The old woman had already started making her way across the wide plaza, the slabs of stone sturdy beneath her loafers, when 7-year-old Maxine Sciarro noticed her purple lipstick and burst into a smile. Beside her, doting grandfather Gregory Stamos savored the moment, one of the last before sending her off to the second grade. The music swelled around them, with bursts of French jazz that melted into 1980s rock.
Laughter, play, and a sweet end to summer vacation came to downtown New Haven Tuesday afternoon, as the clowning duo Bill and Fred arrived at the Hewitt Quadrangle outside the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library and Yale Schwarzman Center with “The Grannies.” The jovial brainchild of Elysia McMullen and Luisa Schmitz—or Frieda and Billie, as their sobriquets would have it in the show—the performance both pays homage to elders and reminds all of its viewers that humor can be a balm, sometimes with few or no words at all.
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