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It seems The Three Tomatoes were just wishing you a happy Memorial Day and here we are at the end of summer. It even feels like fall, which is a season we happen to love, but we will miss summer - long weekends, long days of daylight, and fresh everything to eat. Summer always makes us feel like kids and fall always reminds us that it's time to be grown ups again. Bye bye sandals, hello closed shoes. Bye bye cosmos, hello martinis.

Speaking of summer

The Three Tomatoes had a good old-fashioned kind of summer, enjoying lots of time out of the Big Apple, and enjoying small town USA fun in a small town on Long Island where we have a home and visiting friends in other small towns. Our small town has a beautiful park overlooking the Long Island Sound. The park has a gazebo and a small amphitheater that showcases bands and other performers for free weekend concerts. Now the great thing is that you can bring a picnic dinner, enjoy the sunset over the water, and then enjoy the concert. It's a great family, friends, and community night out. But on one of these evenings, we found ourselves asking, what's wrong with those mothers? Here's the scenario.

Sitting in front of us were the mothers of two teenage girls who we guess were about 14 going on 24. In full view of all, the two young lovelies proceeded to remove t-shirts and shorts to reveal very itsy bitsy bikinis while flipping their long hair from side to side clearly enjoying the attention of onlookers. Now mind you, we were not at the beach part of the park, and it was evening. The two girls then paraded through the crowd and the park like two little Britney Spears, (who lately seems to appear for photos only in bikinis too) returning a little while later to visit their Moms, with three panting teenage boys in tow. Now believe us when we say, The Three Tomatoes are far from being prudes. And we've raised teenage girls. But hello Moms? Tell those little girls to put some clothes on. (Or is it just us?)

We also spent a great weekend in Vermont and got to experience a community-based performance of live theater. (We'll explain in a minute.) One of our dear friends who has owned a "weekend ski" home for many years in Cavendish, left her New York corporate job a couple of years ago and along with her husband has become a full time Vermonter. And she's loving it. And when she told us she was performing in a play, we packed up our old blue jeans, our Birkenstocks and Merrill's and headed North. And on Saturday night, we showed up at the Barn which is adjacent to the charming Cavendish Inn to see "The History of Cavendish, a "community based performance" which refers to a unique, widely inclusive, multi generational, local performance that draws on the stories, skills and issues of a specific community. In this case, the group decided in April that their play would be the history of their town.

And off they went, kids of all ages, and grown ups of all ages to research the town's rich history and people, including its most notable resident, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. (His farewell speech to the town was part of the play and was movingly delivered by one of the town council members.) The stories were collected and then woven into a play with the help of the director Lauryn Axelrod, who is Director of Education at the renowned Weston Playhouse Theater Company. Some of the performers even wrote original music for the play too. What a terrific evening! And our tomato friend loved the experience of helping to create this with so many members of the community of all ages. Oh, and they raised a few thousand dollars for their community fund too. Just goes to show, great live theater happens everywhere. But more importantly, it goes to show there's a whole new world after corporate life for those who are willing to go for it. And if you're looking for a great fall getaway, check out the Cavendish Inn. Who knows, you just might stay.

Speaking of fall come meet Broadway's new hottie

Nick Spangler who plays Matt in The Fantasticks has girls of every age falling all over him, every night where he goes from innocence to experience as Matt, and sings "Soon It's Gonna Rain," "They Were You" and "I Can See It" - that famous song about roads that take you away.

"He's a hottie - a hottie, a hottie," said Pat Addiss, one of the producers of The Fantasticks. "The girls just love him. He's such a professional. He's adorable. All the little girls come and get autographs."

And big girls too. Join The Three Tomatoes for a Fantasticks Night on September 25th and you'll get to see and hear Matt for yourself. And you can join us at a private reception right after the show with members of the cast too. Visit our event page, or buy tickets now (see our sidebar.)

And you can watch Matt this fall as a competitor on the CBS reality series "The Amazing Race" where this year's teams traveled across 30,000 miles in 23 days.

What's New at the Movies? Traitor.

The Three Tomatoes get invited to lots of movie screenings, and from to time we review new movies we think tomatoes will like.

Traitor (which opened in theaters yesterday), is an international thriller about a renegade U.S. military operative who holds the secret to a shocking conspiracy. It is not, at first glance, something that would appeal to the typical tomato. This flick is long on testosterone and fast-paced action with only two minor female characters flitting across the screen throughout its taut 110 minutes of running time. But the key to the film's appeal to women and all moviegoers in general can be summed up in two powerful words-Don Cheadle.

The Academy Award nominated actor (Best Actor in Hotel Rwanda), also a producer on this film, gives a stunning performance as the disenfranchised Samir Horn, a former U.S. Special Operations officer who has become involved in illicit dealings with Islamic extremists that stretch from Yemen to Nice to London and back to the U.S. Hunted by elite FBI investigator Roy Clayton, played by Australian actor Guy Pearce (Memento and L.A. Confidential ), Samir's crazily precarious position, balanced by his graceful humanity, rivets viewers to the screen. And as the action twists and turns towards its ultimate conclusion, conventional ideas of right and wrong become blurred in a complicated moral dilemma. Written and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff. Based on an idea by Steve Martin. (Yes, THAT Steve Martin!) Go see it this weekend.

Well there you have it. Here's to small towns everywhere and fall in the Big Apple. Happy Labor Day to all.

'til next week,

The Three Tomatoes



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