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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260911T190000
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SUMMARY:The Guardian (2006) presented by the CT Maritime Heritage Festival
DESCRIPTION:The Guardian (2006) presented by the CT Maritime Heritage Festival brings Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher’s Coast Guard rescue drama back to the big screen at New London’s Garde Arts Center on Friday\, September 11. \nThe 7 p.m. screening serves as a cinematic opening to a weekend devoted to Connecticut’s relationship with the sea. The Connecticut Maritime Heritage Festival takes over the New London waterfront Saturday and Sunday with military and private vessel tours\, Coast Guard demonstrations\, living history\, maritime competitions\, children’s activities and other events. \nThat makes The Guardian an unusually appropriate choice for the night before the festival. Although its central characters are fictional\, the 2006 film was made with extensive cooperation from the U.S. Coast Guard\, used real Coast Guard personnel and equipment during production\, and drew heavily from the culture and training of the service’s Aviation Survival Technicians\, better known as rescue swimmers. \nKevin Costner Goes Into the Bering Sea\nCostner stars as Senior Chief Ben Randall\, a legendary Coast Guard rescue swimmer whose career has been built around going into the water when almost everyone else is trying to get out of it. \nAfter a catastrophic rescue mission leaves members of his crew dead\, Randall is sent away from active rescue operations and assigned to train the next generation of swimmers. \nThat’s where he encounters Jake Fischer\, played by Ashton Kutcher. \nFischer is a gifted young competitive swimmer with the physical ability to excel and an ego to match. He arrives at rescue swimmer school convinced that his speed in a pool will translate naturally into saving people at sea. \nRandall has other ideas. \nWhat follows uses a familiar mentor-and-student structure\, but places it inside a profession rarely given a starring role in a Hollywood movie. Randall pushes Fischer beyond athletic performance and toward the central idea behind the Coast Guard rescue swimmer mission: the person in the water isn’t there to win a race. He’s there because somebody else may die if he doesn’t reach them. \nThe relationship eventually moves from the training pool to the Bering Sea\, where lessons that seemed theoretical on land become matters of survival. \nHollywood Went to the Coast Guard for Help\nThe Guardian wasn’t produced with the Coast Guard merely supplying uniforms and a few helicopters for background shots. \nThe filmmakers sought the service’s cooperation before production moved forward and were given access to Coast Guard facilities\, personnel and equipment. Screenwriter Ron L. Brinkerhoff researched rescue swimmers and their culture\, while actual rescue swimmers worked as consultants during production. \nReal Coast Guard rescue swimmers\, pilots and other personnel also appear in supporting roles. \nThat involvement gave the movie something Coast Guard veterans noticed when it arrived in theaters. \nA review published in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings praised the film not simply for its rescues but for capturing smaller details of Coast Guard life: the humor between enlisted personnel\, the strains that an around-the-clock military career can put on a marriage\, the personalities found inside a training command and even the language surrounding an aviation accident. \nThe film takes Hollywood liberties\, and some rescue procedures were dramatized. But the underlying rescue culture was taken seriously. \nEven two decades later\, Coast Guard aircrews reviewing Hollywood rescue scenes have singled out portions of The Guardian as surprisingly authentic\, including its depiction of rescue-basket procedures. \nMaking a Bering Sea in Louisiana\nCreating the movie’s violent ocean rescues presented another problem: filmmakers needed a controllable version of some of the most dangerous water on Earth. \nDirector Andrew Davis\, who had previously directed The Fugitive\, wanted the rescues to feel physical rather than relying entirely on visual effects. \nProduction built an enormous indoor wave tank in Shreveport\, Louisiana\, capable of generating the rough water needed for the rescue sequences. Sets\, including vessels in distress\, could be placed inside the tank while actors\, stunt performers\, camera crews and safety personnel worked in the water around them. \nThe production also used a ship mounted on a hydraulic gimbal to simulate a vessel being thrown around by heavy seas. \nScenes set at the Coast Guard’s Kodiak\, Alaska\, station were partly created at Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City in North Carolina. Reproducing Alaska there reportedly required about 60\,000 pounds of ice. \nThe rescue-swimmer training pool was the natatorium at Louisiana State University Shreveport. \nThe result is a movie in which water has real physical weight. Costner and Kutcher aren’t simply performing against a digital ocean. Much of the danger surrounding them was created with enormous quantities of moving water\, practical sets and performers actually getting wet. \nHurricane Katrina Changed the Movie\nReal events overtook the production before filming was complete. \nThe Guardian was preparing to shoot in Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005. A nearly completed water tank at Camp Villere was lost\, and the production eventually relocated much of its work to Shreveport. \nThe move reportedly cost millions of dollars. \nMore importantly\, Katrina changed the context of a movie about Coast Guard rescuers. \nCoast Guard crews conducted extraordinary rescue operations across the flooded Gulf Coast following Katrina. The filmmakers revised The Guardian to acknowledge the disaster\, adding references to the hurricane and incorporating actual imagery of Coast Guard helicopters conducting rescues around New Orleans into the end credits. \nA fictional story about people willing to enter dangerous conditions to save strangers suddenly had a very real example unfolding while the movie was being made. \nAndrew Davis Returns to the Action Drama\nDirector Andrew Davis came to The Guardian with considerable experience putting characters into dangerous situations. \nHis best-known film remains the 1993 thriller The Fugitive\, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. Davis also directed Under Siege with Steven Seagal\, A Perfect Murder with Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow\, and the 2003 adaptation of Louis Sachar’s Holes. \nWith The Guardian\, Davis shifted the action away from gunfights and pursuits and into an environment that can’t be negotiated with. \nThe ocean becomes the film’s primary antagonist. \nThe movie runs 139 minutes and mixes large-scale rescue sequences with the relationship between Randall and Fischer\, Randall’s troubled marriage and the psychological cost of a career built around repeatedly encountering people on what may be the worst day of their lives. \nSela Ward plays Randall’s wife\, Helen\, while Melissa Sagemiller and Clancy Brown round out the principal cast. \nThe movie opened nationally on September 29\, 2006 and ultimately earned nearly $95 million worldwide. \nFrom a Coast Guard Movie to a Coast Guard Weekend\nWatching The Guardian in New London gives the film a local context it wouldn’t have in most theaters. \nThe city is home to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy\, while the Thames River and New London Harbor have been tied to military\, commercial and recreational maritime activity for generations. \nThe screening leads directly into the Connecticut Maritime Heritage Festival on Saturday and Sunday. \nThe 2026 festival is spread between New London Waterfront Park and Fort Trumbull State Park\, with free transportation connecting festival locations. Visitors can tour military and private vessels\, meet the people who operate them and watch maritime skills put into practice. \nThe Coast Guard connection continues with a helicopter search-and-rescue demonstration and Sunday’s Sea-Service Showdown\, which pits Coast Guard and Navy teams against one another in a friendly competition of maritime skill\, strength and teamwork. \nElsewhere during the weekend are colonial encampments\, children’s maritime activities\, a fishing clinic\, live music\, local vendors and Saturday night’s Burning of Benedict Arnold procession. A 300-drone show over the Thames River follows Saturday evening. \nSo while Friday night’s movie tells a fictional Coast Guard story\, the weekend that follows brings some of the real people\, vessels\, skills and maritime traditions behind that story to New London’s waterfront. \nSee It in a Movie Palace\nThe screening is part of the Garde’s Real Movie Palace Experience\, which brings films back to the theater’s giant screen with 4K digital projection and surround sound. \nThe Garde opened in 1926 as a movie and vaudeville palace and celebrates its centennial in 2026. Its restored Moroccan-style interior provides a considerably different experience from watching The Guardian at home. \nMovie concessions and adult beverages will be available. \nTickets are $15 plus applicable fees\, with an important exception for the people whose service the movie celebrates: active-duty military members\, retirees and veterans are admitted free. \nDetails\nEvent: The Guardian (2006) presented by the CT Maritime Heritage Festival\nDate: Friday\, September 11\, 2026\nTime: 7 p.m.\nFilm: The Guardian\nYear: 2006\nDirector: Andrew Davis\nWriter: Ron L. Brinkerhoff\nStarring: Kevin Costner\, Ashton Kutcher\, Sela Ward\, Melissa Sagemiller and Clancy Brown\nGenre: Action/Drama\nRating: PG-13\nRuntime: 2 hours\, 19 minutes\nVenue: Garde Arts Center\nAddress: 325 State Street\, New London\, CT 06320\nAdmission: $15 plus fees\nMilitary Admission: Free for active-duty military members\, retirees and veterans\nPresentation: Giant screen\, 4K digital cinema projection and surround sound\nConcessions: Movie concessions and adult beverages available\nPresented By: Connecticut Maritime Heritage Festival\nGarde Arts Center: 860-444-7373\nConnecticut Maritime Heritage Festival: Saturday\, September 12 and Sunday\, September 13 at New London Waterfront Park and Fort Trumbull State Park \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo purchase tickets\, click the Event Ticketing link below. \n  \n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown. \n 
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/the-guardian-2006-presented-by-the-ct-maritime-heritage-festival/
LOCATION:CT
CATEGORIES:Garde Arts Center
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260926T200000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260926T220000
DTSTAMP:20260928T002153Z
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SUMMARY:Magic Rocks Brings Illusionist Leon Etienne’s Rock-and-Roll Magic Show to the Garde
DESCRIPTION:Magic Rocks Brings Illusionist Leon Etienne’s Rock-and-Roll Magic Show to the Garde on Saturday\, Sept. 26\, combining large-scale illusions\, sleight of hand\, and comedy with the pace and attitude of a rock concert. \nEtienne brings his touring Magic Rocks! production to New London for an 8 p.m. performance at the Garde Arts Center. The family-friendly show runs roughly two hours and is designed less like a traditional magician standing behind a table and more like a theatrical spectacle built around music\, lighting and high-energy stage illusions. \nMagic With the Volume Turned Up\nLeon Etienne calls himself “America’s Rock Illusionist\,” and the description fits the approach he has taken to modernizing the traditional magic show. \nMagic Rocks! mixes close-up skills and sleight of hand with much larger theatrical illusions\, comedy and a rock-and-roll presentation. Rather than slowing the evening down to demonstrate individual tricks\, Etienne builds the show around speed\, surprise and spectacle. \nIt is an approach that has taken him considerably farther than the touring theater circuit. \nEtienne has performed at Radio City Music Hall and appeared internationally in countries including England\, Ireland\, France\, China and Australia. His career has also included performances at casinos and entertainment venues around the world. \nFrom America’s Got Talent to Penn & Teller\nTelevision brought Etienne’s magic to an even larger audience. \nHe has appeared on America’s Got Talent\, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon\, Masters of Illusion and Penn & Teller: Fool Us. \nThose appearances are particularly suited to Etienne’s style. Television magic has to move quickly\, establish the premise of an illusion almost immediately and deliver a payoff before an audience has time to lose interest. That same rapid-fire approach carries into Magic Rocks!. \nBut the touring show gives him something television can’t: a full stage. \nThat allows the performance to move between smaller demonstrations of sleight of hand and the grand illusions that have become a signature of the production. \nA Family Show Without the Kiddie-Show Treatment\nThe Garde is presenting Magic Rocks! as an all-ages\, family-friendly performance\, but this isn’t being packaged solely as children’s entertainment. \nThat’s an important distinction. \nThe production is built to work for children seeing theatrical magic for the first time while still delivering the larger illusions\, humor and showmanship expected by adults. The result is one of the relatively uncommon Saturday-night theater events that can work for multiple generations without being specifically aimed at young children. \nThe historic Garde should also provide an appropriately theatrical setting. The State Street venue originally opened in 1926 and celebrates its centennial this year\, giving Etienne a nearly century-old movie palace-sized stage for a show deliberately built around spectacle. \nA Touring Show With a Long Reach\nNew London is one stop on an extensive Magic Rocks! tour. \nEtienne performs in Natick\, Massachusetts\, the night before his Garde appearance\, followed by dates in Ohio\, Illinois\, Wisconsin\, California\, New York\, Florida and Canada into 2027. \nThat touring history helps explain the scale of the production coming to New London. This isn’t a locally assembled magic program or a collection of individual tricks brought together for one appearance. Magic Rocks! is Etienne’s established touring stage show\, developed for theaters and large entertainment venues. \nOn Saturday night\, the next one happens to be downtown New London. \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo purchase tickets\, click the Event Ticketing link below. \nDetails\nEvent: Magic Rocks! — Illusionist Leon Etienne\nDate: Saturday\, Sept. 26\, 2026\nTime: 8 p.m.\nVenue: Garde Arts Center\nAddress: 325 State Street\, New London\, CT 06320\nRunning Time: Approximately two hours\nAdmission: $39–$79 plus applicable fees\nAudience: Family-friendly/all ages\nShow: Grand illusions\, sleight of hand\, comedy and rock-and-roll-style theatrical production \n  \n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown.
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/magic-rocks-brings-illusionist-leon-etiennes-rock-and-roll-magic-show-to-the-garde/
LOCATION:Garde Arts Center\, 325 State Street\, New London\, CT\, 06320\, United States
CATEGORIES:Garde Arts Center
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260927T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260927T160000
DTSTAMP:20260924T144010Z
CREATED:20260924T144010Z
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SUMMARY:Felicia Rose Brings Sacred Song\, World Rhythms and Electronic Trance to the Garde
DESCRIPTION:Felicia Rose Brings Sacred Song\, World Rhythms and Electronic Trance to the Garde Sunday\, Sept. 27\, for an afternoon that moves between singer-songwriter intimacy\, Sanskrit chanting\, percussion\, world music and the electronic transformation of songs originally written as spiritual music. \nPresented by Mezza Stage + Studio\, the 2 p.m. performance pairs Rose with percussionists Tam Zezulka and Kevin Gallagher II\, musicians associated with The Omies and Shakti Ma and the Rainbow Serpents. The concert is being presented as an afternoon of meditative\, devotional\, and electronic world music. \nBut this isn’t simply a concert. \nPsychic mediums and readers from Mystical Horizons will be available before and after the performance\, with short readings offered for an additional charge. Guests can also arrive early or remain afterward to meet the musicians. \nThe afternoon will include a tribute to Verline Eldrige\, a longtime spiritual teacher and medium who died earlier this year after more than 50 years of spiritual work. \nFrom Folk-Rock Songs to Sanskrit Chants\nRose describes what she creates as conscious music\, a broad category that allows her to move between musical forms without separating the music from its spiritual purpose. \nHer repertoire includes romantic ballads centered on love for the Divine as well as more rhythmic chants performed in both English and Sanskrit. \nMusically\, the originals draw from folk rock\, world beat and gospel\, while kirtan and mantra are also central to her performances and workshops. \nKirtan comes from the devotional traditions of India and commonly uses repeated chants or mantras in a communal setting. Rather than the audience remaining completely separate from the performer\, repetition can turn the room itself into part of the music. \nThat helps explain the unusual range represented in Sunday’s program. \nA singer-songwriter ballad\, Sanskrit chant and percussion-driven piece may sound like they belong in entirely different concerts. Rose approaches them as different routes toward the same meditative and emotional experience. \nThen She Put the Sacred Music on the Dance Floor\nRose’s music has recently taken another turn. \nIn 2026\, she collaborated with electronic producer DJ JackEL on Deep Elevation\, Vol. 1\, reworking spiritual songs as deep-house and melodic electronic tracks. \nThe project takes material originally associated with meditation\, yoga and sacred performance and places it inside an electronic framework suited to movement and dance. \nAmong the 2026 releases are remixes of songs including Repetition\, Through the Sound\, Rain Falls\, Longing and Let It Go. \nIt’s an interesting collision of purposes. \nElectronic dance music is built around repetition. \nSo is mantra. \nIn one setting\, repetition keeps bodies moving on a dance floor. In another\, repeating words or sounds can become a meditative practice. \nRose’s recent work deliberately puts those ideas together. \nKevin Gallagher II Builds the Rhythm From Several Traditions\nPercussionist Kevin Gallagher II brings another set of musical traditions into Sunday’s performance. \nThe Lyme musician has studied and performed West African\, Latin and kirtan rhythms\, with experience ranging from Nigerian ceremonial mask performances and West African dance classes to rock\, jazz\, jam and fusion bands. \nHe currently plays mridanga and percussion with Connecticut kirtan groups The Omies and the Rainbow Serpents. \nThe mridanga is a double-headed drum closely associated with devotional music from India\, giving Gallagher a way to connect rhythmic traditions that stretch far beyond the conventional Western drum kit. \nThat percussion becomes particularly important in music intended not merely to be heard\, but sung\, chanted or moved to. \nA Memorial Within the Music\nThe concert will also pause to remember Verline Eldrige. \nOrganizers describe Eldrige as a beloved spiritual teacher and medium who spent more than half a century doing that work before her death earlier in 2026. \nHer inclusion gives Sunday’s gathering a memorial dimension alongside its musical and spiritual elements. \nThe presence of readers from Mystical Horizons extends that atmosphere beyond the stage. Short individual readings will be available at an additional cost before and after the concert\, while the musicians themselves will also be available for a meet-and-greet. \nSo the two-hour advertised performance is only part of the experience. \nAn Intimate Project Inside a Very Big Theater\nThe afternoon is presented by Mezza Stage + Studio\, a queer-led performance project built around intimate\, small-scale arts events. \nRather than committing itself to one discipline or permanent venue\, Mezza produces spoken word\, theater\, dance\, music\, comedy\, film and other performances\, shaping individual events around the rooms in which they happen. \nSunday brings that philosophy to the Garde Arts Center\, the historic State Street performing arts venue now celebrating its centennial season. \nAnd the pairing is an unusual one. \nA theater created during the age of grand movie palaces becomes the setting for Sanskrit chants\, world percussion\, spiritual singer-songwriter music and songs newly reinvented through electronic dance music. \nSomewhere between concert\, meditation\, remembrance and gathering\, Felicia Rose’s Sunday afternoon doesn’t fit neatly into one category. \nFor Mezza Stage + Studio\, that’s pretty much the point. \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo purchase tickets\, click the Event Ticketing link below. \nDetails\nEvent: Felicia Rose\, presented by Mezza Stage + Studio\nDate: Sunday\, Sept. 27\, 2026\nTime: 2–4 p.m.\nLocation: Garde Arts Center\nAddress: 325 State St.\, New London\, CT 06320\nAdmission: $27–$32 plus fees\nFeatured Artist: Felicia Rose\nPercussion: Tam Zezulka and Kevin Gallagher II\nMusic: Devotional and meditative music\, folk rock\, world beat\, gospel influences\, Sanskrit and English chants and electronic music\nAlso Featured: Meet-and-greet with the artists and psychic mediums/readers from Mystical Horizons before and after the concert\nReadings: Short readings available for an additional charge\nSpecial Tribute: The late spiritual teacher and medium Verline Eldrige\nPresented By: Mezza Stage + Studio\nBox Office: 860-444-7373 ext. 1 \n  \n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown.
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/felicia-rose-brings-sacred-song-world-rhythms-and-electronic-trance-to-the-garde/
LOCATION:Garde Arts Center\, 325 State Street\, New London\, CT\, 06320\, United States
CATEGORIES:Garde Arts Center
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