News and Events for Nantucket Island
There are just a few more days to watch Theatre Workshop of Nantucket’s brilliant production of the sharp, laugh-out-loud satire Eureka Day, on stage through June 20. This award-winning play follows the executive committee at a private school as it navigates a mumps outbreak among its students. Tensions rise as […]
For most of the day, Nantucket moves surprisingly fast. Contractors race between job sites, restaurant staff hustle through double shifts, and delivery trucks bounce down cobblestone streets. Cyclists pedal furiously toward beaches, brunch reservations, and ferry departures, while tourists clutch maps, trying to squeeze every possible experience into a single week they spent eleven months looking forward to. Summer arrives with a kind of beautiful urgency. Everybody is headed somewhere.
Tammy King had a vision. She had just been appointed to the board of directors for the Nantucket Anglers Club. This gave Tammy an opportunity to set a plan in motion to make her dream a reality.
Did you know that there once was a tree that spiked an economic bubble in the US? And there are Nantucket ties with a legacy that we can still see (and visit) on the island today?
By all outward measures, Richard Russo has had the kind of literary career many writers only dream about — a Pulitzer Prize, an Oprah’s Book Club selection, beloved novels adapted for film and television, and a body of work spanning four decades that has made him one of the defining voices of working- class American fiction. But spend time with the author and you understand that none of it came easily, and none of it was guaranteed.
Theatre Workshop of Nantucket’s production of Eureka Day, written by Jonathan Spector, follows the executive committee at a private school as it navigates a mumps outbreak among its students. Tensions rise as they are left debating vaccination policies, and the audience gets a taste of the range of opinions among […]
The author of eight New York Times bestsellers, winner of the National Book Award and the George Washington Book Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, islander Nathaniel Philbrick is one of America’s most celebrated narrative historians. And on July 10, he will be the recipient of the Nantucket Atheneum’s 2026 Luminary Award.
Right now is the perfect time to go on a hunt for one of Nantucket nature’s treasured beauties, the pink lady’s slipper orchid.
The pink lady’s slipper orchid (Cypripedium acaule) is Nantucket’s most popular orchid (or the one most often seen), likely because it is hard to miss when in bloom. As the name suggests, the bloom resembles a small, pink ballet slipper fit for a squirrel. This orchid is locally common with each plant growing a single f lower. These individual f lowers tend to grow in clusters, so where you see one, you may see several. This grouping lends itself to magical thinking, imagining a dancing troupe of forest creatures. And while this isn’t a fairy tale, there is something magical about orchids and where they grow. It’s nearly impossible to duplicate the conditions necessary to cultivate these lady slippers. That’s why seeing them in the wild along a trail can feel so special.
Well would you look at that: Memorial Day weekend was a few days ago and Nantucket is insta-busy. Not surprising, of course, but it does feel often sudden this year. Perhaps it’s due to the lack of any real warm weather. Or maybe it’s that this national holiday was celebrated a week earlier than usual this year. Whatever it may be, it’s busy! Joggers, bikers, e-bikers, rental cars, Ubers, summer neighbors, people riding scooters or those crazy big wheel skateboard thingies – the island is very people-y all at once.
