Back in the 1940s-60s in the Golden Age of American theater, New Haven was the birthplace for many shows heading to Broadway. “Oklahoma” and “My Fair Lady” began at the Shubert Theatre and “Away We Go” and many Rodgers and Hammerstein shows first opened here. There was even a Broadway play by “Catch-22” author Joseph Heller titled “We Bombed in New Haven.”
In keeping with the city’s tradition as a Broadway “try-out” city, the latest show to do so was “Shimmer,” based on Sarah Schulman’s same-titled 1998 novel. After two weeks of auditions, rehearsals, many script rewrites and cuts, an audience of about 80-90 got a first look at the show through a workshop reading and performance of 23 original songs in the Yale Schwarzman Center June 1.