Connections and confessions with Simple Pleasure and Laura Gragtmans at Rudy’s Jan. 28

It’s like a bonus Yale Cabaret show over at Rudy’s Bar & Grill tonight (Saturday, Jan. 28; 1227 Chapel Street, at the corner of Howe.)
As an actor at the Cabaret, Laura Gragtmans, was in Persona and Church last semester. As a singer-songwriter, she opened the Holcombe Waller concert at the Cabaret earlier this month.
Tonight, Gragtsmans plays an opening set at the new Rudy’s, where the headliners are also seasoned Cabaret veterans.
The highly theatrical pop-rock trio Simple Pleasure was plucked out of the New Haven band scene in 2007 to be the house band for Snehal Desai’s club-atmospheric production of Brecht’s Baal. During that time, Simple Pleasure had a memorable late-night concert at the Yale Cabaret, with an added string section and staged comedy bits. A year later, Simple Pleasure leader Chad Raines was admitted to the Yale School of Drama sound design program, where he starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch for the Yale Summer Cabaret and presented his own rock musical, Missed Connections, for Valentine’s weekend in 2010. Raines graduated last spring and spent the fall touring with Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls (alongside another Yale School of Drama grad, Michael McQuilken).
Simple Pleasure always had a strong following among both Yalies and townies. It should be the quite the mix at Rudy’s tonight, since Simple Pleasure shows are a lot less frequent now. Plus there’s the pleasure of seeing Laura Gragtmans in a new venue off campus.