By KAREN PONZIO | New Haven Independent
Audubon Street burst into party mode Saturday as Long Wharf Theatre celebrated its move from a Sargent Drive stage to offices downtown — as well as the beginning of a new itinerant model of presenting works across various locations in Greater New Haven.
That was the scene Saturday afternoon Audubon Street between Whitney Avenue and Orange Street at an event that included music and activities for all ages.
The block party marked Long Wharf Theatre’s upcoming move from its long-time home at 222 Sargent Dr. to new offices at 70 Audubon St. as part of a larger shift towards an “itinerant” approach to theater making.
It also came one day after several dozen theater staff and patrons gathered at the Sargent Drive stage Friday night for a farewell party that included tours of the prop room, monologue readings from past Long Wharf productions, and the sharing of roughly six decades’ worth of memories of dramatic art made at New Haven’s industrial food terminal. (Click here to read an article by the New Haven Arts Paper’s Lucy Gellman about that Friday night event.)
Meanwhile, on Saturday, representatives from the creative hubs that already call Audubon Street home — including Neighborhood Music School, Creative Arts Workshop, the New Haven Ballet, the Educational Center of the Arts, and the Arts Council of Greater New Haven — gathered on the downtown arts block to help ring in Long Wharf’s new era for an event called “Home(Coming)”.
Proyecto Cimarron was already sharing its infectious bomba beats on the stage set up in front of ECA when the “sneaker walk” arrived from Whitney Avenue.
A gathering of staff from Long Wharf Theatre, led by artistic director Jacob Padrón and managing director Kit Ingui, made their way down Audubon carrying a ribbon-filled installation that held messages gathered from long-time Long Wharf audience members, artists, workers, and board members in response to three prompts: “Long Wharf theater is… Long Wharf Theatre will be… My wish for Long Wharf Theatre is…”
The blue ribbons specifically held the names of plays produced over the theater’s 58 years, as well as the seasons of theater and an excerpt from the last play that will be read at the Sargent Drive space next week — Flying Bird Diary, by Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel.