Minerva, a woman living in Mexico, now makes consistently more than her husband, and has the potential to be an entrepreneur through her work with Lady Faith, an online business started recently by Fairfield resident Katie Coleman. Coleman set out on a goal to help artisans in Mexico and Guatemala establish their own businesses by paying for the materials and their wages. There are thousands of entrepreneurs like Coleman who have set up similar trade businesses with the intent of helping disadvantaged people from poor nations, said Jonathan Huneke, vice president of communications for the U.S. Council for International Business in New York City. "Generally, people in the business are in it for altruistic reasons," he said, adding that such enterprises avail consumers to new products. Part of Coleman's vision is that people are paid a fair wage, said Christina Larson, Lady Faith's production manager who spends seven months out of the year in Puerto Vallarta working with the women of the Faith Colectiva. The slow economy hasn't hindered her business; instead, her biggest challenges have been paying expensive custom charges and shipping for the products and marketing the products online.

The Doobie Brothers -- one of the iconic rock bands of the 1970s and early '80s -- will appear at the Levitt Pavilion Thursday in a concert that benefits the outdoor venue's free programming. With hits such as Black Water, Listen to the Music and Jesus is Just Alright, the band in its heyday won three Grammy Awards. The $95 seats are in a preferred section while the $250 tickets include premium seating, a pre-concert reception with open bar and hors d'oeuvres and an after-party with dessert.

The smuggled footage is supplemented with interviews with Broadway's family, friends, prison guards and the warden. The film opens up communication about the prison system," says 4th Row's Director of Development Susan Bedusa, "It's broken. Business partners Tirola and Bedusa, both Westport natives, recently returned from the Berlin Film Festival, where they screened 4th Row's The Making the Boys. The 90-minute documentary tells the story behind the play and movie The Boys in the Band, and will be shown in independent cinemas this summer. In the documentary, author Mart Crowley, actor Lawrence Luckinbill (who appeared in the play and the movie), and playwrights Edward Albee, Paul Rudnick and others lend opinions on whether The Boys in the Band broke ground or portrayed stereotypes. Making the festival scene this summer will be 4th Row's Kati with an I, a portrait of a southern teenager about to graduate from high school. All In won the grand jury prize for best documentary when it premiered at the CineVegas Film Festival. The duo started 4th Row four years ago to make branding and marketing films for Fortune 500 companies. "Fairfield County is like the silicon valley of the marketing industry," says Tirola, who lives in Westport with his family. Bedusa and Tirola, who met while they both worked for Ira Deutchman, founder of Fine Line Features, brought years of experience in film to their joint venture.

In keeping with the community's ongoing commitment to reduce its carbon footprint, Westport's Staples Players incorporated a "go green" initiative into its upcoming production of the musical, Little Shop of Horrors. Pauker performed a leading role in Staples Players summer show, Grease, and both actresses appeared in last fall's sold-out production of Guys and Dolls. Portraying Adelaide in Guys and Dolls, Hendricks received standing ovations for her rousing song and dance numbers. Composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman blend rock 'n' roll, doo-wop and Motown styles to create the show's memorable musical score. "Seymour is conflicted because he is really an innocent, an orphan who only wants to have a sense of family but instead becomes connected to this plant that demands that he kill people so it could survive," Nicoletti explained. The puppets, which are rented, recently arrived at the Westport campus and, according to Hendrickson, the actors are having a good time getting to know the newest additions to their ensemble. Nicoletti, along with most of the students who spend time in Staples High School's drama department, also expressed profound appreciation for his teacher, director and mentor, Roth. Production staff for Little Shop of Horrors includes Associate Director Kerry Long; Musical Director Chris Coogan; Choreographer Joanne Kahn; Technical Director Dave Seltzer; Set Designers Reid Thompson and Dave Seltzer; and Costume Designers Marjorie Watt and Priscilla Stampa.

Doctors took her cells, called HeLa (using the first two letters of Lacks' first and last names), and stored them in research labs. Since that time, they have been used in many medical breakthroughs for the last 60 years. HeLa line speeded up approval of the Salk polio vaccine, leading to field trials and the pronouncement on April 12, 1955, that the vaccine worked -- was safe and effective. Other breakthroughs sustained by the HeLa cell line include in vitro fertilization trials, and new anti-cancer undergoing small clinical trails today. When you go to the doctor for a routine blood test or to have a mole removed, when you have an appendectomy, tonsillectomy, or any other kind of ectomy, the stuff you leave behind doesn't always get thrown out. About 10 years ago the Rand Corporation put out a report (the first and last its kind) with a conservative estimate that more than 307 million tissue samples from 178 million people were stored in the United States alone. The stuff sits in lab freezers, on shelves or in vats of liquid nitrogen. Without these tissues, we would have no tests for diseases like hepatitis and HIV, no vaccines for rabies, smallpox, measles and none of the promising new drugs for leukemia, breast cancer, colon cancer and -- developers of products that rely on human biological materials would be out billions of dollars.