Downtown

James Ivory Shares His World With Yale Film Archive

by | Feb 12, 2024 9:05 am | Comments (2)

Karen Ponzio Photos

James Ivory and Brian Meacham

Friday night’s installment of Yale Film Archive’s The World of James Ivory series offered another type of double feature: a viewing of the 1965 film Shakespeare Wallah, followed by a Q&A with the series’ namesake, James Ivory. Fans of the legendary director, who gifted the Archive with selections from his personal film collection in 2023, were treated to the 35mm version of Shakespeare in all of its black and white glory, in the presence of Ivory himself. Afterward, they had the opportunity to hear Ivory discuss the film with managing archivist Brian Meacham, and ask him questions of their own.

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Yale Opera Plays Its Cards Right At Shubert

by | Feb 9, 2024 9:07 am | Comments (0)

Brian Slattery Photo

Suzu Sakai on the Shubert set she designed.

A member of the stage crew was doing some last-minute cleanup of the set at the Shubert, in preparation for a rehearsal of Yale Opera’s The Rake’s Progress, the opera by Igor Stravinsky set to run at the venerable College Street theatre Feb. 17 and 18. At first glance, it may have looked like he was vacuuming a vast Persian rug. A second glance, however, might show the design on the floor for what it really is: the back of an enormous playing card. More than just an arresting visual pattern, the scintillating floor is part of a set design decision that, for the opera’s director, was the key to opening up Stravinsky’s work to better connect with audiences.

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Americana Keeps The Room Warm

by | Feb 8, 2024 9:16 am | Comments (1)

Brian Slattery Photo

Dallas Ugly Wednesday night at Cafe Nine.

Cafe Nine on Wednesday night was the scene for delicate ballads, bright harmonies, and gritty rhythms as three bands — Pyramid Rose, Dallas Ugly, and the Split Coils — played sets with passion and commitment to the cause of country, rock n’ roll, and keeping live music rolling in the Elm City.

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Library Hails "Queen Of Katwe" For Kickoff To Black History Month

by | Feb 5, 2024 9:21 am | Comments (0)

A scene from "Queen of Katwe."

How does a young girl from Uganda go from beginning chess player to champion? Disney’s Queen of Katwe documents the journey from one to the other as well as the struggles and triumphs in between. The 2016 film was the first entry in this month’s Free Film Fridays: From Stage to Screen: Celebrating Black Yale School of Drama Alumni” at the Ives branch of the New Haven Free Public Library. 

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Photographs Tell 1,000 Stories

by | Feb 2, 2024 9:17 am | Comments (0)

Gregory Crewdson

Untitled (from the series Beneath the Roses).

Gregory Crewdson’s arresting photograph is nearly five feet tall and eight feet across, large enough for a viewer to get completely engrossed in the details. The scene at its most basic is simple enough: A man standing by a river bank, shirtless; a makeshift shack behind him, lit from the inside; beyond a stand of trees, a row of houses. 

But the mood, the lighting, and the details all set the wheels for any number of stories in motion. Does the man live in the shack? Or does someone else? Or does anyone? Do the people who live in the houses know someone’s down there by the river, or is the man truly isolated? And what has brought him to the water’s edge at night? Is he lost in contemplation? Is he waiting for someone else to arrive? Or, perhaps, is he watching intently as something’s happening, maybe on the opposite shore, maybe in the water itself? Maybe this is actually a scene of ferocious action, only just out of frame.

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Punk Matinee Tears Up Three Sheets

by | Jan 30, 2024 9:00 am | Comments (8)

Karen Ponzio Photos

The Haints.

Are you the type of music fan who wishes there were more shows that started before 8 p.m., but wants the feel of a late Friday or Saturday night out? Are Sunday brunches too early for you, but you also don’t want to stay out too late? Three Sheets has something perfect for you the last Sunday of every month: a matinee that promises you an onslaught of punk music that is at just the right time for the late-to-rise-on-the-weekend, early-to-bed-for-work-on-Monday crowd. 

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Yale Film Archive Fights In The War Room

by | Jan 26, 2024 9:34 am | Comments (2)

Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove.

The return of Yale students to campus for spring semester means a new class schedule for them, but it also means a new spring screening schedule for the Yale Film Archive, one that is free and open not only to those students, but to the general public. 

This week the first two films of their Treasures from the Yale Archive” series — Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on Tuesday and Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb on Thursday — were screened to full rooms of film fans in all of their 35 mm glory. And according to managing archivist Brian Meacham, this is only the beginning. The Treasures series is one of three film series the Archive presents each semester. 

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School Of Drama Gets "Cleansed"

by | Jan 25, 2024 4:21 pm | Comments (0)

Contributed Photo

Sarah Kane.

The plays of British playwright Sarah Kane (1971 – 99) are notoriously difficult — for staging, and for what they put an audience through. The warning distributed by the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, for the production of Cleansed, running through Jan. 26 at the University Theater, reads: Cleansed contains nudity; graphic simulations of sexual and physical violence, sexual intimacy, suicide, incest, death, and drug use; as well as coarse language. These actions are enacted by and on Black people. This production also contains loud sounds, extended gunfire, live flame, fog, bright lights, and strobe lighting effects.”

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DESK Tears Down Wall

by | Jan 23, 2024 3:31 pm | Comments (7)

Alder Rodriguez makes a dent in homelessness.

Alder Carmen Rodriguez donned a hard hat and struck a sledgehammer into a wall — and urged her counterparts in other cities to break down metaphorical walls as well to support the cold, wet, and hungry.”

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Jazz Brunch Returns To Elm City Market

by | Jan 22, 2024 9:44 am | Comments (0)

Karen Ponzio Photos

Jeff Fuller and Friends.

Jazz can be found practically every night of the week in New Haven: at cigar bars, alongside pizza, and amidst videos and DVDs, among other places. For a jazz fan who wishes to partake of live music even during the day, Elm City Market has brought back its popular weekly jazz brunch on Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., which means not only do you get tunes, but you can have a meal (or a muffin or a mug of coffee or both) as well.

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Kallos Brings Light Atmosphere, Heavy Talent

by | Jan 18, 2024 9:05 am | Comments (1)

Brian Slattery Photos

A third of the way through the latest concert in the Kallos Chamber Music Series — held Wednesday evening at the New Haven Lawn Club — cellist Daniel Hamin Go had a little insider’s tip. In order for this to be the best concert you’ve ever been to, this is what you have to do. During the intermission, which will begin in about 16 minutes, there is lots of wine!” The audience laughed. And some good food. I highly recommend you either get drunk or you stuff yourself, because then we will sound amazing.” The audience laughed again. It was a fitting encapsulation of the tone of the evening, in which the music was serious but the mood informal and festive, making for a night of serious fun.

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Poetry Slam Keeps King Legacy Alive

by | Jan 16, 2024 9:42 am | Comments (0)

Brian Slattery Photo

Slam host Ngoma.

Memories of the Children’s Crusade. A vision of alien visitations in the future. Invocations of superheroes. Fist-raising calls for change. These were all part of the 28th annual Z Experience Poetry Slam on Monday, part of the Yale Peabody Museum’s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s legacy of social and environmental justice.

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Artists Mourn Loss Of Community Hub

by | Jan 9, 2024 9:05 am | Comments (31)

Brian Slattery Photo

Artist and customer Susan Clinard in Artist & Craftsman on Monday: "It’s one of those last-standing real art stores.”

It is a disaster for our block. We LOVE this store. I am so angry.” It’s my life’s blood.” This is a huge bummer … I’m there weekly with buying materials for my work or for my class at CAW.” I feel bad for us but also the wonderful staff who have always been so great.” 

These were a few of the many outcries from New Haven artists and citizens as news spread yesterday that Artist & Craftsman Supply, at 821 – 825 Chapel St., had announced it would be closing in early March.

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Saint James Smokes The Owl Shop

by | Jan 4, 2024 8:58 am | Comments (3)

Brian Slattery Photo

The Kevin Saint James Band on Wednesday night.

It was 9:30 on Wednesday evening at the Owl Shop on College Street and already the Kevin Saint James Band had relaxed into an easy swing. Plumes of smoke rose in the air, from fans sitting close by, cigars lit. Lou Ianello took a ride on sax across the song’s changes. Steve Donovan followed suit on keys. Victor Ramirez on bass and Derrick Tappin on drums held down the rhythm for the others, until it was Ramirez’s turn. Each had time to express themselves. Each made sure to keep the vibe right. Singer Kevin Saint James then got up on stage, took a seat in the back, and lit a cigarette, like he had all the time in the world.

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Yalies Can Stay. Townies Must Go

by | Dec 22, 2023 12:53 pm | Comments (75)

Nora Grace-Flood photo

Yale claims its "campus custom" is to reserve housing for university "affiliates" – including at 57 Broadway.

Tenant Lewis Nelken’s new landlord sent him unwelcome news this December: He can renew his apartment lease on Broadway for another year, but, after that lease runs out, he has to move. Just because he doesn’t work or study at Yale.

That’s the new rule for living in a stretch of downtown that Yale has continued gobbling up this year.

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School Of Drama Stages An Energetic Classic

by | Dec 14, 2023 8:54 am | Comments (0)

T. Charles Erickson Photo

Samuel Douglas as Uncle Vanya and Rebeca Robles as Sonya.

The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale’s production of Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece Uncle Vanya — running now at the Iseman Theater on Chapel St. through Dec. 15 — is played before the theater’s usual stadium seating, but the viewers positioned on risers in the wings of the stage will feel themselves more pointedly in the midst of the action. The play, directed by fourth-year directing MFA candidate Sammy Zeisel, was adapted by the much-awarded playwright Annie Baker and experimental director Sam Gold to be staged, at Soho Rep in 2012, with a you are there in the midst of the action” arrangement, where some spectators sat on the floor or makeshift seats, and the cast was surrounded by the audience. 

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Despite City Opposition, Yale To Raze York Townhouse

by | Dec 13, 2023 4:07 pm | Comments (71)

Thomas Breen photo

166 York: Unsafe roof, ready for the Yale hammer.

Yale plans to knock down a three-story downtown commercial-residential building that was built in the late 19th century and that used to be home to the York Street Noodle House.

The Elicker administration and local preservationists oppose that coming demolition — even as they both recognize there’s little they can do to stop it.

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