Arts Fuse critics select the best in film, theater, music, dance, visual arts, and author events for the coming week.

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

Boston Area Film Schedules — What is playing today, Where and When

The Last Laugh
May 4 at 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA

This is a rare and wonderful opportunity to experience a silent film classic. The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, under the direction of  Professor of Film Scoring Sheldon Mirowitz, will perform its 9th original score, which is made up of a sequence of compositions authored by several composers from the Film Scoring Department. F.W. Murnau’s film uses no subtitles; it tells its story of a doorman’s fall from grace through its astonishing visuals. The Last Laugh stars one the greatest actors of the time, Emil Jannings, and boasts cinematography by Karl Freund, who later moved from German Expressionism into American film noir in the 1930’s. Given its terrific scores for the director’s Sunrise and Faust, the BSFO is guaranteed to provide a stunning evening.

A few words from, Mirowitz, an Emmy nominee: “There are 6 student composers on this film plus myself. We will also be presenting the film at The San Francisco Silent Film Festival in May, which is the most prestigious silent film festival in America. We are very proud of this soundtrack. The Film Orchestra has won a special citation from the Boston Society of Film Critics. The film is rarely seen, and falls between Murnau’s production of Nosferatu, Faust, and Sunrise. It also contains a career defining performance by Emil Jannings.”

JewishFilm.2015
Through May 15
At West Newton Cinema, Newton, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Kendall Square Cinema, Cambridge

The impressive series continues. The listings are dense, the films compelling, and the screenings are throughout the Boston area. It is best to browse the Full Schedule for details.

Here are some of my picks:

May 3, West Newton: Farewell Herr Schwarz, Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem and Phoenix.

May 5, West Newton: My Italian Secret with the director. An estimated 80 percent of Italy’s Jews survived WWII thanks, in part, to Italian citizens who risked their lives defying the Nazis to save their Jewish neighbors. Several stories are featured. Isabella Rossellini provides the narration.

May 6, MFA: Forbidden Films: The Hidden Legacy of Nazi Film proffers clips from many rarely seen Nazi anti-Semitic and propaganda films. The documentary also explores why, and under what conditions, these films should be made available to the public.

May 7 at the MFA and May 11 at the Kendall Square Cinema: À la Vie. This New England premiere is set in postwar Paris where Hélène (Julie Depardieu), a young Auschwitz survivor, rebuilds her life. The film’s stars include  tDepardieu, Johanna ter Steege, and Suzanne Clément.

May 10, West Newton: In The Kindergarten Teacher, a Tel Avi instructor becomes obsessed with one of her charges — a gentle 5-year-old with an otherworldly gift for declaiming perfectly formed poems on love and loss.

May 9, at the MFA: The Art Dealer is a stylish Parisian thriller set in the murky world of Nazi-looted art.

The Beyond
May 9 at 10 p.m.
Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge, MA

The Ben Rivers Midnight series presents Lucio Fulci’s 1981 E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’Aldilà, or simply The Beyond. The HFA description is well worth quoting: “A young woman inherits a hotel in Louisiana that is built directly on top of one of the seven gateways to hell. When she inadvertently opens the door, a gory array of demonic incidents are unleashed as cannibalistic zombies attack, people are eaten by tarantulas, and a woman’s face dissolves in a vat of acid, among other surreal episodes in Fulci’s colorfully eerie tale of terror.”

— Tim Jackson

---

Dance

Edge of Vision
May 7, 8, & 9 at 7:30 p.m., May 9 & 10 at 1 p.m.
The Boston Opera House
Boston, MA

Boston Ballet’s Edge of Vision features the rousing choreography of Jorma Elo, Helen Pickett, and Lila York. There will be a post-performance talk on May 9 and a pre-curtain talk on May 10. Arts Fuse review

Ten Tiny Dances
May 8 & 9 at 8 p.m.
The Dance Complex
Cambridge, MA

Ten Tiny Dances makes its Cambridge debut, showcasing new work by local choreographers, all confined to a 4-by-4-foot stage. Ten Tiny Dances® — which first originated in Portland, OR — challenges artists to rethink traditional choreography within the physical limitation of space.

MOMIX: Alchemia
May 8 & 9 at 8 p.m., May 10 at 3 p.m.
Emerson/Cutler Majestic Theatre
Boston MA

MOMIX — self-described as a company of dancer-illusionists—brings its new production Alchemia to the Cutler Majestic Theatre this weekend, boasting thrilling spectacle and comedic entertainment.

And farther afield…

Gumshoes in Tap Shoes
Friday, May 8 at 7:30 p.m.
The Dance Hall
Kittery, ME

Tap dance phenomenon Ryan P. Casey returns to Maine with this popular work. Enjoy an evening of jazz, detectives, and femme fatales, set to the beat of Casey & Dancers’ quick, percussive tapping. Arts Fuse review of Boston performance

— Merli V. Guerra

---

Visual Arts

Integrated Vision: Science, Nature, and Abstraction in the Art of Len Gittleman and György Kepes
May 9 – September 6

Walking Sculpture
May 9 – September 13
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA

Thanks to MIT with its art galleries and media labs, and high-tech and media-related corporations (including the late, lamented Polaroid), with their historical patronage of contemporary art and artists, the Boston area was long a nexus of the so-called “science and art” movement. The idea was that scientists, engineers, and artists could collaborate on new visual art forms never before seen on the planet. The products tended to be futuristic, with a cool gloss of white lab coats and the flashing lights on main frame IBM computers.

Nowadays, when so much cutting edge art rests on a bed of state-of-the-art technology and so many artists own and program their own iMacs, the whole concept seems faintly quaint and old fashioned. So the deCordova’s Integrated Vision show this summer may have a touch of nostalgia about it. Back in the day, the museum acquired many local products of the science and art collaboration :the show features photographs of two of art/science’s most prominent pioneers, Len Gittleman and György Kepes.

The deCordova’s Walking Sculpture, running parallel with Integrated Vision, “considers the history and practice of walking as a means for questioning social, political, economic, and artistic hierarchies,” or so the museum says. Much of the institution’s story of walking performance and protest art (using the oldest human form of transportation as the medium) is told through video and photography, demonstrating how deeply art now lives inside technology. Some of the related programming will be “live,” however, and includes artist-led walks through the deCordova’s sculpture part and surrounding parklands.

A Mind of Winter: Photographs by Abelardo Morell
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, M

Focus: Experiments in Photographic Interpretation
May 5 – May 17
Aidekman Arts Center, Tufts University, Medford (artgallery.tufts.edu)

Photography exhibitions at Bowdoin College in Maine and Tufts University in Medford continue to explore the idea of art as a scientific process.

Featuring photographs taken in Maine during the winter of 2014-15 by Bowdoin alum Abelardo Morell, A Mind of Winter mixes in ideas about climate change with its classic views of snowbanks and leafless trees. Over at Tufts, Focus: Experiments in Photographic Interpretation, was organized by the university’s Museum Studies Program. The show is presented as an experiment in installation design with social science overtones. How does a curator’s choices influence what you see in a photograph? The show’s twelve student curators hazard some answers.

Joan Jonas: 2015 Venice Biennale
List Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA

Video pioneer Joan Jonas is now an Old Master in the use of new technologies to create cutting edge art. This exhibition, organized by the List Center for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, may be a bit far away for a weekend visit, but the List is currently hosting an anthology of Jonas’ work that offers a rich look back into an enormously influential career.

— Peter Walsh

---

Jazz

Freddy Cole
May 9, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

Pianist and singer Freddy is somewhat overshadowed by the legacy of his big brother, Nat “King” Cole, but he’s a beautiful singer in his own right, with his own requisite swing, sweet-humored emotion, fine-grain sound, and deep sense of the blues. And if you’re lucky, you’ll get to hear him make the point himself, with his “I’m Not My Brother, I’m Me.”

David Torn
May 13, 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

Legendary experimental guitarist and producer David Torn last came to the Boston area in support of his ECM album prezens, with saxophonist Tim Berne, keyboardist Craig Taborn, and drummer Tom Rainey. It was one of the events of the season. Now he’s back – at the same venue, the Regattabar – supporting his ECM followup, only sky. It’s a solo record and a solo tour. But, with his mastery of effects, Torn has an orchestral concept of the guitar, so there should be no shortage of music.

Joe Lovano/Dave Douglas: Sound Prints
May 14, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA.

Sound Prints came out of Joe Lovano and Dave Douglas’s work together in the SFJazz Collective, exploring the music of Wayne Shorter. Sound Prints, however, was intended to be more about Wayne than a tribute band per se, based on the co-leaders’ original compositions. But then Shorter actually provided two new pieces he’d been commissioned to write by the Monterey Jazz Festival, and a new Blue Note live album was the result. So, it’s still about Wayne, but even more so. The writing is sharp and shapely, and the playing is freewheeling all around – especially effervescent when Lovano and Douglas take off on extended dialogue. The rest of the band is also top-notch: pianist Lawrence Fields, bassist Linda Oh, and drummer Joey Baron.

Kurt Elling and Anat Cohen
May 15, 8 p.m.
Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, MA.

Elling is one of the most formidable male vocalists on the scene – as at home improvising on the poetry of Robert Pinsky, singing his own lyrics to solos by Wayne Shorter, performing with out-there indie-jazz guy John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet, or singing standards. He’s joined in this program, which he calls “Passion World,” by the ebullient Israeli-born multi-reed star Anat Cohen.

— Jon Garelick

---

Roots and World Music

Skippy White’s 54th Gospel Anniversary
May 3 at 4 p.m.
Charles Street A.M.E. Church, Dorchester, MA

A decades-long presence on Boston’s gospel and R&B scenes, Skippy White still runs his Egleston Square record store and maintains weekly radio shows on Touch-FM and WRCA. Last year’s anniversary featured the confident area debut of Walt Beasley and his Gospel Explosions: it was named by the Arts Fuse as one of the best concerts of the year. Beasley returns along with Michigan-based Jim Woodson and the Heirs of Harmony and several of “Boston’s own,” including traditional gospel flame keeper and fellow WRCA radio host Rev. Harold Branch.

The Skatalites
May 6 at 8 p.m.
Brighton Music Hall, Brighton, MA

The originators of Jamaican ska played their first official show in late June 1964 at the Glass Bucket Club in Half-Way-Tree, St. Andrew. It was preceded by a rehearsal at the Hi-Hat Club in Raetown that drew so many onlookers that it turned into an impromptu performance. Little did those in attendance know that five decades later the upbeat ska sound would still be played by thousands of descendant bands around the world.

Although the group’s members had long played with each other in other aggregations and as the studio band for groups like Bob Marley and the Wailers, when they came together as the Skatalites their mix of jazz, Latin, and traditional Jamaican rhythms was so infectious that it instantly became the soundtrack of the newly independent island. Local labels like the iconic Studio One quickly issued Skatalites records such as “Guns of Navarone” and “Freedom Sounds,” which have become standards.

Sadly the Skatalites’ original reign would only last a brief 14 months. The group played their farewell show in August 1965 after their brilliant-but-troubled trombonist Don Drummond was convicted of murdering his girlfriend. The members went on to record many of Jamaica’s most crucial rocksteady, reggae, and dub cuts, and their work can still be heard on many of the foundation riddims of today’s dancehall hits.

In 1983 the group reunited to perform at the Reggae Sunsplash festival. Thanks to reggae and ska’s global popularity the members quickly discovered that they were in greater demand than ever, and scores of recordings and tours followed. Drummer Lloyd Knibb lived in the Boston area until his 2011 death and mentored several generations of local ska bands.

This 50th anniversary edition of the Skatalites features original alto saxophonist Lester “Ska” Sterling and original vocalist Doreen Shaffer. They’re joined by legendary reggae bassist Val Douglas and ska-era drummer Sparrow Thompson. Knibb’s son Dion usually adds his powerful vocals when the band plays Boston.

El Coyote Y Su Banda Tierra Santa with Las Lluvias Del Norte
May 8 at 9 p.m.
Wonderland Ballroom, Revere

An icon of Mexican brass-heavy banda music, José Angel Ledezma Quintero aka El Coyote has kept his 15-piece outfit on the road for decades. HIs raucous arrangements and stories of real life heartbreak have earned him an adoring audience — one that is willing to pay $50 a head at American dancehalls. The groundbreaking all-female Norteño combo Las Lluvias Del Norte open.

Genres of Middle Eastern Clarinet: Music of Armenia, Turkey, Greece, and the Middle East
May 10 3 p.m.
Granoff Music Center, Tufts University, Medford, MA

Also present on the 2014 “best of” list was a concert by multi-instrumentalist Mal Barsamian. A Tufts faculty member, he’ll be presenting a variety of Middle Eastern styles at this free performance, which was rescheduled from a snowy February day.

— Noah Schaffer

---

Theater

The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville. Direction and Choreography by Susan Stroman. Staged by The American Repertory Theatre at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA, May 12 through 31.

Tony Award winner Mandy Patinkin and acclaimed actor/performance artist Taylor Mac in the world premiere of a new musical that suggests we are beyond singin’ in the rain: “It’s the end of the world, as we know it. A flood of biblical proportions leaves us with only two people on Earth who discover their common language is song and dance. Together they chronicle the rise and fall and hopeful rise again of humankind through music that runs the gamut from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Sondheim, and R.E.M. to Queen.”

The Maritime Project, developed by Meg Taintor and Tyler Monroe. At the Charlestown Working Theater, Charlestown, MA, May 8 through 16.

“Join us for the first part of this exploration of the sea, and our changing relationship to it. See this work in progress and stay for a conversation after each showing!”

The Submission by Jeff Talbott. Directed by David J. Miller. Staged by the Zeitgeist Stage Company at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, May 8 through 30.

The New England premiere of what is touted as a “fierce and hilarious” drama: “Shaleeha G’ntamobi has written a gritty ghetto drama about an alcoholic African-American and her cardsharp son in the projects, and it’s been accepted by the prestigious Humana Festival. The problem is that Shaleeha is actually a pseudonym for Danny, a young gay white playwright, created in the hopes of increasing the play’s chances for success. Danny hires Emilie, an African American actress, to impersonate his nome de plume.”

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare. Directed by Olivia D’Ambrosio. Staged by Bridge Repertory Theatre in Deane Hall at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, May 9 through 30.

This young company “takes on Shakespeare’s great political drama with a fresh, stripped-down, actor-driven production.” We are told the approach will be “rife with West–Wing-meets-Homeland type dialogue and suspense.”

Mothers & Sons by Terrence McNally. Directed by Paul Daigneault. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Boston Center for the Arts, May 8 through June 6.

“A 2014 Tony Nominee for Best Play, Mothers & Sons is a timely and touching new play that explores our evolving understanding of what it means to be a family.” The cast includes Nancy E. Carroll and Michael Kaye.

Boston Theater Marathon XVII and the Warm-Up Laps and One-Minute Sprints in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, May 9 and 10.

Ready! Get Set! Act! “Boston Playwrights’ Theatre presents the 17th annual Boston Theater Marathon and the seventh year of the Warm-Up Laps. The Boston Theater Marathon features 50 ten-minute plays, by 51 New England playwrights, produced by 50 New England theatres in ten hours.” The Warm-Up Laps (readings of full-length plays) will feature Hair of the Dog by Constance Congdon. “Net proceeds from ticket sales to the Boston Theater Marathon will benefit the Theatre Community Benevolent Fund, which provides financial support to theatres and theatre artists in times of need.”

The Voices of We by Robbi D’Allessandro. Staged by 333 Productions at the the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Boston, MA, through May 9.

The world premiere of a play “that explores the challenges women face in today’s sociopolitical and economic climate.” “The diverse and richly authentic characters” in the script “face the daunting challenges inherent in the fight against domestic violence, and struggle for reproductive rights, self-defined gender identity, motherhood, positive body image, and more.” All proceeds from the performances of this show “will be donated to organizations that support the advancement of women and women’s issues.”

The Outgoing Tide by Bruce Graham. Directed by Charles Towers. Staged by the Merrimack Repertory Theatre at the Nancy L. Donahue Theatre, 50 E. Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA, through May 17.

Charles Towers’ ends his tenure as MRT Artistic Director with this production — took up the reins in 2001. Graham’s drama deals with a family in transition: “tormented by the menacing grip of an aging mind and with an uncertain future ahead, Gunner Concannon has a plan for his and his family’s future – but it is not what his wife Peg and son Jack had in mind.”

Mr g, adapted and directed by Wesley Savick from the book by Alan Lightman. Staged by Underground Railway Theater at the Central Square Theatre through May 24.

This world premiere production is part of the 10th Anniversary of Catalyst Collaborative@MIT, a science-theatre collaboration between Central Square Theater and MIT. Here is the lowdown: “Mr g creates time, space, matter, a few basic laws of physics. These give birth to stars, planets… but intelligent life? The Creator’s plans go awry when a mysterious rival questions the nature of free will. Together, we experience the birth and fate of Mr g’s favorite universe: ours.”

Scenes from an Adultery by Ronan Noone. Directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary. Staged by New Repertory Theatre at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in the Charles Mosesian Theater, Watertown, MA, through May 17.

“Local playwright Ronan Noone takes the traditional British drawing room comedy of manners and turns it on its side in this hilariously bawdy new play.” Interesting to see what happens when you twist around a drawing room romp…

Rogue Burlesque: BUSTS OUT! at Club Cafe, 209 Columbus Ave., Boston, MA, through  May 8.

“Boston’s award-winning comic stripteasers are back with a vernal boobtacular! Shake off your coat AND your inhibitions and get your BUSTS OUT! In a world gone Rogue, it doesn’t matter if you’re a superhero, a sloth, a snack or a famous Objectivist philosopher who wrote The Fountainhead — everyone ends up in pasties!”

— Bill Marx

---

Classical Music

Don Giovanni
Presented by Boston Lyric Opera
May 6, 8, and 10 at 7:30 p.m. (3 p.m. on May 10th)
Shubert Theater, Boston, MA

BLO’s season closes with the great Mozart/da Ponte collaboration. Duncan Rock makes his BLO debut singing the title role; Kevin Burdette is his sidekick/servant, Leporello; Jennifer Johnson Cano is Donna Elvira; and Meredith Hansen sings Donna Anna. BLO music director David Angus conducts.

Durufle’s Requiem
Presented by the Back Bay Chorale
May 9, 8 p.m.
St. Paul’s Church, Cambridge, MA

BBC music director Scott Allen Jarrett conducts the Chorale’s season-closing performance built around Maurice Durufle’s famous Requiem. Works by Tarik O’Regan, Morton Lauridson, Jake Runestad, Jeremiah Ingalls, and Ingram Marshall complete the program.

Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio
Presented by Emmanuel Music
May 9, 8 p.m.
Emmanuel Church, Boston

Mozart’s great Singspiel closes Emmanuel Music’s evening concert series. The cast is headlined by Barbara Kilduff (Konstanze), Charles Blandy (Belmonte), and Teresa Wakim (Blonde). Former Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer takes on the (speaking) role of the Pasha.

Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy
Presented by the Longwood Symphony Orchestra
May 9, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston

The Longwood Symphony’s season comes to a close with film music by John Williams (the Overture to The Cowboys and selections from Lincoln), Copland’s Music for Movies, and Beethoven’s endearing, quirky Choral Fantasy. Gabriel Chodos is the pianist in the latter, which also features the New World Chorale.

Karl Larson and Andy Costello
Presented by Equilibrium Concert Series
May 12, 7 p.m.
Lily Pad, Cambridge

Piano music by John Cage, Keith Kusterer, Robert Honstein, Olivier Messiaen, and others is on the program in EQ Concert Series’ latest offering. Pianists Karl Larson and Andy Costello share the program.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

First Monday at Jordan Hall
May 4 at 8 p.m.
Presented by NEC at Jordan Hall, Boston, MA
Free

Three pianists — Victor Rosenbaum, Mana Tokuno, and Meng-Chieh Liu — are part of a program that includes Haydn’s Quartet for Strings in F major, Op. 77 No. 2/H 3, Schubert’s Fantasie in F Minor, D. 940, and Brahms’s Quintet for Piano and Strings in F minor, Op. 34.

Trio Cleonice and Friends: Springtime in Paris (and Madrid, Vienna, and Philadelphia!)
May 5 at 7 p.m.
The Parlor at the United Parish in Brookline, 210 Harvard Street, Brookline, MA

The program will include Poulenc’s cello sonata and Wernick’s Piano Trio No. 2.

Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil (accompanied by candlelight and incense)
May 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston, MA

The Trinity Church Choirs, Organ, and Chamber Orchestra are wild about Rachmaninoff.

Stephen Hough
May 8 at 8 p.m.
Presented by Celebrity Series at Jordan Hall, Boston, MA

The celebrated pianist will perform the following program: Debussy’s La plus que lente, Estampes, Children’s Corner and L’isle joyeux; Chopin’s Ballades Nos. 2 and 1 and Ballades Nos. 3 and 4

Crowning Achievements: Masterworks Chorale
May 8 at 8 p.m.
At Sanders Theatre, Memorial Hall, Cambridge, MA

The program features the Coronation Anthems of George Frideric Handel and Franz Josef Haydn’s Coronation Mass (also known as the Lord Nelson Mass and Missa In Angustiis). In addition, the evening will include the premiere of music commissioned by the Chorale for its 75th anniversary. Boston composer Tom Vignieri has penned a musical setting of The Tides, an evocative sonnet by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. There will be a pre-concert talk by Laura Prichard at 7:30 p.m.

— Susan Miron

---

Rock

Sufjan Stevens
May 4
Citi Performing Arts Center, Boston, MA

If I’m being honest, I’ve never much cared for the music of Sufjan Stevens. That said, anybody who writes a song about Adlai Stevenson automatically earns a place in my weekly arts and culture picks. AND I’M PREPARED TO WAIT UNTIL HELL FREEZES OVER UNTIL SOMEONE WRITES ANOTHER ONE!

Faith No More
May 11
Orpheum Theatre, Boston, MA

Even if the name of this band doesn’t ring a bell, you know “Epic,” their biggest hit. Which is funny, considering that most people who are more than a little familiar with the song “Epic” probably don’t know that the name of the song that has been drilled into their heads all these years is “Epic.” Wouldn’t it make more sense if the tune was titled “You Want It All (But You Can’t Have It)?” Either way, Faith No More reformed in 2009 and have a new album (Sol Invictus), out this month, so expect songs from that record as well as some old favorites. Like “Epic.”

Upcoming and On Sale…

Kaiser Chiefs (5/15/2015, Paradise Rock Club); Primal Scream (5/17/2015, Royale); Crosby, Stills and Nash (5/19/2015, Citi Performing Arts Center); Palma Violets (critic’s note: “The Greatest Live Band in the World”) (5/19/2015, Great Scott); Boston Calling (featuring Beck, Pixies, My Morning Jacket) (5/22-24/2015, City Hall Plaza); The Who (5/24/2015, Mohegan Sun Arena); Conor Oberst (6/5/2015, House of Blues); Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (6/6/2015, Boston Opera House); Lana del Rey (6/9/2015, Xfinity Center); Florence + the Machine (6/10/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Best Coast (6/12/2015, Paradise Rock Club); Paul Weller (6/13/2015, Paradise Rock Club); Spoon (6/18/2015, House of Blues); Rush (6/23/2015, TD Garden); Morrissey (6/24/2015, Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts); Buffalo Tom (6/26 and 27/2015, The Sinclair); Huey Lewis and the News (6/27/2015, Indian Ranch); Melvins (6/27/2015, Paradise Rock Club); Brian Wilson (with Rodriguez) (7/2/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); U2 (7/10, 11, 14, 15/2015, TD Garden); Green River Fest (featuring Steve Earle, Punch Brothers, and tUnE-yArDs) (7/10-12/2015, Greenfield Community College); Mudhoney (7/11/2015, Brighton Music Hall); Billy Joel (7/16/2015, Fenway Park); Foo Fighters (7/18-19/2015, Fenway Park); Neil Young + Promise of the Real (7/22/2015, Xfinity Center); Modest Mouse (7/23/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Interpool (7/23-24/2015, House of Blues); Bombino (7/27/2015, The Sinclair); Veruca Salt (7/30/2015, Paradise Rock Club); Brandon Flowers (8/3/2015, House of Blues); Willie Nelson & Family (8/21/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); AC/DC (8/22/2015, Gillette Stadium); Counting Crows (8/23/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Social Distortion (8/23/2015, House of Blues); Death Cab For Cutie (9/11/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Bob Mould (9/23/2015, The Sinclair); Mark Knopfler (10/9/2015, Orpheum Theatre); Ringo Starr and His All Star Band (10/23/2015, Citi Performing Arts Center); The Who (10/29/2015, TD Garden)

— Adam Ellsworth

---

Author Events

Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Sympathizer
May 4 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

In a reading co-sponsored by Grub Street, Nguyen, a professor and short-story writer, will read and sign copies of his debut novel. Set in the chaotic spring of 1975, a drunken South Vietnamese general is compiling a list of those who will be given passage on the last flights out of the country. But what-and who-will evaluate his choices after the smoke clears?

Leonard Mlodinow
The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos
May 5 at 6 p.m. (Doors open at 5:30)\
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge MA
$5 tickets

The esteemed astrophysicist and author of The Drunkard’s Walk and co-author with Stephen Hawking of The Grand Design comes to the Brattle to read and sign copies of his latest work. He demonstrates that though science has reframed human consciousness, what really drove scientific inquiry forward, for thinkers from Aristotle to Einstein, was elemental curiosity.

Omni Parker House Literary Tour
Omni Parker House, 60 School St, Boston, MA
May 5 from 1:30-3:00 pm
Free, but limited to 15

Ever wanted to see where Charles Dickens rehearsed before reading A Christmas Carol on the Boston leg of his American tour? Or where the Transcendentalists did their drinking on the last Saturday of every month? As a part of Boston Arts Week, Susan Wilson will be back by popular demand to give a combination lecture/ talk about the Omni Parker’s place in literary history.

Lori Day
Her Next Chapter: How Mother-Daughter Book Clubs Can Help Girls Navigate Malicious Media, Risky Relationships, Girl Gossip, and So Much Else
May 6 at 7 p.m.
Porter Square Books, Cambridge MA
Free

The family that reads together stays together. Lori Day is an educational psychologist, writer and parenting coach who encourages mothers and daughters to read and discuss literature together as members of a book club. Day writes of a book club as a space of female empowerment and a way of building useful intellectual, social, and emotional tools to cope with the vagaries of adolescence.

XJ Kennedy and Toni Treadway
Powow River Poets Reading Series
May 9 at 3 p.m.
Newburyport Public Library, Newburyport MA
Free

Through a long career, the widely-praised and respected XJ Kennedy has published numerous volumes of poetry and been widely anthologized. He will read with Treadway, a 12-year member of the Powow poets and the organizer of the yearly poetry reading event.

Josh Kalscheur
The Dirty Gerund Poetry Series
May 11 at 9 p.m.
Ralph’s Rock Diner, Worcester MA
Free

Wisconsin poet Josh Kalscheur’s debut book of poetry won the 2013 Four Way Books Levin Prize in Poetry, a dense and rewarding collection that goes a long way towards proving the titular poems’ admonition that “The word keeps coming.”

Eric Bogosian
Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide
May 12 at 7 p.m.
Brookline Booksmith, Brookline MA
Free

The accomplished actor and playwright marks his debut as a historian with the largely unknown story of a select group of survivors of the Armenian Genocide who in 1921 set out to avenge the death of nearly a million of their countrymen via what they called ‘Operation Nemesis,” named after the Greek god of retribution.

David Ferry
Ellery Street Book Launch Party
May 12 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Cambridge MA
Free

The acclaimed poet and translator of ancient Greek classsics lived, worked and raised a family in his house on Ellery Street in Cambridge. Ferry no longer lives there, but his latest book of poems encapsulates his reflections on thirty years in Cambridge seen through the lens of his graceful but pithy lyricism.

— Matt Hanson