This week is full of productions—live performances rehearsed over and over again to achieve refinement and consistency. This weekend is full of spontaneity-filled one-offs—a new art studio launch, an unusual talk from a U.S. senator, a potentially massive choose-your-own arts adventure and a zany competition that gives new meaning to the phrase “make your bed.”
Monday, October 12
Duos double up at The Space (295 Treadwell St, Hamden; 203-288-6400) tonight for an all-ages show with a 7:30 door time. Leading the duos is The Dodos, a guitar/vox-and-drums/percussion outfit that regularly exceeds the average indie band’s creativity index. Opening the bill is New Haven-based twosome Ports of Spain, which exports buttoned-up indie rock with a retro pop tinge good for turning Monday frowns upside-down. $15, or $13 in advance.
Tuesday, October 13
If you haven’t yet heard of the Broadway musical Book of Mormon—the heavy satire of Mormonism written by the creators of South Park, who very much enjoy testing the limits of free speech and good taste—you’ve been living under a seer stone. This week marks your chance to both see and hear the show without having to travel a couple of hours each way. A six-day, eight-performance run starts at 7:30 tonight at The Shubert (247 College St, New Haven; 203-562-5666), where showtimes are either completely or very nearly sold out. $107-161.
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Wednesday, October 14
Albeit not quite as sneak-y as last Wednesday’s Suffragette preview—because this next one has already opened in New York and L.A.—the Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St, New Haven) has another free sneak preview tonight in Steve Jobs. According to highly satisfied critics, the film—written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Michael Fassbender—is snappy, smart and dramatic. But it’s not a biopic of the Apple Computer cofounder/visionary. Rather it’s an “impressionistic portrait” (as Sorkin is said to have described it), a character study focused on pivotal moments of the master pitchman’s career, which have been pulled out and magnified into engrossing vignettes. 7 p.m.
Thursday, October 15
“The daily heartaches and victories of life amidst relentless disease” get illuminated in Yale Cabaret’s MoonSong, which begins a three-day run tonight at 8 p.m. “Mom” has multiple sclerosis, the play’s description says, and “Son,” in trying to help, doesn’t realize he’s holding her back. For Yale Cab, it’s unusually heavy-sounding stuff, but in a familiar setting: the company’s basement black box dinner theater at 217 Park Street, where bright-eyed troupe members are also hosts, ushers and servers. $20, or $15 for Yale faculty/staff and $12 for students. (203) 432-1566.
Friday, October 16
Start City-Wide Open Studios 2015’s “Transported Weekend” a smidge early tonight, thanks to the launch party for new art studio “No Pop” (130 Park St, 2nd Floor, New Haven). With a perhaps ironic front door—painted bright yellow, like Roy Lichtenstein’s idea of blonde—cofounder Laura Marsh says No Pop is intended to “provide a bridge between artists who are in dialogue with Yale and New Haven’s many communities.” CWOS organizers, meanwhile, say it’s meant “to reclaim the value of artistic production and offer art and education that relates to everyday practice.” As for the debut exhibition, which’ll be on display during the party, Yale’s calendar says, “Immersive sculpture and installation challenge our everyday spatial perceptions. Artists Aude Jomini, Phil Lique, Laura Marsh and Michael Queenland explore the relationships between wall, floor and ceiling by protruding, expanding and suspending forms.” 6 to 9 p.m. Free.
Over at Marquand Chapel (409 Prospect St, New Haven) at 7:30 p.m., U.S. Senator Christopher Coons (D-Delaware), an alumnus of the ethics program at the Yale Divinity School, gives a free hourlong talk as part of YDS’s “Transformational Leadership for Church and Society” series. According to William Goettler, an associate dean at the divinity school, Coons is planning to discuss “the challenges facing a trained ethicist when laboring in the political realm,” which it’s easy to imagine are plentiful and vexing.
Saturday, October 17
Building from “Alternative Space Weekend,” which brought artists and arts appreciators to one big place last Saturday and Sunday, Transported Weekend—engaging 59 listed artists and studios, six “special events” and four curators leading tours today and tomorrow—spreads out across a prodigious number of locations around the city and beyond. Plot your course.
Sunday, October 18
In the broad strokes, bed racing is pretty much just what it sounds like: people putting wheels on beds and then racing each other. They do this in teams, with one person in the vehicle and several others pushing, often devising themed costumes to go with elaborate bed decorations. Today on the city green, in a revival of an “iconic” tradition that apparently last occurred in 1990, New Haven’s beds will ride again. It’s the 2015 New Haven Bed Race, raising funds to benefit the Associated Irish Societies (sponsor of the Greater New Haven St. Patrick’s Day Parade) and The Farnam Community, and though it’s too late to register as a racer, you can still go down to the city green and enjoy the show, which includes a tricked-out parade starting at 10 a.m. followed by noontime racing. Rain or shine. Free to attend.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims. Readers are encouraged to verify times, locations and prices before attending events.
