CTRL+Delete
2025-12-02 13:00 - 17:00, 2025-12-04 13:00 - 20:00, 2025-12-06 13:00 - 17:00, 2025-12-09 13:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Watson Fine Arts – Beard and Weil Galleries, Norton, MA, 02766, United States
Ctrl+Delete explores the persistent threat of censorship in the United States, from historical book bans used to control knowledge and suppress marginalized voices to today’s escalating restrictions—including the removal of books and art from public spaces as well as the June Supreme Court decision (Mahmoud v. Taylor) requiring schools to provide opportunities to opt out of listening learning about books that include LGBTQ+ characters. By tracing these acts of erasure across time, the show reveals how censorship has shaped, and continues to shape, what stories are told and who gets to tell them.
Alongside overt bans and challenges, the exhibition also addresses the quieter but equally insidious forces of self-censorship within art and educational institutions, where fear of controversy, loss of funding, or political pressure can limit which narratives are made visible. Central to the exhibition is the Ultra Violet Archive, an interactive library which resists silencing by preserving cultural memory and amplifying suppressed voices. Projects like the Minecraft Uncensored Library—a digital platform where banned texts are freely accessible—demonstrate how artists, activists, and technologists are developing inventive strategies to fight suppression.
As part of the exhibition, we will hold a community reading of Frederick Douglass’s work during National Banned Books Week in October. The exhibition also features a dedicated space where visitors can share their own experiences with censorship creating an archive that underscores the ongoing relevance of these struggles. Opportunities to engage will create a space for shared reflection, underscoring the enduring power of words to inspire freedom, dialogue, and change.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., Thursdays 1:00 p.m.—8:00 p.m.
Please note: the galleries will be closed November 26–December 1 for November break.
Beard and Weil Galleries

Student Recitals
2025-12-02 17:00 - 18:00 | Cole Memorial Chapel, Norton, MA, 02766, United States
Wheaton students studying voice and various instruments showcase their skill performing work from their studies this semester. Free, no ticket required.

Holiday Vespers Concert
2025-12-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Cole Memorial Chapel, Norton, MA, 02766, United States
Wheaton’s choral tradition for the holidays celebrates music of varied cultures and time periods, and features the Wheaton Chorale and Chamber Singers under the direction of Assistant Professor Alexandra Lutkevich.
Pay-what-you-can tickets are available via the Watson Box Office.

Wheaton Steelband Concert
2025-12-04 19:30 - 21:00 | Kresge Experimental Theatre, Watson Fine Arts
Join us for an evening of Soca and Calypso music. Jason ‘Panman’ Roseman has been sharing his inherited expertise with us, bringing to the ensemble his distinctive arrangements and original compositions composed in the irrepressible styles of Trinidad and Tobago. You are invited to come and lime with the band, the music, and the extraordinarily brilliant and innovative instruments of Trinidad.
Pay-what-you-can tickets are available via the Watson Box Office.

Great Woods Symphony Orchestra presents Paris Moderne
2025-12-07 14:00 | Watson Fine Arts – Weber Theatre, Norton, MA, 02766, United States
Comprised of Wheaton students, faculty, and members of the public, the GWSO presents a concert featuring colorful and evocative masterpieces by Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Stravinsky, and Milhaud.
Pay-what-you-can-ticketing available via the Box Office.

Student Film Screening
2025-12-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Watson Fine Arts – Weber Theatre, Norton, MA, 02766, United States
A curated selection of student work is showcased in this end-of-semester screening.

Film Screening: The Arc of Oblivion
2026-02-08 15:30 | Watson Fine Arts – Ellison Lecture Hall, Norton, MA, 02766
followed by a Q&A with director Ian Cheney & animator of the film, Professor of the Practice Melissa McClung

In a universe that erases its tracks, why are we so hellbent on leaving a trace?

From executive producer Werner Herzog (Cave of Forgotten Dreams; Grizzly Man) and director Ian Cheney (King Corn), The Arc of Oblivion is an unexpectedly playful search for an answer to a deeply existential question. Set against the backdrop of the filmmaker’s quixotic quest to build an ark in a field in Maine, the film heads far afield—to salt mines in the Alps, fjords in the Arctic, and ancient libraries in the Sahara—to illuminate the strange world of archives, record-keeping, and memory.

Director Ian Cheney and animator, Wheaton Professor of the Practice Melissa McClung, will join us for a Q&A after a screening of this fun and thought-provoking film.

DanceFest 2026: Unleashed
2026-02-13 19:30, 2026-02-14 19:30, 2026-02-15 14:00 | Watson Fine Arts – Weber Theatre, Norton, MA, 02766, United States
Wheaton’s Dance Collaborative presents Dance Fest 2026—Unleashed featuring hip hop, salsa, tap, k-pop, step, and multi-cultural traditions performed by TRYBE, Paraíso Latino, Tap Out Loud, KAOS and special guest S.O.L.E. This annual performance showcases the talent of our student-run dance groups in collaboration with technical theatre students.

This event runs February 13–15, 2026. The Sunday, February 15th performance is a 2:00 p.m. matinee.

Pay-what-you-can tickets may be purchased online through the Box Office.

Readings by the Writer—Robyn Schiff
2026-02-16 17:00 | Mary Lyon Hall – Woolley Room, Norton, MA, 02766, United States
Schiff will read from her most recent book, Information Desk: An Epic (2023) which is situated at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she worked at the information desk in her young adulthood. “Nearly 30 years later, Schiff transformed her experiences into an epic poem, expertly weaving its collections of visual art and connections to the world into her life’s journey, material world and imagination.” (Sara Patterson, UChicago News) Robyn’s previous books include A Woman of Property (2016), Revolver (2008) and Worth (2002). She is currently a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature and the Director of the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Chicago.

New Plays Festival 2026
2026-02-21 13:00, 2026-02-21 17:00, 2026-02-22 13:00, 2026-02-22 17:00 | Kresge Experimental Theatre, Watson Fine Arts
Eleven longer form plays—written, directed and performed by Wheaton students—are showcased in our annual festival. The festival runs over two days with two seatings each day, each seating showcases a different set of plays.
Free or pay-what-you-can tickets are available through the Watson Box Office.

Readings by the Writer: Kate Colby
2026-03-25 17:00 | Mary Lyon Hall – May Room, Norton, MA, 02766
Kate Colby reads from her work including Paradoxx, her new collection of essays. “In Paradoxx, Colby applies her humor and exacting intelligence to teasing out tangles in relationships between memory, signification, and human perception. A one-hundred-day chronicle of a dark period in the author’s life, this tightly-wound lyric essay is also a memoir of growing up in the late 20th century and stumbling into the 21st.” (Essay Press) Colby was a founding board member of the Gloucester Writers Center in Massachusetts, where she now serves on the advisory board. She grew up in Massachusetts and currently lives in Providence, where she teaches at UPenn.

Object Lessons: Matisse and Art Education
2026-03-25 18:30 | Watson Fine Arts – Ellison Lecture Hall, Norton, MA, 02766
The Wheaton College Friends of Art proudly present the 18th Annual Mary L. Heuser Lecture in Art History featuring Camran Mani. Throughout his artistic career, Henri Matisse tried to be the teacher he had never had as an unhappy art student in late 19th-century Paris. In his talk, Camran Mani will explore the evolution of ideas about how to educate young people for careers in art by looking at a few of Matisse’s experimental teaching efforts from 1908-1948, including the art academy he briefly operated in Paris, his mural for an educational foundation in Pennsylvania, and the book Jazz.

2026 Creative Writing Senior Reading
2026-04-14 17:00, 2026-04-21 17:00 | Balfour-Hood – New Yellow Parlor
Seniors graduating with a major in Creative Writing and Literature read from their original work. Students will present readings over two evenings April 14 & 21, 2026.

Wheaton College Dance Company
2026-04-16 19:30, 2026-04-17 19:30, 2026-04-18 14:00 | Watson Fine Arts – Weber Theatre, Norton, MA, 02766, United States
The ensemble performs under the direction of Artistic Director Andrea Taylor-Blenis.
Pay-what-you-can tickets may be purchased via the Watson Box Office.
