The Lewes Public Library presents SummerScape 2025, featuring fifteen live events in the library's new outdoor pavilion, celebrating performing arts, history, literature, and science!

This afternoon world renowned and local favorites Gerald Dickens and Suzanne Savoy team up to do a staged reading of A Child’s Journey with Dickens. In the late 1860s, a young Kate Douglas Smith, later Kate Douglas Wiggin, the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, had a chance encounter on a train with her very favorite author, Charles Dickens. They spent the ride in conversation, and this is the memoir of that event. After the reading, Gerald and Suzanne will engage the audience in discussion of a life in the arts and on the road.

Gerald Dickens is an actor, director, and producer, and the great-great-grandson of the author Charles Dickens. In 1993 he created his first one-man show, a theatrical performance of A Christmas Carol inspired by Charles Dickens’ own energetic readings of the 1860s. A fascination with the life and works of Charles led him to write and direct further one-man shows including Mr. Dickens is Coming!, Nicholas Nickleby and Sketches by Boz. Dickens regularly performs in major theatres and arts centres, arts and literary festivals in the UK, as well as at hotels, stately homes, and on cruise ships.

Suzanne Savoy has made a career of performing on TV and in film and onstage in regional theatres, playing Shakespeare’s Desdemona, Emilia, Rosalind, Viola, and many other classical roles. Lately she has been translating the works of Christine de Pizan for performance and publication.

Thank you to Byers' Choice Ltd. for bringing Gerald Dickens to the United States.

To reserve a seat under the pavilion, each individual must register. Do NOT sign up two people under one reservation. Once all seats are reserved, walk-ins are welcome to sit on the grass surrounding the pavilion but must provide their own lawn chair or blanket.

In case of inclement weather, please check with the library on whether the offering will be moved to the large meeting room. Those who are registered will be guaranteed a seat in the large meeting room.

SummerScape 2025 Schedule

Wednesday, June 11 | 7:00 PM | Serafin Ensemble presents Chamber Music | String Splendor – Haydn and Dvorák
Wednesday, June 18 | 7:00 PM | Serafin Ensemble presents Chamber Music | Bach and Beyond
Wednesday, June 25 | 7:00 PM | Serafin Ensemble presents Chamber Music | String Splendor – Czech This!
Wednesday, July 9 | 7:00 PM | Delaware Shakespeare Presents a Preview of Their New Musical Adaptation of Twelfth Night
Wednesday, July 16 | 7:00 PM | Maryland’s Harriet Tubman Museum & Educational Center Presents The Power of Harriet Tubman
Wednesday, July 23 | 7:00 PM | The Lewes Historical Society Presents Tavern Talks
Wednesday, July 30 | 7:00 PM | Singers and Songwriters Presents the Genius of Rodgers and Hammerstein
Wednesday, August 6 | 7:00 PM | Sharks! | Professor Aaron Carlisle, University of Delaware, School of Marine Science and Policy
Wednesday, August 13 | 7:00 PM | Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence | Dr. Michael Redmond
Wednesday, August 20 | 7:00 PM | Delaware Center for the Inland Bays Presents Wild Wonders of the Inland Bays: Learn, Connect, Protect
Wednesday, August 27 | 7:00 PM | Jack Lewis, Lewes Artist of Renown | Alan Jensen, Lewes Historical Society
Wednesday, September 10 | 7:00 PM | First State Ballet Presents an Evening of New Works
Saturday, September 13 | 7:00 PM | Suzanne Savoy Presents the World Premiere of The Book of Poissy
Sunday, September 14 | 2:00 PM | Gerald Dickens and Suzanne Savoy Present A Child’s Journey with Dickens
Sunday, September 14 | 7:00 PM | Gerald Dickens Presents Nicholas Nickleby!

SummerScape 2025 is partially funded by the generous support of
Groome Church and Browseabout Books
LPL Braithwaite Endowment Fund, Coastal Concerts, M & T Charitable Foundation, and The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company
Becker Morgan Group, The Inn at Canal Square, and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group
Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on DelawareScene.com.