CHESTER

Chester is a Connecticut River town in Middlesex County where a former shipbuilding village has quietly become one of the state's denser concentrations of galleries, studios, and small-batch restaurants.

The Norma Terris Theatre, Goodspeed Musicals' second stage in a converted knitting-needle factory, develops new musicals in a 200-seat house — over 50 productions have launched from this room since 1984.

Art-town energy in a colonial river-valley frame — the Pattaconk Brook runs behind Main Street shops, the Chester-Hadlyme Ferry has crossed the Connecticut River since 1769, and First Fridays bring the galleries out.

Tip: The Norma Terris Theatre runs exclusively new work, so you will not find revivals here. That is the point — catch something before it heads elsewhere.

Neighborhoods: Chester Center • Pattaconk • Cedar Lake