This Week in New Haven (January 14 – 20)

A life-sized board game, a man divided 69 ways, a total lunar eclipse—and that’s just the weekend. 

Monday, January 14
Pinnacle Squash, a youth academy based at the Brady Squash Center (pictured above) in Yale’s Payne Whitney Gym (70 Tower Pkwy, New Haven), presents an exhibition match between elite players Nicolas Müller (ranked 18th in the world as of this writing) and Vikram Malhotra (ranked 58th). Proceeds from tickets, which cost $20 for adults and $12 for students under 18, benefit Squash Haven, an after-school program that aims to give local kids a surer and stronger path to college. “To purchase tickets, please email [email protected].”

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Miller, Mississippi at Long Wharf Theatre

Tuesday, January 15
At 8 p.m., hard-to-classify foursome WHY?—whose music is described by promoters as “wryly written, poignantly posed, simultaneously swaggering and heart-rending song-rap that jangles like folk, bursts like psych-rock and sways like chamber pop”—is performing its album Alopecia at Space Ballroom (295 Treadwell St, Hamden; 203-573-1600). Opening the show is singer-songwriter and guitarist Sarah Beth Tomberlin, who goes by just her last name on stage and leans toward introspection and ethereality in her soft, patient music. $18.

Wednesday, January 16
At 6 p.m., Olives and Oil (124 Temple St, New Haven; 203-891-5870) hosts a “Winter Wonderland Drag Extravaganza” featuring local drag performers and specialty cocktails. But it’s not just a show; it’s also a benefit, with “10% of sales and 100% of the raffle proceeds from the evening go[ing] to the [New Haven] Pride Center.” No cover.

Thursday, January 17
Eric Larson, who used to head up Yale’s Marsh Botanical Garden, “brings over 40 years of gardening experience in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and here in Connecticut” to a talk he’s giving at 7 p.m. The talk, part of the Garden Lecture Series at the carriage house in Edgerton Park (75 Cliff St, New Haven), is titled “A Four-Season Garden: The Plants and Strategies That Make It Happen.”

“An incisive and shocking dark comedy that keeps you in its claustrophobic grip until the final moment,” Joel Drake Johnson’s Rasheeda Speaking “examines the realities of a so-called ‘post-racial’ society when two co-workers are driven apart by their racialized assumptions,” leading to “a chilling power struggle… that spins wildly out of control.” The play begins a 10-show run at the Collective Consciousness Theatre in Erector Square (315 Peck St, New Haven) tonight at 8, with regular tickets costing $25 and student tickets going for $10.

Friday, January 18
From 3 to 5 p.m., Hagaman Memorial Library (227 Main St, East Haven; 203-468-3890) is offering “middle [school], high school and college students” the chance to “pass through the peppermint forest, survive the menace of the molasses swamp and join us for a giant board game event.” And it literally is a giant board game: a life-sized version of Candy Land, where “YOU’LL be the playing pieces” and the prize for participating is real candy. Registration requested.

Saturday, January 19
A unique performance comes to a unique performance space at 3 p.m., when the Yale Center for British Art (1080 Chapel St, New Haven; 203-432-2800) hosts “the Olivier Award-winning British director and actor Guy Masterson” for a “multiaward-winning solo performance of Dylan Thomas’s masterpiece Under Milk Wood.” “Bringing all 69 characters to vivid life, Masterson, nephew of the late great Welsh actor Richard Burton, takes you to the pulsing, delightful, hilarious and poignant heart of Llareggub, a fictional sea town somewhere in Wales, in this intimate and richly entertaining performance full of charm and wit.”

Sunday, January 20
Getting a jump on tomorrow’s holiday, the two-day, 23rd annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Legacy of Social and Environmental Justice event at the Peabody Museum (170 Whitney Ave, New Haven; 203-432-8987) kicks off at noon. Today’s itinerary includes live performances in the Great Hall of Dinosaurs and, at Kroon Hall (195 Prospect St, New Haven), a Teen Summit.

Weather permitting, Leitner Observatory (355 Prospect St, New Haven; 203-432-3000) is holding a special public viewing session from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. The reason for it is tonight’s total lunar eclipse, a celestial event in which a full moon is thrown into Earth’s shadow. Free; “bring warm clothing!”

Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.

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Dan has worked for a couple of major media companies, but he likes Daily Nutmeg best. As DN’s editor, he writes, photographs, edits and otherwise shepherds ideas into fully realized feature stories.

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