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

As part of Concord’s celebrations for Concord250, we invite you to a new edition of “True Stories Told Live.” Join us for another fabulous evening of storytelling and community! This evening’s theme is “Freedom.”

Fugitive Stories presents non-competitive storytelling events in Boston’s western ‘burbs. We often bring featured storytellers to tell a true tale alongside people just like you who may never have told a story on a stage but are inspired by one of our themes. Hearing a true story in a live performance is fun, moving, and transformative. You’ll laugh and sometimes shed a few tears. Every event opens a door to a memory — and to your heart.

Most of tonight’s tellers come to us via the Concord Art community.

Jeff Clements
Jeff serves as CEO of American Promise. He has practiced law for three decades in public service and private practice, and is the author of Corporations Are Not People: Reclaiming Democracy From Big Money & Global Corporations. He is also the founder of Whaleback Partners LLC, which provides sustainable financing to businesses in the local agriculture economy. Jeff has helped to start and been a board member of many non-profit organizations and businesses.

Harold Cox
Harold Cox is professor at Boston University School of Public Health. Storytelling is his latest passion to go along with camping, knitting and skydiving. Harold has told stories on “Risk,“ “Stories From the Stage,” and “Riot Theater.”  He was a recent Moth Grandslam and MainStage participant. Harold likes to tells stories about simple and goofy things that have happened in his life. His life is full of simple and goofy things.

Ryan Hanley
Ryan is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. A specialist on the political philosophy of the Enlightenment period, he is the author of Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge, 2009), Love’s Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity (Cambridge, 2017), and Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life (Princeton, 2019).

Tammy Rose
Tammy is an artist, historian, and award-winning playwright. She runs transcendentalconcord.org, an international online platform for history nerds and those who love the Concord authors. Her upcoming book, The Concord Parade: Past is Present, is coming out in Summer 2026 from Mercer University Press. She is pursuing her PhD in Experience Design at Bentley University.

Rose Saia
Rose is Executive Director of the Centre Street Food Pantry, a regional food relief agency that serves residents of six greater Boston cities and provides food for 3,500 people every month. She has been a regular competitor and winner at Moth storyslams and appeared on GBH’s television series “Stories from the Stage” and in the International Institute’s “Suitcase Stories” series. She recently was featured on the Moth Radio Hour with her story “Paint it Black.”

Alexandra Sheldon
Alex is an artist from Cambridge, MA. She specializes in making painterly collages and teaching mixed media. She is represented by the Bromfield Gallery in Boston.

Mandy Young 
Mandy is a retired art educator and freelance calligrapher. She is currently a member of Concord Art’s Board of Directors and a McGyver grandparent.

Doors: 6:30pm • Storytelling: 7-8:30pm • Tickets

In collaboration with Transcendental Concord!

Fugitive Comedy hosts some of the best and brightest comics working in the Boston area and nationally.The comedians who have joined us have appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Conan, David Letterman, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Last Comic Standing, America’s Got Talent, Comedy Central, NPR’s Commonwealth Journal, Lifetime’s Girls Night Out — and have opened for countless well-known comedians in clubs around the nation.

Jim Colliton
Jim’s new Dry Bar Comedy special has turned him into a TikTok sensation. Jim has three children who have told him about TikTok. He has no idea what it is. And that is what Jim’s comedy is all about — an angry dad who is not a fan of new things. Jim has been seen on Comedy Central, NBC Comedy Spotlight, and Gotham Comedy Live. His comedy albums are played on XM satellite radio and Spotify. 

Alexis Cristaldi
Alexis is an up-and-comer in the Boston comedy scene. She recently won Laugh Boston’s Tight 5 Competition and the Who’s The Funniest Comic Competition in Connecticut. And she can be seen performing all over the East Coast. She’s the producer and creator of Next on Deck Shows, co-producer and cohost of Glovebox Comedy, and co-producer and cohost of the Serving Blunt Podcast.

Liam Hales
Liam is one of the biggest comics in the world—literally. A towering presence, but with the heart of a ferocious teddy bear whose kissed the Blarney Stone twice. He brings an infectious energy and an irresistible smile to every stage. With more than two decades in stand-up, Liam has only gotten better with time — like a fine wine, but funny! A New Hampshire native and Northeastern alum, he spent nearly 15 years in Los Angeles before returning home in 2021. His comedy album, Please Forgive Me, is available on iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play. 

Rob Pierce
Rob is a New England-based comedian who has opened for Norm Macdonald, Doug Stanhope, and many others. He hopes you made it through his bio without thinking he was just name dropping.

Doors: 7pm • Performance: 8pm • Full bar • Tickets

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

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

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 • Purchase tickets here

• 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 four regional, award-winning storytellers.

Kurt Mullen
Kurt is an award-winning storyteller, writer, teacher, editor, and producer. He has told stories (twice) on GBH’s, “Stories from the Stage.” And in his work for the Stellar Story Company, he coaches and helps cast the show. As a performer, he’s told stories on “The Volume Knob” podcast in Montreal, the “GRIT: True Stories” podcast in North Carolina, and on the “RISK!” true stories podcast in Brooklyn. In magazines, literary journals, and anthologies, Kurt has written about soldiers coming home from war, about his own personal loss and grief and, generally, about the quirky folks who like to go it alone in this world. To learn more about Kurt’s storytelling, writing, and teaching, please visit him at www.kurtmullen.com.

Don Picard
Don is a Moth storyteller who shares his own moving life moments with humor and humility. He has worked in software development for more than 30 years and is currently employed at Cogito Corporation, which can “augment your workforce with our AI coaching system.” Don was a double major in Theatre Arts and Computer Science at Cornell, and chose to work as an engineer in order to be able to live in Cambridge and feed his family. Don enjoys telling live stories about his kids, husband, and extended family as it is fun, therapeutic, and allows him to exercise the other half of his college degree so he doesn’t become bitter.

Brendyn Schneider
Brendyn has been a professional storyspinner for 16 years. He has performed at fine venues such as the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Club Passim, and WBUR CitySpace Boston, with action-packed organizations like The Moth, Fugitive Productions, Emerson College, and the ’GBH TV Show, “Stories from the Stage.” By day, he’s a job search instructor / career advisor, helping folks find their professional match. He frequently uses the principles of storytelling while advising job seekers. To join in his lifelong quest for the perfect bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, please find him at brendynschneider.com.

Sara Sweet Rabidoux-Kelsey
Sara is a writer and storyteller from Boston. She is a Moth MainStage performer and has been a featured teller with Fugitive Stories, Now Hear This, and Listen Up Storytelling. Currently working on her first book, Sara is the Property Research Manager for The Trustees of Reservations. 

Theresa Wiggins
Theresa enjoys telling a story that has lived inside of her, to uncover a nugget or life lesson she may not have previously recognized.  She loves the sense of shared humanity she gets from a night of telling and listening to stories.  A moth story slam winner, Theresa is also co-founder of Redwood Speaking, which offers public speaking coaching, women’s public speaking circles, and trainings for businesses and community organizations.  The guiding belief of Redwood Speaking is that public speaking is not a one-size-fits-all type of endeavor.  Rather, each person is guided towards finding and using their own unique voice in their own unique style.