East Hartford

Rentschler Field is a stadium in East Hartford, Connecticut. It is primarily used for football, and is the home field of the University of... Connecticut Huskies. Starting in the fall of 2010, it became home to the Hartford Colonials of the United Football League. The stadium, which opened in 2003, was the first stadium used primarily by an NCAA Division I-A team to open in the 21st century. It holds 40,000 people and can be expanded. Connecticut played on campus at Memorial Stadium in Storrs, before 2003. Rentschler Field was originally the name of the company airfield for Pratt & Whitney that formerly occupied the site. The airfield, which began operations in 1931, was named after Frederick Brant Rentschler, who founded the aircraft arm of Pratt & Whitney and later founded its current parent company, United Technologies. It was originally used for test flights and maintenance operations, and later for corporate aviation. The 75-acre site was decommissioned as an airport in the 1990s, and donated to the state of Connecticut by United Technologies in 1999.
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Diane Venora is an American stage, television, and film actress. Venora was born in East Hartford, Connecticut, one of six children of Marie and... Robert P. Venora, who owned a dry cleaning establishment. Diane graduated from East Hartford High School , during which she was active in musicals and plays. She studied at Boston Conservatory of Music and two years later won a scholarship to The Juilliard School in New York City, where she graduated in 1977. At Juilliard she was a member of the Drama Department's Group 6 , which also included Kelsey Grammer, Harriet Sansom Harris, and Robin Williams. After graduation, Venora performed extensively on the stage, particularly in Shakespearean plays. She made her film debut alongside Albert Finney and Gregory Hines in Wolfen . In 1983, she starred in Joseph Papp's production of Hamlet at the New York Shakespeare Festival in the lead role, the first woman to play the role at the prestigious showcase. She has a long history with Hamlet, having played the title role, having played Ophelia opposite Kevin Kline, and having played Gertrude onscreen opposite Ethan Hawke.
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Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south . Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately bisects the state. Its capital city is Hartford. Much of southern and western Connecticut is part of the New York metropolitan area; three of... Connecticut's eight counties are statistically included in the New York City combined statistical area, the same area is widely referred to as the Tri-State area. Connecticut's center of population is in Cheshire, New Haven County, which is also located within the Tri-State area. Connecticut is the 3rd least extensive, the 29th most populous, and 4th most densely populated of the 50 United States. Called the Constitution State, Nutmeg State, and "The Land of Steady Habits", Connecticut was influential in the development of the federal government of the United States.
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