At Georgetown's Granite, Weekends Sell Seats and Weeknights Hand You a Fiddle

What happens on a Monday night in Georgetown in November? At 5 N. Main Street, from 6:30 to 9 p.m., a group of beginner and intermediate pickers works through the Bluegrass Jam Class. The course is taught by Austin Scelzo using the Wernick Method, with small-group instruction for every level. The class announcement says no jamming experience is needed. Five nights later, the same room hosts a $45 drama.

The Granite is the nonprofit event space in the former Gilbert Memorial Church. Its calendar from November 6 through December 17 runs on two schedules. On weekends you buy a ticket and sit down. On weeknights you bring an instrument, or a chair, and join in. If you live nearby, knowing which is which tells you how to use the building this winter.

The Two Calendars, Side by Side

Here is every listing from Friday, November 6 through the last listed date, December 17, sorted by the kind of night it is.

Every ticketed show from here on lands between Thursday and Sunday. Mondays and Wednesdays go to people with instruments in hand. The Redding Prevention Council also meets in the building on the second Wednesday of the month, November 11 and December 9, and the listing says all are welcome.

A First Play in a 1902 Church

The biggest weekend booking is something the building has never done before. Lonetown Theater Works is staging Athol Fugard's My Children! My Africa! across two weekends. The Granite calls it "The Granite's First Play!" The drama has three characters: two students and their teacher in a high school during the final years of apartheid in South Africa. Thursday through Saturday shows start at 8 p.m., with doors at 7:30. Sunday matinees start at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $45 for adults and $25 for ages 13 to 17. Children under 13 get in free with a ticketed adult, and a limited number of pay-what-you-can seats are available. Charles Frederick Secrease, who founded Lonetown Theater Works, is the producer and director.

A play with a three-person cast suits this room, which was built for a congregation and not for a touring stage. The church went up in the Georgetown commercial district in 1902, built of granite quarried in nearby Branchville. It was one of five churches built for the growing number of Gilbert & Bennett wire mill workers and their families. Bridgeport architect Joseph W. Northrop designed it in the Gothic Revival style, with a bell tower, a round turret, stained glass, and a Hutchings-Votey pipe organ from about 1900. It closed as a church in 2015. BeFoundation bought it in September 2022 and began turning it into a public space for art, culture, and history.

The weekend lineup works the same way off the stage. For the November 7 cabaret, ticket holders can add a dinner box from The Georgetown Owl Market & Cafe. Connecticut's State Troubadour, Charlie Widmer, spends the evening on songs and stories from his travels around the state, and an open mic follows. The night before, the free speakeasy offers live music and a signature cocktail. You enter around back, through The Granite Underground.

Weeknights Belong to the Pickers

The weeknight schedule has its own rhythm. The Monday class started October 5 and runs eight sessions through December 7. It skipped October 19 and will skip November 23, the Monday of Thanksgiving week. The Old Time Jam meets on third Wednesdays. Its listing invites fiddles, banjos, and guitars to "come on out to play or sit back and listen to Appalachian music with us."

The 2026 Bluegrass Nights series listed dates for July 30, August 27, September 24, October 29, and December 17. There is no November date. That makes the November 18 Old Time Jam the only open jam of the month. December has both: the Old Time Jam on the 16th, then Bluegrass Nights the following night. On December 17 the evening runs from 7 to 10 p.m. An open slow jam starts at 7:30, the Granite House Bluegrass Band plays at 8, and open jamming continues after that. Austin Scelzo hosts, and donations are appreciated. The series describes itself in three verbs: "Come to listen, come to play, come to learn."

Where the Two Calendars Overlap

The two schedules share more than a building. Several of the weekend concerts are about the same crossover that fills the jam nights.

On December 6 at 2 p.m., Write It Down Or Improvise? pairs two trios, one jazz and one classical. Violinist Lana Auerbach, cellist Miriam Liske Doorandish, and pianists Andrew Levine and David Morgan look at how jazz worked its way into American classical and theater music. On December 12 at 7 p.m., the Charles Ives Music Festival presents Upstream to Bach. Violinist George Meyer and pianist Will Healy play original works and Bach's Sonata No. 6 for Violin and Harpsichord. Tickets are $40. The listing notes that Meyer works regularly with bluegrass musicians, and Healy with jazz and hip-hop artists.

A violinist with one foot in bluegrass, playing Bach in the room where Monday's banjo class meets, sums up the season. Min Kwon's November 8 program has a similar spirit. For America/Beautiful she commissioned 76 composers to each write a variation on "America the Beautiful." The listings show about 50 tickets left for Upstream to Bach and 95 for the December 6 program, so those weekend seats are limited.

The Rest of the Block

The Granite fills the evenings. A few doors away, Georgetown has places for the daytime and a December market:

• Given Inn Café, 4 Old Mill Road. Natasha Smith opened her café this spring in the space where the Old Mill Market & Café used to be. The News-Times reported specialty coffees, "pots of tea," and light bites such as charcuterie boards and panini. There is also a vinyl listening corner where guests can play records from about 80 albums or bring their own, plus a flower bar for making bouquets from seasonal blooms. Smith told the paper the café is "my heart's work."
• The Georgetown Owl Market & Cafe. This is the kitchen behind the dinner boxes offered with the November 7 cabaret tickets.
• Gaudete Market, Sunday, December 13. The Georgetown Oratory at 30 Church Street holds its annual Gaudete Market on Gaudete Sunday, according to its September 27 bulletin. That puts a Sunday market between the December 12 Bach concert and the December 16 Old Time Jam.

A Village Plan, and a Building Already in Use

The church was built to serve a mill town, and the mill site's future is still being planned. The Town of Redding took title to 44 acres of the Gilbert & Bennett property in 2020. Grant money is paying for planning, environmental assessment, and cleanup to prepare the site for redevelopment. The Revitalize Georgetown process, led by Pirie Associates, ran from May 2025 to July 2026. It was funded by a $200,000 state brownfield grant, and the Town has posted the finished plan document. The steps the Town lists after that include phasing, implementation strategies, and a draft zoning map and text amendment.

The Granite's stated vision is to restore the building "as a cornerstone for cultural life in the greater Georgetown area." This fall's schedule already reaches past performances. It hosted the inaugural Planet Granite Music & Dance Festival in September, and between November 6 and December 17 it hosts a first play, a troubadour, a Bach sonata, and four Monday classes for people who are still learning to jam.

If you live near Georgetown, a busy cultural calendar on N. Main Street is part of daily life there. Gina Hackett follows these changes across Redding and the towns around it. If you're curious how Georgetown's growing calendar might shape your home's value, Gina is glad to talk it through. Request your home valuation whenever you're ready.