The Arts Café Mystic to feature dramatic reading and music

STONINGTON — Margaret Gibson, former Poet Laureate of Connecticut returns to The Arts Café Mystic Friday for the final show of the fall season and to share her latest work — in a dramatic presentation. "While Margaret is a familiar voice at The Arts Café Mystic," said Artistic Director Lisa Starr in an email, "her breathtaking new masterpiece, 'Draw Me Without Boundaries,' marks a distinct shift and expansion of her work." Friday's program is certain to be an extraordinary evening for those long familiar — and also those new — to her work, Starr said.

Calling Gibson "amazing," Starr said "Draw Me Without Boundaries" "crosses genre lines" as it combines poetry and prose as it tells the story of Lena, an elderly writer suffering from memory loss and her granddaughter, Zoe. Lena is living her remaining days in a memory care facility, Starr explained, while Zoe, a painter who has moved into Lena’s old house, is struggling with the aftershocks of a failed marriage and the unexpected, life-changing decisions she must make. "The book masterfully weaves its narrative as Lena and Zoe present their interior monologues in stirring counterpoint," Starr said.



"The powerful love between a grandmother and a granddaughter animates the voices in this poignant series, set against the backdrop of global climate crisis and the COVID pandemic." "Draw Me without Boundaries" lays bare the integrity and depth of inquiry it takes to make life and death choices in a broken world, Starr added. "This luminous book—innovative, suspenseful, deeply moving— reflects in conjoined poetry and prose the profound issues of our time.

" Gibson will be reading the part of Lena, and actress Tori Richnavsky will be reading the role of Zoe, Starr said. Starr said M. L.

Williams ends his review of Gibson’s new work with this sentence: “Margaret Gibson’s Draw Me Without Boundaries is quietly stunning, an important and necessary dramatic poem for our time.” Meanwhile, Cellist Theodore Mook will provide the musical interlude, joined by Heath Allen, a composer, jazz pianist, lyricist and theater creator based in Philadelphia. Gibson, Poet Laureate of Connecticut from 2019-2022, has published 14 books of poems.

Prior to her experimental book of poetry and prose, Gibson brought out a trilogy, which includes "Broken Cup," "Not Hearing the Wood Thrush," and "The Glass Globe," which won the Connecticut Book Award in Poetry. Richnavsky has been involved in theater both on stage and behind the scenes since the age of five, Starr said. She graduated from the Warner Theatre Center for Arts Education in Torrington, Connecticut, and received a bachelor's degree in theatre with an acting concentration from Columbia College Chicago.

She has performed with many theaters throughout Chicago and Connecticut, most recently spending most of her time with Phoenix Stage Company in Oakville, Connecticut. Meanwhile, Cellist Theodore Mook will provide the musical interlude, joined by Heath Allen, a composer, jazz pianist, lyricist and theater creator based in Philadelphia. A "truly authentic evening of poetry and music," will be held on Friday, Nov.

22, at 7 p.m. at La Grua Center in Stonington.

Tickets are $23.18 at https://theartscafemystic.org/.