Held on Feb. 24 at MINIPNG’s store on Audubon Street, the fashion show was the first from Eiress Hammond, known by the nickname MINI, and brought together a selection of her fans and members of New Haven’s local art community.

Among the attendees was Zoe Jensen, who is the founder, publisher and co-editor of Connetic*nt Magazine — a quarterly zine featuring local Connecticut artists. Jensen, who initially met MINI during an interview for the magazine, contributed to the show’s lookbooks.

“I am a huge fan of Mini. I think she is such a visionary,” Jenson remarked. “She is kind of like the Vivienne Westwood of New Haven … She leans into this punk fashion in a way that’s extremely feminine and coquette. It’s focused on sustainability and community-building in a similar way.”

The showcase spotlighted MINI’s hand-made knitwear, a craft she had spent the past three years teaching herself. MINI shared that each piece requires between a day to a week of effort to complete. The intricate pieces are comprised of a variety of different yarns — including mohair, alpaca, sheep and other Italian-sourced wools. She uses a technique of weaving scrap yarn into her projects as she works, creating a collage-like effect of different gauge, color and texture.

Models of all sizes donned the garments, demonstrating the fabrics’ elasticity and versatility. Because of the knitting techniques employed, the one-size-fits-all knit pieces accommodate a range of body types. 

Pieces had purposefully undone hems and loose threads dangling off them to further emphasize their properties as imperfect hand-crafted goods. Many models wore the colorful knits with angel wings and glittery make-up, underscoring the show’s fairy-like theme, as pop music scored the event from speakers at the front of the showroom.

“I would love to do more [runway shows],” MINI said. “I may do something in the summer, and maybe something in the fall, like a three-time-per-year thing,”

MINIPNG, founded in 2019, traces its roots back to MINI’s side-project while studying pre-law, where she began making and selling clothes on Depop. Gradually, her designs gained traction, allowing her to open her own brick-and-mortar storefront in 2022.

She is now involved in Connecticut’s art scene, showing her work and holding events in her New Haven store. She further spoke about her ambitions to open another location in New York within the next few years.

Attendee’s applauded as MINI rushed out after the models’ final lap. Following the showcase, the storeroom opened up for retail, where attendees were able to purchase pieces from the show. The venue featured local jewelry maker Skye and her brand Cielv, a shirley temple booth, and afterwards, a music set by Qween Kong.

Skye initially attended a trade school in New York with aspirations of becoming a jeweler. However, her interest in crafting non-traditional jewelry led her to establish her own handcrafted silver and solder jewelry business.

“I met MINI through another event I was vending at Plush,” Skye said. “She happened to be there that day and she saw me. She said ‘I would love you,’ and she had another event later that month, and said ‘would you like to vend?’ We’ve been tight ever since then. She’s a doll. I love what she does, and all of the work she did today was super amazing.”

MINI was a pre-law student at Wittenberg University in Ohio before turning to fashion.

The post ‘Vivienne Westwood of New Haven’ debuts runway show appeared first on Yale Daily News.

New members come from a variety of singing backgrounds, and many have been involved in non-senior a cappella and music groups, including The Alley Cats, The Baker’s Dozen, Cadence of Yale, Yale Glee Club, Magevet, Marquand Chapel Choir, Mixed Company, The New Blue, Yale Repertory Chorus, Something Extra and the student band Seldom Street, which is signed to 17o1 Records. The Whiffs announced 14 new taps and Whim announced 11.

The members of the Whiffenpoofs class of 2025, who will be required to take gap years to tour and record an album, are Pilar Bylinsky ’25, Yara Chami ’25, John Colbert ’25, Joey Cumpian ’25, Krishna Davis ’25, Sophie Dvorak ’25, Caroline Fai ’25, Jason Han ’25, Charlie Karner ’25, Rory Latham ’25, Adam McPhail ’25 — a Science & Technology editor at the News — and Noah Stein ’25. Josh Bock ’25 was tapped as the business manager and Logan Foy ’25 is the incoming musical director. They will now all join the class of 2026.  

“This was a [one-time] audition, which eliminated the long game of waiting to hear back,” Dvorak wrote to the News about the Whiffs’ audition process. “We had to prepare an excerpt from a quartet as well as a solo in the Whiffenpoof rep, as well as an individual solo. Once in the audition, there were some ear training exercises and we were taught an additional quartet in real time.”

In 2018, both the Whiffs and Whim started tapping members of all genders. Whiffs was originally all-male, and Whim originally all-female.  

Bylinsky expressed her desire for increased participation of women and non-binary individuals in the Whiffenpoofs, commenting that “[the] Whiffs just recently shifted from being all-male, so [she’s] excited about being in the early cohort of women joining the group.”

“The Whiffs exist in this sort of threshold space, upheld by a long commitment to tradition while also incorporating new/modern genres of music and styles of performance,” Dvorak said. “My hope is that, as the Whiffs become more diverse, the organization and alumni not only accommodate that diversity but embrace it.” 

The reveal of the Whiffenpoofs’ new class followed the release of the class of 2023’s album — “Magical Thinking” — which was released to all streaming services on Feb. 9, 2024. 

The album “goes a few layers deep,” according to 2023 Whiffs class member Adrien Rolet ’24. The name has a triple-meaning, referring to the album’s musical theme, a Joan Didion book and a 2023 Whiffs inside joke — a “company secret, sorry!” Rolet said.

Rolet revealed that it has been an unofficial tradition that each Whiffs album title is a reference to a story or joke from that year.

The Whim ’n Rhythm 2025 tap class includes Karen Ayoub ’25, Marie Bong ’25, Hajin Kim ’25, Michelle Luh ’25, Julia Mangual ’25, Meridian Monthy ’25, Bella Osgood ’25, Ivana Ramirez ’25 and Raina Sparks ’25. Violet Barnum ’25 was tapped as the group’s musical director and Sarah Shapiro ’25 will become Whim business manager.

Whim ’n Rhythm members tour during the winter and spring of their senior year, as well as in the summer following their commencement, allowing members to continue their education while also being part of the group. 

“Whim has fluctuated in size and structure a bit more than the Whiffs since its founding,” said current Whim member Adia Keene ’24. The group began with seven singers in 1981, but that number has fluctuated between 11 and 14 members. The new Whim class’s 11 members, all women and non-binary identifying students this year, are fewer than the 13 members of the previous year’s cohort. 

Unlike the audition processes for underclass a cappella groups, which often take an entire month, the Whim process only lasted one day in February, following a short social event earlier in the month for interested students to get to know current members better.

“We prepared a section from one of Whim’s arrangements in our vocal part of choice, sang vocal warm-ups, completed an ear training exercise, and performed a snippet of a solo song of our choice,” said Shapiro. 

At the end of auditions, new taps spoke about being asked questions — such as, “Why do you want to be in Whim?” and “How do you handle conflict?” — emphasizing the importance of group chemistry in the selection process.

When asked what attracted her to Whim, Barnum spoke about her interest in the pitch, or musical director, position. She had been involved with a number of singing groups before but had never had the chance to musically-direct one. After hearing Isabella Zou ’23 — a past Whim ’n Rhythm member — speak positively about her experience pitching Whim, Barnum found herself wanting to try her own hand at the position.

Whim is an SSAA choir, meaning that it consists of two distinct soprano and two alto sections, as opposed to the Whiffenpoofs — a TTBB choir comprising two tenor and two bass sections.

Since 2018, both the Whiffs and Whim have welcomed members of all genders. However, in 2022, the Yale Singing Group Council implemented a uniform policy requiring that all a cappella groups consider rushees of all genders, regardless of the often-gendered vocal range labels.

New taps of both The Whiffenpoofs and Whim ’n Rhythm expressed their excitement about connecting with their tap classes, several stating satisfaction that both senior a cappella groups are able to bring together students from all different musical backgrounds. 

Ramirez highlighted looking forward to the yearly Library Jam event where the new Whiffs and Whim taps perform their first group performances together in Sterling Memorial Library.

The date for this event, as well as the official calendars for the 2025 Whiffs and Whim tours, have yet to be released.

The Whiffenpoofs and Whim ’n Rhythm — along with the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus — are the only three groups that have weekly engagements at Mory’s Temple Bar.

The post Whiffenpoofs and Whim ’n Rhythm tap 2025 classes, Whiffenpoofs announce new album appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Members of Yale’s performing arts scene will grace the stage, singing and dancing to over a dozen songs from shows such as “Wicked,” “She Loves Me,” “La La Land,” “Hamilton” and “Grease.” The same set will be performed twice on the night of Feb. 16 — at 8 p.m. and at 10 p.m.

“We pick a theme that will allow for a fun diversity of songs, styles and performers,” said Abby Asmuth ’26, a co-director of Afterparty and a WKND editor for the News. “With this show, it was really themed around ‘A night out.’ There are so many great songs from the musical theater canon about going out and about that first date magic … It’s a cabaret, so there’s no plot to it, but there’s a bit of a fun arc of ‘we start off with the invitation and end with the aftermath of the party.’” 

The YAC seeks to bridge the gap between other performance groups on campus, according to Isabella Walther-Meade ’25, who is slated to perform. The YAC invites all members of Yale interested in song — whether they come from an a cappella, opera, theater or other performing arts background.

Afterparty’s choreographer, Sadie Pohl ’26, spoke about the heavier emphasis on dance in this show as opposed to previous YAC shows. 

“[The performers] emphasized that this was a really great opportunity for everyone to lean into choreography,” Pohl said. “For people who wouldn’t usually try it out, this is a great way, a stress-free way, to learn it.” 

The songs to be performed will showcase the diversity of Yale’s performing art talent — encompassing various styles of music, ensemble sizes, visual effects and choreographic arrangements.

Walther-Meade spoke to the News about the songs she will be performing, including “Someone in the Crowd” from “La La Land,” a dance number with four students.

She will also be singing “Some Enchanted Evening,” which she said “is a reimagined arrangement that the music director, Sam Tucker-Smith [’27], did of this song from South Pacific that is usually sung by a man. It’s really good, and I’m really excited. It’s not a traditional pick but I really like this one.”

The show is directed by Asmuth, Benjamin Jimenez ’26 and Soleil Singh ’24 and produced by Jimenez and Lauren Marut ’25. The full lineup of performers and production coordinators can be found here. 

The Yale Artists Cabaret was originally founded in 2021 as a one-off Women’s History Month show.

The post ‘Afterparty’ puts Yale’s cabaret scene in the spotlight appeared first on Yale Daily News.

His ethos is simple: “I encourage people to be more thoughtful about their clothing choices.” In pursuit of this mission, he publishes content on how men of all ages, sizes and backgrounds can pay attention to things like clothing quality, silhouette and tailoring.

Guy spoke with the News about menswear on college campuses and on the history of the “Ivy Style” at Yale.

He began by discussing Yale’s fashion history, which is unique for the role Yale’s student body played in disseminating what would later be called “Ivy Style.” 

“These campuses used to be populated by people who went through the feeder school system, often privileged White Anglosaxon Protestants from the Northeast,” Guy said.

The Ivy League universities, including Yale, reflected the dress codes of the private preparatory schools that their affluent male students came from.

Clothing trends arose from the students’ relaxed attitudes and included tweeds, loose repp ties, oxford cloth button-downs and flat-front chinos.

“Over time, these campuses have become more diverse in terms of ethnic and class makeup within the United States, but also a larger population of international students,” he said.

What Guy is referring to is the role of legislation like the G.I. Bill and efforts made by the Yale admissions office to increase the University’s socio-economic diversity, which shifted the prevailing clothing focus away from the homogeneous “preppy” and “Ivy” fashion to a more democratic style incorporating clothing trends from where students grew up — now not only upper-class Northeastern towns.

“You can’t expect people to adopt a costume from the 1950s,” he said. “One, that world has long moved on.”

Guy went on to explain how Ivy Style’s popularity was already in decline at the time it was identified in photography books such as “Take Ivy.” 

“That style was dead at the time it was documented, and it’s certainly dead now, both in the temporal sense — the world has moved on — and also in a demographic sense, people could now make up these college campuses from different backgrounds and bring their own natural dress practices,” he said. “And they’re not going to put on costumes for the sake of menswear bloggers.” 

The popularity of Ivy staples, however, did not die, and instead became part of the larger menswear sphere. As college education became more accessible to Americans, the Ivy League look became more accessible, too.

Tracing the look’s history, Guy cited the clothing innovations of Brooks Brothers, America’s oldest clothing brand.

The brand’s fortunes started climbing in the mid-to-late 19th century, coinciding with the rise of industrial capitalism, he continued. 

When the merchant class began to wear lounge suits, it was Brooks Brothers that began designing and importing new clothing to fulfill the cultural menswear demand.

“The things that landed at Brooks Brothers’ Madison Avenue shop became the ABC’s of American dress language,” Guy said. “Whatever sentences you want to write, you still have to use the ABC’s.”

Guy brought up a conversation he had with the founder of Rowing Blazers, Jack Carlson. Carlson, who had attended Georgetown and Oxford, subverts the clothing language of private universities with loud prints and bright colors. 

Guy explained that Carlson observed how today’s youth live in the present and engage with contemporary culture, such as rap music. Jack said that the younger generations are not the aristocratic caricatures they once were, but rather individuals shaped by their lived experiences — which then naturally influence their fashion choices. As a result, they seamlessly integrate Ivy League pieces with popular items like sneakers. 

“Fashion is both you exploring your identity and you expressing your identity,” he said. “If you’re into sneakers, you’re naturally going to wear sneakers.”

When asked about how modern college students could incorporate traditional Ivy League pieces, Guy said, “I would get easy-to-wash, durable items like 5-pocket cords and a Shetland knit — which, to me, is such a versatile, easy piece. I personally think loafers are great, but if you’re trying to update it, maybe you wear it with sneakers. The New Balance 550s are a classic Aimé Leon Dore sneaker. Oxford cloth button downs are easy to wash and easy to maintain.”

Guy emphasized the importance of durable goods, saying, “It’s harder now for a student to wear tailored jackets because they’re expensive and hard to maintain — expensive to upkeep. You’re not partying in a blazer. [Clothes that are] … low maintenance [and] reasonably affordable, you’re not going to freak out if you spill beer on it.”

Guy alluded to the idea of a “Rugged Ivy,” the midwestern counterpart to Yale, Harvard and Princeton’s fashion trends. 

Among the common brands and pieces represented are L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer, sweatshirts, mountain parkas and Danner boots.

“Rugged Ivy is a lot more practical for a student nowadays than a ‘knit tie blazer’ kind of look,” Guy said. “I would get stuff like that and wear it with stuff that most allows you to express and explore your identity.”

When asked about how modern college students could build the confidence to “dress up,” Guy advised building an understanding of how certain articles of clothing can be more casual than others. 

He noted that white poplin spread collar shirts will look more formal than a light blue Oxford cloth button down — and white and black more so than blue and brown, for example. Guy moreover suggested students to look for rougher fabrics and items that are easier to maintain. 

He went on to discuss the spotlight effect, a term coined by Cornell professor Thomas Gilovich in 1999 to describe the egocentric bias people have in their perception of others’ opinions.

“It’s helpful when you’re trying on different clothes — clothes are very personal, they fit our skin and affect how others perceive us — and if we are wearing something we’re not used to wearing, it can make us very self-conscious, especially if it feels like people might think we’re putting on airs. It’s helpful to keep in mind that this is all going on in your head,” he said. 

Guy also spoke to how some people are worried about coming across as pretentious in their clothing. 

He said that the simplest way to prevent this is to be a down-to-earth person with nice manners. 

“If you’re worried that people think you’re a jerk because you’re wearing a polo or a button up shirt, just don’t be a jerk,” he said. “That’s the best way to counteract that judgment.” 

For Guy, a priority has always been to provide fashion advice for men of all body types. 

Having a build that is less characteristic of a runway build does not mean that one cannot dress well, he said. 

“Something I’ve noticed is that you can put up an image of any garment, and someone will say, ‘Only slim ppl can wear that,’” Guy wrote in a post on Twitter, the platform now called X. “It can be slim or wide pants, low or high rise, or anything unusual. IMO, this view comes from personal insecurity & fetishization of certain body types.”

When asked about his promotion of body positivity, Guy said he doesn’t necessarily make a “conscious” effort.

He has seen men of various physiques “look great” with their fashion choices. 

“Many of the men I admire stylistically are short, heavy-set Italian older men,” Guy said. “They’re old Italian tailors with bad posture who carry a lot of weight from eating a lot of pasta, and they look amazing. I think they look incredibly elegant and incredibly stylish.”

Guy ended the conversation by touching on J. Press, a clothing store founded in New Haven with the slogan, “Definitive Ivy League style since 1902.”

The New Haven branch is located at 262 Elm St. 

“J. Press has been really impressive because you can’t do what they do at a large scale. Brooks Brothers has become a mall brand because it is a massive company,” Guy said. “J. Press has a few locations whereas Brooks Brothers has hundreds. Brooks Brothers has to pay for leases, and because J. Press is small, they can make, for me, a more interesting look.”

Despite being a heritage brand, J. Press has adapted to the online menswear discourse, amassing over 58,000 followers on Instagram.

In contrast, several contemporary labels such as Aimé Leon Dore, Bode and Rowing Blazers are reinterpreting the Ivy Style for a modern young adult audience, infusing the Ivy League campus’ history with vibrant colors, unconventional fabrics and new silhouettes.

Derek Guy has been published in the Washington Post, Esquire, The Nation, the New York Times, Financial Times and Business of Fashion.

The post Outfit advice from menswear’s ‘It-Girl,’ @Dieworkwear appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Titled “and the forms which linger / humming in our ears,” the thesis exhibit held a public general reception on Jan. 26 in the School of Art’s Green Hall Gallery. While Green Hall’s exhibit spaces are not usually open to non-Yale-affiliated people, the public reception gave all viewers the opportunity to engage with the displayed art and to speak with the artists involved.

“We try to have an overarching theme that we all resonate with,” said Michael Cuadrado Gonzales MFA ’24, an artist with four pieces in the show, about the exhibit’s curation.

Many of the works, which took months to bring to life, were created specifically for the exhibit. Alongside the umbrella themes of perspective and nontraditional form, Cuadrado Gonzales mentioned that the show’s artists also incorporated their own individual themes into their work. 

Junyan Hu and Orlando Porras, Graphic Design MFAs ’24, worked on the exhibition identity, ensuring that the visual elements outside the showroom complemented the works and their themes inside.

The painting and printmaking MFA theses are divided into two parts, or “phases,” each having its own gallery showing and thematic overtone. This first phase was on display from Jan. 20 to Jan. 30 and contains work from Creighton Baxter, Zoe Ann Cardinal Cire, Earthen Clay, Haleigh Collins, Michael Cuadrado Gonzalez, Irisol Gonzalez-Vega, Eloise Hess, Mei Kazama, Mike Picos, Nadir Souirgi, and V Yeh — all MFA ’24.

While united in their approaches to broadly similar subject matter, each artist brought perspectives that came from their own experiences in the MFA program. The piece “Tenderness of Untruth,” from Cuadrado Gonzales, for example, is an abstract wood wall installation sculpture, upon which there are prints of doors. The doors hang in the liminal spaces between the existing and non-existing within the overall composition.

Baxter spoke about how the works on display reflected various aspects of the viewer-work relationship, including orientation, appearances and “the mediation between thought and object.”

“Hiss the name,” Baxter’s contribution to the collection, is a large interior with her drawings and prints plastered on the wall and various objects strewn along the ground to draw the viewer through their own created story.

“I think there are multiple fragments of a story within the structure of the installation,” Baxter said. “So I think it’s actually more about narrative itself than a specific narrative. I’m more thinking about how linear narrative structure is not a thing that is really possible. There’s always something that upends the appearance.” 

Other pieces on display also encouraged the viewer to interact with the creation of their meaning. Yeh, for example, presented “Introduction (Nothing heard, nothing said / We’re hand in hand, chest to chest, and now we’re face to face / You got me tossing and turning, can’t sleep at night)” in the form of three vertical paintings — beside which was a ballot box that invited viewers to submit answers to questions. 

Among the questions asked include “Please rate your current pain” and “Please describe what is and is not familiar.”

Yeh said about the work: “Overall, my exhibition is a lot about states of transition and transience.” The accompanying paintings included an abstract portrayal of several faces and bodies caught in a whirlwind of blue, red and purple lines, a cadaver which was painted from life at Yale’s anatomy lab, located in the Anlyan Center, and a resting doctor. cq

Each year, the MFA program hires curators to visit the artists and help organize the show. Kari Rittenbach, Assistant Curator at MoMa PS1, and Sophy Naess, lecturer and senior critic in painting/printmaking, worked with the MFA artists to decide on where to display each art piece in relation to each other.

The effect of artwork placement was pronounced to those walking through the gallery. 

The space’s first room contained sculptures from Clay, which experimented with the relationships between materials like metal, plastic and fabric to produce various textures and spatial orientations. His piece “Untitled,” included a constructed wireframe box held up in the air against the wall and pipes on the ceiling.

Through an array of hand-crocheted flowers, Gonzalez-Vega’s “Flor de 7 Colores in Mami’s Garden creates a feeling of immortalization of her roots and culture alongside a blooming tulle spiral flowing from the exhibition floor. The piece brings attention to the natural, organic process that went into hand-making the flowers. 

The rest of the exhibition similarly embodied a subversion of the traditional.

“I’m thinking about perception, how to disorient perception,” Cuadrado Gonzalez said. “Thinking about broadly queerness. I’m thinking about race, sexuality, all those things. How architecture and perception can take away from these ideas of gender and race and how disorientation functions as a tool to counteract patriarchal neoliberal white systems.” 

The second group of artwork for the MFA thesis show will be on display from Feb. 7 through Feb. 17, with a public reception on Feb. 9.

The post MFA’s showcase 2024 painting and printmaking theses appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Holley and M[A]B performed their set of entirely new material in Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center as part of the Collaborative Arts and Media Sound Art Series. After the concert, Holley spoke with Ross Wightman, CCAM technical manager and series curator, and audience members about his life and art, even showcasing his recent wire sculpture depicting the faces and bodies of a multi-generational family.

“Lonnie is definitely the lead,” explained RA Washington, who performs on beat samplers for M[A]B, “but it’s all improvisational. Any background music or vocals that are created are created by us, Mourning [A] BLKstar.”

Holley found his calling for art while making sandstone graves for his nephew and niece after they passed away in a house fire. When Holley’s sister couldn’t afford tombstones, Holley used his grandfather’s cross-cut saw to carve the memorials himself. Ever since, Holley has integrated themes of compassion and investigated the human condition, as evidenced by the recurring motifs and subjects present throughout his creative work.

While he has made songs on his keyboard and microphone for a large part of his life, it took until 2012 for Holley to release his debut album “Just Before Music.”

Formed in Cleveland in 2015, M[A]B is a label-defying Black music collective. M[A]B members met Holley through his student and guitarist, Lee Bains, and connected with his passion for his art. The group never rehearsed with Holley prior to their performances. Now, they’re traveling on a concert tour together.

Washington said about the power of M[A]B and Holley’s collaboration: “There have been experiences that’ve been so spiritually powerful that it’s surprising, because that doesn’t happen. It does happen, but it doesn’t happen to this degree that it has on this particular tour.”

The concert was part of CCAM’s Sound Art Series, led by Wightman. Founded in 2020, the Sound Art Series, which existed online through the pandemic, is focused on highlighting the sonic arts by bringing on a diversity of guest artists who experiment with sound and performance. Sound Art Series shows are free and open to the public, including open discussions, inviting audience members to further engage in the presented art and artists.

“It’s about the performance, as much as it is about the art, as much as it is about the sound,” said Wightman, expressing his intention to showcase artists experimenting with sound in a broader way.

Holley began his set with the phrase, “Thank you, time,” establishing the auditory theme for the following composition. Many of the songs started with Holley feeding M[A]B single lines and piano chords to inspire their instrumentation. 

This call-response style of music composition created a dynamic on-stage interaction where band members responded naturally to their own sounds. Every few minutes, the instrumentation would die down, allowing Holley to speak to the audience directly before moving on to his next sonic idea. 

“It’s always a little bit of a clean slate,” said Latoya Kent, a vocalist for M[A]B. “It feels like every time a song leaves, then it’s gone. Now it’s a new clean slate, and we’re starting from that clean slate.

Members of M[A]B spoke highly of Holley and talked extensively about the trust they all have in each other musically. 

When Holley gave out the instruction “no keys” during their performance, instantly, the keyboard responded. Such feedback was prevalent throughout the show, verbally and nonverbally as the musicians used their crafts to honor the greater performance. 

“You never realize how divided your mind is until you meet a person like Lonnie,” said Washington. “So focused, he’s pure art — pure. Every inch of him bleeds through the prism of art, no matter what it is.”

Holley reciprocated admiration for the artists around him in a conversation with the News. 

He spent time before his performance with students of the School of Art and the School of Architecture.

“What artists have in common is that we are all now being driven by spiritual emotions,” Holley said. “We may not even know it. We think that we have to get out and earn this and earn that, but everything that we’re trying to ‘re-earn’ has already been paid [for] by our ancestors’ sacrifice.”

Holley’s lyrics explore themes of resilience through hardship, the importance of heritage and the unavoidable passage of time. His journey to artistic prominence from an early life marked with adversity has given Holley many stories, thoughts and feelings to relay through his sculptural and musical work.

Holley and M[A]B have garnered cultural and critical acclaim for their work, as their music reflects the perspectives of unique life experiences. Their CCAM Sound Art Series performance gave attendees the opportunity to see a creative spin on what musical performances can be and witness how artists can react to their work as it is composed.

“There is nothing that I could write,” sings Holley in a song, pausing as if waiting for inspiration to strike again. When it does, he continues, “to make a wrong right.”

Lonnie Holley’s latest release, 2023’s “Oh Me Oh My,” was given a nine out of ten score from internet music critic, Anthony Fantano.

The post Multidisciplinary artist and musician Lonnie Holley improvises a thought-provoking set with Mourning [A] BLKStar. appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Director and stage manager, Roy Kohavi ’26, shared his thoughts on the show, emphasizing that it is “dark comedy at the end of the day; it isn’t a random comedy. It’s still very lighthearted, but part of the comedy plays into that darkness.”

“Arsenic and Old Lace” is a black comedy about a pair of homicidal spinster aunts, played by Brynne Aidlin-Perlman ’25 and Stephanie Acosta ’27, who unravel their murderous tendencies alongside their three eccentric children — Teddy, played by Samantha Fisher ’24, Jonathan, played by Serengeti Cox-Rodriguez ’24, and Mortimer, played by Charlie Patton ’27. Mortimer, discovering his family’s deadly secrets, must save his aunts from the authorities while steering clear of becoming a victim himself.

Amid the shuffling and storage of corpses on stage, comedy arose from the loud personalities of the Brewster family and the characters in the periphery, including a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator, a disgruntled fiancé, a dimwit cop and an alcoholic Igor — played by Fisher, Tybee Feiler ’27, Emma Kohlmayer ’25 and Nicolas Maynulet ’27, respectively.

The show made use of traditional costuming, classic makeup, vintage props and choreographed violence — made possible with the help of Jenny Mao ’24, Kerui Yang ’24, Cox-Rodriguez, Lucy Xiao ’26 and Yifei Zhao ’27, among others. 

“It’s a very 1940s script,” Patton said. “It was written in the ’40s, about the ’40s and it almost feels like a period piece set in the ’40s.”

Acknowledging the historical context of the play, having been written in 1939 and opened on Broadway in 1941, Patton noted that some lines and aspects of scenes in the original script didn’t translate seamlessly to the modern stage. To bridge this gap, Kohavi, with the help of Stage Manager Julia Murphy ’27 introduced subtle alterations from the original show, such as creative choices in sound effects, lighting and blocking.

Performers used plenty of props onstage including a ragdoll body to represent a corpse, wine bottles filled with a faux poisoned beverage, a window/curtains construct and a host of antique furniture.

A noteworthy aspect of the production was the inclusion of gender cross-casting. Kohavi spoke of the casting decisions, “I believe in genderless casting. I think every actor could play any character’s gender. In an ideal world, I’d love to change character pronouns, but sometimes that takes away from the point of the show, and this show especially is set in a more rigid time.”

Additionally, cast members spanned all levels of theater involvement, from seasoned Yale theater veteran Cox-Rodriguez, with now over eight shows under their belt, to Cameron Nye ’27, a newcomer to the stage who portrayed Officer O’Hara and Mr. Gibbs.

Reflecting on his experience, Nye shared that he first heard about the show from a recommendation by his high school theater director. Nye stated, “It was always a show I wanted to do, and I was really excited that they were doing it here, so I’m glad I got to be a part of it.”

Nye continued to elaborate on the unexpected benefits of joining the cast, highlighting how the production facilitated new friendships. According to Kohavi, these connections extended beyond the stage, which enhanced onstage chemistry, such as the camaraderie between the two aunts, played by Aidlin-Perlman and Acosta. Cast members expressed enthusiasm about continuing these friendships in future performances and spoke about the sense of community within the theatrical realm.

There are speculations that the plot of ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ is based on the real-life story of Amy Archer-Gilliam, a serial killer and nursing home proprietor from Windsor, Connecticut.

In the original ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ production, Jonathan states that his plastic surgery resembles Boris Karloff, a self-referential joke, as the part was played on Broadway by Karloff.

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From Nov. 9 to 11, “21 Chump Street” was performed in the Saybrook Underbrook by Yale undergraduates and directed by Montserrat Rodriguez ’25. The show, comprising five songs, had a six-person cast including Benjamin Jimenez ’26, Andrik Garcia ’25, Isabella Walther-Meade ’25, Maia Nehme ’27, Daniela Garcia ’25 and Erick Lopez ’24. Rodriguez filled in for Walther-Meade’s character, Naomi.

“I like to call it a portmanteau of hip-hop and operetta, so hip-hoperetta,” said Zeph Siebler ’26, the show’s musical director. “It’s very short and similar to Hamilton, it’s a hip-hop tradition within musical theater. It’s a nice short piece. There aren’t many pieces in musical theater or the rap story canon that are of this nice 15-minute digestible size, and I’ve really been liking the challenge of working on it and it having a really surprising emotional impact.” 

Despite its deceptively modest runtime, the show covers the complete true story of then-Florida high school senior Justin Laboy’s arrest in 2011. Laboy was played by Jimenez. In the production, Laboy fell in love with a transfer student in two of his classes named Naomi Rodriguez. When Naomi asked Justin for marijuana, Justin, who had never smoked nor purchased the drug, went out of his way to acquire it for her. 

In the show, Naomi, who turned out to be an undercover cop, pressured Justin to sell her the cannabis and promptly arrested him over the felony charge of selling drugs on school property. Justin was one of the dozens of students ensnared by the local high school undercover drug operation.

Zeph Siebler adapted the hip-hop-inspired score of the original “21 Chump Street” to fit the instruments and talents available for Yale’s production more aptly. 

Regarding the song “Cousin,” he said that, “there are a lot of electronic effects that are difficult to port over to our theater because we don’t have a synthesizer, and our drums are acoustic. So in order to make that song work, we took it from this 90s hip-hop track, which worked well for the original production, to a more uptempo, garage band rock number.” 

A live band, conducted by Siebler, played alongside the performances and included a pianist, guitarist, bassist and drummer. 

Accompanying the instrumentals, each of the six cast members took to the stage for singing roles in the show’s five songs — each fast-paced, dense and emotional. 

“[Siebler] talked about how we would take the original cast recording and be a little bit different with it, especially vocally,” Jimenez said. He said that Siebler told him, “This was what was done in the original production, but you don’t have to be bound by that. We’re doing our own show.” 

The preparation for the show included auditions in mid-September and biweekly rehearsals leading up to the debut. Choreography director Paloma Vigil ’25, who is also an Arts editor for the News, worked with cast members on their dances, while Sophia Perez ’27 operated as stage manager behind the curtain. 

The production was sponsored by Teatro de Yale, a “currently informal group” focused on promoting ​Latine involvement in theater, Rodriguez said. In the fall semester of 2022, Teatro debuted “In the Heights,” another Lin-Manuel Miranda-written play about a series of stories about the ​Latine community in Washington Heights. In the spring semester of 2023, Teatro showcased “Stand and Deliver,” a drama about Latin American perseverance.

Director Montserrat Rodriguez said that she and Erick Lopez, the producer of the show, were inspired by the Teatro de Yale community after the success of the group’s prior two performances to continue Teatro’s mission by bringing another narrative about a ​Latine community to Yale’s stages.

“Going into the process, I wanted the focus of this show to be on how we had a Latine cast and how it’s for Latine students,” Rodriguez said. “Of course, it’s not like, ‘if you’re not Latine, you can’t audition or be a part of it.’ It’s just a space where Latines can be the main characters.” 

In a testament to the efforts of those behind the show, tickets for “21 Chump Street” almost sold out. Teatro’s previous two shows sold out completely, demonstrating the demand on Yale’s campus for future Teatro de Yale performances.

The story “21 Chump Street” is based on an episode of “This American Life” — a radio program that primarily broadcasts journalistic nonfiction.

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Donning their signature matching green baseball jerseys and red Converse, respectively, two of Yale’s premier sketch comedy groups, Fifth Humour and Red Hot Poker, took to their stages on Oct. 7th. Their performances marked their returns since their joint recruitment show, “Back to Skool Special,” on Sept. 3, and their first performances alongside the class of 2027 taps.

Fifth Humour

Fifth Humour kicked off the evening at 8 p.m. with their show, “Five-Trick Pony,” held in room 101 of Linsly-Chittenden Hall. Their sketches debuted their five newest “Stallions:” Charles Englander ’27, Matt Letourneau ’27, Alexis Mburu ’27, Dora Molot ’27 and Giacomo Sotti ’27. The performances, all relatively safe roles, gave new members the opportunity to “feel out” the stage (cursing in front of a large audience, for one) without venturing too deep into untrodden territory. 

Taboo subject matter was circumnavigated carefully. Offhand lines about sex, race and gender, were themselves the butt of jokes, although 5H avoided broaching any of the subjects for further commentary. But don’t be mistaken, their jokes don’t dawdle; every sketch lands a punch.

The first act of the night featured an exceedingly candid and sexually adventurous character, played by Roy Kohavi ’26,  sharing their experiences on a sexual health panel. The sketch’s humor cleverly echoed the recent fake Yale Health “masturbation” notices that were disseminated around Yale’s campus only weeks prior. With each delivered anecdote — dildo and sex toy references aplenty — Kohavi’s stories ramped up in vulgarity, keeping audience members laughing, and parents who had come for Family Weekend blushing. The sketch climaxed with a joke about a “weekly circlejerk.” The group was clearly parading how much obscenity they could get away with on stage, and it was, admittedly, thoroughly entertaining to start the show with.

5H’s later performances were similar in set-up. One character played the “odd one out” — played by Kohavi, for example, in this first sketch. There’s either the lone “straight-man” amidst a stage full of zany characters or a single oddball between voices of reason. This set-up creates a manicured environment full of comedic tension, conflict and interaction, highlighting the ensemble’s on-stage chemistry, producing comedy gold over and over — no mining required.

While diverging from this set-up could provide more variety to the sketch selection, 5H’s delivery and timing were exceptionally well-rehearsed and stuck their landings each time, ensuring that audience members did not get the impression of redundancy. 

To aid with sketch fluidity, scenes of a continuous bit involving a hockey player, played by Letourneau, were interspersed between longer segments of stage-presence and were endowed with some of the best jokes of the night. In one skit, as Letourneau walks to the penalty box, a hockey announcer asks “But did he have to say those things about the 19th amendment?” to which Letourneau yells, “My mom’s a woman!” 

Although the hockey sketches’ undeveloped overarching narrative may have come across as jarring to some viewers, their quick pace and solid punchlines more than compensated. Even when it’s a little unfocused, it’s clear the 5H crew takes humor seriously, and the result is seriously hilarious. The visual comedy of a shirtless wrestler pouncing on Letourneau in the middle of a darkened LC classroom alone, undoubtedly left a lasting impression. 

The set design was minimal, consisting primarily of tables and chairs, occasionally supplemented by a few small props and costume items. A single video skit was played halfway through the evening on the retractable video screen that most indoor classrooms come equipped with, taking advantage of the video medium to deliver a parody advertisement for the group. 

The video amplified the contrast between pre-taped sketches — how most contemporary comedy is consumed — and live performances. Social tension and delivery have a greater emphasis placed on them without the fancy cuts and edits that pre-recorded comedy relies on. There’s something especially natural about consuming comedy live that sheds the artifice of the hundreds of re-recordings that video comedy is able to shield itself behind.

“To do comedy is to put yourself in an incredibly vulnerable position,” said co-director of 5H Betty Kubovy-Weiss ’25. “We do this because we love it, and it’s so fucking scary. So when people laugh, it’s such a validation.”

What Betty mentioned is absolutely true — comedy is a mutually validating experience. Watching the 5H sketches felt like there was someone out there who also understood that absurd, iteratively raunchy humor you share with your closest friends in states of delirium and the state of “giggles” that takes you over in the late hours of the night. It’s a sort of heartening and encouraging experience. 

In a way, the jokes feel familiar. One could imagine the ideas behind many of the sketch premises coming naturally from conversations held around Yale’s campus — no small part due to their vulgarity. Any repetition in sketch structure could easily be justified by the idiom, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” 

Impressively, many of the new 5H members had little to no prior experience in comedy or the performing arts. Dora Molot ’27,  a 5H “Stallion” and prospective chemistry major, said about 5H, “This is my only performing arts related [extracurricular]. I’m actually starting to get more involved with more STEM things.”

All evening, distinguishing between new members and veterans was a challenge, a testament to the deliberate casting choices made behind the scenes. Dean Farella ’26, co-director of 5H, explained their collaborative creative process: “We all write together and independently. If someone has an idea, they’ll pitch it to the group and people might join in.” He explained that the process involves pitching ideas, casting roles and editing as a group. Before shows, group members submit sketches to the directors who narrow down the perming list. 

In short, the performance was a welcomed showcase of 5H’s “bread-and-butter.” Sketch ideas pitched by new members were treated the same as any others—recursively edited and formatted into a structure known to generate laughs. Audience members were delighted by the profanity and overjoyed by the opportunity to watch comedians risk being in front of an audience again. While we hope to see the new members experiment more further in their tenure, this first show celebrated the fundamentals of 5H sketch comedy in a way audiences will happily welcome more of.

Red Hot Poker

Zoe Larkin ’24, Director Emeritus of Red Hot Poker, described the RHP experience as a series of “iterative punch-ups with a group ethos and an eye towards game,” which is likely as succinct and accurate a description of watching RHP sketches as anyone will ever get. 

Red Hot Poker delivered “Hit Me Baby One More Show!” at 10 p.m. in room 201 of William L. Harkness Hall to a full house — yes, I know, wrong “poker,” but I couldn’t help myself!. Their sketches debuted their five newest members: Kianna Jean-Francois ’27, Devika Kothari ’27, Millie Liao ’27, Nicolas Maynulet ’27 and Victoria Mnatsakanyan ’27. In a world of long setups, these comedic fledglings are already masters of the punchline, never failing to make the audience laugh, despite a few missed opportunities for comic escalation. Their clever sketch premises and commitment to their performances remained remarkably consistent all night long.

Coincidentally, RHP began their show with a circular seminar, not unlike 5H, providing introductions to several members all at once. This first sketch featured the art of hamboning — the slapping of one’s own body rhythmically to produce music. While members of the seminar relay touching personal stories, Fred, a lost member of a hamboning troupe — played by Prentiss Patrick-Carter ’26 — responds not with quiet snaps of affirmation but with barrages of surprisingly impressive knee slaps. As the sketch progressed, the hamboning routines grew more intricate and slowly converted the seminar’s “non-hamboners” into devoted “hambonees.” When Fred exited the scene, three seminar members stood up as the lights dimmed and dramatic music swelled, leading to the humorous conclusion that Fred’s hamboning might just be a “gift from God.” This first sketch expertly handled comedic buildup, in a way that successive skits seemed to lose sight of. Nevertheless, RHP’s brilliantly creative sketch premises carried their weight tenfold.

RHP explored a college application panel more concerned with their school’s rave culture than academics, a feminism panel so enthused that they accidentally reinvented sweatshops and even Abraham Lincoln’s reaction to his daughter’s poor theater performance. 

Chesed Chap ’25, RHP’s Director, explained that the “voice” of RHP is in constant flux, evolving each year as old members graduate and new members join the ranks. New taps are encouraged to write, pitch and suggest edits to sketches, ensuring that everyone is involved in the creative process from the very beginning. This encouragement of new voices is a huge factor as to why RHP sketch ideas can feel so continuously fresh.

One of the evening’s standout sketches featured Princess Peach, played by Mnatsakanyan, suppressing her laughter in the Mushroom Kingdom war room while her Toad advisors relayed news in their iconic shrill croaks. The Toads’ discordant screams and hilarious hats, alongside Victoria’s royally pompous performance, were a joy to view. However, the sketch’s mishandling of escalation made its later half feel unfortunately redundant. In the sketch, the Toads tell Princess Peach increasingly horrible news about the war against Bowser. Peach, distracted by the Toads’ voices, struggles to remain serious. This premise is ridiculously clever, but its performance preemptively “jumps the shark” by having the Toads’ reveal news about death too early. Luckily, a slew of fantastic performances saved this sketch and the rest that suffered from the same mishandlings.

While some of the more involved sketches, such as the ninth-grader in a second-grade classroom, played by Chesed, overshadowed the more subdued ones like the bodybuilding and flight safety sketches, RHP, especially its newest members, shone most when they were compounding on each other’s humor in bombastic displays of over-the-top-ness. 

Noah Bradley ’25, a RHP member, explained that everyone was welcome to RHP and that their strength as a troupe comes from their inclusivity. “We get straight-up theater majors, we’ve got people that did improv in high school and we’ve also got pre-meds who were the funny ones in their friend groups who choose to join us on a whim,” he said. “That makes it easy to integrate new members because there isn’t this idea that everyone has to be perfect.”

The camaraderie among members of both 5H and RHP is palpable, both on and off stage. Their mutual respect and enjoyment performing together create a collaborative atmosphere that enriches the comedy scene at Yale. We promise that any Yalie won’t regret going to see either act perform at least once. They’re the comedy shows you didn’t know you needed, until you realize you can’t live without.

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During Blue’s last months in high school, she was followed by Red. He phased through his junior semesters and watched Blue get accepted to Yale. He watched her heart sink as her family pressured her to attend the local state school. He watched the chandelier light in her eyes as they danced at her senior prom. Underneath an umbrella in the front row of some rainy bleachers, Red watched Blue accept her high school diploma.

Red kept seeing Blue after she left for college — they’d meet for breakfast dates and pottery lessons — while he received offers from both the state school and Yale. He was convinced he’d follow Blue through the next stages of their lives as he had done for the prior two years, but Blue assured him that a long-distance relationship would work and that he should go where he’d be better off. Reluctantly, Red conceded.

In the spring of Red’s senior year, Blue came over. She took him to an empty tennis court, and they stared out onto the green and blue asphalt, imagining the ghosts of partners rallying back and forth. Blue told Red that she could no longer see him, and before he could even process what she said, Red said okay.

In the summer, Red went to New Haven. He refrained from calling or texting Blue, but everyone in his hall knew of her.

In the fall, Red overheard that Blue was coming to the Northeast to visit her Ivy League friends. A call from her later that evening brought Red relief, as well as an unshakable unease when he agreed to show her around.

In November, Red entered Old Campus from Elm Street and saw Blue sitting on a bench like an apparition from the past. He paused to consider what would happen if he didn’t approach her, if time stood still, and he could watch until the wind became cold. Blue noticed him, stood and they embraced. Red felt a sinking feeling in his stomach but hid it, and they walked the common spots with coat sleeves draped down over the tips of their fingers. They stopped by Willoughby’s. She asked him how he was doing, and even though he had rehearsed his response at least a hundred times, he could only manage a hollow, “It’s been good,” before the following silence filled in all his missing words. Red missed Blue’s hands, and the security of it all, and the thought crossed his mind that Blue could have seen someone else since the breakup, and he would admit to himself how miserable this was.

Blue was the same as before, and Red considered if that made her less interesting. He wondered how quickly it would take him to fall back into the obsession that once consumed him; he wondered if he had ever left it behind.

Amid some other conversation, Red spoke.

“Do you think it’d ever be possible for us to pick up where we left off?”

And Blue’s smile turned into some other expression. Not a frown. Not really anything.

“We couldn’t do that. You don’t even know me, Red.”

And the wind resumed, blowing a patch of leaves that had colluded farther down the road into a sort of brown fire. From where they stood on College Street, the campus looked exactly like it did from the application material online. The college, the time, which had been lived in again and again each fall and each spring.

“You have your coat?” was the last thing Red said to Blue, although he didn’t know it at the time. Blue would be late for her bus and would have to run after it before saying goodbye. She would send him a text later explaining this.

Red received the text walking alone underneath a flowering dogwood. He didn’t know Blue, yet she was the reason he was there. This troubled Red, but then again, nobody else could tell.

There were parts about Blue that Red thought he’d never forget, but as he stood in front of his bathroom mirror that night, recounting their conversation, Red could not, for the life of him, recall the exact sound of her voice. Instead, he could only think about

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