Too many options — too little time! The Greater New Haven Area is just that!
With some trepidation, I crossed the Q‑Bridge at rush hour to see for myself what the latest buzz was about.Friday night’s itinerary took the Dish to Guilford for the opening festivities of ModelAct, a new educational venue that will teach you how to get in touch with your inner beauty and how to expose it to those around you. New Haven resident and model agency owner Lonna Drewes and Guilford resident Jessica Fonicello (in photo) partnered for this exciting new venture. The courses include image definition, health, nutrition, exercise, meditation & yoga, organic skin care, posture, stance and basic runway, connecting and communicating personally and professionally (resumes, etiquette, interviewing and body language, basic modeling and acting). They offer photo-shoots, audition preparation, commercial acting and theater. The very credentialed staff boasts experts in make-up application, hair care, drama and fashion; photographer Stephen Blazo, hair stylist Suzey Kelly, drama teachers Jared Andrew Brown and George E., Moredock III, and music agent publicist and manager Josh Kroop round out the faculty. A one night course is even offered to professionals in the music business; it will focus on agents, preparation of press kits, booking shows and more. The prospective students in attendance, both male and female, ranging in age from 8 to 80 (honest-she told me herself!), were ready to register. We wish them great success!
Next on the agenda, back in downtown New Haven, was “Happy Hour” at Fire (f/k/a Polo Grille). The restaurant and the bar were alive with end-of-week celebrants. The current and former city staffers, taking a brief respite from the mayor’s campaign trail, enjoyed the early evening. Pierrette Silverman, one of the deputy chiefs of staff, was joined by her husband Josh. Talia Aikens Nunez (former legislative aide to the Board of Aldermen), Carlos Eyzaguirre and Rafael Ramos of Livable City Initiative were there to trade stories. Attorney Doug Skalka and other members of the Neubert, Pepe and Monteith law firm tried to review their caseloads over the din of the crowd: their partner, State Rep Cam Staples, was detained by the budget hearings at the Capitol. Curtis Hill, Nick Lavorato, Lindy Gold, Rick Taft, Bonnie Hill and Tom Burmeister were chatting it up at the bar.
State Rep Toni Walker made it back from a tough day in Hartford to meet up with her husband, Don, and join a birthday celebration for her son-in law. The night was still young and everyone was minding their Ps and Qs.
Speaking of Qs, it was time to move on to the Q for which the bridge had been crossed on the return trip from the shoreline.
Debbi Bisno (Bisno Productions), New Haven’s impresario of cabaret performances, has become a familiar figure to the devotees of the Sunday Cabaret series at Chow; she also gifted us with The Moth, alternating between Long Wharf and The Quinnipack Club. The Moth can best be described as a floating nightclub devoted to The Spoken Word.Hailed as NY’s hottest literary ticket, The Moth returned after a sold-out show at the Long Wharf Theatre on December 9 to New Haven’s Q Club and an oversold audience. Through the art of storytelling, The Moth satisfies our vital need for connection by celebrating the diversity and commonality of human experience. Each performance is organized around a theme; James Braly, Mark Oppenheimer, Steve Osborne, Michael Rips and Liz Tuccillo told stories of Crime and Punishment, the evening’s assignment. An impromptu “bout” with Menopause (no! not the musical) forced an abrupt interruption to Liz’s story and prompted great sympathy from the male audience and proper empathy from the distaff side.
Attorneys Gary and Laura Sklaver, Fellowship Place Director Fred Morrison, New Haven Free Public Library non profit services director Carol Brown, Q‑Club membership director and artist Jari Chevalier, artist and historian Frank Mitchell and Claudia Merson and Mike Morand of the Yale Office of New Haven and Public Affairs will now be added to the over 50,000 people who have listened to Moth stories.
Bisno will bring the Moth back to the Elm City next month . The Moth is a non-profit arts organization that was started in 1997 by southern poet and novelist George Dawes Green. In an effort to recreate the feeling of summer nights in his native Georgia, where friends would gather on the front porch to share and spin tales while moths were gathering around the porch lights, he gave the organization its name.