Night Fall, Hartford’s annual community celebration of art, music, dance, nature, and seasonal change, returns to the park where it all began eleven years ago: Hartford’s Elizabeth Park on Saturday, October 1 at 6 pm. This free outdoor spectacular features artists and performers drawn from the Hartford area as well as eye-popping costumes, masks, and giant puppets.
Initiated by Hartford artist Anne Cubberly and a coalition of like-minded visionaries in 2012, Night Fall was created to celebrate the city’s park system and neighborhoods by rotating its annual presentation to public park sites throughout the city. This year’s production will be performed on the Hartford side of Elizabeth Park (near the intersection of Whitney Street and Asylum Avenue). Centered in the belief that the arts and Hartford’s parks should be welcoming, inclusive, and accessible, Night Fall is free and open to all. For more information, visit NightFallHartford.org. The rain date is Sunday, October 2 at 6pm.
Focusing on the change of seasons, Night Fall takes the audience on a visual and musical journey. The show features dancers and actors appearing as a variety of animals and magical beings in scenes that reflect multiple community stories. Although the production changes from year to year, each Night Fall performance culminates with a lantern procession and the arrival of the majestic solstice puppet.
The fun begins at 2 pm for guests to enjoy vendors, community organizations, art-making, and food trucks. Attendees should bring blankets and lawn chairs with picnicking encouraged. As part of Night Fall’s commitment to sustainability, audiences are urged to use multimodal transportation to come to the show including walking, riding a CT Transit bus, carpooling, scooting, or cycling with a bicycle valet service on offer. Limited parking is available within the park and on surrounding streets.
Night Fall’s audience services team is in need of community volunteers to assist in advance or on on the day of the show. Bilingual volunteers are particularly welcome. Positions include distributing posters and postcards, merchandise sales, ushers, greeters, accessibility volunteers, lantern bearers for the finale, and more. Night Fall Volunteer Coordinator Jeanika Browne-Springer at info@nightfallhartford.org to express interest.
Night Fall 2022 has been envisioned by a collaborative group of directors, choreographers, theatre-makers, and musicians. Portions of the show have been conceived and directed by Dejé Bennett, Devé-Ann Bennett, Anne Cubberly, Casey Grambo, Kyle Grimm, Greg Ludovici, and Hannah Simms. Original music has been created and performed by Kyle Grimm, Mark Jenks, and Ym. Choreography has been devised by Devé-Ann Bennett, Mellissa Craig, Jakar Hankerson, and Erica Nelson. Night Fall’s colorful costumes, masks and giant puppets are created by Anne Cubberly. Steve Mitchell serves as technical director with Liloni Brown acting as stage manager.
The cast includes both new faces and returning artists, including Dejé Bennett, Jeanika Browne-Springer, Jessie Gray Cieza, Gianna DiMaiolo, Jonathan Domenech, Chris Dunn, Amanda Duvall, Chantal Edwards-Matthews, Giomar Emmanuelli, Jakar Hankerson, Reese Hart, Matthew Benjamin Horowitz, Samone Jones-McCarthy, William Jackson, Mark Jenks, Kunzika, Greg Ludovici, Loren Milledge, Daniel Minogue, Stephanie Moreland, Brianna Navedo, Madison Negron, Erica Nelson, Jason Ramos, Julie Riccio, Johanna Rincon, Jonathan Rincon, Jessie Robie, Akira Rodriguez, Claire Sickinger, and Hannah Simms. The collaborating artists and performers in Night Fall are all paid a fair wage for their time and talents.
Night Fall is made possible with generous support from the Connecticut Office of the Arts; Connecticut Humanities; The Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation; Vermont Community Found
