Live Events
Trivia Night
- Wed, Feb 19
Run Time: 120 min.
Trivia Night returns to the Bedford Playhouse Cafe, hosted by Rachel from Rock Paper Scissors Custom Events. Play solo or as a team and test your knowledge on a wide range of topics, including movies, music, history, geography and more. Food and drink available for sale from the bar.
Human Rights and Mental Health: The Role of Community Support
- Thu, Feb 20
Run Time: 90 min.
More than 122 million people worldwide have been forced to flee their homes due to conflict, disaster, and human rights violations. During times of instability, violence against women and girls also often increases. How does exposure to human rights abuses affect mental health and how do communities leverage resilience to respond to traumatic events? Please join us for an informative discussion and Q & A session with Dr. Kim Baranowski to learn more about the impact of gender-based violence on people experiencing forced migration. The presentation will also highlight strategies for supporting human rights efforts, as well as partnering with our asylum-seeking neighbors as they navigate the complex process of seeking protected immigration status.
The Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions with Amanda Bellows
- Wed, Feb 26
Run Time: 75 min.
A fascinating new history of America, told through the stories of a diverse cast of ten extraordinary—and often overlooked—adventurers, from Sacagawea to Matthew Henson to Sally Ride, who pushed the boundaries of discovery and determined our national destiny. Across two centuries and many thousands of miles of terrain, Amanda Bellows offers an ode to our country’s most intrepid adventurers—and reveals the history of America in the process.
First Fridays: Parker’s Tangent
Run Time: 120 min.
Parker’s Tangent is a band based out of greater New Haven, CT playing original [sometimes art] rock music based on blues and roots sources. Their lead singer has been compared to Grace Slick and Nora Jones, with drums, percussion, lead and rhythm guitars, bass and an awesome violin player presenting virtuoso performances. Show begins at 6:30pm. Free admission, no reservation required.
John Jay Homestead Lecture Series: The Rising Generation: Gradual Abolition, Black Legal Culture, and the Making of National Freedom, with Sarah Gronningsater
- Tue, Mar 11
Run Time: 90 min.
Under New York’s 1799 Gradual Abolition scheme, a child born to an enslaved mother (as of a certain date) was deemed “free,” but had to continue as the servant of the mother’s owner until the age of 25 (for a girl) or 28 (for a boy). Gronningsater develops a deeply researched picture of the lives, politics, and legal efforts of this generation of Black children of ambiguous status, and how they combined with others to help shape important changes to the U.S. Constitution as well as groundbreaking state and Federal civil rights legislation.
John Jay Homestead Lecture Series: Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation, with Brenda Wineapple
- Wed, Apr 9
Run Time: 90 min.
In 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee, John Scopes was charged with breaking the new law that banned the teaching of evolution in public schools. His trial became an international sensation, with brilliant and famous personalities – one, a former presidential candidate – representing the opposing sides during the so-called Roaring Twenties. Keeping the Faith brings to life this trial, its combatants, and the way it exposed profound divisions in America that still resonate today, over the meaning of freedom, religion, education, and civil liberties in a democracy.
John Jay Homestead Lecture Series: Glorious Lessons: John Trumbull, Painter of the American Revolution, with Richard Brookhiser
- Tue, May 6
Run Time: 90 min.
John Trumbull saw the American Revolution firsthand, including being shot at and jailed as a spy. He was seen by his contemporaries as a painter, but he thought of himself as a historian, wanting “to preserve and diffuse the memory of the noblest series of actions which have ever presented themselves in the history of man.” He knew John Jay well, having served as his secretary during the negotiations of the Jay Treaty, and he painted the only portrait in the Homestead’s collection that Jay actually sat for (the rest are copies).