New Haven is full of doom and bloom this week, with the latter winning out thanks to a late surge of wonder, service and grace, plus a flowery festival.
Monday, April 18 – Tax Day
If you haven’t filed your taxes yet, now’s the time. Just try to get it done before 6:30 p.m., which’ll free you up to attend a peculiar occasion at the Loria Center for the History of Art (190 York St, New Haven). Styled as “A Night at the Movies” with Yale School of Art dean Robert Storr, the event features a live discussion with “legendary filmmakers and producers” (and married couple) Roger and Julie Corman, followed by a screening of Roger’s “horror classic art film” A Bucket of Blood (1959). Free.
Tuesday, April 19
The monthly “Listen Here” series—in which New Haven Theater Company performers read short stories curated by members of the New Haven Review before an audience full of “freshly baked cookies” (plus tea and hot chocolate) at the Institute Library (847 Chapel St, New Haven; 203-562-4045)—continues tonight at 7. Connected by the theme “Pushed,” the works to be read are Rebecca Curtis’s “Summer, with Twins,” involving a pair of twins you might very well not want to summer with, and Antonya Nelson’s “Control Group.” Free.
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Wednesday, April 20
Prepare to meet your doom. (Bring earplugs.) Doom/sludge/black metal band Inter Arma headlines the free 9:30 show at BAR tonight, bringing loud mantric music that’s deeply dystopic—hellish, really—but for the occasional glimpse of light and goodness. Second act Cable, based in northern Connecticut, qualifies as sludge, too, though it’s more apt to scream (unlike Arma, which demonically intones). Local opener Waken matches the others’ heavy guitars and plodding tempos, but it’s also the most melodic of the bunch, like a slower and heavier yet similarly pleasing version of Mer de Noms-era A Perfect Circle. 254 Crown Street, New Haven.
Thursday, April 21
In its semester finale, Yale Cabaret (217 Park St, New Haven; 203-432-1566) debuts a new musical by one of its stalwart members, Dylan Frederick. Lake Kelsey, it’s called, after the “quiet neighborhood of handsome lakefront homes” in which it’s set, and the rest of the teaser suggests both restraint and imagination: “Tonight in Lake Kelsey, adolescent boys go hunting, adolescent girls take sanctuary on a trampoline and the neighborhood boygirl makes an improbable escape attempt.” $20, or $15 for Yale faculty/staff and $12 for students.
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Friday, April 22 – Earth Day
The Peabody Museum of Natural History (170 Whitney Ave, New Haven; 203-432-8987) is celebrating Earth Day by bringing out “specimens from our collections that are rarely on display” and inviting attendees to “discover the beetles, birds and botanical bounty that share our planet.” Promising special “fun and engaging activities for the whole family,” admission costs $13, or $9 for seniors (65+) and $3 for youth (3-18). Entry is free for those under 3 years old.
Saturday, April 23
From 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., the New Haven Land Trust invites the public to mark Earth Day by cleaning up a patch of Long Wharf. Meet fellow cleaner-uppers at the “main entrance off of Long Wharf Drive next to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial”—so, near the southern tip of the long, thin park—and be sure to “wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.” No need to bring gloves or trash bags, by the way; NHLT’s got those covered.
Later, one New Haven spiritual institution celebrates two centuries of acceptance, while another hosts a depiction of the struggles of those still seeking it. The latter is Yale’s Marquand Chapel (409 Prospect St, New Haven), where a free performance of Teesri Dhun (“The Third Tune”), in which “four transgender performers from Pakistan… share their experiences of being neither man nor woman, in a search for God, love and identity,” starts at 7:30. The former is Episcopalian parish Trinity Church on the Green (northwest corner of Temple and Chapel Streets), where a blowout concert marks 200 years of central positioning in a historically Puritan city. Dubbed “Triumph of Tolerance: A Musical Celebration,” the show involves Orchestra New England, two of Trinity’s in-house choirs and contemporary dignitaries dressed as their 1816 counterparts—like current mayor Toni Harp as then-mayor Elizur Goodrich and congresswoman Rosa DeLauro as then-congressman Samuel Whittlesey Dana. General admission tickets cost $25 in advance or $30 at the door, with reserved seating running $40 a pop.
Sunday, April 24
The annual Wooster Square Cherry Blossom Festival happens today from noon to 4:30. Along with a mainstage pumping out live music (including from perennial favorite St. Luke’s Steel Band, pictured above) and “more than a dozen local food vendors”—plus “artists and authors, local non-profits and display tables with Wooster Square history”—the trees might still have their blossoms, which began to emerge last week. Free to attend.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.
