Culture & Community | Arts & Culture | Shubert Theatre | Education
Shawn and Charlie Lockett. Lucy Gellman Photos.
At the center of the Shubert’s glowing mainstage, a shimmering, pint-sized mermaid was deciding where to go next. At stage right, a pair of robots danced around each other, their motors whirring as they sped across the floorboards. Behind her, bright books covered a tabletop, with titles that ranged from Eileen Roe’s Con Mi Hermano and Sharee Miller’s Pelo de Princesa to Tad Carpenter’s Are You A Scientist?
Outside, the driving rain continued to drench downtown New Haven. With her tail still encased in a raincoat, she made her move, shimmying over to the robots. The books would have to wait.
Mermaids, princesses, Spider Men and at least one tiny T’Challa came to Shubert Theatre Sunday morning, as the organization’s annual “Family Fun Day” brought in over 700 young New Haveners and their families on the cusp of Halloween. Held each year as part of the theater’s educational programming, the event is part costume party, part trick-or-treat extravaganza, and part literary and dramatic odyssey.
Altheda and Nailah Bastien.
Director of Education and Engagement Kelly Wuzzardo said that it’s also meant to connect young people to the Shubert, sometimes for the first time. It also marks the start of the theater’s annual holiday food and toy drive, which continues through late December. People can participate by dropping unwrapped toys and non-perishable items off to the theater, where a cart sits waiting for donations in the lobby.
“This is kind of the big event,” Wuzzardo said Sunday, as kids followed color-coded arrow across the floor and visited candy and craft stations, some bounding up the stairs to a repurposed visitor lounge. “What I love about it is that it’s a really diverse group of kids and families … these are kids from every corner of the community.”
As Wuzzardo buzzed from station to station dressed as a giant Uno card, families milled around the stage and headed to crafting stations upstairs, where piles of crepe paper, paint, shiny skull-shaped stickers and tiny pumpkins all waited eagerly for small hands. As Shubert staff guided young visitors through visuals from Día de los Muertos, little feet padded across the carpet, making a beeline for bowls of candy.
In the theater’s lobby, mom and daughter Shawn and Charlie Lockett visited a station dotted with painted pumpkins, perusing a selection of miniature chocolate bars and wrapped sweet treats before heading back into the soggy weather. As family fun day novices, Shawn said she was thrilled to have a warm, indoor way to celebrate Halloween.
“I love watching how my daughter is enjoying this,” she said. The spooky holiday is big in her house, she added: Charlie wears different costumes leading up to Halloween, including a ladybug, mermaid, witch and most recently Spider Woman.
Billy, Vida, Marlene and Alma Cordero.
Inside the theater, families floated across the stage, impromptu ensemble members in a buzzing, laughter-flecked and vibrant costume parade that went on for hours. As she swept through the crowd as Frozen’s Princess Anna, four-year-old Alma Cordero beamed, eager to check out the orange bowls of candy atop each table. She and her mom, Marlene Cordero, chose the costume after talking about Anna’s power to make her own decisions.
As he carried her one-year-old sister Vida, dad Billy Cordero said he was delighted to be back in the theater with his daughters. Growing up in New Haven, Cordero studied the arts at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School when it was still on Orange Street, where New Haven Academy is now. He never experienced the school’s relationship with the Shubert, but loves the space.
In recent years, he said, he’s been to performances of The Nutcracker, which the New Haven Ballet performs every winter. Both he and his wife also take their daughters to Shubert programming at the Stetson Branch Library.
“We’re always looking for events that are good for the entire family,” said Marlene. “Plus, it exposes the kids to the theater.”
On their way to a station for the Shubert’s summer camp, siblings Kai and Tryce King looked around excitedly, their eyes darting from the open curtains to the huge stage lights that hung above their heads. Dressed as a black cat and Spider-Man’s Miles Morales, the two delighted in not just candy that dotted the theater, but also the displays of books and fellow kids in costume.
“I love that he has dreads just like me!” four-year-old Tryce said of Miles Morales, adding that the best part of Halloween is collecting candy.
Born and raised in New Haven, their mom Christina said she was grateful for the day, which brought her back to a theater that she loved herself as a kid. After attending last year’s family fun day, it felt meaningful to bring her children back into the space. They would likely be back, she added—although maybe not as characters in the Spider-Verse.
Top: Siblings Everett and Elise Johnson. Bottom: Renée, Nathaniel and Jean-Paul Brown. Nathaniel has never seen Black Panther, but gravitated immediately toward a T'Challa costume when he saw it weeks ago.
That was also true for Renée and Jean-Paul Brown, who had come out to celebrate a family day together. A registered nurse, Renée added that it was a chance to help her four-year-old son, Nathaniel, “get used to his autonomy” as he drifted around the stage.
Nearby, Nailah Bastien perused book titles, her mom Altheda looking over her shoulder as she picked up a copy of Jackson Pearce’s Ellie The Engineer. A sixth grader at Saint Martin de Porres Academy, she savored the moment, picking up a piece of candy before she made her way off the stage, and back into the lobby.
“This is really nice!” Altheda said. Because she works on Saturdays, it was important to her to find a Sunday mom-and-daughter date that the soggy weather wouldn’t spoil. The Shubert fit the bill—and then some. Like the Kings nearby, she said that the two would almost certainly be back.
Ace Bellamy and Stacy Graham-Hunt with their sons, Alexander and Elijah.
As he watched the parade of costumes, new Shubert board member Brian Amero beamed, trading notes on costumes with Wuzzardo and a Morticia Adams-clad Janie Alexander. A program manager at ASML, Amero worked with the Shubert and his company to provide hundreds of free books, from engineering and science board books to bilingual reads for readers still in elementary school.
Both he and Wuzzardo said they were excited for the new partnership, meant to address both New Haven’s ongoing literacy crisis and emphasize the importance of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) education.
“They’re in a STEAM classroom and they don’t even know it,” he said, gesturing to a section of the stage where ASML had set up robots for students to play with. “This is a really great example of STEM at an engaging entry level. It’s just so critically important that people have access to programs like this.”
Max Alexander, a seventh grader at Hamden Hall, and Dakari Langley, a freshman at Co-Op.
And indeed, that Halloween fun seemed contagious. At a table advertising the Shubert’s summer camp, students Max Alexander and Dakari Langley handed out information about the enrollment in the camp, which last year celebrated a full decade. A freshman at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School studying dance, Langley said he still has a soft spot for dressing up.
“It [family fun day] reminds me of my childhood,” he said. As a kid, he once graced the stage as a student with Tia Russell, and later with the New Haven Ballet. “I think it’s really important to give kids the best, because once they grow up and go through puberty, it’s gonna be really hard for them.”
Across the stage, that magic caught on as siblings Elise and Everett Johnson—or as they appeared, a princess and a character from Ninjago—took their turn conducting robots around the stage. As she watched, their mom Monica praised the event, adding that it marked their first time there, but likely not their last. Noting the rain, she pointed to how nice it was to have an indoor activity for her kids.
“You never know what’s gonna happen on Halloween,” she said.