MANSFIELD — A group of Mansfield Middle School students will bring an eighteenth-century town meeting into a present-day community setting Wednesday, October 28, with a public play-reading at Mansfield’s Old Town Hall.
The free program is scheduled for 6:30–8 p.m. at the Mansfield Historical Society Museum, 954 Storrs Road, according to the town’s official calendar. Refreshments will be served.
The performance centers on Mansfield’s 1774 Declaration of Freedom, which opposed actions of the English government. Students reworked Freedom: That Sacred Plant of Paradise, a play that Historical Society members originally created and performed in 1974 for the declaration’s two-hundredth anniversary, the school announcement says.
The project grew from local-history lessons introduced for America 250 | Connecticut. Students chose to continue researching the declaration, found the earlier play and sought permission to adapt its script for 2026. Working with enrichment teacher Jennifer McMunn, they also wrote biographies of colonial residents represented in the production.
The students are also scheduled to share the play with Mansfield Elementary School students and lead an activity making colonial-style three-cornered hats. The school describes that work as part of continuing mentoring and cooperative projects between the two schools; this report does not identify individual student participants.
The school says performance and activity expenses are supported through the America 250 | Connecticut commemoration administered by Connecticut Humanities. The public reading takes place in the renovated Old Town Hall, one of the historic buildings used by the Historical Society.
This report was prepared from the town’s October 21 announcement, official event calendar and the Historical Society’s venue information. Eastern CT News has not attended the performance.
Photo: Mansfield Historical Society file photograph dated January 19, 2026, showing the Old Town Hall at left and the adjoining former Town Office building at right. It does not show the October student performance.