DORSET

Dorset is a small town between two ridges of the Taconic Range, founded in 1761, where clapboard homes ring a town green and the nation's first commercial marble quarry opened in 1785.

The Dorset Theatre Festival runs its professional summer season from June through September at the Dorset Playhouse, a community-built theater that opened in 1929. The Festival, now in its 48th year, stages new plays and classic works with talent drawn from New York and regional theater.

A quiet village where the Dorset Inn has operated continuously since 1796 and the 1770s Cephas Kent tavern site marks the spot where delegates first proposed Vermont statehood.

Tip: East Dorset, a few miles up Route 7, holds the marble quarrying heritage sites and the Wilson House — worth the detour before or after a show at the Playhouse.

Neighborhoods: Dorset Village • East Dorset • South Dorset