For theater, New Haven’s Shubert, Long Wharf, and Yale Repertory theaters are renowned for groundbreaking performances. There is also a collection of smaller theaters and troupes including Elm City Shakespeare and Yale Cabaret which offer performances throughout the year.

New Haven also has a wide selection of small galleries that make it easy to find a special gift or a memento from your trip here. One spot in particular of note is the Connecticut Art Trail – www.arttrail.org — a nationally recognized partnership between fifteen world-class museums and historic sites, created to promote Connecticut's rich cultural assets as part of a travel experience.

The Trail was launched in 1995 as the Connecticut Impressionist Art Trail, celebrating Connecticut's ten museums and historic sites which highlight American Impressionism. Artists flocked to the state to paint en plein air, forming colonies at the Holley House in Cos Cob/Greenwich (now the Bush-Holley Historic Site) and Miss Florence Griswold's boarding house in Old Lyme (now the Florence Griswold Museum), which were the cornerstones for the Connecticut Impressionist Art Trail.

Such familiar names as J. Alden Weir, William Chadwick, Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, John Twachtman and Elmer Livingston MacRae all were part of the Impressionism movement.

Additionally, New Haven is home to a remarkable number of great museums for a city its size. These museums feature everything from Egyptian mummies at the Peabody Museum of Natural History to Vincent Van Gogh’s The Night Cafe painting at the Yale Center for British Art.

When it comes to music, New Haven is said to have the richest musical life of any city of its size in the country. The New Haven Symphony Orchestra is the fourth oldest in the country and the Yale School of Music is one of the world’s most renowned.

If you are looking for some evening excitement, New Haven has clubs, late-night galleries, cozy pubs, and more!