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Ivoryton, CT – May 14, 2024 Stacia Libby, one of the Board of Selectman of the town of Essex, was going through her great grandfather’s paperwork and discovered this ticket for a production at the Ivoryton Playhouse. The ticket says “Special Defense Workers Discount” and it was for a production that took place in the summer of 1942. Many of the staff of the Playhouse had already enlisted and headed off to war, including business manager Irving Stiefel who joined the U.S. Coastguard. Gas rationing made it increasingly difficult for people to travel to Ivoryton and so, halfway through their 13th season in Ivoryton, the company of players moved their shows to Bulkeley High School in New London where they would remain until the end of the war. The special discount for defense workers in 1942 was a 35-cent ticket – what a deal! The Playhouse is continuing that tradition for all active military and veterans with a special $30 ticket for military and spouses for this production of SWINGTIME CANTEEN – running May 16 - . Come join us as we step back in time to the swinging 40s and relive the laughter and the tears with the unforgettable music of the Andrews Sisters, Vera Lynn, Johnny Mercer and so many more. Set against the backdrop of the second World War, SWINGTIME CANTEEN follows the story of a group of female entertainers who form a USO band and embark on a journey to entertain American troops overseas. Packed with iconic songs from the era and heartfelt moments, this production promises to captivate audiences of all ages. Directed by original off-Broadway cast member Amy Jones and featuring a stellar all-female cast of actor/musicians, SWINGTIME CANTEEN is a celebration of resilience, friendship, and the power of music to uplift spirits in times of adversity. "We are thrilled to bring SWINGTIME CANTEEN to the Ivoryton Playhouse stage," said Ben Hope, Executive Producer at Ivoryton Playhouse. "This show highlights the courage and resilience of the human spirit, but it also exemplifies the power of music. Music can sustain us through our darker struggles, help us express our complicated experiences, and also has the power to connect us to our past. This show is a testament to the magic of music.” Don't miss your chance to experience the magic of SWINGTIME CANTEEN at Ivoryton Playhouse. Performance Schedule: First Previews: May 16th, 2024 Opening Night: May 17th, 2024 Show Dates: May 16th through June 9th, 2024 Performance Times: Wednesdays—2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Thursdays—7:30, Fridays and Saturdays—8 p.m., Sundays—2 p.m. Added 2 pm Matinee - Tuesday, June 4th. Tickets for Swingtime Canteen are now on sale and are $60 for adults, $55 for seniors, and $25 for students. $30 for active military personnel and veterans. Tickets are available online at ivorytonplayhouse.org or by calling the box office at 860.767.7318. (For information on group rates, please contact the box office.) The Playhouse is located at 103 Main Street in Ivoryton.

Performances May 30-June 16 at The Legacy Theatre in Branford, CT BRANFORD, CT May 8, 2024 – The Legacy Theatre kicks off their 2024 Mainstage Season with David Birney’s entertaining adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve. The production is set to run May 30-June 16, with performances Thursdays at 7pm, Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm, and Sundays at 2pm, with additional performances on Saturday, June 1 and Saturday, June 15 at 8pm, and Thursday June 6 at 2pm. Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve is the portrait of two very unusual people: those first lovers who met under rather complicated circumstances and found a way to build a life together. Written through the eyes of America’s greatest humorist, Mark Twain’s story set within the Garden of Eden bursts with wit, laughter, and the lyric poignance of the first love and the first loss, taking audiences on a delightful journey of self-discovery and exploration. The production is set to star Rod Brogan and Mariah Sage in the titular roles. Brogan starred as series regular Chip Russell in the first season of the CBS sitcom Major Dad and as bad guy Tripp Tucker on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live. Sage has been seen on the Legacy stage in productions such as last season’s hit comedy, The Play That Goes Wrong, and the comedy-thriller Deathtrap, and is a professional actor/acting coach based in New Haven with more than 20 years of performance experience. Jonathan Onyango and Christine Voytko serve as understudies for the production. Legacy is partnering with the Mark Twain House and Museum for the production, and the team at the Twain House will present a talkback in collaboration with the theatre on Thursday, June 13 following the 7pm performance. Performance attendees are welcome to stay after that evening’s show to learn more about Twain and his wife, Livy, as well as the history of Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve, concluding with a Q&A with audience members. “We’re very happy to partner with the historic Mark Twain House in Hartford for this production,” said Jeff Provost, Legacy’s Managing Director. “Connecticut was Twain’s home for nearly two decades and he died here in our state. To hear his words, written in two separate literary pieces and at different times in his life, come together so beautifully (in Birney’s adaptation) on our Legacy stage is both a thrill and an honor.” Tickets for Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve are on sale now and can be purchased through the Box Office (203.315.1901) or Legacy’s website, LegacyTheatreCT.org. The Box Office is open Monday-Friday, 10am-3pm on non-performance days. For a full schedule of Box Office hours and performances, please visit Legacy’s website. Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve is sponsored by Branford Coworking and WSHU Public Radio, and Legacy Theatre’s 2024 Mainstage Season is sponsored by Atlas Healthcare. The Legacy Theatre is located in the village of Stony Creek in Branford, CT, at 128 Thimble Islands Road. The Legacy Theatre is committed to providing live theatre and related programming that is accessible to the widest possible audience. Full accessibility and accommodations details can be found on Legacy’s website or by calling the Box Office.

Two One-Act Plays Featuring Stories of Survival and Threads of Connection ​​Old Saybrook, CT (May 6, 2024) - Shoreline Playwrights, in collaboration with Drama Works Theatre, will present “Fractured Resilience,” two one-act plays by Laura Thoma and Teresa Mella Fogel, featuring stories of survival and threads of connection.   Performances will be Friday, June 7, and  Saturday, June 8, at 7:30 pm and Sunday, June 9, at 3:00. Laura Thoma will present “Meet Me in the Lobby,” featuring Elise Murphy Mulligan as Flossy Henshaw and Michael Vernon Davis as Parks, directed by Laura Thoma.   While staying at the Savoy, Flossy Henshaw finds a museum whose guide seems to hold the keys to her past, present, and future. Something about one of the paintings and that small statue connects her to another time, place, and a very special person. If only she could remember who. Teresa Mella Fogel will present “Community Service”, featuring Ellen Atwood as Eva and Eliza Benitez as Maria, directed by Rachel Babcock  A teenage girl is sentenced to 5 weeks of community service in a nursing home for her petty crime. Paired with a cantankerous old woman, the two find commonality in their dark view of the world. ​Laura Thoma is a Guilford resident who has been a theatre professional for most of her life. As an emerging playwright, she is fortunate to have her work published internationally and produced locally. Teresa Mella Fogel is an Old Saybrook resident. She is a published and produced playwright who came to playwriting in the second chapter of her life. Drama Works Theatre was founded by artistic director Ed Wilhelms in the fall of 2019. Wilhelms created Drama Works Theatre as a small intimate off-Broadway type of space. The forty-eight seat theatre is located in Old Saybrook off  95 and has convenient and ample parking. With many restaurants to choose from in the area, Ed's goal is to give people a reason to rethink having to take a train to experience an evening of powerful theatre.  For more information see www.shorelineplaywrights.com or www.dramaworkstheatre.org.

New Haven, Conn. (May 10, 2024) – In honor of Juneteenth, New Haven Museum will partner with Connecticut’s Old State House and Connecticut Freedom Trail to premiere the documentary, “Champion for Freedom: The Reverend Alexander Heritage Newton Story,” with preservationist and activist Dolly Marshall at Connecticut’s Old State House, 800 Main St., Hartford, on Saturday, June 15, 2024, at 1 p.m. Register here. The free NH250 event will include introductory remarks by John Mills, an independent scholar and president of the Alex Breanne Corporation. The Q&A will be led by Andre Keitt, Black narratives consultant for the Connecticut Freedom Trail. Refreshments will be provided by Hartford’s Fire by Forge. The short documentary was inspired by Newton’s autobiography and how his early life in the South influenced his activism during the struggle for freedom and equality. Born of a free mother and enslaved father, Newton became deeply involved in the abolitionist movement as a young man and championed anti-slavery causes. The film also features his enlistment in the 29th Connecticut Colored Infantry Regiment, in New Haven, to which the Newton family had migrated. Alexander wrote an autobiography, “Out of the Briars,” during his later years in New Jersey and gave detailed recollections of many historical events. After moving to New Haven in 1860, Alexander’s mother, Mary, raised money to free his father, Thaddeus. Mary sold ice cream and fruit from a cart and washed the clothes of soldiers at Criscuolo Park, where the 29th Regiment was billeted, and was able to save $100 to take out a $300 mortgage on a home on Winter Street in in 1863. Thaddeus was a trustee for Bethel AME Church. Thaddeus died in 1868, and Mary remained in New Haven until her death in 1904. Both are both buried at Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven. Most importantly, Marshall notes, “Champion for Freedom” underscores ways African Americans developed agency over their lives and the courageous actions they took to fulfill their potential. The documentary concludes with discussion on the importance of preserving African American heritage sites, their legacies, and ways to inspire the younger generation. “I believe storytelling has the power to be transformative,” Marshall says. “I hope visitors will come to appreciate how telling stories through cemetery preservation relates to our collective history and helps amplify voices of those left out of the historical narrative.” Mills will provide an overview of Connecticut's role in the Civil War and the series of events that led up to the creation of the 29th Connecticut Colored Regiment. A descendant of the enslaved, Mills believes a deeper understanding of history and the presentation of the personal ties of our descendants can help build bridges of understanding and create better communication. His non-profit, Alex Breanne Corporation, is working to repair the Newton headstone and name a New Haven-street corner "Thaddeus & Mary Newton Avenue."

New Haven, Conn. (May 13, 2024) – Historian and archaeologist Jim Powers will share the story of more than 14,000 years of Quinnipiac and Indigenous life in Connecticut during,  “The Quinnipiac: The First People of the Shoreline,” at the Pardee-Morris House on Sunday, June 23, 2024, at 2 p.m. Register for this free NH250 event here. For weather updates check FB/IG or call 203-562-4183. Powers, who was instrumental in establishing the Quinnipiac Dawnland Museum at Dudley Farm, in Guilford, will illustrate the story of the Quinnipiac People and their ancestors from the end of the Ice Age through the arrival of the Dutch and then English Colonists in the early 17th century. He will highlight the catastrophic impact of the European arrival on the Quinnipiac and present the reasons for their eventual dispersal to join other groups in Connecticut and beyond. He will have copies of his recently published historical novel on the same topic, “Shadows Over Dawnland,” available for purchase. Powers is a life-long historian, archaeologist, and teacher. When an extensive collection of Quinnipiac artifacts was donated to the Dudley Farm Museum, where he was volunteering, he  began the curation of the artifacts that led to the building of the Quinnipiac Dawnland Museum at Dudley Farm. Powers’ aim is for the public to gain a greater understanding of the story of Indigenous life in the region. The story remains relevant today, he maintains, because the public knows little of who the Quinnipiac were, their way of life, and the importance of their presence in the history of the region. He explains that prior to the arrival of English colonists to what is now New Haven, a series of disasters befell the Indigenous people of Connecticut. In 1633, a smallpox epidemic broke out among the Native people who lived in what is currently the Hartford area. Both the Dutch and the English had recently set up trading posts there and each blamed the other for the outbreak. By the end of 1634, 50 to 80 percent of Native people in Connecticut had died. In 1636, the Pequot War broke out between Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Pequot in southeastern Connecticut. When it was over, the Pequot were destroyed, and the English colonists dominated all surviving Native people in the state. English colonists arrived in 1638 to settle in the New Haven area, and by the late 1600's surviving Quinnipiac could no longer maintain their traditional way of life. By the late 1680's, their dispersal away from the area along the shoreline began and few Quinnipiac remained in the area by the late 18th century.

Katie Barton, Marcy McGuigan & Claire-Frances Sullivan Photo: Ben Hope Ivoryton Playhouse is thrilled to announce the eagerly awaited production of "Swingtime Canteen," set to hit the stage on May 16th. Audiences are invited to step back in time to the swinging 1940s and experience the magic of this nostalgic musical journey. Set against the backdrop of the second World War, "Swingtime Canteen" follows the story of a group of female entertainers who form a USO band and embark on a journey to entertain American troops overseas. Packed with iconic songs from the era and heartfelt moments, this production promises to captivate audiences of all ages. Directed by original off-Broadway cast member Amy Jones and featuring a stellar all-female cast of actor/musicians, "Swingtime Canteen" is a celebration of resilience, friendship, and the power of music to uplift spirits in times of adversity. "We are thrilled to bring 'Swingtime Canteen' to the Ivoryton Playhouse stage," said Ben Hope, Executive Producer at Ivoryton Playhouse. "This show highlights the courage and resilience of the human spirit, but it also exemplifies the power of music. Music can sustain us through our darker struggles, help us express our complicated experiences, and also has the power to connect us to our past. This show is a testament to the magic of music.” Don't miss your chance to experience the magic of "Swingtime Canteen" at Ivoryton Playhouse. Performance Schedule: First Previews: May 16th, 2024 Opening Night: May 17th, 2024 Show Dates: May 16th through June 19th, 2024 Performance Times: Wednesdays—2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Thursdays—7:30, Fridays and Saturdays—8 p.m., Sundays—2 p.m. Added 2 pm Matinee: Tuesday, June 4th. Tickets for Swingtime Canteen are now on sale and are $60 for adults, $55 for seniors, and $25 for students. Tickets are available online at ivorytonplayhouse.org or by calling the box office at 860.767.7318. (For information on group rates, please contact the box office.) The Playhouse is located at 103 Main Street in Ivoryton.

Oddfellows Playhouse Teen Repertory Company presents Shakespeare’s As You Like It May 16 - 25. All performances will be held at Oddfellows Playhouse, 128 Washington Street, Middletown. As You Like It, written in 1599,  is one of Shakespeare’s most popular and accessible comedies. The play mostly takes place in the mythical Forest of Arden, and director Dic Wheeler has placed the production in a world which he refers to as “Clown Contemporary”. The fast-paced production features politics, love, exile, cross-dressing, great music, misplaced passion, wrestling, and includes some of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches ( including “All the world’s a stage…”) and, in the protagonist Rosalind, the largest role that he wrote for a female character. The play, which features a cast of 19 performers ages 14 - 20,  is directed by Oddfellows Artistic Director Dic Wheeler, with original choreography by Marcella Trowbridge. Costume Design is by Christian Milik, Scenic Design by Tina Hurlbert, Sound and Music by Joseph Getter, Lighting Design by Aaron Wescott, and Properties Design by Pam Lang, Tickets are $18 for adults and $10 for kids and students. “Big Heart” tickets are available for $25 for anyone who really loves and values theater and its impact on the lives of young people. Thursday, May 16 is a “Pay-What-You-Can” Preview. Tickets may be purchased at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/oddfellowsplayhouse/as-you-like-it. For more information, call (860) 347-6143, email info@oddfellows.org, or go to www.oddfellows.org.

Geological Map of Connecticut, 1842 New Haven, Conn. (May 3, 2024) –In the early 1800s, when the prevailing belief was that the earth was 6,000 years old and had been shaped by Noah’s flood, James Gates Percival showed that the traprock in the Connecticut valley was volcanic and far older. Author Kathleen Housley will present “Poet James Percival and the Geology of New England,” at the Pardee-Morris House on Sunday, June 9, 2024, at 2 p.m. For weather updates check FB/IG or call 203-562-4183. Free registration here. Based on her book, “Stone Breaker: The Poet James Gates Percival and the Beginning of Geology in New England,” Housley’s lecture will offer an accessible biography of Percival, a true American polymath. Exploring the confluences of literature, art, and geology, she will reveal how one of most famous poets of the 1820's became a renowned geologist with his groundbreaking “Report on the Geology of the State of Connecticut,” published in 1843.The presentation will include historic photographs and paintings of the Connecticut landscape. A poet, linguist, and unstable savant, Percival was also a brilliant geologist who walked thousands of miles across Connecticut and Wisconsin to lay the foundation for generations of earth scientists. During the 1820s, Percival was considered one of the foremost poets in the United States with the talent to challenge the hegemony of British poets, such as Byron and Shelly. His poetry was read by future poets, among them Henry David Thoreau and Emily Dickinson. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, and William Cullen Bryant, all read his books. Unfortunately, says Housley, Percival’s emotional fragility coupled with a sea change in the nature of American poetry assured his fame was short-lived. As the state’s first geologist, Percival’s main interest was the traprock ridges that stretch in a broken line from north to south, beginning in Massachusetts, crossing Connecticut, and ending at Long Island Sound. The ridges run relatively straight until they reach the center of Connecticut, near Percival’s birthplace in Kensington. It was these ridges, now known as the Metacomet range, which stirred Percival’s sense of wonder. One of his insights was that the ridges were not formed during a single geological event, but by several events over a vast period of time. The advances in the new science of geology in the 19th century were important. Percival and others looked at rock from a different perspective, recognizing that upwelling magma between sedimentary layers reshaped parts of New England. What they discovered led to changes in the way the public understood recurring geologic processes. Housley maintains that Percival’s story remains relevant because, “We are in the midst of another scientific revolution, this time quantum mechanical, which calls the nature of reality into question.”

New Haven, Conn. (May 3, 2024)—A harbinger of summer on the Connecticut coastline, the annual opening of the historic Pardee-Morris House (PMH) will take place on Sunday, June 2, 2024, at noon. The season opens with a welcoming Tai Chi class on the lawn with Shifu Shirley Chock, known on social media as @theStressbender, at 2 p.m. The historic house will be open for free tours from noon to 4 p.m. The free class will touch on Tai Chi philosophy, and Chock will guide participants through Tai Chi movements to help improve focus, strength, and balance. Participants are asked to wear comfortable clothes and shoes. Shifu Shirley Chock is the owner and executive director of Aiping Tai Chi. She trained under the guidance of Grandmaster Aiping Cheng since 2001 and was appointed as the school’s assistant director before taking over ownership in 2017. She has led the Aiping Tai Chi competition team to multiple grand championships in national and international competitions, including winning the 2006 U.S. Wushu Union Women’s National Champion title. She is a certified health qigong instructor under the Chinese Health Qigong Association and International Health Qigong Federation and studied wushu kung fu and mixed martial arts before transitioning to internal martial arts. She is also a certified corporate wellness specialist. She earned an economics degree from the University of Chicago and held a successful career in finance and administration leadership roles prior to taking over Aiping Tai Chi. She was included in New Haven BIZ's Power 25 Class of 2023. She has more than 200,000 followers on social media and her YouTube channel was recommended by the New York Times.

New Haven, CT, May 1, 2024—One of the most beloved stories is coming to New Haven when New Haven Ballet presents Beauty and the Beast at the Shubert Theatre on May 25 at 1:00 p.m. The Ballet also performs excerpts from the classical repertory of Paquita. Angela He and Timothy Fountain lead the cast as Belle and the Beast, with all of the familiar characters, including Cogsorth, Lumiere, and Mrs. Potts, also adding joy to the winsome and talented cast of dancers from the School. “Beauty and the Beast touches hearts for a reason,” notes Artistic Director Lisa Kim Sanborn. “With humor, warmth, and a bit of nostalgia, it is easy to understand why this story and these characters have become worldwide favorites. The story is engaging and relevant today on so many levels. The dancers are fantastic, and we are excited for audience members, young and old, to see the production, which features new sets, costumes, and choreography,” Sanborn adds. New Haven Ballet’s Student Company also presents excerpts from Paquita, with music by Ludwig Minkus and choreography after Marius Petipa, and a special presentation by Shared Ability, New Haven Ballet’s outreach program led by Kerry Kincy that features artists with and without disabilities. The Shubert Theatre is located at 247 College Street in the heart of New Haven’s popular downtown restaurant and shopping district. Tickets cost $26-$59 and may be purchased at Shubert.com or the Shubert Box Office at Tel. (203) 562-5666. The performance is offered on Saturday, May 25, at 1:00 p.m.

New Haven, Conn. (May 6, 2024) – The reconceived exhibition “Amistad: Retold” takes a new angle on the familiar story of the Amistad, centering the people who led the revolt and their collective actions to determine their own lives. It also foregrounds New Haven as the site of their incarceration and organizing by Black and white abolitionists. The exhibition opens at the New Haven Museum (NHM) on Thursday, May 9, 2024, at 5:30 p.m., and will begin with remarks by project advisors who collaborated with NHM on the reinterpretation of the gallery. A reception follows at 6:15 p.m., courtesy of Jack’s Steakhouse. The 1839 Amistad Revolt was led by 53 West African captives who were being trafficked from Havana’s slave markets on the schooner La Amistad after being kidnapped from their homelands, despite European treaties prohibiting the Atlantic Slave Trade. The Museum notes the diversity of the Amistad captives—their multiethnic, multilingual, and economic backgrounds, with trades that ranged from rice farmer to blacksmith, in addition to weavers, hunters, and merchants. Incarcerated for nearly 19 months in New Haven, the Amistad captives worked closely with anti-slavery activists who formed the Amistad Committee and connected with networks of engaged citizens to organize and fundraise for their legal defense. Artists, particularly those based in New Haven, gave representation to the movement by creating engravings and paintings that enabled the public to envision the circumstances of the captives and recognize their individuality and resolve in protecting their freedom. A number of those significant works made their way to the New Haven Museum collection. Visitors will be immediately surprised by the new visual experience of the gallery - its vibrant colors, transformation of the space, as well as a new acquisition - the color serigraph of artist Jacob Lawrence’s “Revolt on the Amistad,” created in 1989 to commemorate the Amistad Revolt sesquicentennial. A cover image from a Golden Legacy comic book offers a 1970s pop-culture adaptation of NHM’s iconic Sengbe Pieh portrait, which was painted in 1840 by Nathaniel Jocelyn at the time of the trials. The painting has returned to view after two years, following its inclusion in “Afro-Atlantic Histories,” a major traveling exhibition organized by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. In response to questions and comments from students and teachers during workshops, the new exhibition includes a large-scale map that charts the voyages of the Amistad rebels. The map provides context about the continual resistance to the slave trade in West Africa and across the Atlantic, as well as the changing Trans-Atlantic politics in the years preceding the Amistad Revolt in 1839. Visitors will also appreciate a time-lapse map created by Slavevoyages.org that visualizes the expansion of the slave trade despite its illegality in the mid-19th century. Significantly, the exhibition highlights the crucial leadership of Black abolitionists, incorporating excerpts from Black-owned and abolitionist newspapers. Joanna Steinberg, NHM director of learning and engagement, who updated the exhibition with NHM Director of Photo Archives Jason Bischoff-Wurstle, notes that drawing on new scholarship and working with a team of project advisors was critical to the process of transforming the Amistad exhibition. She consulted with Daisha Brabham, director of education and public outreach at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale; Dexter Gabriel, assistant professor of history and Africana studies at University of Connecticut; Kai M. Perry, president of the Amistad Committee, Inc. and board member of “Discovering Amistad”; Thomas Thurston, former director of education and public outreach at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale, and NHM staff educators Rohanna S. Delossantos and Eve Galanis, who also teach in New Haven schools.  Steinberg adds, “We were fortunate to have their guidance, as they encouraged us to frame the global context historically and in the present, to foreground the stories of the children of the Amistad, to highlight the abolitionist strategies and Black leadership in the movement and the continued struggles to secure equal citizenship for free Black communities.” The museum is grateful to Charles Warner Jr., chairman of the Connecticut Freedom Trail and co-curator of the NHM exhibition, “Shining Light on Truth: New Haven, Yale, & Slavery,” who wrote the panel about the history of Temple Street Congregational Church and its role in the Amistad narrative. Joanna Steinberg notes that during workshops students asked, “Were there other revolts?” and “Did Amistad lead to other revolts?” She recalls the teacher who pointed out that the whole story of the Amistad could be unpacked from the zig-zag line on the map charting the route of La Amistad following the revolt, representing the rebels’ resistance, self-determination, and attempts to return to their homelands. Steinberg wants classes to know “how much their thoughts, opinions, and questions are valued and were crucial to informing the work we’re doing at the New Haven Museum.” Other contemporary elements include a QR code to a riveting interactive map designed by NHM Educator Eve Galanis—who created the project to engage her high-school students—charting the African captives’ harrowing journey from their kidnapping in Sierra Leone, their time incarcerated and on trial in the United States, to their return to West Africa. “One of the most significant takeaways from this exhibition is that it is interdisciplinary by design,” says New Haven Museum Executive Director Margaret Anne Tockarshewsky. “The focus on the arts and media prompts meaningful responses, personal interpretation, and discussion. The inclusion of historical and contemporary visual representations bridges the past and present. Hale Woodruff’s and Jacob Lawrence’s works, and the Golden Legacy comic book cover, demonstrate that the story of the Amistad still felt relevant to artists 100, 120, and even 150 years after, and they encourage us to re-examine our present and future.” Regarding his role in the transformation of the exhibition space, Bischoff-Wurstle notes, “ From top to bottom, floor to ceiling we looked at how the room tied into the story, and I wanted to convey a sense of sublime respect for the stories of the survivors and their legacies.” He adds, “By removing a false wall and allowing literal natural light to flow in and connect the gallery and museum as a whole to the outside world we are serving to broaden the story of the survivors and engage the viewers in a memorable physical experience as well.” Beginning in July 2024, NHM will partner with the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition and Discovering Amistad on an array of public programs in conjunction with the exhibit. At the exhibition’s opening, the Amistad Committee will announce the awardees of the Toni N. Harp Human Rights Day Essay Contest for New Haven public high school students. This year, students have written essays connecting their ideas to the life and contributions of Judge Constance Baker Motley (Hillhouse High School class of 1939) to human and civil rights.

Caribbean Vibe New Haven, Conn. ( May 6, 2024)— This summer will sizzle even more at the historic Pardee-Morris House! The 2024 Twilight Concert Series will kick off with a power-house blend of classic Motown hits, funk, and rock by Locomotion on Wednesday, June 26, 2024, at 6:30 p.m., (rain date, Thursday, June 27, 2024). Grounds open for picnicking at 5:30 p.m. The 2024 season has been expanded to include five concerts with two sets each. The summer fun will continue with the bluegrass harmonies of Audrey Mae on July 10; the "old school" R&B of The Bernadettes on July 24; cool island sounds by the Caribbean Vibe Steel Drum Band on August 7, and the sizzling salsa of Movimiento Cultural Afro-Continental on August 28. The free performances are hosted by the New Haven Museum, which owns and operates the historic site. Rain dates for all concerts are the following day. For weather updates visit http://newhavenmuseum.org or @newhavenmuseum on FB/IG. Concert Details Grounds open at 5:30 p.m., the concert begins at 6:30 pm. Rain dates for all concerts are the following day. The Pardee-Morris House will be open to visitors for tours till 8 p.m. The public is invited to bring blankets and chairs and enjoy a picnic on the lawn. Parking is available on Lighthouse Road.