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Guilford Performing Arts Festival Downtown Guilford
September 26, 2019 - September 29, 2019
The 2019 Guilford Performing Arts Festival (GPAF) enlivens the Connecticut Shoreline with four days of free music, drama, dance, spoken word and other events. From September 26 to 29, there will be more than 70 live shows and workshops in a dozen venues: a tent on the green, churches, cafes and markets, galleries, a bookstore, the community center, the high school and historic homes.
As the air turns crisp and leaves flaunt their fall colors, the sounds of live music, drama and dance spill from open doorways and windows in nearly every church, shop and restaurant downtown—not to mention the library, community center, dance studios, historic barns and public schools. For four days and nights in late September, Guilford comes alive!
William Boughton, a conductor and orchestral music director with a reputation for innovation on both sides of the Atlantic, founded the Guilford Performing Arts Festival in 2017. His aim was to engage the community with a multi-day, multi-venue festival of diverse performing art forms. After a successful debut, the festival returns in 2019 with 60 local and national artists in virtually every genre of music, drama and dance. All events will be free.
The Festival will present 70 acts in at least 12 venues, most in or within walking distance of downtown Guilford. Here’s some information to help you navigate the festival.
The festival’s two Artists’ Awards winners – playwright Susan Cinoman (staged reading of Guenevere) and composer/pianist Noah Baerman (jazz sextet performance of Cliff Palace) – will debut their new works at the festival.
There will be no tickets or admission charges, but we strongly encourage you to make generous free-will donations at every performance; in most cases, this will be the artists’ only financial compensation. We ask that you make your first stop our welcome tent on the Guilford Green, where you can pick up a festival program and check in.
Once you’ve checked in at the welcome tent, you’re free to wander in and out of any festival venue at will. Most shows will run 45 minutes to an hour in length, and nearly all venues are adjacent to or within a short walking distance from the Green. Several venues are as many as 2-3 miles outside downtown and will require driving.
We’ll be putting on shows in at least 12 venues, including several churches, the high school, the community center, a dance studio, the bookstore, a coffee shop/market and other places. We’ll also have a main stage on the Guilford Green, and buskers could appear at many locations throughout town.
