Weekdays of arts and letters lean into a weekend of festivals and motherly love.
Monday, May 6
This year’s weeklong Westville Artwalk festival starts with family activities, an artist’s reception and a kickoff pizza party today between 5 and 7 p.m. at Mitchell Library and finishes, on the other side of a busy week, with a neighborhood festival featuring 50+ arts and artisan vendors; activities and performances; a pet parade and a rubber duck race; and a dunk tank and food trucks.
Tuesday, May 7
The winners of the Yale School of Music’s annual chamber music competition perform works by Bartók, Beethoven, Prokofiev and Walton at 7:30 p.m. in Morse Recital Hall.
Wednesday, May 8
Enjoy a midweek movie night one of four ways.
From 6 to 8 p.m., Yale’s Beinecke Library screens two films: Gina’s Journey: The Search for William Grimes, which “follows the quest of one woman, Regina Mason, in tracing the steps of her ancestor, who traveled along the Underground Railroad to freedom and authored the first fugitive slave narrative in U.S. history,” and What Could Have Been, which examines local efforts to “create the nation’s first Black college in 1831—the dawn of the abolition movement—only to be rejected by white property owners of the city.”
At 6:30, East Rock Brewing hosts a Harry Potter movies-themed trivia night.
A new monthly “CULT NIGHT!” screening series proceeds at 7 at Hamden’s Best Video. “The title will be a surprise each month but know that it will be pulled from the Cult section and is sure to horrify, befuddle, and delight fans of the wacky world of cult movies.”
And the Movies in the Plaza series proceeds at 8, with a weather-dependent screening of La La Land outside in Pitkin Plaza.
Thursday, May 9
At 5:30 p.m. in the Yale University Art Gallery, Yale Center for British Art curator Elizabeth Wyckoff and Morgan Library and Museum curator Jennifer Tonkovich discuss the subject of the YCBA’s latest publication: Turner’s Last Sketchbook. The famed British painter J. M. W. Turner “seldom left home without a sketchbook. Over the course of his lifetime, he filled more than three hundred, most of them small enough to carry in his pocket. This facsimile represents Turner’s last known intact sketchbook, now in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art.”
Meanwhile, starting at 6 at Yale’s O.C. March Lecture Hall, archaeologist and author Eric Cline “tells the story of what happened after the Bronze Age collapsed—why some civilizations endured, why some gave way to new ones, and why some disappeared forever.”
Friday, May 10
At 2 p.m. at Ives Main Library, “visual archivist” Joe Taylor “show[s] historical photos and postcards of lost New Haven buildings and what replaced them.”
At 8 or 9, Cafe Nine hosts a bill with three local bands: Dagwood, whose sound jumps around from power pop to alternative rock to post punk to indie rock; new garage rock act WasteWorld; and “rock & roll delinquents” The Problem With Kids Today.
Saturday, May 11
This year’s Wake Up the Green festival on the New Haven Green begins in earnest at 10 a.m. with a Powder House Day ceremony remembering the day Benedict Arnold effectively willed New Haven into joining the Revolutionary War. The rest of the itinerary, lasting through 4 p.m., includes volleyball and yoga; crypt tours in Center Church and stained glass tours in Trinity Church; a farm animal petting zoo and a reptile petting zoo; and a Mother’s Day Market as well as a bunch of other activities.
The first annual “Pride & Class” tractor trailer and food truck competition—sponsored, of all possibilities, by the CT Hurricanes drum and bugle corps—parks outside Sports Haven from 11 to 7 today and 11 to 5 tomorrow.
From noon to 3 in downtown Branford, the second annual Branford Book Festival invites us to “meet 60 authors in 36 shops” and “pick up a signed copy of a book written by a Connecticut author. New this year: a special children’s area with children’s authors and lots of fun activities for children and their families.”
From 2 to 10 at Armada Brewing, the first annual Dooley Fest, presented by DJ Dooley-O, promises “a festival of hip hop culture and arts” with vendors, a car show, live performances (including by rapper and ’90s producer-to-the-stars Large Professor) and DJ sets.
At 7:30 in Bethesda Lutheran Church, the New Haven Oratorio Choir, “a community-based, auditioned chamber choir whose mission is to provide the New Haven region with unique and intimate choral performances,” presents “Blossoms, Beasts and Birds,” a concert “featuring songs about nature in many moods.”
Sunday, May 12 - Mother’s Day
There are special holiday brunches at Gioia, Sherkaan, Amarante’s and Anthony’s (whose website is down as of this writing but will hopefully be back up at time of publication).
Something tells me Mom won’t be into this, but Barcade hosts a sanctioned pinball tournament at 2:30 p.m.
Written by Dan Mims. Image, featuring a moment during a past Artwalk, photographed by Dan Mims. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations, prices and other details before attending events.
