‘Laughs,’ Birbiglia and scary puppets
It’s getting darker and cooler out there. To smooth the transition, comedy is required. Happily, “The Festival of Laughs” is at The Bushnell, Mike Birbiglia’s at College Street Music Hall, the locally lensed puppet slasher film “Head” is at Sea Tea Comedy Theater and the fun-loving rock band Primus is doing a Rush tribute.
Primus is king
Primus, one of the most influential yet unpredictable rock bands of the past 40 years, has been trying to get its “Tribute to Kings” tour done for so long you suspect it might be a joke. But here it finally is: Primus promising to play Rush’s album “A Farewell to Kings” live in its entirety. Sept. 26 at 7 p.m. at the Oakdale, 95 S. Turnpike Road, Wallingford. $35 to $117. livenation.com.
Band of brothers
The three Jonas Brothers — Kevin, Joe and Nick — formed their band way, way back in 2005. Yes, they’ve been stars for all of 16 years, and the oldest of them is 33. So a tour titled “Remember This” would seem like a pretty short show. Yet separate from their thriving solo careers, the Jonas Brothers have made five
Maxwell (Vernon Rockville), Betty Ann Medeiros (Danbury), Jay Misencik (Monroe), Leigh Morfoot (Norwalk), Dan Morrison (Torrington), Aisha Nailah (Bridgeport), Katharine Owens (Middletown),
Ben Quesnel (Stamford), Ricardo Reyes (Bridgeport), Anna Sanko (Vernon), Alissa Siegal (Stamford), Edward Soto (Windsor Locks), Carl Testa (New Haven), Jason Ting (New Haven), Pamela Vitale
(New Hartford), Michael Wilson (West Hartford),
The $2,500 grants go to Jonathan Barber (Windsor), Rebecca Bloomfield (Falls Village), Taiga Christie (New Haven),
Ted Efremoff (West Hartford), Resu Espinosa-Fink (New London), Carin
Estey (Norwich), Jacquelyn Gleiser (New Haven), Anne Gogh (Windsor), Kyle Grimm (Hartford), Wendy Kerner (Wilton), Nicki LaPorte (Bristol), Michael Manning (Greenwich), S. C. Murray (New Haven), Kevin Sherwin (New Haven), Christine Webster (Meriden), Stewart Wilson (New Hartford) and Stacey Zackin (Colchester).
There are no $1,000 grants given in the first round.
The next round of applications for Artists Respond grants opens Oct. 1 with an application deadline of Dec. 1 for projects scheduled to happened between the begining of March and the end of September 2022.
At the same time it announced the Artists Respond awardees, the Office of the Arts also announced 192 Supporting Arts grant recipients. Those grants range from $1,000 to $11,255 and cover the entire state.
The 13 Hartford grantees are Amistad Center for Art & Culture, the local chapter of Barbershop Harmony Society, Charter Oak Performing Arts, Cinestudio, Connecticut Ballet, Connecticut Choral Artists, Connecticut Guitar Society, Hartford Chorale, Hartford Opera Theater, Judy Dworin Performance Project, Night Fall, Sonia Plumb Dance Company and TheaterWorks. The nine from West Hartford are the Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival, Ballet Theatre Company, Capital Classics, Connecticut Family Theatre, Connecticut Summerfest, Hartford Performs, Music at the Red Door, New World Trio and West Hartford Art League.
The complete list can be found at portal.ct.gov/-/ media/DECD/Arts_ Culture/Recent-Grants/ FY22-Grant-Recipients/ FY22-SAP-Grant-Recipients.pdf.
Both the Artists Respond and Supporting Arts grants apply to the 2022 fiscal year.
The Office of the Arts also announced Tuesday that Connecticut, as one of eight states (and the only one in New England) that have so far joined the AIR Institute, an organization that encourages community projects by connecting and training people from a variety of professions and backgrounds, will take part in its programs.
AIR provides training for “facilitators to advance creative community solutions.” The first cohort of 15 Connecticut facilitators to receive the free training consists of Kia Baird, Kai Belton, Razul Branch, Thalia Castro, Jessica Cerullo, Valerie A. Cooper, Melanie Papadis Faranell, Jose Feliciano, Virginia Flood, Bethany Frasco, Nicolas Gonzales, Maybeth Morales-Davis, Summer Payne, Heather Pontonio and Eve Wolftrand.