Out in the Elm City: Places to go and things to do beyond the ivy

While New Haven is not as bustling, exciting, and jam-packed-full-o'-fun a metropolis as, say, New York, there's plenty of competition for your entertainment dollar here. In fact, there are even a few free leisure options you might want to consider. Here's just a brief list of places you can visit if and when life on campus gets you down.

LIVE ENTERTAINMENT AND FILM

Called "the birthplace of the nation's greatest hits," the Shubert Theater (247 College St.) was once the place where shows opened before heading to Broadway. Famous musicals like Brigadoon, South Pacific, The King and I, My Fair Lady, and A Streetcar Named Desire all made their debuts at the Shubert.

After its heyday during the '50s and '60s, however, the Shubert fell on hard times and even closed for a short period. Today, although it is not the birthplace of the nation's greatest hits, it still hosts a number of well-known shows and operas. Recent productions have included Crazy for You, Angels in America, Guys and Dolls, Les Misérables, Madame Butterfly, Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, and Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor. This past year, the Shubert presented musicals such as West Side Story, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Pirates of Penzance. The theater also staged the operas La Traviata and La Bohème, and a dance series, which concluded with STOMP. Plans for the 1997-98 academic year include Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk; Peter Pan; Simon's newest play, Proposals; and the Alvin Ailey Dance Company.

POWER! POWER! MONSTER! MONSTER! TRUCKS! TRUCKS! Those of you who come from our Union's more rural states will be delighted to learn that monster truck competitions are also something of a city phenomenon. The New Haven Coliseum (275 Orange St.) hosts them fairly regularly. Just listen to local radio stations to find out when. One piece of advice: if you go, be sure to bring earplugs. Car crushing can be noisy business.

The Coliseum also hosts numerous concerts. Guns 'n' Roses, Phish, the Black Crowes, the Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, Kiss, the Smashing Pumpkins, Jewel, and the Goo Goo Dolls have all played there in recent years. Other events include antique shows, the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus, world-famous figure-skating exhibitions, and the Harlem Globetrotters. This past year also showcased International Championship Kickboxing and a rodeo.

Just across the street from the Shubert, the Palace (246 College St.) hosts a stream of all-age musical fests. Much smaller than the Coliseum, the Palace provides a more intimate concert setting. In recent years, Sonic Youth, the Indigo Girls, the Dave Matthews Band, Spin Doctors, Robert Clay, Tori Amos, Bob Dylan, Wynton Marsalis, Lyle Lovett, Natalie Merchant, and Blues Traveller have all made appearances. Some of this year's most popular concerts featured Counting Crows, Ani DiFranco, and Harry Connick, Jr. Comedians and other entertainers also frequent the Palace during the year.

Last year, Performance magazine rated Toad's Place (300 York St.) the best nightclub in the country. Historically, Toad's has hosted a number of famous performers. The Rolling Stones kicked off their Steel Wheels tour there while one of Mick Jagger's daughters was a student in Morse. Other greats to pass through the club include U2, Hüsker Dü, Billy Joel, and R.E.M.

Since Toad's does have a bar, it is necessary to convince the guys at the door that you're over 21, which can be quite difficult at times. However, even if you do not have ID, the club hosts a number of shows that are open to all ages. In the last few years, all-age performers have included They Might Be Giants, Sugar, Big Head Todd, Boston, the Samples, Seal, Public Enemy, Soul Asylum, Counting Crows, the Village People, The Lemonheads, and Better Than Ezra. Even Elvis has made an appearance. Toad's also brings in blues (B.B. King, Buddy Guy), jazz (The Rippingtons), and reggae (Jimmy Cliff) performers.

The Yale Repertory Theatre (corner of Chapel and York), known widely as the Yale Rep, is a professional theater that employs actors from around the nation and also trains students in the Yale School of Drama. It stages six different performances, each running three weeks, every year.

Plays range from traditional to bizarre, but each is superbly produced. Three years ago, the Rep staged a production of Hamlet in which the title character was played by a woman. Last year's shows included First Lady, Thunder Knocking at the Door, David Mamet's acclaimed The Cryptogram, the premiere of the musical Triumph of Love, Thorton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Skin of our Teeth, and the premiere of a play by a recent Yale School of Drama graduate called The Adventures of Amy Bock. Tickets range from $10 to $28, or you can buy a $51 seeason pass, good for six shows. Passes which include Dramat performances and experimental theater shows are also available at a slightly higher cost.

If you want to see blockbuster first-run features, York Square Cinema (61 Broadway) isn't the place to go. Instead, York Square generally shows artsier films, like the latest Merchant-Ivory flick, foreign films, revivals, and cult classics such as Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill!. York Square occasionally shows mainstream movies like Evita, which allow you to procrastinate in peace--you can feel justified in skipping your reading to view the important cultural works of our time. Since its movies rotate fairly frequently (some last only a week), be sure to go as soon as a title interests you.

MUSEUMS AND EXHIBITS

The Yale University Art Gallery (1111 Chapel St.) is the oldest university gallery in the country and admission is free for undergraduates. (There is a box for donations by the entrance, but employees say that undergrads are generally not expected to contribute.) The Gallery is located right by Old Campus, and even if you're not an art connoisseur, it's worth the trip. It houses such works as Picasso's First Steps and Van Gogh's The Night Café. It also contains pieces by Kandinsky, Gauguin, Monet, and Rothko. The basement features an acclaimed Ancient Art exhibit.

Housing the most comprehensive collection of English paintings, prints, drawings, rare books, and sculptures outside Great Britain, the Yale Center for British Art (1080 Chapel St.), which is across the street from the Art Gallery, is well worth a visit. A beautiful building in itself, the Center displays works from the Elizabethan period onward and contains exhibits by such artists as J.M.W. Turner and Vanessa Bell--and it's all free! The Center houses traveling and guest exhibits, hosts guest lecturers, and offers musical concerts in its skylit portrait gallery.

One of the oldest museums in the nation, the Peabody Museum (170 Whitney Ave.) is free for anyone with a Yale ID. Housing over 10 million specimens, the natural history museum has one of the largest research collections of any institution. Perhaps the most popular exhibit is the Great Hall of Dinosaurs, one of the greatest dinosaur collections in the world. A 60-foot-long Brontosaurus skeleton--one of the best preserved and most complete of its kind in the world--greets all visitors. The collection also contains a cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a 100-million-year-old skeleton of Archelonischyros (the largest turtle ever known to roam the earth), and skeletons that served as models for the velociraptors in Jurassic Park.

Other features of the Peabody include the Hall of Human Cultures, with relics from around the world. The Peabody also contains an extensive bird collection, boasting at least one speciman of every known bird, living and extinct. In addition, the museum houses a beautiful collection of crystals and rocks, including a moonrock.

Interested in the history of New Haven? The New Haven Colony Historical Society (114 Whitney Ave.), just past the corner of Temple and Trumbull Streets, stands a few blocks from the New Haven Green. The Society has an extensive collection of artifacts and documents from New Haven's 350-plus years of existence.

Works by local artists, genealogical records, a photo archive, and even a full-sized working version of Eli Whitney's cotton gin are part of the Society's permanent collection. The Society also hosts a yearly main exhibit illustrating the changing role of various facets of New Haven throughout its history (last year's exhibit focused on the Farmington Canal). Christmas brings numerous special collections and festivities.

PROFESSIONAL SPORTS

In April 1996, a new professional sports team opened in New Haven and gave Yale students one more reason to get away from campus on warm, clear evenings. The New Haven Ravens, a minor league baseball club, now share Yale Field with the Elis. Competing in the Eastern League with teams from New Britain, Portland, Trenton, Harrisburg and Binghamton, the Ravens (coached by former major-leaguer Paul Zuvella) are the official Class AA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. You can get a good seat at a Ravens game for as little as $3. The field is also easy to reach--simply catch a bus to the Yale sports complex or walk. If you just want to sit back and enjoy a beautiful night watching quality baseball, it's hard to beat a Ravens game.

This may not seem like an ideal getaway, but the Grove Street Cemetery is actually a cool place to both reflect and get a sense of New Haven's history. It's peaceful and quiet, and the tombstones make nice seats if you want to get some reading done and don't mind the morbidity of it all. Big, old trees line the avenues of the cemetery. Spooky. However, police say that the cemetery can be dangerous. Although there is no such thing as being too careful, students feel relatively safe walking around the cemetery during the daytime, especially when it's warm outside. The cemetery closes at 4:30 p.m. every afternoon.

HANGING OUT

Every Thursday night at around 11 p.m., throngs of frosh flock to Naples Pizzeria (90 Wall St.). The pizza at Naples isn't bad, but it's the atmosphere that draws the crowds. The tables are made of thick, stained wood and are covered with carvings of students' initials. The jukebox contains a random assortment of sing-along tunes, including Sinatra's My Way and the classic Paradise by the Dashboard Light. For students lucky enough to avoid taking Friday morning classes, Thursday nights at Naples can be an integral part of the Yale undergraduate experience. A couple of local bands played there last year. Naples also opened a new dance floor and hired a disc jockey about a year ago.

If the usual drinking games just aren't cutting it for you anymore and you feel like a bit more culture, then you should definitely check out Mory's (306 York St.). Mory's is a members-only restaurant with very high-priced, well-prepared food. Part of the Old Blue tradition at Yale, the Whiffenpoofs were actually formed at Mory's; they still gather to sing and perform there every Monday night. What attracts most undergrads to Mory's, however, isn't the food or music, but the cups. Without going into too many details, this game involves large goblets of colored champagne-based drinks, lots of singing, and plenty of pointless rules that are followed solely for tradition's sake. Use your imagination, but gentlemen--please bring a tie and jacket. They won't let you in without 'em.

A local artist's gallery (Arts Council of Greater New Haven), a community arts center (Artspace), classes in pottery, bookbinding, and calligraphy (Creative Arts Workshop) and even a TCBY you can own if you've got the capital to re-open the shop. It's all on Audobon Street, along with the popular coffee shop Koffee?, a bookstore dedicated to music (Foundry), beautiful brick walkways, and Clark's restaurant and soda shop right nearby. A perfect fall/spring hangout, Audobon is practically in the backyard of Silliman and TD, but is worth the trip even for you Morsels out there.

Lage groups like to feast on nachos at Viva Zapata (161 Park St.). Some students go there for actual Mexican meals, but most go for late-night snacks, or the occasional birthday or cast party. The interior is very woody, from the tables to the dark panelling. An eclectic variety of farm equipment and sundry objects are used to decorate the place. It may be dim and smoky, but you are guaranteed to find all your friends there on a Saturday night. Nearby are Baja's on York and El Amigo Felix, two more quality Mexican restaurants. Baja's nachos are definite contenders to the Viva's crown, and El Amigo, by the Holiday Inn, gets points for being set back from campus.

Bash is the most recent addition to New Haven nightlife.

Its trendy atmosphere and convenient location on the fringe of campus have made it a hot spot for the upperclass crowd. Compared to local bars, Bash is very spacious. As the property on the corner of Crown and College, it spans two stories and a sizable lot. The ground level's wide expanse houses an impressive wood-paneled dance floor...plenty of room to get your groove on.

Should you work up a sweat and start feeling the thirst, grab a stool and a beverage at the bar that runs the length of the room. Or head upstairs and grab a drink at the slightly smaller, but sufficiently stocked, bar. The second level has its own dancing surface. It's not as large, but the size-cut does allow for the set-up of five pool tables. Ladies, if you're not interested in shooting pool or throwing back alcohol, Thursday night may be right for you: each week, there's an All-Male Review. Like many New Haven clubs, however, Bash cards strictly, so those under 21 may have to wait to sample those goods. It's well worth the wait; Whether it be relaxing at the bar, busting a move on the dance floor, playing a pool shark, or ogling the entertainment, there's something for everyone at Bash.

Lauren Anderson, Barry Levey, and Nicole Lai contributed to this article. Photos by Fabián E. Rosado, Matt Morgado, Erin Kinney, and the Herald staff.

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