WAKEFIELD — The tradition of Wakefield’s annual Sweetser Lecture Series continues, beginning March 25, just after the last piles of our nine-foot snowfall melt.
This spring’s three Lectures will all be held at The Savings Bank Theatre at Wakefield Memorial High School, 60 Farm St. Each Lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. on three consecutive Wednesdays. The Theatre is handicapped-accessible. The Savings Bank of Wakefield has provided a generous contribution to help fund the Lecture Series.
The program on March 25, will offer “Tales of Suspense: An Evening with Author and Storyteller Casey Sherman.” Sherman has written eight books, including the bestselling “Boston Strong” and “The Finest Hours.”
He was born in Hyannis and graduated from Boston University in 1992. As a television news producer for WBZ-TV, he led a high-profile reinvestigation of his aunt’s murder, which he later chronicled in his 2003 book, “A Rose for Mary: The Hunt for the Real Boston Strangler.”
His book, “The Finest Hours,” is now filming as a major motion picture starring Chris Pine and Casey Affleck.
Sherman has appeared as a guest analyst on many television news programs and is a contributing writer for Esquire, Boston Magazine, Boston Common and The Huffington Post.
The following Wednesday, April 1, Ted Reinstein, longtime correspondent for Chronicle, the celebrated nightly newsmagazine which airs on Boston’s WCBV-TV, will present “Off the Beaten Path: Ted Reinstein’s New England.”
At 33 years, Chronicle remains the nation’s longest-running locally produced TV newsmagazine. Reinstein joined the show in 1995 as a reporter and producer. He did many stories on Boston’s famous Big Dig project and was part of a team that won a prestigious national DuPont-Columbia Broadcast Journalism Award for coverage of the Big Dig.
He knows New England’s people and places well, having been born in Boston and grown up on the edge of Boston Harbor in Winthrop.
Finally, on April 7, author and mystery writing teacher Hallie Ephron gives us “Hallie Ephron: Inspired by Hitchcock and Hollywood.”
She has written nine novels, two of which were finalists for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. Her how-to book “Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: How to Knock ‘Em Dead with Style,” was nominated for a 2006 Edgar Award. Her parents were east-coast born and raised screenwriters and she is the sister of Delia Ephron, Amy Ephron and the late Nora Ephron.
Admission price for each Lecture is $10, with a special three-Lecture Series ticket for a discounted cost of $25. Tickets may be purchased at Smith’s Drug Store, 390 Main St., Wakefield center or by mail from The Sweetser Lecture Series, c/o Joan Neale, 13 Rosemary Ave., Wakefield MA 01880.
Please enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope. You may also buy tickets at the door the evening of each Lecture.
The Sweetser Lecture Series began in the late 1800s because of a bequest in the will of Cornelius Sweetser, a wealthy Wakefield-born shoe manufacturer. He wished for a series of programs to help educate the citizens of Wakefield. As provided in the will, any net proceeds are given to local Wakefield charities. Recent recipients have been the Interfaith Food Pantry and Wakefield beneficiaries of assistance from the Salvation Army and Mystic Valley Elder Services.