Paul Szmal: and Nellie Ludman is here from the Seward House Museum to tell us about some of the activities that are coming up this month and beyond. Nellie, good morning. How are you?
Guest: Good morning. I'm doing well. How are you?
Paul Szmal: Good. Good. We want to start off by talking about an event that is actually a part of the celebration of Pride Month that is coming up on June 13th at the Equal Rights Heritage Center that focuses on the life and times of Charlotte Cushman.
Guest: Absolutely. Yes. This Saturday, June 13th, starting at 1130, we will be having a two-part series commemorating Pride Month, and it's all about a very well-known 19th century actor, Charlotte Cushman, very well known for playing a lot of men's roles. She's often known for her role as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. One of our summer interns, her name is Grace Wiseman, will be portraying Charlotte in a dramatic reading of some of her letters that were written to the Seward family, and following that performance, our Director of Education, Jeff Ludwig, will be discussing Charlotte's life and legacy, and it's all happening right next door at the Equal Rights Heritage Center.
Paul Szmal: And admission for this is free?
Guest: It is. It's free.
Paul Szmal: And also happening throughout the summer on Saturdays are the historical walking tours, and I know these are one of the more popular things that happen in connection with the Seward House Museum.
Guest: Yes, so we are working with the Equal Rights Heritage Center and their Saturday morning markets. A couple of our interns will be offering these historic walking tours going throughout Auburn's downtown, so it is a 30-minute walking tour. It begins at the Equal Rights Heritage Center and then extends for several blocks into that downtown area.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, those are pretty cool tours to check out, especially if you want to bring the kids along and they can learn a little bit of local history while that's happening. Speaking of tours and celebration of Juneteenth, there will be some free tours.
Guest: Yes, so in observance of the Juneteenth holiday, we will be offering our tours from 10 to 5, the last tour going out at 4 p.m. for free that day. We do just recommend that you make your reservations in advance. You can go to our website sewardhouse.org to make sure that you get a time of your choosing, but all tours that day will be free.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, and that is on Friday, June the 19th, again in celebration of Juneteenth. When we get to the end of the month, the Lunchtime Lecture Series is going to continue, and pretty interesting topic here for this one, irrepressible conflicts.
Guest: Yes, so this was originally slated to be our May Lunchtime Lecture, which we unfortunately had to postpone, but we are very pleased to bring retired Judge Richard Dollinger to the Seward House Museum to talk about Senator William Henry Seward's 1858 irrepressible conflict speech, which is known to maybe be the speech that lost him that nomination to become president. So Judge Dollinger will be speaking on how that speech kind of changed the course of Seward's career.
Paul Szmal: Now, and if you've never heard this speech, this is a great way to understand the context of the situation and what happened. That event is at the Seward House Museum Event Center and is free and open to the public June 30th, starting at noon. Now, when we get into the month of July, just in time to celebrate the 250th birthday of this great nation, we have First Friday activities on July 3rd.
Guest: Yes, as part of our America 250 commemorative programming, we'll be offering lots to do on our First Friday community event. We will have artist Don Ellis in our gift shop. We'll be having a dramatic performance by Jack Sherman, and that's inspired by William Henry Seward's many 4th of July orations. He had many of those speeches, so Jack will be doing a performance based on those, and the Auburn Civic Band will be joining us for a concert. So we are very excited about that. That'll be on Friday, June, July, I apologize, July 3rd, from 5 to 7 30, and that performance will be beginning at 5 45.
Paul Szmal: And speaking of music, I'm looking ahead on the event calendar at SewardHouse.org to July 16th. It is the second installment of the Rebecca Carr Memorial Classical Concert Series.
Guest: Yes, we will be hosting, it's called O'Kara Mia, part of that Rebecca Carr Memorial Classical Concert Series, and that will be the evening of July 16th from 5 30 to 7 o'clock, and there are two options. We will be offering a kind of pre-concert reception in our event center, and then we will also have the concert with soloists Stephen Sull and Lynn Craver, and they will be taking us on a musical journey through the Classical and American Songbook, and they will be accompanied by the pianist Richard Montgomery. So there will be kind of limited tickets on that, so we encourage you to get yours in advance.
Paul Szmal: Yes, and that overture reception that Nellie is talking about before the show is a curated selection of hors d'oeuvres from Morrow's Table. There will be beer and wine available. The performers will be there, and you'll be able to ask them a couple of questions about what's going to happen. Plus, you get reserved seating for the concert performance. The reception will get underway at 5 30, and the concert will get underway at 7 o'clock. So again, you have the two ticket options, and if you click on this on the event calendar at SewardHouse.org, you will find the Eventbrite link to purchase your tickets for that one.
Guest: Yes, and by the way, presenting sponsor for that is Lesko Advisors. Special thanks to them for helping to make that event possible.
Paul Szmal: So yeah, we're getting into the busy season here, Nellie. A lot going on.
Guest: Absolutely, we are so excited. We have a summer full of programming that we can't wait for you to join us for. And again, the website is SewardHouse.org.
Paul Szmal: SewardHouse.org. Are we officially into summer hours now, Nellie?
Guest: We are. We started our summer hours this past Sunday on the 7th, so our summer hours will be Tuesday through Saturday, 10 to 5, and then Sundays from 1 to 5, all the way until the end of September.
Paul Szmal: Beautiful, beautiful. Thanks as always, Nellie. I appreciate it and look forward to some of these fun activities happening at the Seward House.
Guest: Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.
