By Susan Granger

“The Glass Castle” is a dysfunctional childhood recollection that makes the anti-Establishment patriarch “Captain Fantastic” (2016) look like a candidate for Father-of-the-Year. At least he never starved or tortured his children.

In Destin Daniel Cretton’s screen adaptation of Jeannette Walls’ 2005 best-selling memoir, Walls’ abusive, alcoholic father Rex is seen all-too-often through rose-colored glasses, or perhaps that’s Woody Harrelson’s colorful, manipulatively roguish interpretation.

Working as a Manhattan gossip columnist in the 1980s, riding in a taxi after a posh restaurant dinner with her financier fiancé (Max Greenfield), Jeanette Walls (Brie Larsen) spots her grubby, itinerant parents dumpster-diving on the Lower East Side. Which ignites a series of flashbacks.

Nomadic Rex and Rose Mary Walls were free spirits. An intelligent but self-destructive bohemian, Rex (Harrelson) was unable to hold a job or cope with authority, while self-centered Rose Mary (Naomi Watts) would rather paint than cook for her hungry kids. Which is why, as a 3-year-old, Jeannette suffered serious burns trying to boil hot dogs.

The brass section of The Fairfield Counts was in the pink tonight as the Big Band sound filled the Levitt Pavilion. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) WestportNow.com photo

“Appropriate,” the 2014 Obie Award winner for Best New American Play, previews tonight at the Westport Country Playhouse. Pictured are (l-r) Betsy Aidem, Diane Davis, and David Aaron Baker. The story of family secrets is written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, 2016 MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, and directed by David Kennedy, Playhouse associate artistic director. The play runs through Sept. 2. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Free tickets for “Falsettos: In Conversation,” the Westport Library’s Susan Malloy Lecture in the Arts event in September will become available Tuesday at noon.

On a first-come, first-served basis, tickets will be made available through the Westport Country Playhouse’s online box office or by calling (203) 227-4177.

To be held at the Westport Country Playhouse, the Monday, Sept. 11, 7 p.m. event will feature a panel discussion on the Broadway hit “Falsettos,” featuring the men behind the show.

They include Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist William Finn and Tony Award-winning playwright and director James Lapine, plus the revival’s Tony-nominated star Stephanie J. Block.

The Westport Library leadership and staff, with the help of donor Nancy Beard, today flipped the switch on the Library’s Countdown to Groundbreaking clock in the Library’s Great Hall. The clock is counting down the days until the official Groundbreaking Ceremony on Sept. 14. Beard’s foundation, the Nancy Jones Beard Foundation, provided one of the major gifts to the long-awaited Transformation Project. Pictured (l-r) are Library Executive Director Bill Harmer, Nancy Beard, and Jocelyn Barandiaran, vice president of the Library Board of Trustees. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Richard Frank for WestportNow.com

The Westport Library will honor Westport artist Miggs Burroughs at a special reception on Monday, Aug. 21 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Miggs Burroughs at the opening of his Westport Library “Signs of Compassion” exhibit in May with Chris Timmons, curator of library exhibits. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Lynn U. Miller for WestportNow.com

The repertoire of the lifelong town resident includes designing the town flag, an Easter egg for Ronald Reagan’s White House that is now housed in the Smithsonian Institution, a U.S. postage stamp, and a Time magazine cover.

The event titled “Bravo & Thank You, Miggs!” caps Burroughs’ yearlong artist-in-residence role at the library, where he has served “as the library’s ambassador to the town,” library officials said.

Among his myriad tasks, Burroughs hosted a series of “Artist-to-Artist” talks with others exhibiting in the library’s Great Hall, as well as offering up design challenge prompts each month to the community.

Singer-songwriter P.J. Pacfico (c) headlined tonight at the Westport Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts. With Eric Donnelly (l) and Ian Tait (r), he performed a variety of introspective folk and pop music. He said some of the songs have yet to be recorded.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) WestportNow.com photo

The Westport-based husband-wife concert pianists Cathy Waldman and Paul Levi, who call themselves the Four Hand Band, performed today at a Gorham Avenue private reception.  The classical and contemporary repertoire included creative renditions of Brahms, Bach, Prokofiev and Gershwin. In addition to concert performances the two, Juilliard graduates, are active in Westport community arts, including Waldman’s piano tutoring. Levi is musical director of Greens Farms Academy’s November production of “Guys and Dolls.” (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Hank & Cupcakes entertained at the Westport Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts tonight. Hank & Cupcakes are an Atlanta-based indie rock-pop duo formed in 2008 in Tel Aviv, Israel. The group consists of husband-and-wife Ariel “Hank” Scherbacovsky (bass guitar) and Sagit “Cupcakes” Shir (drums, vocals). (CLICK TO ENLARGE) J.C. Martin for WestportNow.com