International Festival of Arts & Ideas

This Week in New Haven (June 19 - 25)

As a major local-global festival approaches the finish line, new beginnings emerge both on and off the course.

Monday, June 19
The final many-splendored week of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas begins today, as does one of its big highlights: The End of TV, a festival-commissioned world premiere that โ€œpeers through the neon reflections of late 20th-century advertising and television culture and into the American imagination as it existed at the onset of the internet age.โ€ Written and performed by Manual Cinema, a theater company that โ€œtransforms the experience of attending the cinemaโ€ by combining live silhouettesโ€”from life-sized people to gigantic cola bottlesโ€”and filmed material, showtimes are 8 p.m. today through Thursday at the University Theatre (222 York St, New Haven). Regular tickets cost $35, with premium options for high-rollers and discounts for youth and seniors.

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World War I: Beyond the Front Lines at Knights of Columbus Museum

Tuesday, June 20
From 12:30 to 1 p.m., the Yale Center for British Art hosts a German who works in Scotland discussing a Dutchman. The German is Tico Seifert, a senior curator for the Scottish National Gallery; the Dutchman is Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, better known simply as Rembrandt; and the title of the free talk is โ€œRembrandt and Britain.โ€ 1080 Chapel Street, New Haven. (203) 432-2800.

Wednesday, June 21
Itโ€™s the longest day of the year. Filling the prolonged last bit of it is the kick-off to the New Haven Museumโ€™s 2017 Twilight Concert Series at the centuries-old Pardee-Morris House (325 Lighthouse Rd, New Haven). Tonightโ€™s performer, taking the stage at 7 p.m., is Java Groove, โ€œa swing band full of energy, fun and classic tunes.โ€ Along with blankets and lawn chairs, bringing food is encouraged, or you can buy wood-fired pizza from the Frank Andrews Mobile Kitchen. Free.

Thursday, June 22
Vocalist and guitarist Mark Mulcahy, of local Miracle Legion and national Polaris note, performs his new gem of a solo album, The Possum in the Driveway, tonight at Lyric Hall (827 Whalley Ave, New Haven; 203-389-8885). Even when his angular voice is questioning past decisionsโ€”missing an ex-lover, for instance, or contemplating its owner as an agent of misfortuneโ€”Mulcahyโ€™s songwriting feels self-assured, making a series of quirky instrumentations, which range from the carnivalesque to the retro churchy, feel completely natural. Tickets to the show cost $20, while differing showtimes listed onlineโ€”7 p.m. at the ticket link versus 8:30 at Lyric Hallโ€™s websiteโ€”suggest itโ€™s a good idea to double-check with the venue on that score.

Friday, June 23
This weekend, Artspace (50 Orange St, New Haven; 203-772-2709) celebrates 30 years of existenceโ€”or, as its new exhibit describes them, Three Decades of Changeโ€”with a reunion. The free and public but registration-required itinerary, which begins tonight with a 5 p.m. check-in and cocktail, includes โ€œpanel discussions with Artspace alumni, workshops for artists, a book talk and an exciting live drawing event,โ€ plus an opening reception for Change, which โ€œ some of the most important exhibitions in our 30-year history.โ€

Playing from the top of Harkness Tower for an audience down in Branford Collegeโ€™s main courtyard (74 High St, New Haven), the Yale Guild of Carillonneurs begins its free weekly summer concert series this evening. With doors opening at 6:30 and tunes going at 7, the seasonโ€™s first performer is alumna and longtime advisor Ellen Dickinson.

Saturday, June 24
Arts & Ideas goes out with a bang tonight: a free concert on the green featuring the legendary The Wailersโ€”the very same that backed the reggae icon Bob Marleyโ€”and Rusted Root, which fuses โ€œroots music and world rockโ€ with jam band vibes. 7 p.m.

Sunday, June 25
โ€œThe men of Troy have been slaughtered. Their wives and daughtersโ€”prime plunder of a 10-year war they never asked forโ€”await their fate as slaves of the victorious Greeks.โ€ Thatโ€™s how Yale Summer Cabaret (217 Park St, New Haven; 203-432-1567) sets up The Trojan Women, its second production of the season, which opened on Friday with an all-female cast. Originally written by Euripides and produced in ancient Greece, Summer Cabโ€™s Women is a Syrian civil war-focused update on a 1995 translation by Ellen McLaughlin, who had in turn geared it towards that eraโ€™s Bosnian conflict. Todayโ€™s show happens at 8 p.m. and regular tickets cost $30, with discounts available for students and Yale faculty/staff.

Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Image depicts a scene from IFAIโ€™s concert on the green last night. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.

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