R eality and imagination mingle all week.
Monday, August 21
Days after Shakespeare returned to Edgerton Park, Yale’s Sterling Library, open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. today, unveils a new exhibit, The First Folio: Shakespeare for All Time?. “Celebrat[ing] a portion of the Elizabethan Club’s rare book collections,” the curation is built around the club’s copy of the First Folio, the first published anthology of Shakespeare’s plays and the reason many of them have survived.
At 6 p.m., Mitchell Library hosts a talk by New Haven native Greg Dillon about his 2022 book, The Thin Blue Lie: An Honest Cop vs. The FBI. In the 1990s, Dillon was working on a federal fugitive task force when he discovered that the FBI was falsifying evidence to obtain arrest warrants. After blowing the whistle, he faced retaliation from both the bureau and Connecticut’s Chief State’s Attorney, whom he successfully sued. But “even after a major courtroom victory and landmark decision, … [the] retaliation ha[d] only just begun,” according to the book’s website.
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Tuesday, August 22
At 6:30 p.m., RJ Julia in Madison hosts Janet Wallach to discuss her brand new book, Flirting with Danger: The Mysterious Life of Marguerite Harrison, Socialite Spy. Widowed at age 37 during World War I, Harrison, an American with a privileged upbringing, reportedly found work as a “society reporter”; applied to be a spy; “arrived in Berlin immediately after the Armistice and befriended the enemy, dining with aristocrats and dancing with socialists”; tried to warn her superiors about the fertile ground for renewed extremism in Germany; slipped into Russia to spy on the Bolsheviks; was caught and, to secure her freedom, pretended to turn double agent; and also, apparently, pursued an interest in documentary filmmaking.
Wednesday, August 23
If you need something light after all that intrigue, find it at 8 p.m. in Pitkin Plaza during the next Movies in the Plaza event, screening what I assume is the 2023 blockbuster The Super Mario Bros. Movie (and not the 1993 cult stinker Super Mario Bros.).
Thursday, August 24
At 8 p.m., Yale Summer Cabaret presents the first of five performances of “six brand new 10-minute plays.” According to an emailed press release, the plays were “written by residents of New Haven and the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale” and “explore what it means to find connection to loved ones and to yourself, in the midst of ongoing change and turmoil.”
Saturday, August 26
From 11 to 5, a Shops at Yale event on Broadway Island offers three local bands playing live music and four local artists live-painting murals, plus a craft activity, face painting, lunch specials (from Ay! Arepa) and a school supplies drive with United Way of Greater New Haven.
From noon to 4 in Hamden’s Town Center Park, the Hamden Food Truck Festival promises “over two dozen food trucks”; “fun activities and live music”; and free school supplies to go with vouchers for free services.
Also from noon to 4, in Scantlebury Park, a Community Health Fair presented by the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation aims to “encourage healthy lifestyles, prevent and manage disease and connect you to resources.” The docket includes health screenings, educational discussions and “music, food, fun and prizes.”
From 6 to 8, it’s back to Pitkin Plaza for a Mural Mixer celebrating the completion of a mural by Lindaluz Carrillo. “We’ll have a live DJ in the plaza, along with vendors inside of Strange Ways, bites and sips from local restaurants, and more!”
Also at 6, the 6th Dimension Afrofuturism Festival, “a city-wide decentralized art experience exploring Afrofuturism in all its intersections of visual art, performance, technology, literature and innovation,” begins with an opening reception for an art exhibition at The Lab at ConnCORP in Hamden. Expect “complimentary hors d’oeuvres, cash bar, DJ, and performances” while being “transport[ed]… to different realms.”
Sunday, August 27
New Haven Cocktail Week, “a festive week of education, tastings, and the best cocktails around” at 35 local bars, kicks off from 2 to 5 p.m. with a Spirits Ball at Gioia, the much-anticipated, not-yet-opened Italian rooftop concept on Wooster Street.
Written by Dan Mims. Image, by @DowntownNHV, features Lindaluz Carrillo in Pitkin Plaza near her in-progress mural. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations, prices and other details before attending events.
