The galleries have it this week. There are new paintings, sculptures and/or drawings to appreciate at Atticus, City Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art. City-Wide Studios 2014 gets its party started. In other arts, Arcadia opens at Yale Rep, hard-working comedians take the mic in the Ninth Square and Wooster Street, and Big Sandy’s still rockin’.
Monday, Sept. 29
Paint in the Atticus
There’s a new artist on the walls of the Atticus Bookstore Cafe (1082 Chapel St.; 203 – 776-4040). Rosemary Benivegna brings an understanding of architecture to her abstract paintings of “the natural and man-made environment.” Benivegna’s watercolors are on display through Nov. 9.
Sandy Shores
Few roots-rock bands are like Big Sandy and the Fly-Rite Boys. They remind you of how sweet and fresh rock & roll was once, with its steady country-and-western rhythms and its cool, smooth, soaring, articulate vocals. Big Sandy has played Cafe Nine (250 State St.; 203 – 789-8281) numerous times, performing in various formats. The Fly-Rite Boys is the ideal backing band for his wild warblings. 8 p.m. $12, $10 in advance.
Tuesday, Sept. 30
Rice & Oats
It’s Comedy Night at Cafe Nine (250 State St.), headlined by Dan Rice and also featuring (deep breath) Daniel Kalwhite, Pat Oats, Shawn Murray, Dame Fk and Brian Sullivan. $4.
Wednesday, Oct. 1
Peace Out
Jeff Hobbs, Yale class of 2002, has written a book about his college roommate called The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace. It’s an astounding tale of a young man whose father schooled him in drug-dealing on the streets of New Jersey while his mother helped him get the education that would lead him to study molecular biophysics at Yale. Robert Peace — “A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League,” as the book’s subtitle has it — will be discussed by his friend and biographer Jeff Hobbs 6 p.m. tonight at the Yale Barnes & Noble Bookstore (77 Broadway; 203 – 777-8440).
Trippy Tunes
Vacationer is an electronic pop trio from Philadelphia. One of their songs is called “Trip.” Brick + Mortar is an indie rock duo from New Jersey. One of their songs is called “Move to the Ocean.” Be moved, when these musicians converge on BAR (254 Crown St.) for a free 9 p.m. concert.
Thursday, Oct. 2
Open for Art Busy-ness
The 2014 edition of the biggest visual arts community event of the year, City-Wide Open Studios, has its first of two opening receptions today from 5 – 8 p.m. at Artspace (50 Orange St.; 203 – 772-2709). (The other is tomorrow at the same time and place.) It gives you a chance to sample the work of the hundreds of participating artists, each of whom have hung one small representative piece in Artspace’s central “hub exhibition,” before CWOS starts in earnest next week.
Finely Wrought Fables
The Yale Center for British Art opens a new exhibition today: Picture Talking: James Northcote and the Fables. Northcote was an innovative painter and illustrator of the late 18th and early 19th centuries who did clever things with collages and had a fondness for animal stories. For opening day of the Picture Talking exhibit, there’s a lecture at 5:30 p.m. in the YCBA lecture hall titled “Inspiration and Eccentricity: The Ups and Downs of James Northcote.”
Juan with Ludwig
The New Haven Symphony Orchestra season kicks off with Beethoven & The Don. The Beethoven is the composer’s Fifth Symphony in C Minor, while The Don is the legendary lover Don Juan, as musically imagined by Richard Strauss. As if those two weren’t enough, the NHSO also performs Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major. The special guest violin soloist is Yevgeny Kutik. $15-$74; $10 students; free for children.
Friday, Oct. 3
Student NIght Market
The Asian American Students Alliance at Yale has organized a Taiwan-style Night Market from 6 to 9 p.m. along Branford College’s Library Walk, near 74 High St. Food, crafts and other items will be for sale, and there will be live music and dance performances.
Arcadia Upgraded
Tonight’s the first Yale Rep performance of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, a show often done by colleges and high schools (the undergrad Yale Dramat has done it twice in recent years) but, due to its size and scope, is rarely attempted by professional theaters. The Rep has assembled a diverse cast for Stoppard’s awesome blend of science and sentimentality, including Rene Augesen, who played Blanche DuBois in last year’s Rep season-opener, A Streetcar Named Desire. James Bundy, the Rep’s artistic director and the dean of the Yale School of Drama, directs. Through Oct. 25 at the Yale University Theatre (222 York St.). (203) 432‑1234.
Saturday, Oct. 4
Taking the Mike
Mike Vecchione has college degrees, high-school sports trophies and has worked as a special ed teacher. More to the point, since he’s doing two sets of stand-up comedy tonight (at 8 and 10:30 p.m.) at the Joker’s Wild (232 Wooster St., 203 – 773-0733), Vecchione won the 2010 People’s Choice Award at the New York Comedy Festival, made it to the semi-finals on Last Comic Standing, appeared on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show and has done his own Comedy Central special. He’s a soft-spoken good-natured guy, the kind who (as he jokes) looks like a “good cop.”
Sunday, Oct. 5
Don’t Know Why Not, But Know It’s Art
Opening reception today from 2 to 5 p.m. for the new City Gallery exhibit of sculptures and paintings by Nancy Eisenfeld, works apparently “triggered by her spontaneous reaction to the world.” The exhibit’s got a great anything-goes title: “Why Not?” 994 State St. (203) 782‑2489.
