some of the best instructors in the area. Instruction will be led by Sergiy Georgiyev, the founder and director of Magenta Dance Place in Acton. who has taught ballroom across Europe and the US. Sergiy’s emphasis on maximizing confidence and minimizing stress has helped students achieve extraordinary success. He is a professor at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and collaborates with the MIT Ballroom Club and Harvard Dance Sports team. At Magenta Dance Place, Sergiy and his staff believe in the transformative power of dance and strive to create a vibrant community where everyone can express themselves through movement.

From 7–9pm, Eddie Scheer’s Swinging All Stars take to the stage. Chameleon Eddie Scheer is a Sanctuary favorite, gracing us with his vocal and drumming talents with a variety of groups and styles. He has been a fixture on the New England swing scene for more than 25 years. Whether with his jump blues band The Love Dogs, the 20-piece Compaq Big Band, or various smaller ensembles, his big voice and solid drumming have kept hearts beating and feet moving wherever he plays. The Swinging All Stars is a new unit featuring some of the best musicians in Boston — leaning toward the lighter, jazzy side of swing, but still with a deep connection to and reverence for the blues. 

Doors: 5:30pm • Instruction: 6–7pm • Dancing: 7-9pm • Tickets

Join Fivesparks and Fugitive Productions in an intimate setting for a four-event concert series in Harvard’s beautiful town center.

Come to the whole series:
Thursday, September 11: 440 Gypsy Jazz
Thursday, October 16: RD King plus Lindsay Straw & Andy Cambria
Thursday, November 13: Cassandre McKinley
Thursday, December 4: Bruce Gertz Quartet

About Fivesparks
Fivesparks has been cultivating arts and culture programming within the Harvard community since 2017, creating a space where people can come together to experience the arts in many forms. They are broadening their offerings and collaborating with other community organizations to expand and serve even more people through classes, events, and exhibits. Check out their website and subscribe to their newsletter to stay up to date on what’s coming up!

About 440 Gypsy Jazz
In the style of hot club jazz, 440 presents their toe-tapping original tunes and Django's music arranged with beautiful harmony by violin and clarinet. 

Tomoko Iwamoto, violin, a leader of 440, has been in Boston jazz scene for more than 30 years. Being a "jazzy" violinist with a strong classical background, she expanded her repertoire in jazz, rock, pop to world music, toured with Hypnotic Clambake, while studying Jazz Composition and Arranging at Berklee College of Music. During her recent trip to Europe, she jammed with world renown gypsy jazz musicians; Tcha Limberger & the members of Les Violins de Bruxelles, and Chris & Julian Brunard. She appeared as a guest soloist with Mood Swings Orchestra and Women In World Jazz, and collaborated with modern jazz guitarist, Chris Mcdermott.

John Clark, clarinet, is the founder of the Wolverine Jazz Band and has been a fixture on the New England Jazz scene for many years. He has played professionally in the Boston area with numerous traditional jazz and big bands, including the High Society Dance Orchestra, Dan Gabel's Abeltones, Commonwealth Jazz, the New Black Eagle Jazz Band, and the Paramount Jazz Band of Boston. John is an acknowledged authority on the history of jazz and has recorded extensively. He holds a PhD. in Musicology and has published books and articles on the foundations of Early Jazz.

Jack Soref, guitar, graduate of Berklee College of Music,  became captivated by the music of Django Reinhardt after attending the International Django Reinhardt festival in Samois-sur-Seine France in 2002. Jack is a mainstay of Django Festivals Django in June, where he has taught since 2009, and the Midwest Gypsy Swing Fest, where he has performed as recently as 2023. 

Gregory Toro, bass, was born and raised in Boston. He fell in love with music and rhythm as a child, and at the age of 10 joined a neighborhood steel band that played calypso and church music on weekends. He found his true calling as a bass player when he was 16 years old. Greg studied electric and upright bass and jazz composition at Berklee, where he collaborated with musicians from many countries and cultures. He has traveled the world with jazz and rock groups.

 Doors: 7pm • Performance: 7:30–9:30pm • $22/advance, $27/door (incl. fees) •  Tickets

Join Fivesparks and Fugitive Productions in an intimate setting for a four-event concert series in Harvard’s beautiful town center.

Come to the whole series:
Thursday, September 11: 440 Gypsy Jazz
Thursday, October 16: RD King plus Lindsay Straw & Andy Cambria
Thursday, November 13: Cassandre McKinley
Thursday, December 4: Bruce Gertz Quartet

About Fivesparks
Fivesparks has been cultivating arts and culture programming within the Harvard community since 2017, creating a space where people can come together to experience the arts in many forms. They are broadening their offerings and collaborating with other community organizations to expand and serve even more people through classes, events, and exhibits. Check out their website and subscribe to their newsletter to stay up to date on what’s coming up!

About R.D King
R.D. King is an award-winning fingerstyle guitarist, composer, and music educator. A captivating and energetic performer, King blends guitar pyrotechnics with cinematic and evocative music. King is a TEDx Cambridge performer, the winner of the 2017 Canadian Guitar Festival’s International Fingerstyle Guitar Competition, and a finalist of the 2019 Walnut Valley Festival's International Fingerstyle Guitar Competition. He has opened for Grammy-nominated Ari Hest, Andy McKee, Liz Longley, and many others

His compositional prowess has earned him numerous awards and accolades, including back-to-back Outstanding Achievement in Songwriting Awards in the 2023 and 2024 Great American Songwriting Contest, placing as a finalist in the 2023 International Acoustic Music Awards, and winning the 2018 Walnut Valley Festival's NewSong Showcase (Instrumental Category). 

R.D. King has released six albums of solo fingerstyle guitar music, the latest of which is Songs of Spring (2023). He resides in Boston where he performs and is an associate lecturer at UMass Boston.

About Lindsay Straw & Andy Cambria
Known among guitar circles for their work at The Music Emporium, Andy Cambria and Lindsay Straw also share a love for pithy, complex songs of the folk, bluegrass and Celtic persuasion. Blending harmony vocals and double guitars, Irish bouzouki and clawhammer banjo, and throwing in some old-time tunes for good measure, the duo loves tackling songs both traditional and contemporary — but there has to be a good story. Their music is sure to appeal to fans of folk duos like Gillian Welch & David Rawlings and the Murphy Beds.

 Doors: 7pm • Performance: 7:30–9:30pm • $22/advance, $27/door (incl. fees) •  Tickets

Join Fivesparks and Fugitive Productions in an intimate setting for a four-event concert series in Harvard’s beautiful town center.

Come to the whole series:
Thursday, September 11: 440 Gypsy Jazz
Thursday, October 16: RD King plus Lindsay Straw & Andy Cambria
Thursday, November 13: Cassandre McKinley
Thursday, December 4: Bruce Gertz Quartet

About Fivesparks
Fivesparks has been cultivating arts and culture programming within the Harvard community since 2017, creating a space where people can come together to experience the arts in many forms. They are broadening their offerings and collaborating with other community organizations to expand and serve even more people through classes, events, and exhibits. Check out their website and subscribe to their newsletter to stay up to date on what’s coming up!

About Cassandre McKinley
Boston native, Cassandre McKinley, is a singer, recording artist, composer, producer, vocal coach and educator. As an artist and singer, she channels a vast spectrum of genres that include Soul, Jazz, Blues, R&B, Pop, and Country and has unwittingly unified them into a singular sound that is primitively hers. McKinley’s consensual freedom from stylistic boundaries has become her signature approach to making music.

“There’s a music style called ‘jazzsoul’ (we made it up) and our anointed queen is Boston native Cassandre McKinley” (Boston Globe).

McKinley is deeply rooted in a recording career, having released five solo albums, and is revered for her spirited and impassioned live performances. Her most notable collaborations include those with Peter Eldridge (New York Voices), Duke Levine, Dave Mattacks, Clay Osborne, Bernard Purdie, Herb Pomeroy. She appeared as a regular featured artist alongside the great J. Geils in his named Jazz & Blues Review to sold out audiences throughout New England. Her music can be heard on hundreds of national and international radio stations, cable and internet music outlets including iHeartRadio, Spotify, Pandora and XM Radio. She serves an Associate Professor in the Voice Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston and Berklee Online.

Featured Performers
Tim Ray, piano • Dave Mattacks, drums • Robert Nieske, bass

 Doors: 7pm • Performance: 7:30–9:30pm • $22/advance, $27/door (incl. fees) •  Tickets

Join Fivesparks and Fugitive Productions in an intimate setting for a four-event concert series in Harvard’s beautiful town center.

Come to the whole series:
Thursday, September 11: 440 Gypsy Jazz
Thursday, October 16: RD King, plus Lindsay Straw & Andy Cambria
Thursday, November 13: Cassandre McKinley
Thursday, December 4: Bruce Gertz Quartet

About Fivesparks
Fivesparks has been cultivating arts and culture programming within the Harvard community since 2017, creating a space where people can come together to experience the arts in many forms. They are broadening their offerings and collaborating with other community organizations to expand and serve even more people through classes, events, and exhibits. Check out their website and subscribe to their newsletter to stay up to date on what’s coming up!

About Bruce Gertz
Bruce Gertz is an award-winning, bassist, composer, author, educator, touring and recording artist, and is on the staff of Berklee College of Music. In addition to a raft of Boston Music Awards, Gertz has garnered a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Performance grant, a composition award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and recognition from the music rights organization ASCAP, Billboard magazine, and other organizations.

"Gertz has shown a consistency that the vast majority of his better-known contemporaries have failed to match. The music he creates has the power to evoke feeling, thought, and motion. He continues to work at it, and the fruit of his efforts is unmistakable every time he plays” ( Boston Globe).

Gertz was named “Outstanding Bassist” by Boston Music Awards. His contribution to music education has earned him multiple recognition awards from The International Association of Jazz Educators and the Jazz Education Network and he serves on the advisory board of the International Society of Bassists.

As a bandleader, Gertz has recorded more than 20 albums. He has performed and recorded with such artists as Gary Burton, Jerry Bergonzi, John Abercrombie, Joey Calderazzo, Kenny Werner, Mick Goodrick, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Billy Hart, Bill Frisell, Bob Berg, George Cables, Gil Evans, Tom Harrell, Jon Hendricks, Diane Schuur, Dave Brubeck, George Garzone, Mike Stern, Larry Coryell, Joe Lovano, Cab Calloway, Maynard Ferguson, Count Basie, and many others.

 Doors: 7pm • Performance: 7:30–9:30pm • $22/advance, $27/door (incl. fees) •  Tickets