This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
By Steven McElroy
May 17, 2018
Selections from the warm-weather season, including Shakespeare, new plays and musicals in development. We also picked our favorite festivals in dance, classical music and pop.
4 FREEDOMS FESTIVAL
MANCHESTER AND ARLINGTON, VT., JULY 7-22 The new musical “Perfect Picture,” inspired by the life of Norman Rockwell and the creation of his “Four Freedoms” paintings, is the centerpiece of this new festival presented by the Mill, a nonprofit arts complex. In 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in a speech to Congress, described four essential human rights — freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear — and inspired Rockwell to create his series of oil paintings. The festival, which marks 75 years since Rockwell’s paintings were featured in the Saturday Evening Post, includes a lot of other programming, like a pop-up exhibition at the Bennington Museum. “Perfect Picture,” with a book and lyrics by Eileen Bluestone Sherman and music by Gail C. Bluestone, will star Lillias White and be directed and choreographed by Randy Skinner.