BOSTON – The Massachusetts State House may not be the first place you would think of to see theater, but that’s what makes a new play so special. Performances of “A Light Under the Dome” are now underway in the Senate Chamber.

The State House is the perfect stage

The production is from Plays in Place, a Boston-based theater company specializing in creating site-specific plays. For each piece, the company partners with museums, historic sites, or, in this case, National Parks of Boston.

Katie Woods, a digital public historian with Parks, tells us work started four years ago, saying, “We came together and decided that we wanted to do a series of three plays that talked about the intersection of the suffrage and abolitionist movements in Boston.”

“It’s an element of Boston history that’s often overlooked. We think of abolition, we think of the Revolutionary War a lot and all the time, but the role that the women’s movement played here is often vastly overshadowed by New York and Philadelphia,” explains playwright and producing artistic director of Plays in Place, Patrick Gabridge.

In 1838, Angelina Grimke addressed the Senate Chamber at the State House, becoming the first American woman to speak before a U.S. legislative body.

“She was really breaking new ground and in a space that not only was not open to her, but was not welcome to her, and so being able to kind of create this moment and bring it to life seemed like a perfect opportunity,” Wood says.

“Really, really special”

The actors, including Marge Dunn, are reveling in the unique opportunity.

“There’s nothing like performing in a room like this. Obviously, it’s challenging in some ways because you don’t have a strict audience space; you don’t have a strict stage to perform on. Acoustically, sometimes it’s kind of strange to talk in that room, but there’s something that just brings this gravitas and this weight to the piece that is really, really special,” Dunn says.

Gabridge tells WBZ-TV it’s difficult to fully understand the past when you only have history books to rely on.

“Our work works to unflatten history and really show the complexity that people faced in historical times.”

You can see “A Light Under the Dome,” for free at the State House. There are two daily performances through Thursday.

BOSTON (WHDH) – Boston city officials this week announced a new partnership with Google aimed at using AI to tackle traffic congestion on local streets. 

Dubbed Project Green Light, the program puts AI to work to model traffic patterns and recommend traffic signal timing adjustments. 

In a statement Thursday, officials said they started working with Google on Project Green Light in February and have, so far, made changes at four intersections in the Fenway-Kenmore, Mission Hill, and Jamaica Plain areas. 

“We know that even small tweaks can go a long way with traffic,” Mayor Michelle Wu told 7NEWS. 

Traffic analytics firm INRIX in 2023 ranked Boston as the eighth worst city in the world for traffic delays. 

“One of the most frustrating parts of living in a major city is traffic, so Boston is taking every step to combat congestion and get people to where they need to go,” Wu said. 

Google product manager Matheus Vervloet said Project Green Light pairs AI with Google Maps technology to analyze intersections and create recommendations for municipal traffic engineers. 

In Boston, officials said they examined hundreds of intersections and noted a 50% drop in stop-and-go traffic after heeding Project Green Light recommendations at the intersections of Huntington Avenue and Opera Place, and Amory Street and Green Street.

Project Green Light is currently operating in 14 cities across the world. Boston and Seattle were the only US cities invited to join for free.

Moving forward, Boston officials said city engineers are considering implementing additional recommendations from Project Green Light later this year. 

“This is one piece of something that we know could be a bigger part of the solution,” Wu said. 

“We’ve seen great potential to reduce unnecessary stops and reduce emissions and pollution,” Vervloet said.

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NBC Sports Boston once put together an excellent 10-part video series on the best highlights from Hall of Fame Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird that helped carry fans through the slowest part of the pandemic-inflected 2021-22 regular season.

Though that is well behind us, the folks at NBC Sports are at it again. This time, they have put together a series of videos dedicated to highlighting the so-called Hick From French Lick’s best passes and assists of his storied career with Boston. Spanning Bird’s entire career with the Celtics, it is a great way to learn or revisit just how good the Boston icon was at moving the rock.

Scratch that Celtics basketball itch with a watch of the third clip in the series embedded below to help keep you busy until actual Boston basketball returns in the fall with training camp and preseason.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

More!

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This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Best of Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird’s passing and assists: Part III