New Haven magazine April 2011

MARCH/APRIL 2011

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CHARLES ISLAND — Located off the Milford coastline, this 14-acre wooded preserve, once visited by notorious pirate Captain Kidd, was the site of what some have called the “slaughter” of 14 deer in late February. The island is a breeding colony for herons and egrets and the deer were said to be “degrading” the habitat.

The state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) claimed the island couldn’t support the deer and that they were malnourished. So the DEP destroyed the animals that apparently wandered onto the island during a low tide.

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GREENWICH — Apparently Howard Stern producer and sometime whipping boy Gary Dell’Abate better known as Baba Booey, has been appointed to the Greenwich Parks Advisory Board, which oversees the towns parks and sports fields. The vote of 119-64 was overwhelming in his favor in spite of those who opposed his association with Stern’s “lowbrow and often misogynistic” humor.

Dell’Abate claims he is a family man, 16-year resident and has coached local youth sports.

Funny Money Men NEW CANAAN — Forty-twoyear-old hedge fund advisor Francisco Illarramendi has pleaded guilty to running a Ponzi scheme. Investors from around the globe lost what U.S. Attorney David Fein said was “hundreds of millions of dollars” as a result of the financial fraud.

dupe investors with phony documents which prosecutors said Illarramendi paid the pair $3 million to obtain. The documents were designed to “verify” evidence of $275 million in assets that the feds say did not exist.

Illarramendi is not the only Nutmegger convicted recently of financial scamming. Kenneth A. Schneider of Weston was just sentenced to more than five years in prison and was ordered to return $1.77 million in restitution for fees he accepted to “arrange large loans.” But when the money wasn’t forthcoming Schneider, who operated as American Bridge Funding Inc., refused to refund the fees. Prosecutors say more than 130 people were defrauded.

The FBI also arrested two Venezuelan citizens living in Florida — Juan Carlos Guillen Zerpa, 43, and Juan Carlos Horna Napolitano, 40 — for helping Illarramendi

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March / April 2011

New Haven

| Vol. 4, No. 2 | March/April 2011

Publisher Mitchell Young, Editor Michael C. Bingham, Design Consultant Terry Wells, Contributing Writers Brooks Appelbaum, Duo Dickinson, Mimi Freiman, Liese Klein, Nancy Burton, Alexandra Katz, Melissa Nicefaro, Cindy Simoneau, Photographers Steve Blazo, Anthony DeCarlo, Senior Publisher’s Representatives Mary W. Beard, Roberta Harris, Ronni Rabin

New Haven is published 8 times annually by Second Wind Media Ltd., which also publishes Business New Haven, with offices at 20 Grand Avenue, New Haven, CT 06513. 203781-3480 (voice), 203-781-3482 (fax).

Subscriptions $24.95/year, $39.95/ two years. Send name, address & zip code with payment. Second Wind Media Ltd. d/b/a New Haven shall not be held liable for failure to publish an advertisement or for typographical errors or errors in publication. For more information e-mail: NewHaven@Conntact.com.

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INTEL Fish Story HARTFORD — The DEP has alerted residents to potential sightings of ďŹ sh kills in shallow lakes and ponds due to the harsh winter and the extensive snow and ice cover. The frozen cover robs shallow lakes of oxygen and when the water thaws the evidence of the kills — that is, lots of dead ďŹ sh — becomes apparent. The DEP says larger lakes can support thousands of ďŹ sh per acre and will repopulate without difďŹ culty. If you do see a ďŹ sh kill in a river, stream, lake or pond contact the DEP Inland Fisheries Division. It could be the result of “accidental or unauthorized human actions,â€? and not just the harsh winter.

For Fast Filmmakers NEW HAVEN — If you’re in love Felice Varini’s “Square

with Four Circlesâ€? that was placed by Site Projects Inc. in downtown New Haven’s Temple Plaza, here’s your chance to pay homage to the 110-foot-tall “multi-dimensional painting.â€? The group is inviting ďŹ lmmakers to “share your unique perspectiveâ€? on the work with a ďŹ lm or video.

Cash prizes of up to $1,000 are being offered, and the deadline for submission is April 15. For more information visit sitescameraaction.info.

Show Me The Money, Honey HARTFORD — Brady Dougan has asked the state Supreme Court to reduce the interest payment of $750,000 for being 12 days late with a $7.5 million divorce-related payment. Dougan agreed to pay his ex-wife, Tomoko Hamada Dougan, $15.3 million in two installments under their 2005 divorce settlement and

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he paid the $7.5 million second installment 12 days late in 2006. He did forward $25,000 representing interest for the 12 days, but his wife successfully argued that the divorce agreement entitled her to a year’s worth of interest for the late payment.

Going Literal WEST HAVEN — University of New Haven (UNH) Assistant Professor of English Randall Horton has been awarded the Bea Gonzålez Prize for Poetry

by Stone Canoe, a journal of arts and ideas published by University College of Syracuse University.

The GonzĂĄlez Prize is awarded annually to an “emergingâ€? poet with ties to central/upstate New York. Horton was also recently awarded a $25,000 Creative Writing Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

More wordsmithing is expected from UNH with its appointment of bestselling novelist, ďŹ lm producer, television writer and ďŹ lm director Adriana Trigiani as distinguished writer-in-residence in the Department of English.

Trigiani began her career as a television writer for such programs as The Cosby Show and A Different World. Her novels include Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler, Milk Glass Moon, Home to Big Stone Gap and Brava Valentine, debuted at No. 7 on the New York Times bestseller list following its February 2010 debut.

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‘You have a crisis,’ observes Metrick, ‘when the number of skeptics isn’t large enough to make an impact on things.’

Yale economist Metrick on lessons of the financial crisis

A

ndrew Metrick, 44, joined the Yale School of Management in 2008 as a professor of finance. He previously held faculty positions in the finance department at Wharton and the economics department at Harvard. During the 2009-10 academic year he was on leave from Yale working for the Council of Economic Advisers in Washington. Metrick’s research and teaching is focused on financial stability, including the regulation of systemic risk, the activities of complex financial institutions, and the causes and consequences of the financial crisis of 2007-09. NHM Publisher Mitchell Young interviewed Metrick for ONE2ONE As a deputy dean of the graduate school, would you agree that fights in academia are so big because the stakes are so small?

Henry Kissinger said that, or at least it is ascribed to him. But after spending a year in Washington I can tell you it’s not true. The fights here are small. The thing we are good at in the academic world is we hold grudges. So if someone insults your work, you won’t talk to them for 25 years. In Washington you can’t do that because you have to work with them the next day.

PHOTOS: STEVE BLAZO 8

March / April 2011

How did you come to be in New Haven?

I was an undergraduate here [at Yale]. I lived in New Haven from 1985 to 1989, which was fairly close to the low point for the city. But I like New Haven, I was happy to come back. I had left for 20 years. I went to Harvard for graduate school and stayed as a junior faculty member there and then I went to Wharton for nine years, always as a professor.

Department of Treasury really ran the show, they were having the meetings with the administration and were down at Capitol Hill all the time.

Now, in hindsight, how do you think it all played out?

If I could have written the rules from scratch and passed anything I wanted, it would look very different.

Because?

How did the academic find himself at the White House?

There are a lot of things that are politically very, very hard to do.

Well, we had this big financial crisis. I hadn’t really thought I would be a person who would go to Washington. I didn’t think there would be a time when being a financial economist could be useful in the political sphere.

Many people think that some of the hardto-do things didn’t get done because of the power of the players. What would you have liked to see?

There are plenty of economists in government.

Yes, there are other specialists who always have something important to do in Washington — labor economists, macroeconomists. Since the Great Depression there hasn’t been a time when you needed a lot of people who understood financial economics to work in many different parts of government.

When the President won the election I was very happy, like most of the folks who live in this town — it was a brings-tears-to-your-eyes kind of moment. I came close to e-mailing some of my friends who were working in the administration. I didn’t do that, but I got an e-mail in April 2009 form Christina Romer who was [then] chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisors. She said, ‘I need somebody to do finance.’

By then the worst part of the crisis was over.

We were done with pure crisis and we had moved on to an enormous cleanup, and that is still going on. What was most interesting for me was to help write the new financial regulations.

You mean the regulations Connecticut [U.S. Sen.] Chris Dodd quarterbacked in the Senate?

I worked for the administration and I was not in the part that did a lot of interaction with Congress. The

Little things, like we have a variety of agencies doing [overlapping] things. I wouldn’t have a separate FTC [Federal Trade Commission] and SEC [Securities & Exchange Commission]. I would like to have done more with the bankruptcy code. Nothing was done with it because you couldn’t go to the Senate Judiciary Committee. What I wouldn’t have done, which a lot of people say to do, is ‘break up the big banks.’ It’s kind of an irresponsible thing to suggest because we don’t have any evidence one way or the other that this would help — and it is a pretty big deal. A lot of countries have big banks and they didn’t figure in [the financial crisis]. Canada has big banks; they only have five real banks. In the Great Depression we did not have big banks — we only had tiny banks — and it was an enormous problem. Countries that have only big banks can fix their problems a little bit easier than those that have a lot of small banks. There is an argument about political influence, and about what does ‘too big to fail’ mean.

But I don’t see the alternative.

But the public doesn’t like the idea of ‘too big to fail.’ It just goes against the grain of the culture.

We don’t have too-big-to-fail anymore.

What we had before was a system where nobody had their eyes out for what these big guys were doing, and it was the case if one of these big guys failed it would have brought the whole system down.

The reason was that we had only two options: bailout or bankruptcy.

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So doesn’t that mean we really have a socialist economy? If government and the banks are so entwined?

You have to start by asking what does a financial system do. We don’t need to rescue Sears & Roebuck, so why are we rescuing the banks? The evidence from history is very strong that a broken financial system has enormous costs.

But banks work with mostly our money, whereas a Sears Roebuck works with investor money.

People’s money was never in danger, the FDIC was never saying they weren’t going to give people their money back. What we did was actually help shareholders…

[Interrupts]…and bondholders.

We have to make the world safe for greed, because greed will always exist.

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And bondholders. There is no question that we did that. So broadly speaking, lots of people got bailed out during the financial crisis. It is easy to see that as a payment from taxpayers to specific stakeholders in those companies and specific people. The evidence from history is strong, and the intuition from people who are serious scholars of these markets is strong, that had we not done that it would have had enormous repercussions for Main Street.

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So how did the Dodd-Frank financial bill change any of this?

The jury is still out, but I am impressed by the job they did and that was to create a third way between bankruptcy and bailout.

We now have a process called orderly liquidation that enables a liquidation, before bankruptcy happens — and not just at a bank but at a Lehman Brothers or an AIG — for regulators to go in and say, ‘We are bringing you into receivership. You’re not ‘too big to fail’ — you are just too big to fail quickly.

Isn’t that what was done with AIG? No, many of the stakeholders that we would have been hoping would have been more on the ball watching over AIG wouldn’t have been helped out [by the Dodd-Frank bill]. Now we would figure out what we really need to keep the system from collapsing and what we don’t.

The fear many people had is that it was the people that a company like AIG owed money to would burn other folks if they weren’t bailed out.

That was one fear. Part of the problem is that those people [investors and customer] were relying from the beginning that the government would bail them out.

So you’re saying investors really thought from the outset that the government would bail out these big companies?

I think it is the case that a lot of people believe that when you have a ‘counter party’ that is an AIG or a Citibank, that you’re safe. The intention of Dodd-Frank and the new infrastructure is to make it clear to people that a whole swath of things that you thought were safe are not.

If aN investor came to you and said ‘I don’t want a lot of risk,’ would you say have to be much more careful with your investing?

I would say there is certainly less of an implicit guarantee that if you are a senior bondholder of any large financial institution that you’re safe if that institution goes down.

You’ve also taught corporate governance.

We didn’t see a lot of heads rolling off of corporate boards, bank boards. Should more directors have lost their directorships?

Some of these boards did completely turn over, and yes it would be better if there were more empowerment of shareholders…

But when the government said, ‘We’re going to write you a check,’ shouldn’t they also have insisted, ‘Show us your transition plan to a new board’?

Citigroup’s board was completely turned over. Some of these were not really great boards and they did turn over. If you listen to a lot of the banks, what the government said was, ‘We really want everyone to take this money, because if we only make the guys in trouble take the money, then everyone is going to run from those banks.’ And the banks said, ‘We’re not in trouble, but we took the money because you said you really wanted us to take the money.’ Now [instead] you’re saying [to banks], ‘Take the money and fire everybody.’ I would say broadly speaking it was no fun for these guys to be at these banks.

Not very satisfying for the rest of us.

The way I think of is there was a disaster that happened in September 2008. There are lots of folks to blame. No one was truly blameless.

But you’re saying it was the lack of building codes that doomed the building?

People are always going to be greedy.

Greed has existed since the beginning of time. It is our job as people writing the building codes and being building inspectors to recognize that we have to make the world safe for greed, because greed will always exist. Any individual person can do their best to be responsible,

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but you can be sure that no matter how many make that decision, others will make different decisions. Some people behaved very greedily and an enormous risk built up, and the regulatory system was not capable of seeing part of that fail without everything failing.

So beware of bad actors?

There are always bad actors. [But] if the story of the ďŹ nancial crisis is that we had bad actors, then I wonder why didn’t we have a ďŹ nancial crisis ďŹ ve years before, 20 years before. There is something to be said that the longer you go without a ďŹ nancial crisis, the more likely that people become very complacent and think that we have ďŹ xed those problems.

By the time you arrived at the White House, the public was pretty mad. Was this difficult on the people there?

Perhaps one of the rarer skills I’ve seen is to take the amount of public heat and still do the right thing. For all of the abuse that [Treasury] Secretary [Timothy] Geithner took during the cleanup, it was really remarkable. He would get beat up in the newspapers every day and I would be in meetings with him and he would be focused on doing the right thing and not

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You’re a pretty young. How do you think it will make your life different in terms of the consensus thinking in the future?

paying attention to the fact that people might be angry at him.

He’s still getting criticism, isn’t he?

This for me was a midlife ďŹ nancial crisis.

My research, my teaching has completely changed. Prior to this crisis I wasn’t really in the business of being a macro ďŹ nancial crisis thinker. I worked on governance and venture capital — my head wasn’t in this game. l earned no skeptic points at all. Going forward, it seems that the single most important thing for a ďŹ nancial economist to work on, to understand, is systemic risks [and] what can we do to monitor them.

And [Federal Reserve Chairman] Ben Bernanke gets a lot of criticism, too, which I think is unfounded really.

Doesn’t he have some who love and hate him?

He does have both. It is true that all these folks missed the buildup. Not everyone missed the buildup, but 99.9 percent did.

Aren’t we always building bubbles — maybe an energy bubble now? With all the analysts and intelligence, why did so few question the direction?

That’s why we had a crisis. You have a crisis when the number of skeptics isn’t large enough to make an impact on things. I think there was almost too cozy a consensus. People who are in this world and think about [ďŹ nancial markets] thought we had effectively spread risks out very broadly so we could handle a shock. As you say, we’re always making bubbles. The job of a good regulator is to make the world safe for when those bubbles burst. Because they will.

What are the prospects for growth in the financial services industry and did it become too big a part of the U.S. economy?

The usual impression is that this industry became too big. If you talk to people on Wall Street they’ll tell you that a big chunk of what they do doesn’t add value.

It’s probably too big and there is a lot of ‘rent seeking.’ What’s that?

It’s when you try really hard to get something that already exists. An example is maybe you and me ďŹ ght over a plot of land, no matter how much ďŹ ghting we do

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it’s the same plot of land. When I try to think of what is the right fraction of the economy that should be finance, I don’t know how to answer that question. One of the differences between a centrally planned economy and a capitalist economy is in a centrally planned economy you don’t need a financial sector.

You have a bunch of guys sitting around and they decide this factory is going to get this money and that one, that.

In teaching and writing a book about venture capitalism [Venture Capital & the Finance of Innovation], what did you learn about how it impacts our economy?

If you look at the United States and the United Kingdom we have very market-driven forms of capital. We have deep stock markets. It’s easy to bring companies public, or at least it was. And that turns out to be very highly correlated with high tech and risky ventures that can’t be debt-financed. If you look at countries like Germany, Japan, France that have much more bank-centered financial

systems, they tend to have a comparative advantage [in] heavy industry. When you think of France and Germany, you can name a lot of big-name manufacturing companies, but you can’t name many Googles, Facebooks and Genentechs.

France was once known as a source of great innovation. What happened?

There is a different type of capital needed for innovation starting in the mid-19th century. Once you go beyond the heavy industry into things that are speculative, it’s very difficult to [finance] that through a bank-centered system.

So they don’t have a tolerance for failure?

It’s not as if they have no startup culture at all. But the economic institutions of common-law systems like the U.S. and UK seem to be much more conducive to the creation of high-tech and risky types of ventures.

Everyone is talking about how to create more jobs. Is there something we should be

doing in that arena, or are we simply in a transition?

You have to separate out the cyclical and structural parts of job creation. Right now we’re at a cyclical downtown, and the unemployment rate is still 8.9 percent.

We’ve had recessions before, and from a cyclical point of view you hope that whatever the problems that created this recession, the financial shock and the aggregate-demand shock brought on people feeling poorer, that their house was worth less, their stock market accounts less. If we come back from that [low demand] and unemployment goes back down again, we have jobs. It’s not as if we have to do anything to create them. There is another view: That in the background is a structural problem, and that certain types of jobs have gone and are never coming back. In that world we expect we will eventually figure out things for people to do, but not quickly enough.

What happens to the U.S. economy if many people decide to consume less forever?

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You can shift from buying consumption goods to buying investment goods. If we all decided we wanted to save more, that savings would end up in investment goods in the long run. We would have less of a trade deďŹ cit. In introductory economics we teach about the paradox of thrift and that if everyone started to save tomorrow then, at ďŹ rst aggregate demand would drop. We need consumption to come back. But in the long run if everyone saves more we have more capital accumulation, and we can build more factories, that transition worries everyone.

There is one model that views all this as silliness, [that] there is no such thing as aggregate demand. The problem is structural: People are in the wrong jobs.

We had everyone doing construction; now they need to do other things. I don’t think the evidence is consistent with that [view].

So what are the other things they’re suppose to do — teach yoga?

My great-grandfather was a blacksmith, then cars came around. So HE became an auto mechanic, but that takes a while [to learn]. There is a strong case that there

will be a lot of activities that will require skilled labor going forward that are not easy to automate. We like many members of the New Haven community had a lot of roof leaking this winter. The people coming to ďŹ x our roofs are not replaceable by robots or by China. To some extent as you move to a world that is more globalized, everyone’s job either has to be something they can compete with the rest of the world on, or is something where they don’t have to compete with the rest of the world because it’s localized.

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March / April 2011

The Horse Whisperer

By Natalie Cafasso, ’11 Notre Dame High School Fairfield

W

hen I was seven years old I developed a strong passion for horses. I spent as many hours in the barn as possible. As I got older I spent more and more time at the barn caring for my own horses and other people’s horses. I

soon realized that a horse and human can develop an incredibly strong bond.

In eighth grade, I was asked by the barn owner where my horses were boarded to lead a teen chapter of a horse rescue foundation. I jumped on the opportunity to give back to these amazing animals that have done so much for me. I became involved in an organization that raised money to help raise awareness about the terrible plight of PMU (pregnant mares’ urine) mares and foals being mistreated and slaughtered. Each year, nearly 50,000 foals are born as a result of the pharmaceutical industry that collects new hav haven v en

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March / April 2011

urine from pregnant mares and turns it into the hormone-replacement drugs Premarin and Prempro. The foals are a byproduct of this industry and up to 30,000 foals each year are taken away from their mothers at a very young age and sent to slaughterhouses. The money we raised also went to rescuing, caring for and training as many of these mares and foals as my farm could accommodate.

Every time my barn owner came up to me and said she found another group of mares and foals going to slaughter, it would break my heart. I wanted to save them all, but that was impossible. I organized and trained the teen volunteer groups, broke and trained the foals so that they could become adoptable. Soon we realized these talented horses could become lesson ponies and therapeutic riding horses for children and adults with physical, emotional and mental disabilities. The horses were giving back because they were given a second chance.

I spent many rewarding hours of volunteer time as a side walker at the side of the PMU rescues during their therapeutic lessons. I worked with the organization and the barn until the middle of my freshman year, when we moved my horses to a different farm.

I am currently working with another rescue that I adopted. I am taking the time to train him and work for his keep. He is learning fast and we will be competing next year. I can’t wait to cross the finish line with him for the first time, because his and my hard work will finally pay off!

As I get older and my career in physiology comes into sight, my goal is to open a horse-rescue farm and start my own equine assisted therapy center.

I want to be a psychologist specializing in teen issues such as handling divorce, eating disorders and substance abuse.

I would like to learn more about the connection between horse and human and the benefits of equine-assisted therapy. Because horses are very expensive and I can’t keep them all, my plan is to take on as many horses as I financially can care for, nurse them back to health, train them to be useful to someone and adopt them out. Each day I work toward my goals, and my love for horses grows stronger and stronger.

Natalie Cafasso of Derby is a member of campus ministry and the varsity cheerleading team. She plans on studying psychology and English in college this autumn.

The Writer and Artist

By Eric Martin, ’11 Cooperative Arts and Humanities Magnet High School New Haven

I

f someone asked me three or four years ago why I write, or what it means to be an artist, I would have told them that I write to express myself and that it means I’m a professional “expressive.” I would have said that all that matters to me is getting my thoughts out and onto paper. I still think that expression is an important element but I also think that it is not the only thing that writing and art are about.

What I did not know until my senior year in the four-year Creative Writing Program at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School in New Haven (Coop) was that being a writer and artist is actually about growth.

“I write because I have something to say, and I write because I like to. I write to inform, enlighten, and inspire. I write because it makes me happy. But most importantly I write because I’m free.”

I wrote the above statement as part of my “writer’s manifesto” when I was a 15-yearold sophomore. I knew that what I was saying was true and that the whole class would love it when I read it to them. And although everyone did love it, it wasn’t until I sat down to write this reflection that I realized that I was missing the most important gift I get from being a writer and artist.

Being a writer forces me to go through a process to produce a finished product. I was taught what we at Coop call “The Whole Process of Creative Writing.”

Within this process there is a whole lot of rethinking, revising, removing and editing.

And it was a whole lot that I was not used to doing when I first started out. I remember clearly the first time a poem of mine was “edited.” It hurt me as a writer and as a person — it made me feel as though what I wrote was wrong and was not good enough. I thought that what I wrote was perfect just the way it was. But that was the young and naïve me.

I could not see then that the letting-go of my words through editing was making me a stronger writer, a better craftsman, a clearer thinker. Looking back on it now, not only do I see the growth in my writing but I see it in my everyday life. Sticking to the whole process gave me a different perspective. It made me

PHOTO: Anthony DeCarlo

realize that life itself is a process and that quitting when things get tough is never the right way to do things. So I kept writing and I fell in love with it. Writing has become a part of me. So much so that sometimes my innermost thoughts come to me as poetry.

I know being an artist is not for everyone, but it has made me a better person. It has made me the person I want to be.

Eric Martin of New Haven plans this fall to enroll at the University of Hartford to pursue a degree in liberal studies.

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The need to choose between two worldviews was new to me, in part because nothing is ever black and white at Hopkins. Where I go to school, you aren’t defined by the classes you take or the extracurriculars you sign up for.

Our tree-huggers, ballerinas and math whizzes work on projects together in the library. No one expects you to play just one role. I can’t speak for the whole student body, but I know I’ve always felt completely accepted. Last year, on my way to a national tournament with our science team, I received two texts on my cell. They were from the captains of varsity soccer and football, saying “Good luck — win it for Hop!” Wow, I thought to myself, only at Hopkins. At this school, nobody boxes you in. It’s not just that you can be anything; you can be so many things at once.

But in the lab that day, I had to be one thing: a scientist, analytical and dispassionate. I willed myself not to cry in front of the patient.

PHOTO: Anthony DeCarlo

The Tiger Cub

By Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, ’11 Hopkins School New Haven

“S

uicide?” the man repeated. It was the last day of my internship in Massachusetts General Hospital’s Psychiatric and Genetics Unit. The patient was being interviewed for a clinical diagnosis of depression. “Yes, I used to think about it, all the time. But then I realized that if I...did it, someone would have to find me. That wouldn’t be very nice. So I try not to think about it anymore.”

I’ve always been a little confused about what I want to do with my life. I do strange things in my spare time, none of which is particularly career-oriented. A few months ago, I dug a giant pit in our backyard to search for Revolutionary War artifacts (the British invaded New Haven in 1779). My parents were a little surprised at first, but I think they came around when I excavated the remains of a tea party.

At any rate, in a pre-senior-year panic, I took a summer internship in a lab. I was hoping it would get me focused and provide a clear path into the future.

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March / April 2011

One of the first studies I worked on in the lab targeted the biology of social awkwardness.

The way my mind works, I always think in terms of people, stories and words. So when someone asked me to explain “awkward,” my instinct was to find out where it came from. I learned that “awkward” is a combination of the Old Norse root afugr, “with the back facing forward,” and the Latin verb vertere, “to turn.” The Norse part was probably introduced when Danish Vikings controlled England. It’s hard to say whether the Latin came in through early Roman contact with Germanic tribes, or the 1066 Norman invasion.

Either way, it’s a lot of British history in a seven-letter word. But all of that meant nothing in the lab, where “awkward” was just an intermediate phenotype of anxiety disorders associated with the G-protein signaling regulator gene on Chromosome 1 (don’t worry, I’m still not quite sure what that means). Training myself to think in scientific terms both fascinated and disturbed me. And deep down, I was worried I would lose my old way of understanding. Would I be able to see the world in two such starkly different ways?

I wasn’t sure.

His compassion — his concern that “Someone would have to find me” — was keeping him alive! I wanted to jump out of my chair, hug him, shake him by the shoulders. I was bursting to say things I couldn’t articulate: “Can’t you see you deserve to be happy? I want you to look forward to things, like breakfast and sunshine. Something inside of you is golden. I will never forget you.”

Instead, I followed protocol and stayed in my seat, feeling useless and tongue-tied. I never learned his name.

Senior year hasn’t helped my predicament: I’m no closer to a life plan now than I was last summer. I took a hodgepodge of classes in the fall — from East Asian Studies to an elective on Machiavelli and Shakespeare — and loved them all. My favorite classes this term are Modern Physics and Art History. I still don’t know where I’ll be in ten years. For now, I feel incredibly lucky for getting to explore so many different avenues. My path may not be clear, but that just makes me more excited to see what’s around the corner.

Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld attends the Hopkins School, where she is a head of the Environmental Club and a founder of the Greenhouse Off-Campus Agriculture Team. She enjoys running and playing piano. Her mother, Yale School of Law professor Amy Chua, is author of the New York Times bestseller Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011, Penguin Press).

The Leader

By Shanaira Saunders, ’11 Metropolitan Business Academy New Haven

M

y road to self-discovery has included playing basketball, competing in pageants, modeling, swimming and riding bikes in hopes of becoming a BMXer. Recently, my attention has shifted to reading, volunteering, working and trying to balance all of my interests with school and family responsibilities. I enjoy participating in as many activities as possible so I can continue to learn more about my likes, dislikes, abilities and challenges. I appreciate new adventures, encountering new people, and I rarely allow opportunities to pass me by.

It seems I am a piece of everyone I encounter, and I have been surrounded by many adult role models: teachers, who have supported me and helped to improve my writing; mentors, who have helped me develop my leadership potential and take advantage of opportunities, and my parents, who have encouraged me to dream big.

As early as middle school, I was recommended to lead a student broadcast and interview representatives from NASA. Though I had participated in student news every day, I still had some nervous energy about the interview. I had to change my tone and demeanor as I tried my hardest to portray the professional news anchors I had seen on television. As the interview began, my nerves died down, my confidence increased, and I became comfortable in the spotlight.

Being challenged in this way influenced my decision to attend Metropolitan Business Academy. While none of my peers attended Metropolitan, I knew that this school could provide me with some amazing learning experiences and more professional opportunities.

One hundred community-service hours are required for my graduation. The most powerful experiences came from the 200 hours I spent volunteering with the Juvenile Review Board (JRB). At the JRB, I worked with dozens of troubled teens who were referred to the board by the [state’s] Department of Children & Families or the school system. Part of the experience for young offenders included mediation, when all parties would sit down with the offender and/or victim, and do the work of repairing their relationship.

PHOTO: Anthony DeCarlo

I also participated in formal group discussions that fostered a sense of community. Here teens could discuss and strategize about coping with all the stress in their lives. Topics included pressures of the streets, managing anger and juggling family and school responsibilities. Another way these teens were able to experience community was by participating in plays. The plays that they chose were relevant, and the characters shared many realities of the clients at the JRB. The wide experiences of volunteering at the JRB touched me because as a young child I was somewhat aggressive and even badmouthed adults from time to time. This new understanding of people and support systems made a mark on my life as I realized that if I did not have the

encouragement to help me change, I may have been in some of the same situations as those teens.

As of today, my plans for the future include a career as a lawyer, but I also know that my path is always changing as I remain open to discovering more of who I am and learning from the many people I encounter. I hope to study abroad, perhaps in the role of missionary, since I am most happy and fulfilled when helping others.

Shanaira Saunders of New Haven is a high honors student and public-relations specialist for her information technology research and design class at Metropolitan Business Academy. This fall she plans enroll at the University of New Haven to study criminal justice.

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The Dish Dog

By Justin Manley, ’11 Hopkins School New Haven

D

ishwashing is a common enough chore, but a rare passion. It is a noble job, a link in the great chain of human subsistence, purifying the tools of the last meal in preparation for the next. But who would revel in it?

The dirty plates arrive by the stacks, used silverware by the caddy. Over the course of the meal, fragments of food accumulate at the bottom of the sink; when the dishes are sprayed down, the water rises up,

coating gloved hands in a greasy film. A noble enough job, but not a pleasant one.

I had planned on working as a counselorin-training this summer, but I hadn’t anticipated that the camp dishwasher would break his finger, leaving the job unfortunately vacant. When the camp director assigned me and my fellow counselors-in-training to dish duty, I accepted it with resignation. Before this, the only dishes I washed had been my own; in my family, we don’t even use the dishwasher. This was a new experience for me: I was curious, but I wasn’t worried. Whatever was going on, I was doing it with my friends. What could go wrong?

At first, dishwashing was fun and exciting — almost a game. We three were a team, racing against time: the purpose of the game was to get out of the dish room as quickly as possible. And yet, when I had a moment to pause, I wondered how I would endure my summer as a humble dish dog.

I wondered briefly if it was possible to enjoy something that I had no interest in, something I was thrust into by Fate and an understaffed camp director. How could I force myself to have fun?

As time passed, I realized that washing dishes was sometimes onerous, sometimes tiring, but never boring. All I did was play the game. I raced my friends, trying to wash dishes better and faster than they did, and I did get better at washing dishes. But more importantly, somewhere along the way — without trying — I ended up having fun.

Washing dishes became our social time. In the dishwashing room, we were free of our camper responsibilities; we could be ourselves. We competed, told inappropriate jokes, and we danced to the sounds coming out of a pair of old computer speakers: Journey, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Backstreet Boys.

At some point during the summer, I realized that I looked forward to washing dishes, even enjoyed it. I don’t know how it happened, though I wish I did. That secret could be the most important thing I will ever learn. It is the key, not just to success, but to something much more important: happiness.

After all, we spend so much time worrying about how we can control our lives: going to the right college, finding the right job, choosing the right insurance policy or house or partner — but much of life is inherently out of our control. Yet we always have a choice: we can decide what we will do with the stack of dirty dishes left to us by Fate. The secret is knowing how to get those dishes clean — and enjoy doing it.

PHOTO: Anthony DeCarlo

I still don’t know the big secret, but I do understand one thing: What we do with our passions can be fun and rewarding, but the choices we make in situations we don’t choose, and which we aren’t passionate about are what help us learn how to make the most out of doing life’s dishes.

Justin Manley of Westport is a captain of the Hopkins cross-country and track teams, and features editor on the school newspaper, The Razor.

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March / April 2011

The Performer

education. My past experiences working as a camp counselor, at an after-school program and in the arts have all given me self-confidence, taught me to be a divergent thinker, to get along with others, and not to take myself too seriously.

By Christina Andrzejewski, ’11 Amity Regional High School Woodbridge

F

rom as far back as I can remember, I have loved to perform and have always enjoyed entertaining others. In no way would I ever consider myself to be an actor or dancer; I simply follow my passion. This passion started at the age of two when my parents enrolled me in dance classes. I continued to study dance, specifically tap, for 15 years and during those years my love and appreciation for dance grew immensely.

A quote by William Shakespeare that is indicative of the person I try to be is, “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

This quote inspires me to live out my passion. I hope to make a difference in one person’s life, and whether I do that through dancing, acting, being a friend or

a role model is fine with me. When the curtain inevitably falls, I want to be able to look back and be satisfied with the life I lived.

Christina Andrzejewski of Orange is a peer tutor, a member of Link Crew, a group of upperclassman that welcomes freshmen and makes their first year of high school more comfortable, the anti-genocide coalition STAND and the International Thespian Society at Amity Regional High School. This fall she plans to enroll at the University of Connecticut and study special education.

My parents have always instilled in me to do what I love, and to always follow my passions. As a child, my parents would often take me to local community theater productions as well as Broadway productions in support of my commitment to dancing. When I was about eight years old, my parents took me to New York to see my first Broadway show, The Lion King. From that moment I fell head over heels for musicals.

As soon as the curtain rose, I was entranced. I admired the performers’ grace, talent and skillful precision, and hoped some day to be as gifted and move as beautifully as they did. Before this moment, I never realized that a person could grow up and be fortunate enough to do something that they loved for a career.

From that moment, I realized that my parents were right — I need to follow my passion in life, and do what I love in order to be truly happy.

Even though today my passion may no longer be dance, I am continuing to follow my parents’ advice and follow my passion in college. One passion I have, which is stronger than my love of dance and theater combined, is teaching. This fall, I plan on attending the University of Connecticut and majoring in special

PHOTO: Anthony DeCarlo

As I have grown older, though, I realize that dance does not bring me as much happiness as it used to when I was younger. When I entered high school I joined the drama club, and found bliss through performing or working behind the scenes of productions. Because of my involvement in theater during my sophomore, junior and senior years, I have met numerous passionate, caring, respectable and talented people, some of whom I am lucky enough to call my friends.

new haven

21

Photos: Chi Chung Lo

The way we roll now — on the enigmatic Fung Wah bus. What is up with that?

By Alexandra L. Katz

W

e’ve all seen it barreling down I-95, or bulling its way brusquely through narrow city streets. But for those of us who have pondered the inevitable question but not yet unraveled the mystery, I set out to get some answers. What is this bus? Who rides it? Is it safe?

I fumble through my purse to find my reservation number, hand it to the woman behind the Fung Wah ticket counter, and she hands me back a handwritten boarding pass. That’s when I know I’m in for a raw, back-to-basics travel adventure. My assignment is to write a story about the Fung Wah bus, riding from Boston’s Chinatown to New York’s Chinatown and talking to my fellow travelers.

Up until now, here is what I knew about the legendary Fung Wah: !) It was the first company of its kind to provide cheap intercity bus travel between the cities of the Northeast corridor, starting as current owner Pei Lin Liang’s personal van service between Sunset Park and Chinatown. Fung Wah now has competition, including companies such as Megabus and BoltBus that provide the same service.

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March / April 2011

2) The fare from Boston to New York fluctuates at around $15.

3) In 2005 the company was given a federal safety rating of 73 out of 100 — 100 being the worst.

4) This rating is not necessarily undeserved, considering the strange and almost whimsically dramatic series of accidents Fung Wah buses have been prone to over the past couple of years — including (but not limited to) a New York-bound bus catching fire on I-91 in 2005, a bus rolling over in Massachusetts in 2006, a New York-bound motor coach losing its two rear wheels, and a bus loading passengers being struck by “an out-of-control dump-truck” on New York’s Canal Street, careening into a bank from the impact, causing a light pole to fall and strike a 57-year-old woman, who later died from a heart attack.

5) “Fung Wah” means “magnificent wind” in Cantonese.

During the days before my journey, I would casually mention to friends that I was writing a story on the Fung Wah bus, and people were not at all inhibited about sharing their personal opinions and

anecdotes. “I think it’s so cool! All the ways we travel these days are so politically correct — you know, so hyper-tense. For once it would just be really fun to travel on a ‘laid back’ bus,” philosophized Lora Brown, a 21-year-old University of Vermont senior as we rode in a car up to Burlington, Vt. She leaned over to look at me in the back seat. “Everything in our culture is about being absolutely safe at all times. Even playgrounds are so safe these days that they’re boring. It’s like, just let us live.”

Another UVM senior, Bronwen Gulkus, 21, told me she rode the Fung Wah from New York to Washington, D.C. on July 4th weekend last year. “Within the first couple minutes of the ride, the people on the bus — a crowd of New Yorkers, mostly orthodox Jews — realized that there was no air-conditioning on the bus,” she recalled. “They started to complain and to yell at the bus driver to turn around, and so he finally did turn around on the teeny tiny New York streets and brought them back to the Fung Wah station only to find out that there were no others buses available and so they would have to stick

it out in the stuffy, overheated bus all the way to D.C.

Photos: Chi Chung Lo

“Soon a woman with a heavy Chinese accent came down the isle selling cold drinks,” Gulkus continued. “One of the orthodox Jewish women on the bus asked, ‘Are they free?’ to which the Chinese woman shook her head. ‘One dollar. One dollar,’ she said. So the angry New Yorkers preferred to swelter in quiet protest rather than buy drinks that they felt they deserved to get for free.”

Recalled another college student, New Yorker Elliot Sion, 21: “One time when I was riding the Fung Wah, we stopped at a toll and not only did the bus driver not have enough money to pay, he also didn’t have an EZ Pass, his bus wasn’t registered and the driver didn’t have a license! So everyone on the bus had to get out and wait for a new bus to come and pick us up.”

YYY When I started out on my assignment I admit to being a bit apprehensive, what with visions of flaming buses and wheels flying off darting in and out of my consciousness. There was much suspense leading up that climactic moment of boarding the bus. After handing my ghetto excuse for a boarding pass to the Fung Wah employee at the front of the bus, the doors closed and the bus promptly took off a minute after I boarded. The bus was nowhere near full, with some people in the back, a couple in the front and mostly empty seats in between.

Drew Foder (whom I will later discover is the great-nephew of Bunge Gabby, Bob Marley’s Rastafarian spiritual mentor — who knew?), tells me he’s riding the bus back from dropping his daughter off in Boston. He smiles when I ask him why he chose this particular means of conveyance over the alternatives. “I’m used to this craziness,” he shrugs. “I’d rather use the craziness I know than the craziness I don’t know.” He says he’s so far had only positive experiences on the bus, but clarified, “I don’t trust it, but I do it — I’m adventurous.”

Fodor thinks most people who choose the Fung Wah over BoltBus or Megabus do so because “It has a catchy name. It works.

It’s the original company. I assume that if there are problems they know better what to do. Plus there’s more room on this bus because it’s never as packed as the other buses. I come early, get a seat in the back, stretch out my legs like this in the isle and I’m good.” He demonstrates how he stretches his legs, and then he looks around. “This bus is actually a newer

more comfortable bus than usual,” he observes. “It’s a little wider.”

“Yes, but there is still no sanitizer in the bathroom,” I reply.

“They don’t care about s--t like that,” Fodor counters. “This is a no-frills trip. They are not trying to woo you.”

I ask him if he has any stories about Fung Wah. “I’m a writer, so I’m pretty perceptive. One time when I was riding the Fung Wah, a Chasidic Jewish guy kept going up to the driver asking him about something. I was curious: What was he bugging this poor driver for over and over again? Turns out he was afraid of being late for the Sabbath and so eventually the bus driver just let him off in the middle of nowhere on the highway. I thought that was interesting.”

Fodor also knows some Fung Wah history, how the company began as a commuter van mainly for the Chinese community but soon attracted other value-conscious travelers and evolved into a bigger business. “At first there were some jealousies and rivalries in the Chinese underground over the start of this bus company,” Fodor tells me, “even some violence in Chinatown. The Chinese community here keeps things to themselves. They’re very insular and private, but this got so big it even made the news.”

Recent Harvard grad Olivia Jampel puts down her Philip Roth novel to talk to me.

“Is that any good?” I ask her. “Actually, not really,” she says. “He’s lost his touch, at least in this one.”

Jampel works for a New York production company, and is returning from visiting

her boyfriend in Boston. She usually takes this bus when going up for the weekend.

I ask her how this bus compares to other buses, but before she can reply the bus slams to a sudden stop the power on the bus fails. “Good timing,” I quip.

“This is what this bus is known for,” she adds, tucking some of her long brown hair behind her ear. “The joke is that it either flips over or breaks down. But it has never happened to me on this bus — before now.”

At this juncture the driver stands up and announces, “Wait one minute, everyone,” and exits the vehicle to check on what has happened to the engine.

Meanwhile, Jampel elaborates. “BoltBus might have more luxuries, but it’s also more crowded, and the wi-fi doesn’t always work. I live in Brooklyn, so this bus is more convenient. And it usually gets you where you’re going on time. I’m not good at planning ahead, and there’s always room on this bus.”

“Have you ever had an interesting experience on this bus?” I ask.

“Well, it looks like we’re broken down right now.”

While the bus is still pulled over to the roadside, its passengers sitting in the dark, Jampel elaborates on Fung Wah’s peculiar charm.

“On other buses there are college kids and a more gentrified crowd,” she says. “On this bus there are bums, people with babies, Chinatown locals. It’s different and refreshing.” After a moment, she adds, “Also, it always feels safe.”

“Really?” I ask, considering the circumstances. new haven

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“Yeah, even when s--t like this happens.”

YYY The bus still isn’t moving. I approach Michael Dibenedetto, a dark-haired grad school-aged guy. He tells me he was visiting his girlfriend in New Hampshire and is now on his way home to New York, where he works as a cancer researcher while he applies to med schools. He says he rides the Fung Wah frequently. “I was going to take Megabus tonight, but I missed it,” he says. “I’ll go on any of the buses depending on availability. I usually buy a ticket last-minute, so this is a good choice for me.”

When I ask him about his experiences on Fung Wah, he says: “You get what you pay for — really the basics. But I’ve never had any trouble before right now. We always get where we’re going on time, driving most recklessly fast to do so, and they’re never late.” At this point, the bus driver climbs back onto the bus, turns the key and after not much ado we’re back in business, on the road again.

Dushyant Damamia politely closes his laptop as I approach, and the reflective glow illuminating his glass lenses fades away. “Are you getting wi-fi?” I ask him.

“Actually, yes. The wi-fi is working,” he answers to my surprise. Wi-fi is not

something advertised on the Fung Wah. I soon find out that this is Damamia’s second time riding the Fung Wah. He took the bus last-minute, a detail that is emerging as a theme. He’s a doctor, about to start his residency in New York, and he had been in Boston visiting friends for the weekend. He’s from India, and has been in the U.S. only five months.

I ask him why he chose to do his residency in the States. “Are you kidding?” he asks.

“They have the best technology, the best health system, and they deal with patients in a really good way.” I ask him how his experience has been riding Fung Wah and in a very clinical manner, “Last time it was okay, but this time it broke down.”

“Yes,” I affirm, feeling a tad defensive about Fung Wah already, “but it didn’t take long to fix.” “But, it’s still…” he points his finger toward the floor and we both pause to listen. We feel the bus lurching temperamentally beneath us, the motor making sporadic noises of stopping and starting, as if offering a polite reminder, “Don’t get too comfortable.”

Next I’m talking to John, a middle-aged guy with a voice so deep and quiet I have to lean in to hear him over the bumping and rumbling of the bus. John lives and works in a hotel in Boston, but travels to New York every week on his day off to

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visit his family. Like many of the other passengers John admits, “ I jump on whatever I can find around. This bus is a little cheaper than other buses.” I ask him why he works in Boston, and not in a hotel in New York. It’s pretty obvious,” he says. “In these economic times, things went a different way.”

I make my way to the front of the bus, where the lone Chinese woman on the bus sits. Excitedly, I approach her. But when I ask her if I can interview her she replies that she doesn’t speak English. Thinking fast, I call a college friend of mine who is fluent in Mandarin. “Hey, can you do me a quick favor and interview this person over the phone in Chinese for me?” At home and bored, but always eager to practice his Chinese, David Wallace, a 22-yearold recent Asian studies grad, happily consents, even while grumbling something about his Chinese being rusty. “Okay, but first you need to see if she even speaks Mandarin,” he says. “Here, I’ll teach you how to ask her that. Write this down: Ni quai shou jung wen ma?” In my terrible Chinese accent I repeat these words to her, and somehow she recognizes them and responds in the affirmative. I pass the phone to the woman and watch her face light up. She looks instantly more at ease.

In fact, as I watch the conversation unfold

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she is smiling and laughing almost the whole time.

From what I gather later from David, her name is May. She lives in Flushing, N.Y. where she works as a masseuse. She is returning from Boston, where she was doing something work-related.

Asked why she rides Fung Wah in particular, she responds, “I don’t know, it’s convenient.”

“Is it because there are other Chinese people on this bus?” Wallace asks.

“Yes, I like that. It makes me feel safe, and my English isn’t so good.”

She’s been living in America since 2008 and is originally from Kaifeng. When asked, “What are your impressions of America?” she responds: “I like America.

It’s clean, and the people are friendly.”

YYY I approach the last person sitting on the bus, but when I begin to speak to her she answers. “Hablo Espanol.” Okay, I think, that seems to be the trend. I could pull a fast one and phone a Spanish-speaking friend, but I decide that interviewing is over for the night. I give the driver a long stare, wondering if he would be irked if I try to interview him. Eventually I decide against it. But I do notice that, like me,

he is fighting a cold. Also like me, he is too cheap to buy Kleenex, so instead is carrying around a big old roll of toilet paper with him.

As the journey nears its end, I return to my seat and start to think about the common denominators that draw riders to the Fung Wah bus. From my conversations I realize that it is not, as I’d expected, strictly the low low low price. Instead it seems to draw a crowd of adventurous procrastinators, mostly from Brooklyn, people who aren’t married to traveling in a sterile environment, and perhaps people who like something about the unrefined character of travel by what is euphemistically known as a motor coach.

To take it a step further, it occurs to me that the Fung Wah loyalists are sometimes people who might even do it partly because of the excitement of it. As Bronwen Gulkus said, “Interstate travel is the least romantic form of transportation in America, but on the Fung Wah anything could happen.”

After a four-hour ride we arrive in lower Manhattan and the passengers start to rummage through their bags, stretch and don their coats expectantly. The bus hisses to a stop. Another victory for the Magnificent Wind. She’s made it home to her cozy Chinatown harbor once again.

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The ‘before’ photo: A classic Fair Haven home, built for an oysterman, and partially renovated before it entered foreclosure. The exterior was intact, but the porch was literally held up by a few rusting nails, and came down with a slight shove.

Restoring a 19th-century Fair Haven oysterman’s house for fun and profit

By Duo Dickinson

’After’ view: A full coat of paint and a brand new porch creates a finished presentation to Lewis Street, including an aqua-toned front door.

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March / April 2011

ATH OM E

O

ur houses in many ways are our most substantial set of clothes. They are at once our most public possession, but also reflect our deepest desires. But the vast majority of new houses are built to sell at a profit.

People’s perceptions of “developers” are as profit-mongering rapists of the land who have created hundreds of thousands of now-vacant, poorly built, overpriced boxes whose overvaluation ended up bankrupting millions of families over the last three years.

So why would anyone want to start a housing development company in this economic downturn?

The truth is, the profit motive and “doing the right thing” can go hand in hand.

Verdigris Ventures, a partnership between Nancy Greenberg and Corey Stone, represents a fusion of unalloyed positives.

Everyone wants his or her home to have a lower energy footprint, and if you can preserve a historically significant house while helping to stabilize a neighborhood that has seen its share of the last few years’ economic roller coaster ride, it’s a winwin-win.

Stone is a banker working in the Yale Community Economic Development Clinic and is chairman of the board of Start Bank in New Haven. He also

was recently appointed to the federal government’s new Financial Protection Bureau. But for this partnership he brings a passion for energy efficiency. Nancy Greenberg, a commercial lawyer in New Haven for more than 20 years, has had a longstanding commitment to historic preservation.

These business partners have offered up the first fruits of their combined passions: a fully renovated house in Fair Haven. Effectively Verdigris Ventures has launched a corporate mission for strategic economic stimulus in addition to their “mom and apple pie” mindsets of energy efficiency and preserving endangered

A new window array combines with custom lacquered cabinetry, marble countertops and high-end appliances to create a kitchen that’s more than just a place to cook, but a selling point for the developers who hope to show that owners of a small house can live large.

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Although a house renovated to sell is not usually furnished, the evident care in restoring the original stair and ooring is clearly a selling point.

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March / April 2011

buildings. Notes Greenberg, “Corey and I think Verdigris Ventures has a winning formula for 21st-century building that seamlessly blends historic authenticity and sustainable design.”

The focus of their inaugural leap of faith into a troubled market is the James L. Bassett house, a onetime oysterman’s home built in 1876 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has a high, oblique view of the Quinnipiac River, situated on a sloping Fair Haven street. Not surprisingly, the house had been a foreclosure sale and was purchased by Verdigris a year ago. Greenberg and Stone infused a surgical application of seed money into a this simple dwelling to make a virtually new threebedroom, 2.5-bath house listed for sale at $287,500.

The one purely ornamental feature of the home: a stained glass, roundtopped window at the top of the top stairway was fully restored and gives a simple house a zesty focal point.

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gut rehab project but kept all window and stair locations in place except for two new openings that were made in the completely renovated kitchen to allow a full appreciation of the river view.

Additionally, a stained-glass window was imported to adorn the top of the stairs and a strategic removal of a wall from a split bedroom and the insertion of a wall to split a wider bedroom allowed for a master suite to gain the same view that the new kitchen enjoys.

All for-profit development projects involve spending money in ways that hopefully will convince somebody to buy the home, and this project is no exception.

Essentially a barely standing porch was removed, allowing a revived separate second-floor entry. The ground floor was more 19th century oysterman’s workshop with many dirt floors and some classic retrofit disasters of ducts, plumbing and unnecessary walls, all made wholly new and capable of accommodating a strip kitchen if the floor is given over to be a studio apartment.

Tucked into a wee corner, a new powder room helps bring an antique up to 21st-century standards.

As seen from the rear porch off the kitchen, the home’s hillside elevation offers a perspective that seems straight out of the 19th century.

Upstairs the new kitchen is the star of the show: custom-built cabinetry with nice appliances and lush marble countertops.

Even though the 550-square-foot floor is a simple rectangle with a central stair, the openness seems to offer up the sense that even in a small simple house, great cuisine can be created (and of course) consumed.

Upstairs a new central bath and the three bedrooms have had new closets installed that were missing in the original house and new storage has been worked into a variety of locations on all three floors. The rooms are precisely sized — bed locations are prescribed by the existing door and window openings — but there are windows on almost every wall, making for tight light. The existing pine floors and trim were salvaged, and the home was spared the butchery so many endured in the mid-20th century rush to “modernize.”

It’s a three-story affair with the upper two floors being a self-contained house and the ground-level preserved as a “bonus” space that could be modeled into a separate studio apartment, a workspace or simply a family room in a very tight envelope.

Effectively, this is a 1,600-square-foot building with the top two floors totaling 1,100 square feet and the lower floor housing 500 feet of space.

of places as well as new windows and a very high-tech, efficient heating plant. In fact, Verdigris Ventures is guaranteeing that the homebuyer’s first year combined gas and electric payments will average no more than $100 per month. As Stone puts it: “It’s a very deep energy retrofit — twice as energy-efficient as a comparably sized, typically built, code-compliant built-new home.”

The energy-efficiency comes from the use of closed-cell insulation in a variety

The construction project lasted from last May to December. It was nearly a full-

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March / April 2011

Fortunately for the project, the house had had a partial renovation before the previous owners went into foreclosure and the house was repossessed. The lot is so small (perhaps 0.10 of an acre) that this property will actually have all the advantages of a condominium (virtually new construction and precisely scaled spaces) with all the sense of privacy and ownership that a new single-family house presents. There is a common amenity as well: Lewis Street Park is right next door, but thankfully downhill and thus has its presence shielded from the adjacent home.

A typical developer’s house is essentially a Chinese menu of “required” features, spaces and options to allow potential buyers to feel encouraged that they are getting a “good value.” In the past, these have been things like “bonus rooms,” “great rooms,” central vacuum systems and any number of absurd creature comforts that rendered most of these homes unsustainable in terms of the economic impact they had in many families’ lives.

The spiraling economy of the last few years highlighted that millions upon millions of developer’s spec houses were greatly overvalued. Here, there is an alternative checklist — one born of ethical underpinnings where saving a neighborhood, reducing the energyconsumption footprint of its occupants, and ultimately saving a threatened historic building can give a sense of pride that in flusher times features like a “media room” used to provide.

As Greenberg notes, “We used historicpreservation and energy-efficiency tax credits to reduce our costs and make the home affordable.” A profit motive is not at all a bad thing when married to the higher motive of doing the right thing.

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James Prosek trekked to one of the most remote places in the Western Hemisphere to create art in the name of science

James Prosek: Suriname, on view through June 24 at the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St., New Haven. Open 3-5 p.m. Mon. & Wed. or by appointment. 203-432-0670, yale. edu/whc.

By Nancy Burton

A

joyous partnership of art and science, atop an unnamed mountain in a tropical jungle in South America where no human had ever walked before, advanced both last spring.

Worth two in the bush: James Prosek painting a bird in the field in Suriname last spring.

Now, some of the fruits of that unusual enterprise are on public display in the Elm City.

The exhibit James Prosek: Suriname is at Yale’s Whitney Center for the Humanities through June 24. It opened on February 28.

The exhibit features watercolors of birds, vipers, moths and flowers, some painted on the mountain and some back in Prosek’s Connecticut studio, and a selection of white, gray and brilliantlyfeathered stuffed songbirds captured in the name of science.

The 35-year-old Prosek, the versatile artistauthor best known for publishing his first illustrated book about trout fishing in 1996 while still an undergraduate at Yale, paired up with Kristof Zyskowski, ornithologist and manager of vertebrate collections for Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, for the three-week adventure of a lifetime last March and April.

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March / April 2011

They were joined by Bernd Heinrich, the University of Vermont biologist, bestselling author and record-breaking runner, Mei Chin, a chef and food critic with an academic interest in foods of indigenous people, and two locals, a game warden and trail-cutter.

Their mission was to collect new bird and nest specimens for the Peabody’s renowned bird collection from the Wilhelmina Mountains in southwest Suriname (formerly Dutch Guyana), the remote World Heritage site they reached by chartered helicopter.

The expedition was one of dozens Yale may sponsor at any given time on any

continent for the Peabody, which houses one of the world’s pre-eminent collections of plants and animals. Its bird collection alone has 130,000 specimens, preserved to provide knowledge critical to species protection and the advancement of environmental science.

The trip to Suriname was Zyzkowski’s 20th expedition for the Peabody, but Prosek’s first. Their historic mission achieved its goals: the adventurers discovered a new species of bird (as well as several subspecies and nests) and added to knowledge of birds native to Suriname.

An aberration in the dense green jungle is the allwhite bell bird, whose call Prosek likened to an ‘alien metal factory.’

From a makeshift camp set up last March at an elevation near 4,000 feet, they set nets to snare the unsuspecting birds. For high-canopy dwellers, a 12-gauge shotgun using fine powder was the preferred method of harvesting the avians, as it was for John James Audubon on the American frontier 200 years earlier. The birds fell into the dense underbrush riddled with holes too tiny to see, except for the bigbeaked birds.

to paint a white orchid on the single day it bloomed. Unlike fish, which lose their coloration when removed from the water, the birds’ iridescent plumage stays forever brilliant.

The 200 birds retrieved from their jungle habitat now repose at the Peabody in temperature-controlled, permanent slumber inside metal drawers with identifying tags tied to their legs, available to be studied by scholars. Samples of their internal organs are stored in glass tubes for DNA research and whatever research technology the future holds.

To underscore the point, he deliberately introduced distortion in several of the pictures, giving flowers and insects a tilt and flipping a snake upside-down, spiraling it in the air and flattening it so it appears squished.

The Whitney exhibit provides a window into a hitherto unknown slice of a pristine natural world as seen through Prosek’s eyes. (In April, Zyskowski will publish the expedition’s formal findings in the Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History.)

He manifested artistic precocity from an early age when he created his own Peter Rabbit book, borrowing the text from Beatrix Potter’s classic nursery tale and boldly substituting his own illustrations.

Prosek’s watercolors are delicately executed with quick, deliberate strokes by the left-handed artist, who happened

Prosek would be the first to say that what you see through his eyes will be a distortion, even if he doesn’t intend it. “Whenever we photograph or paint nature, we distort nature in some way,” he says.

You might say Prosek belongs to a subspecies of human known as “originals.”

YYY The Whitney exhibition marks Prosek’s artistic return to birds, which he began

sketching from age four during family forays into the woods near his home in Easton. He assembled bird books and his father, an astronomy teacher at a local school, would bring home library books featuring the nature art of Audubon, Louis Agassiz and Albrecht Durer to channel his son’s artistic development.

At nine, Prosek’s interests turned to fishing for trout in the streams and reservoir near his house. When he looked for an illustrated book about trout to guide his artistic drive to sketch and paint them, he couldn’t find one. By age 11, he was at work to fill that void on what would become his first published book, Trout: An Illustrated History.

In September, he published Eels, his tenth book, which combines original illustration, natural history, travel writing and investigative journalism, with some anthropology as well, to popularize a mysterious but collapsing species of fish considered sacred gods by indigenous populations in Polynesia and delectable by millions of Japanese.

Prosek has courted risk in pursuit of nature as he has traveled widely to remote locations. Published in 2003, Fly-Fishing the new haven

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Immortalized by the artist, this venomous green viper entered the camp uninvited but was quickly and deftly euthanized.

41st is an account of his two-year odyssey following the 41st parallel from Easton, around the world, and back. His drive past skirmishing Turks and Kurds to reach the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in the company of an experienced Austrian trout expert as his guide, was notably harrowing.

Prosek, the artist, and Zyskowski, the scientist, planned the trip to Suriname after getting to know one another through Peabody activities. Prosek’s association with the Peabody began as a child when he gravitated to its third-floor Hall of Birds to hone his powers of observation and precocious drawing skills. He volunteered there while a Yale undergraduate and now serves as a curatorial affiliate. The two have much in common beyond their tall frames, modesty and good humor.

Prosek, whose parents are of Czech origin, grew up in Easton, a Fairfield County town lush with woods, streams and protected watershed property.

Zyskowski was born in eastern Poland in a town about the size of Easton, also located in a greenbelt, a district rich in natural landscape.

Both have an affinity for music. Prosek was singer/songwriter/guitarist for his coffeehouse band, Troutband, while at Yale. Zyskowski is a bird-song aficionado who can distinguish more than 600 varieties of trills and tweets.

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March / April 2011

Both have a fondness for architecture.

Prosek considered studying to become an architect. Zyskowski’s academic expertise lies in the architecture of bird nests.

And both have thrilled to outdoor adventure and physical risk since as long as they can remember. The unnamed mountain in Suriname, with all its challenges, summoned like a siren song.

Still, nothing quite prepared them for the helicopter ride from Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital, to the unnamed mountaintop where the Peabody expedition would spend three weeks of intense activity from sunrise to midnight collecting birds and other specimens and preparing them for eternal preservation.

The journey to the jungle interior was so distant that the helicopter had to land at a midway point to refuel, then await clear weather to complete the journey. The expedition was planned a year in advance to occur during the rainy season, the birds’ breeding season, when the sought-after birds could be identified by their breeding songs. The helicopter resumed its flight into clear skies but beyond the halfway point, thick fog rolled in to obscure the view.

The low-flying helicopter lacked an altimeter, which would inform the pilot how close the craft was at a given time above the rugged mountainous terrain.

The land below was unmapped, densely wooded and hostile to helicopters.

But Zyskowski, the seasoned leader of the expedition who had made three previous expeditions to less remote parts of Suriname, knew of a certain granite ledge likely suitable for a helicopter touch-down.

As the chopper circled with a depleting fuel reserve, and his fellow expeditioners convulsed in airsickness and sweat, he guided them confidently to the needle in the haystack.

As they waved the helicopter goodbye, he adventurers consoled themselves that they had brought along a satellite phone.

They were miles from the nearest known indigenous people and the mountain’s nearly vertical slope rendered it inaccessible to foot travel.

Torrential rains soon drowned the small camp they constructed from trees they felled. They dug trenches around their tents to divert the deluge, but they got soaked in their sleeping bags anyway.

Despite heightened precautions, the satellite phone too was a casualty of the flooding.

Yet a year later, Prosek waxes exuberant about the experience.

“I loved being in an unnamed and untouched place,” says Prosek, whose boyish, understated manner and easy charm belie a formidable self-discipline.

He fell asleep to the lullabies of frogs and awoke to a symphony of urgent bird calls in the natural surround-sound system.

Of all the birds he helped capture, gut and stuff (not processes anyone enjoys, he acknowledges) and paint (and, yes, eat — lest their meat go to waste), the bell bird stands out.

“It’s all-white, an aberration in the green jungle, and its call is like an alien metal factory,” Prosek explains. He painted its fluff-feathered likeness on tea-stained paper to accentuate its whiteness. It’s one of the birds on loan from the Peabody to the exhibition.

In the virgin jungle, Prosek wielded a machete and taxidermy instruments as well as his paintbrush, often into the night wearing a head lantern.

As he painted a likeness of the poisonous green viper that had entered the camp uninvited (soon euthanized by Zyskowski with a daring jab of Nembutol behind its neck), Prosek entered the ideal state espoused by a personal hero, the 16th century Izaak Walton, troutsman and author of the lyrical ode to the contemplative life, The Compleat Angler.

That is, Prosek had entered the zone of contentment, simplicity and quietude that he aspires to.

All the while, his academic side contemplated how art distorts nature, how

newly discovered species are named and how all living things are categorized under the system developed centuries years ago by the Dutch botanist Carl Linnaeus.

Back at home, grounded in “this world,” one of Prosek’s current projects is writing a book addressing such topics.

“Nature’s by nature too chaotic” to fit into a linear classification system, he says. “We do need some kind of order, but nature’s fluidity can betray our instincts to put it in a box.”

In conjunction with the Whitney exhibit, Prosek has organized an academic roundtable panel of leading experts to discuss initiatives to update the creationist-oriented Linnaeus system of biological classifications to a more evolutionary-oriented approach. On April 15, the experts from Yale and the Smithsonian will meet from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Whitney Humanities Center on Wall Street.

To stimulate their thinking, the panelists will be introduced to feathered creatures through an artist’s eyes as well as the nameless grey-feathered bird first captured on the slopes of Unnamed Mountain in Suriname by the Zyskowski-Prosek Expedition of 2010.

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T

he long winter is at long last receding, and it’s finally possible to imagine spring. How appropriate then that through April 3 Long Wharf Theatre is presenting a new play by a playwright who is new to the Long Wharf.

Written by Aditi Brennan Kapil, Agnes Under the Big Top is directed by Eric Ting, LWT’s associate artistic director. During this harsh season of record-breaking ice, snow and cold, we may have felt like strangers in a strange land. Kapil’s play and Ting’s interpretation ask us to take into our hearts the literal experience of being a stranger.

Agnes Under the Big Top engages themes of journeys, immigration and distance, but Ting says that the characters will seem familiar to audience members. “There is a woman who no longer feels beautiful; a man who thinks no one is listening to him so he just talks louder; and Agnes, who just wants to be a good mother,” explains Ting.

Strangers in a Strange Land LWT’s world-premier Agnes plumbs depth of immigrant experience Francesca Choy-Kee (left) and Laura Esterman in Long Wharf’s world premiere production of Agnes Under the Big Top

By BROOKS APPELBAUM

“An Adventure in Chile”

Ting describes the play as “an expression of the immigrant spirit — that leap of faith that so many of our ancestors took in uprooting themselves from their familiar world to come to this new place in the hope of finding a better life.” This experience has touched his own life, and

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he emphasizes the fact that America is a place in which everyone has come from somewhere else if you go back far enough.

“Theater is a tool of empathy,” Ting says.

“It can connect us communally and take us to a place where we value every person.”

An actress, playwright and director, Kapil can certainly present the immigrant experience with personal authority. Her father, a poet and translator, is Indian; her mother is Bulgarian; and she was born and raised in Sweden. Kapil has lived much of her adult life in Minneapolis, where she has performed extensively. Her play Love Person earned a 2009 Stavis Award and Agnes Under the Big Top was selected as a Distinguished New Play Development project by the National Endowment for the Arts as administered by Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage.

Along with the diversity in Kapil’s work, her distinctive use of language and silence excites Ting as a director. “Because Kapil began as an actor and director, she writes with a theatrical sensibility,” he explains.

“He points out that “silences, phone calls, language barriers and dialect add musicality to the text,” creating exciting potential for the actors and director to explore. Kapil is clearly invested in these

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elements as an ongoing project: Love Person was written in a combination of English, Sanskrit and American Sign Language.

In Agnes Under the Big Top, the train and the telephone play large roles, literally and figuratively. Ting says that people pass through our lives as if seen through the windows of a moving train. “Too, think of the ways that subway passengers are ‘turned off’ from each other,” Ting says.

Playwrights are generally warned against the use of the telephone onstage: onesided communication generally stands in the way of theatrical immediacy. But Ting treats a phone call as a “monologue” rather than an “obstacle to dramatic event.” He views the phone calls in the play as metaphors for distance and further opportunities for empathy.

When she came to America Agnes made the heartbreaking choice to leave her son Eugene behind so she could send money home and make a better life for him. For Ting, Agnes’ task is to evoke Eugene in our minds, and her son’s absence onstage makes us miss him just as much she does.

center on the search for connection and communal experience, Ting, his associates and Kapil herself felt that Agnes Under the Big Top would lend itself perfectly to a pilot program that guides audiences through the steps of new play development. Thus was born Spark!

Spark!’s limited spaces (50 people) immediately filled at the cost of $15 per person. Spark! offered four meetings, all designed, says Ting, not to prepare its participants but “empower” them. The seminars reflected this mission. “How To Read a Play” invited members “to learn not only how to read a play but how to see one.” In “First Rehearsal,” Spark! participants attended the actual first rehearsal, in which the designers presented their ideas and the director gave his opening remarks. “The Director’s Role” unveiled the director’s work as he wove all the elements of the production into a coherent whole. In the final meeting, “Previews! Bringing It All Together,” participants were given a tour of the theater, an understanding of technical rehearsals and a chance to talk with the playwright.

In addition to the play’s newness, another important element has surrounded this production. Because Kapil’s themes

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ART

Open noon-4 p.m. daily except Mon. Free. 860685-3355, wesleyan.edu.

CREATING ART Pottery Series: Build a Cup. Hand-build a distinctive cup with clay all in one night. No experience needed, all tools and materials provided. 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. April 1 at the Guilford Art Center, 411 Church St., Guilford. $35 ($31.50 members). 203-453-5947, guilfordartcenter.org.

GALLERY TALKS & TOURS Exploring Duality in Modern and Contemporary Art. Yale undergrad guides lead hour-long gallery conversations exploring a variety of artists, themes and genres from across the world. 3-4 p.m. March 27 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-0600, artgalleryinfo@yale.edu.

EXHIBITIONS Opening The Bowls Juried Exhibit showcases bowls in a variety of media, including ceramic, glass, metal and fiber executed by artists from throughout the U.S. March 18-May 1 at Guilford Art Center, 411 Church St., Guilford. Open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. daily. Free. 203-453-5947, guilfordartcenter.org.

Collecting Photographs: Ellen G. D’Oench and the Growth of a Collection. Photography exhibition highlights D’Oench’s collection acquired while she was curator at the Davidson Art Center. Works on view comprise more than half of all the photographs now in the collection — more than 4,000 of approximately 6,000. March 25-May 22 (opening reception 5-7 p.m.

3/24) at Davidson Art Center, 301 High St., Middletown.

Fiber & Wood: Janney Simpson & Alan Todd. March 30-May 1 at Wesleyan Potters Gallery, 350 S. Main St., Middletown. Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wed.Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sunday or by appt. 860-347-5925, wesleyanpotters.com.

The Arts Council of Greater New Haven, in partnership with students from Common Ground High School, presents Common Ground: What ‘Down the Lane’ by painter Angelo Franco at Clinton’s Matters Is the Dream, Sylvan Gallery. a multimedia exhibit of works focusing on Silver is an exhibition of photographic works by sustainability. March 31-May 13 (opening reception 5 Anthony Giordanella. Through April 17 at the Atticus p.m. 3/31) at Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery, 70 Book Store Café, 1082 Chapel St, New Haven. 203-776Audubon St. (2nd floor), New Haven. 203-772-2788, 4040, atticusbookstorecafe.com. newhavenarts.org/programs.

Continuing Milford Center for the Arts presents its Photographic Expo 2011, a photo exhibit and sale featuring works by area photographers. Through March 25 at the Milford Center for the Arts, 40 Railroad Ave. South, Milford. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Fri. 203-878-6647, milfordarts.org.

AA Twist features drawing, painting and sculpture by Nancy Eisenfeld, including sculptures of found wood and manmade objects. Through March 27 at the City Gallery, 994 State St., New Haven. 203-782-2489, citygallery.org.

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March / April 2011

Into the Light of Things: Rebecca Salter, Works 1981-2010. Exhibition features approximately 150 works by British abstract artist Rebecca Salter who spent several years studying and working in Japan. Encompasses paintings, drawings, prints, sketchbooks, sculptures and documentary material.

This is the first solo museum exhibition for the artist, whose work has been showcased in international group shows and at commercial galleries. Through May 1 at the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St., New Haven. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat., noon-5 p.m. Sun. Free. 203-432-2800, ycba.yale.edu.

The American Decorative Arts Furniture Study is a working library of American furniture and wooden objects, encompassing some 1,000 works from the YUAG collection. Weekly tours led by curators from the Department of American Decorative Arts. Noon1 p.m. Fridays through May 13 at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-0600, artgallery.yale.edu.

A Group Exhibition by Gallery Artists offers works by contemporary artists from the Connecticut shoreline as well as select artists from other areas of the country.

Oil, watercolor, print media and sculpture. Through May 29 at the Sylvan Gallery, 121 West Main St., Clinton.

Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wed.-Sat., noon-4 p.m. Sun. Free.

860-669-7278, sylvangallery.com.

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One of the Shoreline’s newest galleries, the Six Summit Gallery hosts a Mixed Media Show.

Artists include painters Sherrie Parenteau, Kate Conlon, Ted Jeremenko, Lisa Farmer and Jeremy Turner, illustrator Ed Tuttle, photographers Ann Hogdon-Cyr and Mark Caratelli, potter Hayne Bayless, sculptor Corina S. Alvarez de Lugo and mixed media artists Carol Adams and Gwendolyn Basilica. Through April 25 (opening reception 7-11 p.m. 3/18) at Six Summit Gallery, 6 Summit St., Ivoryton. Open 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Wed. & Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Thurs., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Fri., noon-5 p.m. Sunday. 860-581-8332, sixsummitgallery. com.

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The Arts Council of Greater New Haven presents an exhibition of works by Connecticut artists Katie Kindilien & Lenny Moskowitz. Through June 12 (artists reception 5-7 p.m. 3/29) at Gallery 195, NewAlliance Bank, 195 Church St., 4th floor, New Haven. Open 9 a.m.-3 p.m. weekdays. Free. newhavenarts.org.

ONSTAGE Cabaret The old time radio show returns in The Musicality Radio Hour, a comedy by sound designer Mike Skinner and directed by Lee Micklin and Mike Skinner. 8 p.m.

March 31; 8 & 11 p.m. April 1-2 at the Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $15 ($10 students). 203-4321566, yalecabaret.org.

Albertus Magnus’ Act 2 Theatre stages Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. 7 p.m.

Fri-Sat; 2 p.m. Sun. April 1-16 at Act 2 Theatre, Albertus Magnus College, 700 Prospect St., New Haven. $12 ($10 seniors, students; $6 alumni).

Limited cabaret seating. BYOB. 203773-8584, albertus.edu.

A blend of projections and puppets, Oscar Wilde’s classic novel Dorian Gray is reimagined by a team of designers from the Yale School of Drama. Conceived and directed by Adam Rigg. 8 p.m.

April 7; 8 & 11 p.m. April 8-9 at Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $15 ($10 students). 203-432-1566, yalecabaret.org.

Demon Dreams is a rollicking musical fantasy written by Tommy Smith and composed and directed

by Michael McQuilken. Traditional Japanese storytelling fuses with hip-hop to tell the tale of three lonely demons who must decide the fate of humankind. 8 p.m. April 14, 8 & 11 p.m. April 15-16 at Yale Cabaret, 217 Park St., New Haven. $15 ($10 students). 203-432-1566, yalecabaret.org.

Opening A magical tale of hope, Agnes Under the Big Top, is a new play that explores the journey of immigrants in New York City as they search for a new life. Written

by Aditi Brennan Kapil and directed by Eric Ting. Through April 3 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $54-$29.

203-787-4282, longwharf.org.

All Shook Up! is a high-spirited musical set in the 1950s that pays homage to the King, featuring more than two dozen Elvis hits. 8 p.m. March 18, 2 & 8 p.m. March 19-20 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $72$15. 203-562-5666, 800-228-6622, shubert.com.

Improbably, the Yale Repertory Theatre brings the epic passion of Shakespeare’s timeless romance, Romeo and Juliet,for the ďŹ rst time. Shana Cooper directs. March 11-April 2 at the University Theatre, 222 York St., New Haven. $35 ($25 students). 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.

Bad boy Danny and girl next door Sandy fall in love all over again in the classic ‘50s musical Grease. 8 p.m. March 18; 2 & 8 p.m. March 19 at the Palace Theater, 100 East Main St., Waterbury. $62-$47. 203346-2000, palacetheaterct.org.

Broadway Kids & Co., a Connecticut school for the performing arts, brings its spring musical, Hairspray, to the Kate.

This Broadway’s musical-comedy inspired a major motion picture and won eight Tony Awards in 2003. 7 p.m. March 25; 2 & 7 p.m.

March 26; 1 p.m. March 27 at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main St., Old Saybrook. $25. 877-503-1286, katharinehepburntheater.org.

In a special preview engagement, American video artist and choreographer Dean Moss and acclaimed South Korean sculptor Sungmyung Chun fuse theatre, dance, video and sculpture in Nameless Forest. 8 p.m. March 31-April 2 at the Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel St., New Haven. $35 ($10 students). 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.

Junie B. Jones is Theatreworks USA’s brand-new musical.

Adapted from the popular Junie B. Jones series of books by Barbara Park. Best for grades K–5. 2 p.m.

April 3 at Paul Mellon Arts Center, 333 Christain St., Wallingford. $15 ($10 children under 13). 203-6972398, choate.edu/boxofďŹ ce.

Writer, humorist and Prairie Home Companion creator Garrison Keillor, shares anecdotes about growing up in the American Midwest, the people of Lake Woebegon and “late-life fatherhood.� 7:30 p.m. April 4 at the Palace Theater, 100 East Main St., Waterbury. $62-$32. 203-3462000, palacetheaterct.org.

Stomp is back. Appealing to audiences of all ages, this highenergy musical is performed by young musicians who employ unconventional percussion instruments — trashcans, brooms, matchboxes — to ďŹ ll the theater with irresistible rhythms. 8 p.m.

April 8, 3 & 8 p.m. April 9, 2 p.m.

April 10 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $60$15. 203-562-5666. 800-228-6622, shubert.com.

Next Stage Co. presents tigertigertiger, a poetic rock musical about two kids on a tiger-hunting quest to save the grownups. Best for students in grades 1-8. Directed by Maryna Harrison. 10:30 a.m., 1 p.m. April 9 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $5. 203-787-4282, longwharf.org.

Alan Ayckbourn’s How the Other Half Loves is a famously acid comedy that follows the lives and loves, passions and panics of

three married couples. April 13May 1 at Ivoryton Playhouse, 102 Main St., Ivoryton. $40 ($35 seniors, $20 students, $15 12 & under). 860767-7318, ivorytonplayhouse.org.

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Customized for students in grades 6-8, MatheMagic employs theatrical magic, costumes and humor and a “discovery approach� to making math fun.

Bradley Fields connects with kids in this audience-participatory performance. 10:15 a.m. April 14 at the Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $10. 203-562-5666, 800-228-6622, shubert.com.

Featuring the big band A String of Pearls, singers and swing dancers, In the Mood is a 1940s big band theatrical swing revue that brings to the stage the music that moved a nation’s spirit. 3 & 7:30 p.m. April 14 at the Palace Theater, 100 East Main St., Waterbury. $55-$35. 203346-2000, palacetheaterct.org.

Director Robert Woodruff, whose Yale Rep credits include Notes from Underground (2009) and last season’s Battle of Black and Dogs, returns with the U.S. premiere stage adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata. April 15-May 7 at the Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven. $35 ($25 students). 203-4321234, yalerep.org.

Quinnipiac University’s Theater for Community presents Bertold Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Directed by Robert Bresnick. 8 p.m. April 14-16; 2 p.m.

April 17 at the Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $12 ($8 seniors, students). 203-582-8394, longwharf.org.

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Huey Maximilian BonďŹ gliano has a problem: Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still stuck on his ex-wife in Italian-American Reconciliation, a light-hearted comedic turn by John Patrick Shanley, author of Moonstruck, and directed by Eric Ting. April 27May 22 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr., New Haven. $52-$42.

203-787-4282, longwharf.org.

The University of New Haven (UNH) Theatre Program presents its spring production, Rent, the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning musical by Jonathan Larson. April 27-May 1 at the Doddâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hall Theatre, UNH Main Campus, 300 Boston Post Rd., West Haven. $20 (free for UNH students, faculty and staff; $15 for non-UNH students with ID).

RentUNH.eventbrite.com.

Tony Award-winning musical Spring Awakening is about a group of late 19th-century German students who attempt to navigate teenage self-discovery and coming-of-age anxieties. (Mature themes). 5 & 9 p.m. April 30 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St., New Haven. $75-$15. 203-562-5666.

800-228-6622, shubert.com.

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MUSIC Classical As part of the Neighborhood Music School’s “Bach’s Lunch” faculty concert series, guitarist Neal Fitzpatrick and pianist Laura Richling perform Music for Guitar & Piano. Little-heard works for this uncommon pairing including: CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Fantasia for Piano and Guitar, CARULLI Sonata for Guitar and Piano and DIABELLI Sonata for Guitar and Piano. 12:10-12:50 p.m. March 25 in NMS Recital Hall, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. Free. 203-6245189, neighborhoodmusicschool.org.

Works by Scott Joplin, Joseph Lamb and others are the main course of A Century of Ragtime, a Neighborhood Music School Friday Faculty Concert.

With Art Hovey, arranger and tuba; Chris Radawiec, flute; Larry Zukof, recorder; Mary Larew, violin; Reesa Gringorten, clarinet; Margaret Ann Martin, piano; and Yun-Yang Lin, cello.

7:30 p.m. March 25 in NMS Recital Hall, 100 Audubon St., New Haven. Free. 203624-5189, neighborhoodmusicschool. org.

The Yale School of Music presents a Faculty Artist Recital with violinist Kyung Yu and pianist Elizabeth Parisot.

HANDEL Violin Sonata in D Major, HWV 371; BEETHOVEN Sonata in A Major, Op. 47 (“Kreutzer”). SAINTSAËNS: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D

minor, Op. 75; Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso in A minor, Op. 28. 8 p.m.

March 25 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music. yale.edu.

The Yale School of Music presents a Faculty Artist Recital with violist Ettore Causa and pianist Boris Berman. (Rescheduled from 2/15.)

SCHUMANN Drei Romanzen, Op. 94, Drei Phantasiestücke, Op. 73; BRAHMS Sonata in F minor, Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 120, No. 2. 8 p.m. March 26 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale. edu.

Celebrated at the “First Lady of the Organ,” Diane Bish also hosts the television program Joy of Music. She comes to Battell for a program of organ favorites and original hymn arrangements. 7 p.m. April 9 at Battell Chapel, 300 College St., New Haven. $35-$20 ($5 students). 203-392-5598, southernct.edu/lymancenter.

Principal guest conductor Peter Oundjian leads the graduate Yale Philharmonia in performance: MAHLER Symphony No. 5; STRAUSS Notturno (Tyler Simpson, bassbaritone); SMETANA Sarka (from Ma Vlast). 8 p.m. April 1 at Woolsey Hall, 400 College St., New Haven. Free. 203432-4158, music.yale.edu.

The Yale Symphony Orchestra and Yale Glee Club join forces for a performance featuring the world premiere of a work for chorus and orchestra by Yale School of Music grad Ted Hearne. Also, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Dona Nobis

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Pacem; SIBELIUS Tapiola. 8 p.m. April 2 at Woolsey Hall, 400 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale. edu.

Under the direction of Thomas C. Duffy, the Yale Jazz Ensemble presents the fourth annual Stan Wheeler Memorial Jazz Concert. 2 p.m. April 3 at Levinson Auditorium, 127 Wall St., New Haven.

Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale.edu.

As part of Yale’s Horowitz Piano Series, Boris Berman performs works for piano and strings with Katie Hyun and David Southorn, violin; Ettore Causa, viola; and Mihai Marica, cello. J.S. BACH Concerto in E Major, BWV 1053; Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056; Concerto in A Major, BWV 1055; Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058; and Concerto in D Major, BWV 1054. 8 p.m. April 6 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $22$12 ($6 students). 203-432-4158, music. yale.edu.

The Yale Baroque Ensemble presents Stylus Fantasticus, extravagant and experimental music from the 17th century. Robert Mealy directs. 3 p.m.

April 10 at Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, 15 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven. Free (ticket required). 203-4324158, music.yale.edu.

Clinician Anthony Leach leads the New Haven High Schools Choral Festival, presented by the Yale Glee Club. 7 p.m.

April 13 at Woolsey Hall, 400 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music. yale.edu.

Music Director Thomas C. Duffy leads the Yale Concert Band in a

performance featuring the world premiere of Paul Lansky’s Concerto for Horn and Wind Orchestra, with soloist William Purvis. 7:30 p.m. April 15 at Woolsey Hall, 400 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale. edu.

Under the baton of Marguerite L. Brooks, the Yale Camerata perform music for Palm Sunday, including works by Lang and Britten. With the Elm City Girls Choir, soloists from the Trinity Choir of Men & Boys, and tenor soloist James Taylor. 3 p.m. April 17 at Woolsey Hall, 400 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale. edu.

There’s always room for cello — especially it’s the renowned Yale Cellos under the direction of Aldo Parisot.

Program includes world premiere of a new work by Ezra Laderman. 8 p.m.

April 20 at Sprague Hall, 470 College St., New Haven. $20-$10 ($5 students). 203432-4158, music.yale.edu.

Conducted by Music Director Toshiyuki Shamada, the Yale Symphony Orchestra performs its final concert of the season. SCHUMANN Concerto for Piano (with Peter Frankl); MAHLER Symphony No. 5. 8 p.m. April 23 at Woolsey Hall, 400 College St., New Haven. Free. 203-432-4158, music.yale. edu.

As part of Trinity Church’s Wendell H. Piehler Memorial Organ Series, international acclaimed virtuoso and recording artist Stephen Tharp presents a program that showcases both the awesome firepower and subtle

colors of Trinityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s historic Aeolian-Skinner organ. 7 p.m. April 30 at Trinity Church on the Green, New Haven. $10. 203-776-2616, trinitynewhaven.org.

Popular Ruthless, hellbent psychobilly is what Providence, R.I.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sasquatch & the Sick-A-Billys is all about. With the Pretty Things Peepshow. 9 p.m. March 19 at CafĂŠ Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. 203-789-8281, cafĂŠnine.com.

Firehouse 12 hosts the Donny McCaslin Group, whose namesake has been described as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;tenor saxophoneblowing force of nature.â&#x20AC;? Rounding out the quartet are keyboardist Uri Caine, drummer Jonathan Blake and bassist Scott Colley. 8:30 & 10 p.m. March 25 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. $18-$12. 203785-0468, ďŹ rehouse12.com.

Amy Speace is the whole package â&#x20AC;&#x201D; voice, tunes, spirit, charisma. With Jill Andrews of the EverybodyďŹ elds. 9 p.m. March 25 at CafĂŠ Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. 203-789-8281, cafĂŠnine.com.

The aptly named Fourplay features guitarist Chuck Loeb, keyboardist Bob James, bassist/vocalist Nathan East and percussionist Harvey Mason. The quartet is touring in support of their October 2010 release Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Touch the Sky. 8 p.m. April 1 at Lyman Center, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St., New Haven. $35 ($30 SCSU staff, $16 students). 203-392-6154, southernct.edu/lymancenter.

Led by the trumpeter of the same name, the Jeremy Pelt Quintet also features pianist Danny Grissett, tenor man J.D. Allen, bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer Gerald Cleaver. 8:30 & 10 p.m. April 1 at Firehouse 12, 45 Crown St., New Haven. $18-$12. 203785-0468, ďŹ rehouse12.com.

Dick Foxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Golden Boys features three of the most prominent teen pop-music from the 1950s and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;60s: Fabian, Bobby Rydell and Frankie Avalon. Take a musical stroll down Memory Lane. 8 p.m. April 2 at the Palace Theatre, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $65-$35.

203-346-2000, palacetheaterct.org.

Possibly the greatest Grateful Dead tribute act in the solar system is Shakedown. 8:30 P.M. April 8 at Toadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $12 ($8.50 advance).

203-624-8623, toadsplace.com.

Hosted by NYCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bastard Keith, Burlesque Nouveau features performances by Lily la Vamp, Nikki le Villain, Kitty Katastrophe, Nasty Canasta and more. Stage Kitten debut by Vanessa Steele, go-go by Dot Mitzvah.

8:30 p.m. April 9 at Daniel Street, 21 Daniel St., Milford. $10. 203-877-4446, danielstreetclub.com.

The band Surf City hails from Auckland, New Zealand â&#x20AC;&#x201D; an honest-to-god surf city â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but takes its name (originally Kill Surf City) from an old Jesus and Mary Chain B-side. Whatever â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they cook up an exciting

amalgam of Matador and Creationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;90s rosters spiked with heat-seeking surf riffs. With Procedure Club. 9 p.m. April 13 at CafĂŠ Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $6. 203-789-8281, cafĂŠnine.com.

A modern-day troubadour with a distinctive voice and one-name moniker, Milton is the leader of a lively, collective known for their soul-stirring live shows that have evoked comparisons to Van Morrison, Nick Lowe and the Band. 8 p.m. April 15 at CafĂŠ Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $6. 203-789-8281, cafĂŠnine.com.

The Boston Legends All-Star Concert features, well, legendary players such as Jeff (Skunk) Baxter, J. Geils, Magic Dick, the Carsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Elliot Eason, Jon Butcher and others. Even better, the Stompers open. 7 p.m. April 16 at Palace Theatre, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $88$48.50. 203-346-2000, palacetheaterct.org.

The CafĂŠ Nine Jazz Series presents Ameranouche, featuring two French acoustic gypsy jazz guitars and upright bass. The group tours nationally year-round and has released two albums, largely of original music inspired by legendary gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt. 8 p.m. April 21 at CafĂŠ Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $8. 203-789-8281, cafĂŠnine.com.

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Barstool Sports (barstoolsports.com) and Barstool U present White Panda. 9 p.m. April 28 at Toadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Place, 300 York St., New Haven. $15 ($12 advance). 203-6248623, toadsplace.com.

Led by Sherrie Maricle, Diva is an all-female concert jazz orchestra in the tradition of the classic bands of Buddy Rich, Mel Lewis, Count Basie, Stan Kenton and Woody Herman. Formed in 1993 by Stanley Kay, Diva maintains itself as one of few intact touring jazz ensembles in the world, exuding the excitement and power of the historic big bands but with an eye toward todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s progressive sound. 8 p.m. April 30 at Crowell Concert Hall, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. $18-$6.

860-685-3355, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

New Havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fake Babies are propelling themselves to the next level with tons of great national press and a brand new record on Safety Meeting Records. Catch them while you still can. Deejay UB turns the wax all night between sets. 9 p.m. April 30 at CafĂŠ Nine, 250 State St., New Haven. $7. 203-789-8281, cafĂŠnine.com.

World Music KaWa Hula: Hula Through Time is a provocative journey unveiling the history of Hawaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;i through hula, with its haunting chants, powerful dances and lingering melodies. Performed by San Francisco-based Hlau o Keikialiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;i, a ka hlau (a traditional Hawaiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ian performance ensemble) under the direction of kumu/ singer/songwriter Kwika Keikialiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;i AlďŹ che. 8 p.m. (preconcert talk at 7:15 p.m.) April 8 at Crowell Concert Hall, 283 Washington Terr., Middletown. $15-$6. 860-685-3355, wesleyan.edu/cfa.

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CALENDAR

Book & Manuscript Library, 121 Wall St., New Haven. Free. Open 9 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fri., noon-5 p.m.

Sat. 203-432-2977, beineckelibrary@ yale.edu.

BENEFITS BELLES LETTRES The Mystery Book Club meets the first Wednesday to discuss a pre-selected book. Books are available for check out prior to the meeting. 3-4 p.m. March 2, April 6 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. Free. 203-483-6653, blackstone.lioninc.org/booktalk.htm.

New members are welcomed to the Blackstone Library Second Tuesday Book Club. The group meets on the second Tuesday to discuss a preselected book. Books available for loan in advance of discussion. 6:45-8 p.m.

March 8, April 12 at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. Free. 203-4881441, ext. 318, blackstone.lioninc.org/ booktalk.htm.

Janis Astor del Valle will offer a Writing Workshop focusing on both the writing process and performing process involved in creating an experiencebased piece. Writers and performers welcome. 1-3 p.m. April 2 at Green Street Arts Center, 51 Greene St., Middletown. $30 ($24 members). 860-685-7871, greenstreetartscenter.org.

Release your inner poet. Time Out for Poetry meets third Thursdays and welcomes those who wish to share an original short poem, recite a stanza or simply to listen. Ogden Nash, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss and even the Burma Shave signs live again. 12:30-2 p.m. March 17, April 21 at Scranton Library, 801 Boston Post Rd., Madison. Free. 203-245-7365.

Poet, writer, commentator, activist and educator Nikki Giovanni visits Lauralton Hall. Giovanni first came to prominence during the civil rights movement with her forthright examinations of race and injustice. She has since received numerous honors and awards and authored several children’s books in addition to her many poetic works, essays and spoken recordings. 7 p.m. March 30 in Claven Auditorium, Lauralton Hall, 200 High St., Milford. Free. 203-877-2786, ext. 137, development@lauraltonhall.org.

Psyche and Muse: Creative Entanglements with the Science of the Soul explores the influence of cultural, clinical and scientific dialogues about human psychology on 20th-century writers, artists and thinkers. Works from the Beinecke Library’s 20th-century collections including the Modern European Books and Manuscripts Collection, the Yale Collection of American Literature, and the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of African American Arts and Letters. Figures represented in the exhibition include Lou AndreasSalomé, James Baldwin, Max Ernst, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, Moss Hart, Carl Jung and Eugene O’Neill.

Through June 13 at the Beinecke Rare

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March / April 2011

The Biker & The Beach Fashion Show benefits the American Cancer Society.

Riding apparel by Brothers HarleyDavidson, bathing suits and lingerie from Saxon-Kent, as well as custom jewelry by Evocateur. Open bar, music and hors d’oeuvres, drawing. 6:30-10:30 p.m. March 23 at Anthony’s Ocean View, 450 Lighthouse Rd., New Haven. $50.

203-414-8480, cancer.org.

Art Forms, a gallery viewing, showcasing original paintings, photography, jewelry and sculpture by award-winning Connecticut artists. Admission includes an hors d’oeuvres and champagne reception.

Artwork featured in the showcase will be available for purchase with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Palace’s Annual Fund. 4-10 p.m. April 9 at the Palace Theater, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $25. 203-346-2000. palacetheaterct.org

COMEDY Test your knowledge of current events at a live taping of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the National Public Radio news quiz show that airs Saturdays.

With host Peter Sagal, judge/ scorekeeper Carl Kasell and a lineup of witty panelists. 7:30 p.m. March 24 at Palace Theater, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $46.50-$26.50. 203-346-2000, palacetheaterct.org.

One of the famed Second City’s touring productions, Fair & Unbalanced spares no institution from its pitiless satiric eye. 7:30 p.m. April 8 at the Paul Mellon Arts Center, 333 Christain St., Wallingford. $20 ($15 seniors, students). 203-697-2398, choate.edu/boxoffice.

Funnyman Demetri Martin writes and tells jokes. He worked as a writer on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, a contributor to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and did his own TV show called Important Things with Demetri Martin.

8 p.m. April 22 at Shubert Theater, 247 College St. New Haven. $38. 203-5626666, shubert.com.

Don’t miss the fifth edition of Comedy Central on Campus, featuring some of comedy’s brightest stars of tomorrow. 8 p.m. April 29 at Lyman Center, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St., New Haven. $10 (SCSU students/ staff free). 203-392-6154, southernct.edu/ lymancenter.

CULINARY Consiglio’s Cooking Class Club.

Chef Maureen Nuzzo explains and demonstrates how to prepare mouth-watering southern Italian dishes that have been passed down from generation to generation. April 7’s menu features fresh mozzarella baked in plum tomato lemon sauce, arugula and white bean salad, veal saltimbocca over tri-colored fettuccine and homemade truffles. For April 14 & 28 it’s zuppa di mussels, Wooster salad, eggplant rollatini and chocolate lava cake with raspberry coulis. Are you hungry yet? 6:30 p.m. April 7, 14, 28 at Consiglio’s Restaurant, 165 Wooster St., New Haven. $65. Reservations. 203-8654489, consiglios.com.

City Farmers Markets New Haven.

Eat local! Enjoy seasonal fruits, vegetables, and herbs from local farms including seafood, meat, milk, cheese, handcrafted bread and baked goods, honey, more. WOOSTER SQUARE: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. first and third Saturdays at Russo Park, corner Chapel St. and DePalma Ct. EDGEWOOD PARK: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. second and fourth Sundays at Whalley and West Rock Aves. 203-7733736, cityseed.org.

DANCE It’s a silver anniversary special, this Brass City Ballet Birthday Gala. An evening of classic BCB repertoire, including the company’s original production of Snow White, featuring an eclectic mix of pop, opera and rock music. Top it off with a silent auction and champagne reception during which audience members are invited to meet the artists. 6:30 p.m. March 26 at Palace Theater, 100 E. Main St., Waterbury. $55$25. 203-346-2000, palacetheaterct.org.

FAMILY EVENTS Each Tuesday the Yale Astronomy Department hosts a Planetarium Show. Weather permitting there is also public viewing of planets, nebulae, star clusters and whatever happens to be interesting in the sky. Viewable celestial objects change seasonally. 7 & 8 p.m.

Tuesdays at Leitner Family Observatory, 355 Prospect St., New Haven. Free. cobb@astro.yale.edu, astro.yale.edu.

Award-winning poet, author and activist Nikki Giovanni visits Lauralton Hall March 30.

Creating Readers Saturdays at 2 Program. A fun, interactive program that engages young readers by bringing books to life using theater, dance and music. Each family that attends receives a copy of that week’s book to take home. 2 p.m. Saturdays at Connecticut Children’s Museum, 22

Wall St., New Haven. $5. 203-562-5437, childrensbuilding.org.

The Korean Spirit & Culture Promotion Project presents Treasures of Korean Art and Culture. The whole family is invited to learn more about the country that was once known as the “Land of the Morning Calm.” Program includes: two short documentaries about Korea, illustrating the artistic and cultural achievements of Korea’s past, a traditional Korean meal, re-enactment of a traditional Korean wedding ceremony and more. 1-2:30 p.m. March 19 at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm St., New Haven. Free. Registration. tasteofkorea.eventbrite.com The Connecticut Audubon Society presents a Sea Squirts Spring Concert.

Learn about spring peepers, a tiny brown frog that whistles and peeps to let us know spring is here! Best for three- to five-year-olds with adult. 12:30 p.m. March 31 at CAS Nature Center at Milford Point, 1 Milford Point Rd., Milford. $10 CAS members, $15 nonmembers. 203-878-7440, ctaudubon.org.

Theatreworks USA presents a performance of the children’s favorite Junie B. Jones. 10:30 a.m. April 4 at Lyman Center, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St., New Haven. $10. 203-392-6154, southernct. edu/lymancenter.

LECTURES Nobel Peace Prize-winner Muhammad Yunus, who founded the practice of microcredit as a means to combat global poverty, will deliver the lecture Microcredit and Social Business for Poverty Reduction at Quinnipiac University. A Bangladeshi economist, Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, driven by his belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help impoverished people escape poverty by providing them loans and teaching them sound financial principles. 7 p.m.

March 7 in Kahn Court, 275 Mt. Carmel Ave., Hamden. Free. 203-582-8652.

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History.

To most Caucasian Americans, Charlie Chan is a funny, beloved film character who speaks wisely and acts even wiser. But to many Asian Americans, he remains a pernicious example of a racist stereotype, the kind of Chinaman who, passive and unsavory, conveys himself in laughable broken English. University of California/Santa Barbara scholar Yunte Huang traces the evolution of Charlie Chan using hundreds of biographical, literary, and cinematic sources, both in English and in his native Chinese. 4:30 p.m. March 31 at Mansfield Freeman Center for East Asian Studies 343 Washington Terr., Middletown. Free. wesleyan.edu.

The Saint Raphael Healthcare System and Southern Connecticut State University Department of Nursing co-sponsor a lecture by Patch Adams, M.D., the world-renowned physician and clown famously portrayed by Robin

Williams in the eponymous 1998 film. Adams will give a talk entitled Humor and Health, which will cover Adams’ more than 30 years of clowning experience and the relationship between humor and health. 6 p.m. March 31 at Lyman Center, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St., New Haven. Free.

Reservations. 203-392-6154, tickets.southernct.edu.

WSHU-FM radio sponsors Planet Money Live. Spend Tax Day with the funny and charismatic team from the NPR program Planet Money, hosted by Adam Davidson and This American Life’s Alex Blumberg..

8 p.m. April 15 at Lyman Center, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St., New Haven. $25 ($20 SCSU faculty/staff, $10 SCSU students). 203-392-6154, southernct.edu/lymancenter.

MIND, BODY & SOUL Led by Nelie Doak, Yoga promotes a deep sense of physical, mental and emotional well-being. Classes are designed to help cultivate breath and body awareness, improve flexibility, strengthen and tone muscles, detoxify the body and soothe the spirit. All levels welcome. Bring a yoga mat. 5-6:30 p.m. Fridays at Blackstone Library, 758 Main St., Branford. $10.

203-488-1441, ext. 313, yogidoakie@earthlink.net or events@blackstone.lioninc.org, blackstone.lioninc.org.

Full Moon Gong Relaxation. Deep sound healing with Kundalini yoga and meditative gong vibrations promise to bring you awareness and balance, physically and spiritually. 5-7 p.m. March 20, 7-9 p.m.

April 15 at Your Community Yoga Center, 39 Putnam Ave., Hamden. $20. 203-287-2277, yourcommunityyoga.com.

NATURAL HISTORY National Geographic Crittercam: The World Through Animal Eyes is a 6,000-square-foot traveling exhibition developed by the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C. Crittercam is a scientific video- and data-gathering tool safely worn by wild animals, offering researchers insights into animal behavior and clues to protecting animals and the world we share. The exhibit — which includes interactive displays, firsthand footage and evocative environments — focuses on Crittercam’s deployment on seals and sea lions, sharks, sea turtles, whales, penguins, bears and lions. Through November 30 at Mystic Aquarium, 55 Coogan Blvd., Mystic. Open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. $26 ($23 seniors, $19 children). 860572-5955, mysticaquarium.org.

flats. 10 a.m. Sundays at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free. 203-773-9288, paulproulx@sbcglobal. net, elmcitycycling.org.

Tuesday Night Canal Rides. Medium-paced rides up the Farmington Canal into New Haven.

May split into two groups based on riders’ speed, no one will be left behind to ride alone.

Lights essential. 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays at Café Romeo, 534 Orange St., New Haven. Free. william.v.kurtz@gmail. com.

Elm City Cycling monthly meeting occurs on the Here, Kitty: Mystic Aquarium unveils Crittercam, a new second Monday. ECC is National Geographic exhibition that shows the world a non-profit organization through the eyes of wild animals (see: NATURAL HISTORY). of cycling advocates who meet to discuss biking 0.5-mile fun run 10 a.m.) April 9 at Lighthouse Point issues in New Haven.

Park, New Haven. $20. helpnewhaven.org.

Dedicated to making New Haven friendlier and more accessible to cyclists and pedestrians. 7 p.m. March 14, The event’s title may be long, but Race Brook’s Rockin’ April 11 at City Hall Meeting Rm. 2, 165 Church St., New Road Race is only a measly 5K. Proceeds benefit the Haven. Free. elmcitycycling.org.

Race Brook School. 10 a.m. April 30 (fun run 9 a.m.) at Race Brook School, 107 Granniss Rd., Orange. 203-701Road Races/Triathlons 9523, racebrook5K@gmail.com With an entry fee paid in non-perishable food, the Send information to CALENDAR@conntact.com no Feed the Need 5K benefits local food pantries. 9 a.m. later than six weeks preceding calendar month of event.

April 2 at Hammonasset State Park, 1228 Boston Post lease include date, time, location, event description, cost Rd., Madison. 25 cans/boxes of food. feedtheneed.org. and contact information. Photographs must be at least 300 dpi resolution and are published at discretion of The Greater New Haven Alliance sponsors the Light NEW HAVEN magazine. the Way for Our Youth 5k Run/Walk. 10:30 a.m. (kids’

Serving Greater New Haven for over 7 years

SPORTS/RECREATION Cycling The Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride is an 8.58-mile route from West Rock to East Rock — flat, safe and fun for all ages. (There’s also an alternate 22.6-mile route that extends north to Sleeping Giant State Park.) Best of all, it’s for a good cause: Proceeds will benefit a consortium of environmental organizations that work together to get New Haven kids out into the natural world. 10:30 a.m. April 30 at (start line) Common Ground, 358 Springside Ave., New Haven. $25 advance, $30 race day adults; $15 children. 203-389-4333, ext. 1214, rocktorock.org.

Elm City Cycling organizes Lulu’s Ride, weekly two- to four-hour rides for all levels (17-19 mph average).

Cyclists leave at 10 a.m. from Lulu’s European Café as a single group; no one is dropped. 10 a.m. Sundays at Lulu’s European Café, 49 Cottage St., New Haven. Free.

203-773-9288, elmcitycycling.org.

The Little Lulu (LL) is an alternative to the longstanding Sunday morning training ride. The route is usually 20-30 miles in length and the ride is nodrop, meaning that the group waits at hilltops and turns so that no rider is left behind. The LL is an opportunity for cyclists to get accustomed to riding in groups. Riders should come prepared with materials (tubes, tools, pumps and/or CO2 inflators) to repair

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W OR DS o f MO U TH Team Basta gets down to business at the 2010 Elm City Iron Chef competition

Photo: Carli Freeman

JUST A SIP: The Cask Republic

Strange brews: Cask Republic proprietor Christian Burns

Y

ou can push all you want, but the door at the new Cask Republic on Crown Street takes a little more effort to open. You’ve got to squeeze an oldschool latch to get into establishment, just the first sign that Cask is far from the typical college bar.

Cask’s prime Crown and Temple location, which had been home to the Landsdowne pub, spent a few months dark before reopening this winter as this new bar and restaurant. Owned

by Christian Burns, proprietor of the Ginger Man pubs in Norwalk and Greenwich,

Burns has added some canny hipster touches, dozens of taps of rare beers and subtracted most of the TV screens that blared from every corner. What has emerged is a clubby, spacious venue suitable for everything from a romantic dinner to a bachelor party.

Trendy exposed-filament bulbs aided by tealights on the tables shed a warm glow over lots of leather and exposed wood in the new space, which has also been reconfigured with a “cask room.”

It helps to know your craft beer when confronted by the daunting list of brews on draught, but helpful and

44

March / April 2011

knowledgeable servers will steer you right. On a recent visit even I thrilled to a glass of a farmhouse-style Belgian beer from the De Glazen breweries, soft and funky with an intoxicating mix of flavors and a Champagne-like finish.

A beer like that can make an entire evening, and Cask Republic’s got dozens of them.

But be sure to save room for dinner, as Cask outdoes most bars downtown in its food quality.

Get all the drama of a televised cooking competition with some local flavor at the fourth annual Elm City Iron Chef competition, taking place Sunday, April 17 at Delia, the Viking Center of New England, in Wallingford.

The local version of the Food Network show borrows the tight deadlines, “secret ingredient” and judging format.

The Elm City twist is a focus on local ingredients, from Lyman Orchards apples to Calabro cheeses from East Haven to Willoughby’s coffee.

New Haven Register food columnist and Gateway Community College instructor Stephen Fries organizes the event, which benefits the school’s hospitality program.

Chefs get a week before the contest to contemplate five possible ingredients, so there’s time for culinary creativity to flower.

The hyper-alert servers and bussers are more suited to a New York eatery than a New Haven crowd, and can make a diner a bit tense with their ubiquitous presence. But hey — perhaps we provincials could get used to having plates whisked away within seconds of finishing a dish.

Cask is not for the thin of wallet or light of weight: Many of the rare beers are $10 or more per glass and pack a wallop, with alcohol content approaching that of wine. Weekends and Thursdays belong to a collegiate crowd, but Cask’s charms guarantee its appeal to diners and beer lovers of all ages

If you’re looking for a more intimate look at gourmet cooking, join the 2011 Kitchen Tour on April 3, an afternoon of visiting homes with state-of-the-art setups. Jane Stern of Roadfood fame will speak at a tapas reception after the tour, also to benefit Gateway.

Cask Republic, 179 Crown St., New Haven (475-238-8335).

Learn more about both events at Fries’ website, stephenfries.com.

Join the fun as a member of the audience, with tickets costing $30 to wander the kitchen or $50 for “preferred viewing” from elevated seats. Tastings of each course will also be raffled off to audience members.

Photo courtesy New Haven Register

EVENT: Iron Chef

EDITOR’S PICK: Whole G Bread

A

slice of Whole G’s Fitness bread. And you can’t go wrong with the raw-milk cheddars from 5 Spoke Creamery at the Whitneyville Food Center on Whitney in Hamden. This New York-based cheesemaker will open your eyes to the flavor range possible in cheddar — I especially like the herb variety.

Whole G. Breads, 105 Hamilton St., New Haven (203-848-2141).

Photo: Carli Freeman

meal of bread and cheese sounds like a good idea, but never seems to work anywhere but in the imagination or European capitals for me. Most American breads just aren’t substantial enough in texture and can’t hold their own in flavor against a quality cheese.

That’s all changed now that Whole G bakery has opened in New Haven, offering truly European-caliber loaves at markets around town. Andrea Corazzini and his wife started selling their breads in the fall and their product was recently dubbed by the New Haven Independent “the BMW of breads.”

Make sure to test-drive a loaf as soon as possible.

Starting at around $4 a loaf, Whole G bread isn’t cheap, but its rich flavor and dense texture make it a real bargain. A Germanstyle rye was balanced in flavor with a tender, structured crumb and chewy crust, perfect for any kind of sandwich or savory toast.

“Fitness” bread was dense with oats and seeds and had an irresistible sourdough tang. Both varieties sampled held up well to slicing and kept their flavor and texture for several days without preservatives. Other varieties include a French sourdough, fig bread, muesli bread and pretzel rolls.

At press time, Whole G breads were being sold at Nica’s Market, Edge of the Woods and Luizzi Gourmet, among other purveyors. Of course the cheese is also crucial to my Eurostyle meal, and two area markets offer especially superlative selections along with Whole G breads. The well-edited fridge at Romeo and Cesare’s on Orange Street supplied a Brie-like, creamy goat cheese called Soignon that perfectly matched a

Rolling in dough: Andrea Corazzini does bread every which way at Whole G Breads.

Wine Bar & Bistro Now Featuring Artisan Pizzas

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Our meticulously composed small plates provide our guests with a premier dining experience.

Our signature cocktails incorporate fresh fruits, herbs, house made infusions and modern cooking techniques all for the sake of deliciousness.

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Like its thespian namesake, the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center has played many roles during its century-plus run.

Performances Honoring a Lifetime

By SUSAN E. CORNELL

I

n 1905, more than a year before During this time, Hepburn traveled the Katharine Hepburn was born, the Old globe in pursuit of her career. But she Saybrook Musical & Dramatic Club was always returned to Old Saybrook, where formed. The club had a dual purpose: she retired in 1997 and died in 2003. the presentation of performances and That same year the town voted to restore the construction of a theater. Soon after the building to for use as a theater. enough money was raised to open the Old Hepburn’s family granted the right to Saybrook Town Hall. A local newspaper name it after her, and the Katharine called the new building “a substantial and Hepburn Cultural Arts Center was born. artistic piece of architecture…a worthy The Kate, as the 250-seat facility is addition to our beautiful Main Street.” informally known, opened in September The next summer, Dr. Thomas Hepburn of Hartford brought his family to Fenwick, 2009 and offers something for every age. and four-and-a-half-year-old Kathy “While the stage is small, there are a lot Hepburn saw the building that would one of things that work well here — acoustic day bear her name. [music], singer/songwriters, comedy, small theater pieces, children’s theater,” Kathy Hepburn became Kate, who shared explains Executive Director Chuck Still. the screen with immortals including Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda and, of course, Spencer Tracy. The building also played many roles: home to the Musical & Dramatic Club, Old Saybrook’s first movie house, a basketball court for the school, home to the Ivoryton Players during World War II. Ethel Barrymore appeared there, and Eleanor Roosevelt stopped by.

Still, the building wasn’t quite the performing arts center envisioned and, by the mid-1950s, it was divvied up into town offices. The stage became a conference room.

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March / April 2011

When the Kate opened, Still told his board of directors: “Whatever we think we’re going to be when we open — no matter what it is, I promise you five years later we’ll be something else.”

In the 18 months since opening, the Kate has hosted more than 300 performances.

The first operating year the center broke even, which “thrilled the heck out of me,” Still says.

“We’ve learned to live within our means,” he adds. “For a small nonprofit we’ve done fine. We’ve had generous donors, good sponsorships, and sold enough tickets to

get by. We’ve had a bunch of sellouts [as well as] things that haven’t done well.”

Docents lead tours of Old Saybrook’s crown jewel on Saturday afternoons.

The Kate also houses a small museum dedicated to its namesake. Indeed, many visitors come just to tour the museum.

A glance at the lineup for March and April show events ranging from Hairspray to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to a Tribute to Grand Ole Opry to folk-pop songstress Dar Williams.

The nonprofit is a amalgam, as their website describes, “born from private/ public partnerships to offer eclectic programs for all ages and income levels.”

Would Kate be pleased with the center that bears her name? “It would be very much fun if she would alive to see her here,” says Still, who adds a caveat: “I don’t know if she know what to make of some of it.

“If she drove by and saw something she didn’t like, she would probably kick my butt,” he adds.

The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center is at 300 Main St., Old Saybrook (860-5100473, katharinehepburntheater.org). The museum is open 10 a.m.-2 p.m. weekdays except Monday, and on performance days one hour prior to the show.

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