Alzheimer's is Focus of Long Wharf Forum

Alzheimer’s Disease and its possible treatments will be the focus of a Global Health & the Arts forum at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven Friday, Jan. 29.

This second annual event will feature a series of panel discussions on Alzheimer’s disease research, culminating in a performance of Lil’s 90th, a poignant and funny late-life love story that intertwines issues related to aging within its narrative.

The forum will begin at 1:30 pm with registration and a coffee bar. At 2 pm guests will be invited to the Mainstage for a program of speakers and panel discussions. From 5:30 to 7 pm dinner and dessert will be served. The performance, on stage II, will begin at 7.

Lil's 90th is set around the milestone birthday of Lil as she and her family put the finishing touches on the much-anticipated party at which she’ll make her singing debut. There’s a speech to be written, a band to rehearse and, of course, an outfit to choose, but when Lil’s husband Charlie’s secret gets out, the birthday surprise that he hoped would make her day may instead tear their lives apart.

David Scheer, president of Scheer & Company, Inc., and a vice-chair of Long Wharf Theatre’s Board of Trustees is organizing the event in conjunction with Dr. Stephen Strittmatter, neurology professor at Yale University.

After the performance there will be an audience talkback moderated by Michael Fuchs, one of the producers of the AIDS documentary “And The Band Played On…” and the former Chairman of HBO. “The human impacts of this disease are devastating, thus, communicating the human issue in an artistic venue can help people understand the gravity of the problem and inspire people to tackle solutions for therapy,” Scheer said. AIDS was last year's forum topic.

Tickets to the event are $150 and include the conference, dinner and the performance. For more information call Eileen Wiseman, director of development, at 772-8237 or visit www.longwharf.org.