S pring? Sprung. It’s reflected in the city’s resplendent tree flowerings; in other trees’ emergent green buds, soon to be leaves; and in this week’s increasingly outdoor-friendly events, like an art opening featuring outdoorsy subjects, an annual arts fair that’s going all out, so to speak, and a fundraising gala that gets us mixing and mingling inside before we dine outside.
Monday, May 4
Acid Mothers Temple’s music is even less sensical than its name. “4000000000000000 Love Hotel” starts out sounding like a bunch of confused pixies, with kiddish discord between synth bells and flutes. 30 seconds in, it transitions into something else entirely, a noisy wail-scape of reverb-heavy guitars and drums, the latter kept far back in the mix. “Chakra 24,” on the other hand, is like a drunken, cross-cultural frontier ballad, as if soundtracking a 19th-century Japanese-American western. Apparently, AMT’s unconventional stylings are just crazy enough to work. Touring internationally since 1998, the band stops tonight at Cafe Nine (250 State St, New Haven; 203-789-8281), where other road warriors, the 1987-formed ST 87 and 1998-formed Landing, lead off an 8 p.m., $15 bill.
Tuesday, May 5
Cinco de Mayo gets at least two explicit celebrations today in New Haven. Elm City Market (777 Chapel St, New Haven; 203-624-0441) puts on a lunchtime “Cinco de Mayo Fiesta,” promising “free tastings of quesadillas, enchiladas and house-made guacamole” between noon and 2 p.m., and turning its hot bar over to Mexican-inspired cuisine for the day. Later, starting at 6 p.m., Arte Inc. (19 Grand Ave, New Haven; 203-469-4536), a non-profit that fosters and highlights local Latino art, is hosting a celebration offering food, sangria, tequila, music, raffles “and more” for $25 per person.
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Wednesday, May 6
At 7 p.m., Long Wharf Theatre opens previews for the world premiere of The Second Mrs. Wilson, a play chronicling the year and a half when Edith Wilson, second wife of stroke-stricken president Woodrow Wilson, essentially ran the Oval Office. As Long Wharf describes it, it’s a “stylish and romantic recounting of the real-life incident when a woman became the de facto president of the United States.” $59.50-79.50. 222 Sargent Dr, New Haven. (203) 787-4282.
Thursday, May 7
From 4 to 6 p.m., the Mitchell Branch of the New Haven Free Public Library (37 Harrison St, New Haven; 203-946-8117) hosts a free opening reception to mark A Brush with Nature, a new exhibition showcasing detailed depictions of plants and animals. Each of the five artists contributing to the show is an instructor with the Connecticut Natural Science Illustrators, a group that offers classes to budding nature artists.
Friday, May 8
Today and tomorrow, ArtWalk 2015 enlists seemingly every public-facing space there is in the heart of Westville. Highlights include a “Central Avenue Street Party” tonight from 6 to 10—turning the lot where Delaney’s used to be into a beer garden replete with food trucks, a fashion show, a dance party and an “interactive light show”—and the traditional “ArtWalk” itself tomorrow, when streets near Whalley and Fountain are closed off from 11 in the morning until 5 in the evening, given over to artisans and musicians and pedestrians, instead of the usual vehicular traffic.
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Saturday, May 9
Creative Arts Workshop (80 Audubon St, New Haven; 203-562-4927) holds its annual fundraising gala tonight under the theme “Full Steam Ahead.” Featuring a “dinner under the stars” (in the Park of the Arts out back) plus silent and live auctions filled with artwork by CAW faculty and other established artists, the indoor-outdoor party starts at 5 p.m., with tickets starting at $175.
Following a Pink Floyd tribute show last Friday and an acoustic Lyle Lovett/John Hiatt show last Saturday, brand-new venue College Street Music Hall (238 College St, New Haven) is on a roll going into its third-ever show tonight. Headliner Polaris, the “house band” that performed the music (and stars in the opening credits) of the cult-classic Nickelodeon program The Adventures of Pete & Pete, has a surprising local connection: it was created out of the ashes of Miracle Legion, the New Haven act that led the local rock scene during the ’80s and early ’90s and which almost hit it big. Another significant local music connection on the bill comes in the form of opener Mighty Purple, whose heyday lasted from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s (and whose co-founder, Steve Rodgers, also founded the Space complex in Hamden). The middle act on the 8 p.m. bill is Mates of State, a nationally known duo which also has local ties: the husband-and-wife team apparently lived in East Haven from 2004 to 2007, before moving to Stratford. $20.
Sunday, May 10
From May 8 to May 15, Yale Drama’s 10th annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays stages “three fully-produced plays by graduating playwrights,” each getting four rotating performances inside the Iseman Theater (1156 Chapel St, New Haven). There’s Deer and the Lovers by Emily Zemba, “a comedy about being lost in love, lost in the woods and searching for purpose when life veers off-track.” There’s Preston Montfort—An American Tragedy by Ryan Campbell, which “tracks the growing tension of a community stretched to its breaking point.” And there’s Phillip Howze’s The Children, a “fierce and funny contemporary musical [that] upends our perceptions of family” and community, and whose first of four showings happens tonight at 8. Across the board, tickets go for $20, or $15 for students.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Image depicts a tree outside St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church (830 Whitney Ave, New Haven). Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.
