Curtains Up

Sheldon Stone ’74 grew up in New Jersey, the son of parents who took him to see shows on Broadway almost weekly. A first-generation college student and a government major, he went on to earn an MBA at Columbia and then to a career in finance, but he never lost his love of theater and has become a coproducer for many shows.

His latest investment is a thirtieth anniversary revival of the rock musical The Who’s Tommy, which Who founding member Pete Townshend is adapting from the 1993 production. It will premiere in June at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

Asked what makes him invest his money in this way, Stone says, “It’s not my livelihood. But there’s something magical when you’re sitting there, and the curtain rises. I still love it.”

Academics

Bumper Crop

The winter growing season yielded a bountiful crop of sugar kelp harvested from the Schiller Coastal Studies Center’s educational kelp farm in Harpswell Sound. Greta Bolinger ’23, a biology major and earth and oceanographic science minor pursuing an independent research project with the farm, seeded her experimental kelp farm in the fall. Bolinger says that, over the course of five months, the kelp grew up to ten feet in length, averaging a growth rate of one centimeter per day. The fast growth and its timing make kelp a fascinating prospect for a number of interested parties, including aquaculturists and researchers looking for ways to increase the value of kelp by finding uses in nutraceuticals and other products. Because kelp grows between October and May, it’s a potential source of off-season income for those otherwise fishing commercially for lobster or other seafood and a way to diversify Maine’s blue economy. Additionally, kelp does a great job capturing carbon dioxide and helping keep waters clean. “My research project investigated optimal light conditions for growing highly nutritional kelp in coastal, estuarine waters,” says Bolinger. “I also grew kelp under the same conditions in a laboratory setting, which showed consistency with results from my kelp farm, confirming my suspicion that kelp farms offer tremendous potential as venues for scientific research.” Bolinger gave her truckload of sugar kelp to Bowdoin students, staff, and Growing to Give, a local organic farm.