Between 1880 and World War II, painted theater curtains were artistic features of most New England villages and towns. In Vermont, painted curtains graced stages in town and grange halls, opera houses, and community theaters. A culture of local variety shows and traveling, professional talent flourished in front of those curtains in some very remote Vermont communities.
In a tour of some of the 177 curtains in Vermont, Christine Hadsel, director of Curtains Without Borders, provides a glimpse into the world of talented and often sophisticated artists who were part of the rural cultural scene, illustrating the rich cultural history of small-town Vermont before World War I.
