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Karen Ponzio |
Aug 28, 2023 8:17 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos
Frank Critelli lends vocals to Big Fat Combo.
“I don’t know about you guys, but it’s been a Friday,” said Julie Smith as she introduced local favorites Big Fat Combo, who were performing their scheduled patio show indoors at Best Video due to rain. It was about to become even more of a Friday as technical issues turned into an opportunity for the local music community to step up, step in, and turn the venerable video store and performance space into a friendly singalong for a portion of the evening.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 25, 2023 9:08 am
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Yale University Art Gallery
In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art.
While the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) undergoes renovations, the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) has volunteered to host a selection of their paintings in an exhibition entitled “In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art.” The show — running now through Dec. 3 — houses over 50 paintings, mainly from the 18th and 19th centuries, that attempt to capture the scope and breadth of British life at the time through a series of intimate glances into another country’s art and culture. “In a New Light” offers a glimpse into British painting with little explanation and few qualifiers, allowing viewers to simply view the artwork and draw their own conclusions.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 24, 2023 9:09 am
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Brian Slattery Photos
Cabins, East!
On Wednesday three rock bands — Cabins, East!, Pyramid Rose Band, and headliner Laney Jones — brought loud guitars, driving drums, strong vocals, and a lot of heart to a rapturous audience at Cafe Nine, in a night that hearkened back to pre-pandemic days of casual abandon while adding a healthy dose of post-pandemic compassion and care.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 24, 2023 9:06 am
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Nick Aubin performs at Gather.
“Nice to see a lot of familiar faces, nicer to see the unfamiliar faces,” said Nick Aubin, the host of a weekly Open Mic Night at Gather, located at 952 State St. The coffee shop brimmed with faces, open and smiling, many of them ready to play multiple roles over the course of the evening: performer, fan, and friend. At their core, open mics form a hub for the community, a safe space for artists familiar and unfamiliar, veteran and newcomer, to showcase their creativity.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 23, 2023 8:24 am
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Eleanor Polak photo
Christina Duan, Jess X. Snow, Sheri, Sonja John, Aaron Jafferis, Sarah "TW" Tracy-Wanck, and Rheo June painting Possible Futures.
The outside wall of Possible Futures, the bookstore located at 318 Edgewood Ave., stood blank and dull against the street, devoid of inspiration and creativity. That was about to change.
Tuesday marked the beginning of a 10-day-long painting project to design a mural, a tribute to New Haven local and celebrated prison abolitionist Ruth Wilson Gilmore. The blank wall became a canvas, as muralists and community volunteers worked together to explore all the possible futures the space could hold.
Did any of you, dear readers, catch the appearance of Ron DeSantis just before opening night of the Shakespeare comedy, “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” at Edgerton Park?
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 22, 2023 8:46 am
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Edmund B*Wak Comfort: "God left me just enough to get by."
New Haven artist and designer Edmund B*Wak Comfort faced a harrowing health crisis in the spring that saw him lose both of his legs below the knee as well as a few of his fingers. Now home from the hospital, he has found family and friends rallying to help him, including a performance from the Regicides improv comedy group this Saturday, Aug. 26 that will double as a fundraiser to help him meet living expenses while he recuperates.
“After the incident, I really appreciate being here,” Comfort said. “I realize how precious it is, all the things I took for granted. It is amazing that I still get an opportunity to be here.” He thinks of friends and family who have passed. “I was on the verge of being one of them,” he said, “missing all the beautiful things that life has to offer.”
The New Haven Green swarmed with tents. Music boomed from the loudspeakers, covering everything from “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears to “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” by Shakira. The air hung heavy and sweet with the scent of fried dough and freshly-applied sunscreen. The second annual Black Wall Street Festival had begun.
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Karen Ponzio |
Aug 21, 2023 8:53 am
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Karen Ponzio Photos.
That Virginia at Witch Bitch Thrift.
The Black Box at Witch Bitch Thrift echoed with music, laughter, and an ever-present sense of community as AcoustiQueers made its premiere at the event space on Saturday night. A series that — according to Witch Bitch’s social media post, “creates an intimate space to celebrate queer music and queer joy” — was started by artist Eli Wood in New York City in 2017. After playing one of those events, the store’s co-owner and musician Virginia Semighini received permission to bring the series to Connecticut, where it ran until 2018. With the evolution of the Whitney Avenue thrift store to now include an event space, the series is being revived and, on this evening, features Semeghini, the New Haven-based trio Untold Joys, and a solo performance by Olive Tiger.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 18, 2023 7:23 am
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Detail from promotional art for Merry Wives of Windsor.
“Here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the King’s English,” says Mistress Quickly, played with cheeky humor by Martine Fleurisma in Elm Shakespeare Company’s production of one of the bard’s lesser-known works, The Merry Wives of Windsor. The production plays fast and loose with the audience’s expectations, but it never betrays their patience or wastes their time. Instead, The Merry Wives of Windsor — running now through Sept. 3 at Edgerton Park — provides exactly what it promises: wit, wiles, wanton scoundrels, and scheming wives. Most of all, it supplies the audience with over two hours of good, old-fashioned fun.
New Haven’s arts council has tapped an ex-Long Wharf Theatre artistic planning director, Oregon Shakespeare Festival associate producer, and co-president of the New Haven Pride Center’s board to be its next executive director.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 17, 2023 8:35 am
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Rushnyky.
Stepping into the “Rushnyky: Sacred Ukrainian Textiles” exhibit at the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center feels like stepping into a particularly cozy little house. Faux-stone columns and archways line the walls, framing display cases made to look like wooden cabinets. Lying within the cases and draped over the walls, the rushnyky — long, decorative or ritual clothes — draw the eye with their bright patterns and delicate lacework, transforming a sterile, unlived-in museum space into a warm and welcoming abode. In the words of the Ukrainian proverb printed on the wall, “a house without a rushnyk is not a home.”
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 17, 2023 8:33 am
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Lindley Creek.
From the stage, Joe Delillo of Audrey Mae, the regional bluegrass band opening for touring national act Lindley Creek, asked what could have been a dangerous question: “Who in here is not having a good time?” The capacity crowd at Cafe Nine responded with dead silence. Delillo smiled. “Good,” he said, to cheers. It was a joyful moment that embodied a night of bluegrass raucous enough to bring people out in droves to the club on State and Crown for a late summer acoustic throwdown.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 16, 2023 8:21 am
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Lucy's Neighbor.
Three New Haven-based bands took the stage at Cafe Nine on the corner of State and Crown Tuesday night to share new songs, try out new ideas, and ease into the kind of playing musicians can do when they have a common history and chemistry.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 15, 2023 8:36 am
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Linda Mickens
Unclaimed.
Linda Mickens’s sculpture Unclaimed stands at the back of City Gallery like an altar, a centerpiece. “This piece gives voice to the countless victims who died, isolated and alone, to a disease that devastated the world,” Mickens’s accompanying statement reads. “Their angels claim them, forever ensuring that their souls do not languish, nameless and faceless in mass graves for eternity.” The note clarifies what Unclaimed is about. But it’s not necessary to bring home the work’s emotional message. The pile of shoes, the tattered wings, the angel’s sad, caring expression are more than enough to bring out the artist’s concern for suffering, and her call for compassion and understanding.
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Karen Ponzio |
Aug 14, 2023 10:21 am
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Karen Ponzio
This photo says it all.
Under a Saturday night sky swelling with the threat of thunderstorms, The Regicides performed to a rapt and enthusiastic audience at A Broken Umbrella Theatre’s current location on Blake Street with a bonus: they were treated to a preview of the theater’s new performance space in the making, and a pitch for assistance to help it come to fruition — all while eating, drinking, and making merry in the truest laugh-a-minute fashion.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 14, 2023 7:40 am
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Eleanor Polak Photos
The crowd on the Green at the Puerto Rican Festival.
Ramon Rivera attends the annual Puerto Rican Festival on the New Haven Green every year — and Saturday was no exception. He sells Puerto Rican flags of varying sizes and colors, each latched to a wooden dowel, making them perfect for waving in the air or propping against chairs, strollers, and even traffic cones. “I like being with my people,” said Rivera, who is Puerto Rican himself. “It brings us back home as a family.”
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 14, 2023 7:39 am
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Eleanor Polak Photos
The Jawns perform at Gather.
Gather, the coffee shop and restaurant located at 952 State St., ran wild with drums, guitars, sound systems, and more from the four bands that performed there on Friday night. With a combined 17 band members and double that amount of audience members, the shop felt like it could burst at the seams. Instead of exploding outward, the energy in the room folded in on itself to create a volcanic mass of writhing bodies and whirring rhythms.
Fairmount Theater owner Gilberto Gonzalez, Jr.: "I don't know how we're surviving, because we're not making any money."
Could this become New Haven's last remaining movie theater?
Gilberto Gonzalez, Jr. wants to sell the porno movie theater he owns in the Annex — but he can’t find any buyers.
He wants to spruce up the decaying commercial building into an adult cinema to be proud of — but he can’t find any lenders.
He wants to retire and move on from screening sexually explicit films he doesn’t particularly enjoy watching — but he’s still catching up on bills from the theater’s Covid-era closure.
So for now, as he’s done for the past 13 years, Gonzalez shows up to work at the Fairmount Theater on a near daily basis to keep one of New Haven’s last remaining movie houses chugging along. Until whatever happens next.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 11, 2023 8:58 am
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Shelley Stoehr-McCarthy and son Luca McCarthy make collages.
Inside the upstairs gallery at The Institute Library at 847 Chapel St. sat a table littered with paper, magazines, paintbrushes, glitter, scissors, stickers, and a giant jug of glue. Outside it was rainy and humid, but the room — set aside for a collage workshop entitled “A Time To Breathe: an Oasis Workshop” — formed a little oasis itself. Not just a refuge from the weather, but a safe space for creativity to roam free.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 10, 2023 9:03 am
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Thomas Breen Photo
Aric Isaacs and Ian Alderman inside the space at 280 Blake St. to be developed into a black box theater.
A Broken Umbrella Theatre has big plans for the property at 280 Blake St. in Beaver Hills. If they come to fruition, in a couple years the property will house a roughly 90-seat black box theater as well as a cabaret complete with restaurant and bar. According to Ian Alderman, Broken Umbrella’s executive director, the project will likely cost somewhere between $1.5 million and $2 million. Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the state’s Good to Great Program, they’re on their way. To realize their vision in its entirety, they have faith in the strength of the New Haven arts community and its desire to have a space where the arts can be.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 9, 2023 8:26 am
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“Outcrop,” the first track from Tells or Terrier — the recent release from Jeb Bishop on trombone, Nathan McBride on bass, and New Haven improvised music stalwart Joe Morris on drums — begins with searching, pulsing notes from all three musicians, quickly finding their way into their sound. Before long, the music gains velocity, as Morris and McBride settle into a faster mode of playing while Bishop deploys the flexibility in a trombone’s tone that can make it sound like a human voice, like animal calls. There’s rigor, but also deep camaraderie, a shared sense of humor and determination, that makes the music hang together.
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Eleanor Polak |
Aug 8, 2023 9:09 am
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Mindi Englart traces Jamine Ackert at library-hosted workshop.
Jamine Ackert, a single mother and the friend of Mindi Englart, the organizer of an art workshop for single moms and their kids, lay on her back on top of a large sheet of paper on the floor of Ives Main Library on Elm Street. Englart painstakingly traced her outline with marker, so that Ackert could fill it in with a representation of herself.
“I feel like you can fill your real self in,” said Englart. “When you trace yourself there’s a real connection, and I’m trying to encourage people to make that connection.”
