Paul Szmal: Nellie Ludeman is here from the Seward House Museum, and she's here to tell us about some of the events that are coming up. Nellie, good morning. How are you this morning?
Guest: Good morning. I'm doing well. How are you?
Paul Szmal: I am good. I am good. And we have quite a bit going on. And one of the neat things that the Seward House Museum does is they do performances on the ground, sometimes theatrical, sometimes musical. We'll touch on the theatrical that's coming up next month a little bit later in the conversation, but coming up here in just a couple of days time on Thursday is the Rebecca Carr Memorial Classical Concert Series.
Guest: Yes, this Thursday we are having our O'Kara Mia event right on the grounds of the Seward House Museum. We will be having Stephen Stull and Lynn Craver. They are going to be accompanied by pianist Richard Montgomery, so it's going to be a wonderful concert that evening. We are also offering an opportunity to meet the performers during our Overture Reception, which is kind of a more intimate setting. We're going to be having hors d'oeuvres for Morrow's Table, and you can meet those performers, and then you will have priority seating once the concert begins. So our Overture Reception is going to be starting at 5 30 that evening, and then the concert is going to be starting at 7. So we have two opportunities for you to kind of have an immersive experience with that musical event.
Paul Szmal: It's neat to be able to marry the music with the historical in this context.
Guest: Absolutely, and it's right in our gardens, so you're going to have a wonderful kind of immersive experience from every angle. The gardens in the back, the house in the front, and then music to your ears.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, literally, yes. The Lunchtime Lecture Series kicks back in the next day. This will be on Friday, and the focus will be on William Seward's Madisonian roots.
Guest: Yes, as a young gentleman, William Henry Seward kind of claimed himself as a Madisonian, and so Alyssa Morris, who is the guest service manager at James Madison's Montpelier, she will be talking about kind of what he meant and whether it was really true, kind of his journey through his, as she's calling it, Madisonian roots. So that'll be this Friday, July 17th at noon in our event center on site, and that will be free.
Paul Szmal: And for people that don't know, what does the term Madisonian mean in this case?
Guest: Well, I think she's going to really get into it, but it's kind of his thinking that went along with James Madison's ideas and advocacy during his time in politics, his time as president. So kind of his contributions as a founding member to America.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, yeah, totally understandable. And of course, you know, you get affected by something like that, impressed by something like that at a young age, and it kind of stays with you and informs your adult life.
Guest: Absolutely. I mean, William Henry Seward was a very young man when America was first starting, first gaining independence. So he kind of grew up with the country establishing itself. So he really saw something in himself from those founding fathers. And really, if you stop and think about that for a second, being there at the dawn and the early hours of the birth of a nation was a very, very special time indeed.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with Nellie Ludeman from the Seward House Museum here on FLX Morning, talking about some of the events that are coming up. These are events that you conduct, but they actually involve the city of Auburn and not just the Seward House Museum itself. And we're talking about the ghost tours. The next one is Friday, and then there's one at the end of the month too.
Guest: Yeah, so we're celebrating Halloween and kind of spooky stuff a little early in the summer. But we're hosting these outdoor walking tours through Auburn. We'll be hitting some sites around Auburn, both downtown and kind of more towards Fort Hill Cemetery. So unfortunately, our opportunity this Friday has just recently been sold out. But we do have another opportunity on Friday, the 31st. They start at 7.30pm. So they are $10 for museum members, $15 for non-members. So we do require a reservation because those spots do fill up fast. But it's going to be a great time kind of walking around Auburn and learning all the spooky history that goes along with it.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that is a really big thing nowadays. People are really into the whole concept of the historical perspective of ghosts, paranormal, ghost hunting, all that sort of stuff. So it doesn't at all surprise me that these fill up pretty quickly.
Guest: Yes, yes. And if you're unable to make it this month, of course, we do host them again in October with different stories. So you could do both or if you're only able to do one, your time will come again.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the first Friday kicks back in the first Friday in August. That'll be on the 7th.
Guest: Yes. Once again, we are hosting our first Friday community programming on Friday, August 7th from 5 to 7.30. That is all free. We're hosting artist Dominika Brockman. She works a lot with her art, exploring architecture and kind of atmosphere, memory. She's going to be offering artwork that was very much inspired by the Seward House itself. So that'll be really cool to see that night. We will also have music by she is a guitarist and vocalist. Her name is Colleen Coteau. So we're really excited to host that coming up next month.
Paul Szmal: I think, you know, I think it's great that there's so much music involved with what goes on at the Seward House Museum. And it's also great that you have a lot of local and regional talent to be able to draw off of for these types of presentations.
Guest: Absolutely. We are very blessed with a very welcoming community and just so many wonderful artists that are willing to work with us.
Paul Szmal: Now, I mentioned at the top of the conversation, we were going to talk about not only the musical, but the theatrical. This is where the theatrical, if you will, comes in. It is the Shakespeare in the Garden series. Next performance is going to be August 13th, and it will be the Shakespeare classic, The Taming of the Shrew.
Guest: Yes, we're very excited to bring back Shakespeare in the Garden. This year will be on Thursday, August 13th. It is a free performance, once again, right in our garden. The Syracuse Shakespeare in the Park performers will be doing Taming of the Shrew, and we are very excited to host that. All you need to do is just bring a lawn chair if you want to bring a picnic basket. You are more than welcome to do that, but it's going to be a wonderful evening, and that starts at six o'clock.
Paul Szmal: Okay, I was going to ask what time that started. How long now? Is that the full performance or the full play? Do they do a condensed version?
Guest: The performance runs from six to eight with an intermission. My understanding is it is a full performance.
Paul Szmal: Nice, nice. You get the whole thing. If you've never seen a Shakespeare performance, actually seeing one done in a garden in a natural habitat like that, I think that's pretty cool.
Guest: Yes, and it really kind of goes back to Shakespeare doing them originally in open air performances.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, yeah. There weren't such things as air-conditioned theaters back in the Bard's day, shall we say.
Guest: Yes, no. And of course, the Seward House Museum is open for regular tours and admission throughout the course of a week.
Paul Szmal: Okay.
Guest: Yes, we are in our summer hours, so we are open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 5, tours on the hour from 10 to 4, and then on Sundays we are also open from 1 to 5, and that will go through September.
Paul Szmal: All right, and you can find out more by going to SewardHouse.org. That's SewardHouse.org. That's where you can make your reservations for the ghost tours, see the full calendar of events, see some great photos, and a whole lot more. As always, Nellie, we appreciate it. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you next month.
Guest: Thank you. Have a great one.
