Tag Archives: Leslye Headland

Roundup: Hillspoint Road, Old Mill Grocery, Broadway …

Posted on November 13, 2024 | 1 comment

Last night, the Zoning Board of Appeals discussed an appeal by 2 residents, contesting the Planning & Zoning Commission’s approval of former Planning & Zoning Department director Mary Young’s decision to sign a liquor permit application for Old Mill Grocery & Deli. The ZBA upheld the P&Z decision, unanimously.

A court case regarding the legality of regulation itself continues.

Alcohol may be added to Old Mill Grocery & Deli’s shelves. The issue is now in court.

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Another Staples High School graduate is making news on Broadway.

“Cult of Love” — written by 1999 alum Leslye Headland — begins previews at the Helen Hayes Theater on November 20. Opening night is December 12.

This is not the 1999 alum’s first rodeo (or writing venture). It’s her final work in a series called “Seven Deadly Plays.” Inspired by the 7 deadly sins, this one is about pride. It was first staged in Los Angeles in 2018.

“Cult of Love” focuses on 4 adult children of one family and their partners, coming home for a contentious holiday gathering.

Headland has earned kudos as a playwright, screenwriter and director, with hits like the play and film “Bachelorette,” the movie “Sleeping With Other People” the Netflix comedy “Russian Doll” and the Disney+ series “The Acolyte.”

Click here for more information, and tickets. (Hat tip: Werner Liepolt)

Leslye Headland

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“Preparing for College with ADHD: Understanding the Importance of Strengthening Executive Function Skills to Prepare for the College Environment” is the topic of a free webinar (December 5, 7 p.m.).

Stephanie Mitchell, who specializes in learning disabilities/ADHD/autism spectrum disorders boarding school and college advising, will explain key differences between high school and college, in terms of structure, expectations, support and accommodations; why executive functions are important to college success; how students can strength those skills, and more.

There is no cost, but registration is required (click here). The event is sponsored by S4 Study Skills.

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The Representative Town Meeting’s Environment and Health & Human Services Committees will meet by Zoom on November 25 (7:30 p.m.).

There is one agenda item: continuing a discussion about “concerns related to a potential artificial turf field being added to Long Lots School property during the new school construction.”

Click here for the meeting link.

Long Lots Elementary School athletic fields are currently all grass.

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Spot On Vet opened recently, in the former Men’s Wearhouse (950 Post Road East). A grand opening is set for November 19 (6 to 8 p.m.).

The husband-and-wife team of Dr. Philip and Becky Putter — he’s a veterinarian; she’s a business expert — saw “a gap in the market for clients seeking top-tier customer service, comprehensive care, transparency, and advanced veterinary medicine for their pets.”

Spot On Vet offers emergency medical care; day care and boarding for sick, injured or recovering animals in “luxury accommodations” (well-lit cubicles with small beds).

Owners can watch their pets via camera. Pets can also listen to their favorite music or TV program.

Spot On Vet also offers dental care, a full pharmacy, facilities for major surgeries including orthopedic procedures, medical testing that often can’t be done in a regular veterinary office, physical therapy, and a valet service to pick up pets from home.

The Putters began in 2015, operating out of their living room with a single house-call van. Westport is their second location in Fairfield County.

And they still do house calls.

2- and 4-legged animals were all smiles at Spot On Vet’s ribbon cutting.

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Mexicue is turning Tuesdays into “All Day Happy Hour & Endless Tacos.’

For $25, guests get unlimited tacos, including:

  • Smoky Chicken with melted cheese, pickled onions, creamy chipotle and chili crisp salsa
  • Pulled Pork with fresh corn salsa, jack cheese, creamy chipotle and puffed quinoa
  • Avocado with black beans, corn salsa, salsa verde and cilantro

The Main Street restaurant also offers $10 house margaritas, $9 wine and $6 beers.

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Black holes are a crazy concept. And how better to learn about them than through an MIT expert?

Assistant professor Erin Kara will host a webinar titled “Black Hole Echoes: How We ‘See’ Curved Spacetime, on November 19 (8 p.m.). It’s part of the Westport Astronomical Society’s free online lecture series.

The session will be interactive — though you don’t have to leave the comfort of your home, or go anywhere near a black hole itself.

Click here for the Zoom link. Click here for the YouTube livestream.

The closest black hole to Earth is just 1,000 light-years away.

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The speaker at last week’s Westport Sunrise Rotary meeting was Mary Ellen Lemay, landowner engagement director for Aspetuck Land Trust.

She discussed the Miyawaki Urban Forest Project which ALT has installed at 7 Bridgeport schools.

A slide from Mary Ellen Lemay’s presentation. (Photo/Dennis Wong)

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Jen Greely sends this gorgeous “Westport … Naturally” photo …

… and writes: “My mood was buoyed last week by a new flush of rose blooms in the garden. Then I realized it is November, the leaves are off the trees, and this beauty is the result of daytime temps in the 80s.”

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And finally … we welcome our newest canine (and more) clinic, Spot On Vet, with this classic:

 (Hey, dawg! If you like these daily Roundups — or anything else on “06880” — please click here to support our work. Thank you!)

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Roundup: Longshore Pool, Leslye Headland’s Play, Shea’s Party …

Posted on June 26, 2024 | 6 comments

The large Longshore lap pool was supposed to open around Memorial Day. An issue with the filter delayed that date.

The goal was to have it fixed by Monday, June 24, when pool hours expanded and lessons began.

Bingo! It’s back in action — and getting plenty of use, by grateful swimmers. (hat tip: Brandon Malin)

Longshore pool. (File photo/Pamela Einarsen)

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Leslye Headland is headed to Broadway.

The 1999 Staples High School graduate — who has earned kudos as a playwright, screenwriter and director, with hits like the play and film “Bachelorette,” the movie “Sleeping With Other People” the Netflix comedy “Russian Doll” and the Disney+ series “The Acolyte” — has written “Cult of Love.”

It begins previews November 20, and opens at the Helen Hayes Theater on December 12.

Her Broadway debut is her final work in a series called “Seven Deadly Plays.” Inspired by the 7 deadly sins, this one is about pride. It was first staged in Los Angeles in 2018.

“Cult of Love” focuses on 4 adult children of one family and their partners, coming home for a contentious holiday gathering. (Hat tip: Tommy Greenwald)

Leslye Headland

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Just hours after her birth 9 weeks prematurely in June of 2022, Shea Greenfield’s heart stopped beating.

Doctors saved her life. But she was diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome. Her heart’s electrical system takes longer than usual to recharge between beats. She is at risk of fainting, seizures, cardiac arrest and sudden death.

There is no cure for the condition. And Shea’s condition is one of the most severe her doctors have ever seen.

Shea’s parents, Mark and Kira, had moved to Westport a year earlier. In addition to educating themselves about LQTS, they began raising funds for the Mayo Clinic, where Dr. Michael Ackerman’s team does cutting-edge research.

Last year, the Greenfields organized a fundraiser. Despite a last-minute venue change from outdoors, due to Canadian wildfires — “Shake it for Shea” raised $290,000 for Dr. Ackerman’s lab.

That was just the start. This year’s event — held earlier this month at the FTC Warehouse — was eye-popping. It brought in over $440,000.

“The community came out in such a special way again,” the Greenfields say.

“We had over 500 people. It was magical!”

Plans are already underway for next year. Can you say “half a million”?

Shaking it up, at the “Shake it for Shea” fundraiser. (Photo/Fred Marcus Photography)

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Westport poet laureate Jessica McEntee is going national.

Her second poetry chapbook, “Frida Kahlo Wakes Up to Find Diego Rivera in the Mood and Other Poems,” will ship in mid-October.

A blurb says: “This book brims with restless women: Frida Kahlo, Penelope, a lover, mother, daughter, neighbor, insomniac, consumer, adulteress — and each voice ‘magics the glass into mirror.’

“Studded with details that feel intimate yet alien, taking us places that range from a polar bear enclosure to ‘A Deathbed Confession,’ these are poems of uncanny sensuousness.”

Click here for more information.

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Pianist David Morgan is a local treasure — and a national one.

He has performed  and recorded with Wynton Marsalis and Wes Anderson. He’s written music for CBS Sports, Discovery, A&E, MTV, and TV shows. He also produces recordings for artists in his own studio.  

Morgan is well known here as a member of the Fairfield County-based jazz group Portal. 

He joins bassist Jason Clotter, Tyger MacNeal and saxophonist Greg “The Jazz Rabbi” for tomorrow’s Jazz at the Post (Thursday, June 27, shows at 7:30 and 8:45 p.m.; dinner service at 7; VFW Joseph J. Clinton Post 399; $20 music cover, $15 veterans and students).

The series’ season finale includes a presentation of the Micky Golomb Memorial Scholarship to Jack Wood.

Reservations are strongly recommended: JazzatthePost@gmail.com.

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“06880 … Naturally” features all kinds of gorgeous creatures.

It’s not often they’re framed so beautifully as this one at Burying Hill Beach, though:

(Photo/Wendy Levy)

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And finally … Happy World Refrigeration Day!

(Don’t be cold. Here’s a hot tip: One click supports “06880.” Thank you!)

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Leslye Headland’s “Russian Doll”

Posted on February 7, 2019 | 6 comments

Since debuting on February 1, “Russian Doll” — the Netflix comedy series about a woman who keeps dying in a time glitch — has snagged praise from critics, and plenty of viewers.

Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 100% approval rating. The Gothamist said it’s “the first must-see new TV show of the year.” New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik called it “lean and snappily paced; it even managed the rare feat, in the era of streaming-TV bloat, of making me wish for a bit more.”

Leslye Headland, with a montage from “Russian Dolls.” (Image courtesy of The Ringer)

The show’s co-creator, director and writer — Leslye Headland — is a 1999 Staples High School graduate. She’s earned kudos as a playwright, screenwriter and director, with hits like the play and film “Bachelorette” and the movie “Sleeping With Other People.”

Leslye’s been on a media tour following “Russian Doll”‘s debut. She was interviewed today on WNYC (click here to listen), and has appeared in plenty of print and online media too. Click here for one of the most in-depth pieces.

Intrigued? Click below for the trailer:

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Leslye Headland’s Sleeping With Other People

Posted on September 16, 2015 | Comments Off on Leslye Headland’s Sleeping With Other People

Leslye Headland — the Staples High School Class of 1999 playwright, screenwriter and director best known for the play and film “Bachelorette” — has just written and directed a new film.

Leslye Headland

Leslye Headland

“Sleeping With Other People” opened Friday in Los Angeles. I was looking for a way to describe it — Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis play platonic and relationship-averse New Yorkers — but I can’t beat The Daily Beast: “a thoroughly millennial romantic-comedy billed as ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ for assholes.”

The Daily Beast continues:

(Headland) followed up her acclaimed 2013 raunchy, warts-and-all ladybro comedy ‘Bachelorette’ with a raunchy, warts-and-all spin on a once-bountiful genre the studios have long forgotten how to make: The rom-com….

Consider it a real-talk rom-com for the self-obsessed, self-destructive Tinder generation — even though nary a dating app is to be found in the film. These characters have enough dating drama to deal with without having to swipe left and right and sext strangers.

Meannwhile, the Los Angeles Times says:

Leslye Headland wears her commitment to filmmaking on her sleeve — or at least on her forearms. One is tattooed with the problem-solving aphorism “What would Lubitsch do?” while the other has a quote from the endearing ’80s artifact “War Games.”

That mix of classical style with a contemporary twist, knowing when to take things seriously, when to laugh and a boldness to make it all one’s own, makes for a good summation of the mind-set of the writer-director …. Headland’s work bubbles with the energy of right now.

(Hat tip: Roy Fuchs)

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Honoring Our Arts

Posted on October 17, 2012 | Comments Off on Honoring Our Arts

The Westport calendar is filled with little events that should be big ones.

They’re the ones you vaguely hear about before they happen.  Afterward, someone tells you how great it was to be there.  You vow you’ll go next year — but don’t.

The Westport Arts Awards is one of those you-really-shouldn’t-miss events.  This year’s 19th annual ceremony is Sunday, October 21 (2 p.m., Town Hall).  If you want to see all that’s right with this town — its long-time residents, its young people, its support of creativity and achievement — save the date right now.

The event honors artists in 6 disciplines — art, music, film/new media, visual arts/photography, theater and literature — as well as 3 young people, 2 Westporters who work quietly in the background, and 10 artists with local ties who died this year.

Tyler Hicks

The biggest name is Tyler Hicks. The 1988 Staples grad — a staff photographer for the New York Times — has covered conflict in Kosovo, Chechnya, Congo, Ethiopia, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan, and been captured by the Libyan government. When Times correspondent Anthony Shahid died in Syria, Tyler carried his body across the border to Turkey.

In 2009 Tyler, fellow Times photographer (and Staples ’99 grad) Lynsey Addario, and the Times staff shared the Pulitzer Prize for “masterful, groundbreaking coverage” of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

He’s the youngest recipient ever of a Westport Arts Award Lifetime Achievement Honor. He lives in Istanbul, so his mother will accept it for him.

Other Lifetime Achievements go to author, screenwriter and essayist Mary-Lou Weisman; Anne Keefe, artistic advisor at the Westport Country Playhouse; filmmakers Frank Jacoby and Doris Storm; English horn player Doris Goltzer, and artist, painter and printmaker Jak Kovatch.

Horizon Awards — presented to artists under the age of 32 who have already demonstrated excellence — are some of the most intriguing honors at the ceremony. This Sunday, there are 3.

Peter Duchan

Peter Duchan co-wrote the screenplay, and was associate producer for the South by Southwest film “Breaking Upwards.” He also wrote the book for the recent Off-Broadway musical “Dogfight” (scored by previous Westport Arts Award honoree Justin Paul).

Playwright, screenwriter and director Leslye Headland‘s credits include “Bachelorette,” “Assistance” and the rest of the “Seven Deadly Plays” series. She recently wrote a remake of “About Last Night” for Screen Gems. Like Peter, she is a Staples grad.

Nicholas Britell is a composer, pianist and producer. He scored the film “Gimme the Loot, ” which won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW last March. His music was featured in “New York, I Love You” and elsewhere. Nick is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard.

Longtime Westporter John Franklin will be honored as a Champion of the Arts. Former head of the Westport Arts Center, and a consistent and generous supporter of music, dance and the arts, he’s one of those real good guys who does so much for so many, so quietly.

Joan Miller

So does Joan Miller For her decades of  work on the Westport Schools Permanent Art Collection — a pet project of Mollie Donovan — as well as many other volunteer efforts, Joan is an apt recipient of the Mollie Award, for tireless service.

Ten names will be added to the Heritage Honor Roll.  J.D. Salinger, Hilton Kramer, David Levine, Natalie Maynard, Arlene Skutch, Albert Goltzer, Paul Rand, Marianne Liberatore, Burry Fredrik and Jerome Kilty were all connected to Westport. All died in within the past year, or were not honored while alive.

If you think the Westport Arts Awards are a dull, stand-up-and-give-a-speech affair:  think again.

These are creative people.  There are short videos, along with brief presentations.

And, of course, a reception afterward.

The Westport Arts Awards are Westport at its best.

Its artistic, photographic, musical, theatrical, literary — and very, very talented — best.

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Headland Lands Deadline Headline

Posted on January 28, 2012 | 1 comment

Sarah Koskoff wasn’t the only Staples graduate making a splash at Sundance.

Leslye Headland

Leslye Headland — a Class of 1999 alum — caught the eye of Deadline Hollywood. The entertainment blog gave a shout-out to the “Sundance Lucky 13“: a baker’s dozen of actors and directors earning “new or renewed buzz” at the famed film festival.

Writer Brian Brooks said of the writer/director of “Bachelorette“:

Her plays have caused a stir Off-Broadway, all based on the Seven Deadly Sins. She kicked them off with “Cinephilia” (lust), followed by “Bachelorette” (gluttony) now morphed into the film starring Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, and Lizzy Caplan which debuted at Sundance Monday. Her next play, “Assistance” (greed) is set to open in New York soon. Her seven deadly may all make it to the screen.

Congratulations, Leslye, on your theatrical successes. Though it seems you’re also describing the current crop of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

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Leslye Headland’s “Bachelorette”

Posted on July 29, 2010 | 6 comments

Westporters reading the front page of Tuesday’s New York Times arts section saw a rave review of 1999 Staples graduate — and former Staples Player — Leslye Headland’s “Bachelorette.”

Charles Isherwood called the “scarifying tale of mean-girl malice and generational malaise” — fueled by drugs, alcohol and sex — a “vivid and entertaining play, as witheringly funny as it is bitterly sad.”

Leslye Headland

The main characters — 3 young women and the 2 young men they pick up — are “observed with equal parts savagery and sympathy,” Isherwood says.  “Written with stiletto-sharp wit by Ms. Headland, they are almost embarrassingly compelling.”

Not everyone agrees.  One Times reader savaged the reviewer’s review:

So the characters are wounded, selfish bitches.  So what? Who cares?

Another wrote:

I was just plain offended by this misogynistic piece of claptrap. That any woman could hate women so much is just plain scary.

A Times arts section story earlier this month focused on Headland’s career.  Writer Celia McGee said:

The plays of Ms. Headland and contemporaries like Annie Baker and Elizabeth Meriwether offer an up-to-the-nanosecond portrayal of a generation yet to hit 30 and leery of growing up.  But Ms. Headland also has a soft spot for another influence:  “I think of my plays a bit in the vein of Charles Schulz and Peanuts,” she said, “which, if you read them closely, were super-existential.”

Yet there is nothing cartoonish about Ms. Headland’s creations, said Wes Whitehead, artistic director of the three-year-old IAMA Theater Company in Los Angeles, where Ms. Headland is the artist in residence.  “She likes to explore difficult topics very honestly,” he said.  “The circumstances may be heightened, but every time you’re being left with an emotional connection to what’s happening onstage, and it’s devastating.”

“Bachelorette” director Trip Cullman added:

She has this very dark, painful sense of humor, which like all good humor comes from a place of truth.  It’s shockingly naked in showing how recklessness in people’s 20s can turn into desperation in their 30s, and seeming friendship is really co-dependence.

After Staples, Headland studied directing and acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.  She graduated in 2003, then spent 4 years in what — according to the Times — “she considers her own addictive relationship, staying too long in an assistant’s job at a New York entertainment company rather than pursuing playwriting.”

Her boss was Harvey Weinstein — the Miramax Films founder, and (coincidentally) a Westporter.

Headland is now in LA, writing for the upcoming FX series “Terriers.”  She’ll soon turn 30 — joining a new age group, ripe for her stiletto-sharp dissection.

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