A ladybug festival, a pizza party and a cat prom help put the spring in late spring.
Monday, June 5
From 5:30 to 7 p.m., Mitchell Library holds its annual family-friendly Ladybug Release Festival. “Release live ladybugs into Mitchell’s garden, play outdoor games, eat a popsicle, make some ladybug themed crafts, and more!”
Tuesday, June 6
Summertime can be beach workout time. At 6:30 p.m., fitness instructor Tad-g kicks off a weekly series of drop-in group classes on the beach near West Haven’s Abbott Park, according to the provided map. “We use kettlebells, bands and light weights. If you need a kettlebell or a weight I will supply it, just let me know! $10 drop in fee. Come be one with nature!”
Or, at 7 p.m. at RJ Julia in Madison, you can hear from Amy Brady, the author of a brand new book on “the history of a hot commodity”: Ice.
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Thursday, June 8
Creative Arts Workshop hosts a 5 p.m. reception for two exhibitions of work by students at Educational Center for the Arts. Small small world “explores the inventive possibilities of scale and context through abstract, narrative and representational artworks.” Senior showcase “is a student-curated and installed exhibition of work featuring video, drawing, painting, 4D digital and experimental media, printmaking, collage, sculpture, darkroom and digital photography made by ECA’s high school seniors.”
Also at 5 is a reception for May Brings Flowers: Memories Are Yours, an exhibition on the top-floor gallery at the Blake Hotel. “Since the first artist carved into the earth and put pigment on a surface, memories have been recorded,” a curatorial statement says. “Artists have been making work about their lives, particular people, places, or events. This exhibition… includes artists working across media and forms with varying subject matter. Still, through a curated lens, they speak to the shared experience of memories.”
From 7 to 9, Armada Brewing hosts the next installment of their Queen’s Lounge Comedy series, featuring seven comics including headliner JJ Matisse. “Ticket price”—$23.18 with fees—“includes first beer or non-alcoholic beverage!”
Friday, June 9
At 6 p.m., the Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop in Hamden hosts a gathering offering local pizza, a film about local pizza and “a mind-blowing silent auction” to benefit Best Video Film & Cultural Center and the New Haven Documentary Film Festival (a.k.a. NHdocs).
Meanwhile, at 7, Madison Lyric Stage presents the first of two parts of the “herculean” Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play Angels in America, “a complex, often metaphorical and at times symbolic, examination of AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s.” Tonight’s show is the first of six performances total this weekend and next.
At 8, “Tony and Grammy nominee Jeremy Jordan comes to [the] Shubert Theatre for a one-night-only concert featuring the songs that defined his rise to the Broadway stage and the big screen.”
At 8:30 and 10, the Josh Lawrence Quintet takes the intimate stage at Firehouse 12. Judging by this and this video, the show should be both prodigious and playful—and not quite so far out there as other experimental jazz.
Saturday, June 10
After weeks of lead-up, it’s the first official day of the 2023 International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Events for kids, a climate/transportation summit and an interactive art project during the day preface this year’s first concert on the Green, at 6 p.m., featuring the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and “one of Africa’s most prominent musicians,” the singer Angélique Kidjo, who electrified New Haven at Arts & Ideas 2015. FYI, a similarly active but otherwise completely different itinerary proceeds tomorrow, concluding at 6 p.m. on the Green with a “Beer Fest” and a concert featuring Grupo Tentación and QUITAPENAS.
From 10 a.m. to noon, the New Haven Botanical Garden of Healing hosts a sobering but perhaps also hopeful Annual Day of Remembrance honoring local victims of gun violence.
From 10 to 2, Pride in the Park celebrates LGBTQ Pride Month at Hamden Town Center Park. “Festivities at the free, family-friendly celebration will include hostesses Summer Orlando and Barbra Joan Streetsand, live music by Row DaSilva and Carrie Ashton and Dj Tony! There will be plenty of food trucks, nonprofits, vendors, kids’ activities and much more,” plus an after-party at 3 at Aunt Chilada’s.
Also at 10, until 4 p.m., the Connecticut Air & Space Center in Stratford celebrates 100 years of Sikorsky. According to a Facebook listing, “The museum will have on display its vintage 50s/60s-era helicopters alongside modern [helos] from Sikorsky! Not to mention simulators, models, displays, and more!”
A 2:30 artists’ reception for joint exhibition Realignment at Kehler Liddell Gallery finds “two longtime artists realign[ing] themselves with their artistic roots”: Robert Bienstock, whose “abstract art focuses on space-filling linear patterns and their intersections,” and Kate Henderson, who uses “gestural and contour line techniques” to “interpret[] components of the natural world and create[] an imaginary realm of passages.”
Sunday, June 11
Will you go to Cat Prom with meow? “Was your prom missing something? Maybe a bunch of cats? Join us”—Mew Haven Cat Cafe—“for a masquerade-style prom, don a sparkly cat mask, take some prom photos in front of sparkly lights, and see who wins cat prom king and queen!” As of this writing, spots are available at 4, 5 and 6 p.m. (Friday’s and Saturday’s slots are all sold out.)
Written by Dan Mims. Image 1, featuring Angélique Kidjo at IFAI in 2015, photographed by Dan Mims. Image 2, featuring local pizza, photographed by Dan Mims. Image 3, featuring the New Haven Botanical Garden of Healing, photographed by Kathy Leonard Czepiel. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.
