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

Sing Boy Sing!
July 10 at 8 p.m.
The Somerville Theatre’s micro-cinema, Davis Square Somerville, MA

The award-winning Channel Zero proudly presents teen idol Tommy Sands in this film from the dreamy days of 1958. Our hero plays a rising rock-n-roll singer who comes under intense family pressure to give up his desire for stardom and become a backwoods preacher. It’s the Pulpit versus Pop Music! Featuring Edmond O’Brien, Nick Adams, and a classic rock-n-roll soundtrack! An added attraction: a screening of short films from local filmmaker John McGinness.

Maine International Film Festival
July 10 – 19
Waterville, Maine (in various venues)

If you are up north, check out one of the 100 films screened over 10 days at the 18th go-around of this festival. The gathering contains Maine-produced features “of high quality.” Are they good? As they say in Maine, it’s “hard tellin’ not knowin’.” The “centerpiece” is an  opportunity to view a “work-in-progress”: a screening of The Congressman, which was shot on Monhegan Island — the State House in Augusta doubles as the U.S. Capitol building. It shows on July 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Waterville Opera House. Treat Williams stars as Maine Congressman Charlie Winship, who’s having a very bad day. The festival’s opening film, Tumbledown, was written by Maine native Desiree Van Til.  Sean Mewshaw directed.  “Stunningly set in the mountains of western Maine around Farmington and Weld, Tumbledown features a stellar cast of great actors, including Rebecca Hall, Jason Sudeikis, and Blythe Danner.” Schedule.

The 20th Annual Boston French Film Festival
July 9 – July 26
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

The Boston film festival francophiles savor kicks off on Thursday with The Chef’s Wife (a/k/a Almost Friends), a romantic tragicomedy with the wonderful Emmanuelle Devos and Karine Viard (Polisse), directed by actress Anne Le Ny. It is followed on the weekend with 40-Love (Terre battue) and The Clearstream Affair. Sunday features a special screening of the 1968 classic The Young Girls of Rochefort from Jacques Demy and Agnès Varda, music composed by Michel Legrand. More information to come on these screenings.

Paddington
July 10 at sunset (8:22 p.m.)
Hatch Memorial Shell, Boston, MA

Bring your blanket, grab the kids, and watch movies under the stars! Free Friday family screenings begin with this charmer (based on the books by Michael Bond) about the comic misadventures of a young Peruvian bear who travels to London in search of a home. He meets the Brown family who read the label around his neck — “Please look after this bear. Thank you” — and offer him a temporary haven. With Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Nicole Kidman, and Ben Whishaw voicing Paddington.

— Tim Jackson

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Dance

The Dream Project
July 10 at 8:30 p.m.
City Hall Concourse
Somerville, MA

A hypnotic hybrid of traditional Chinese and improvisational modern dance, Chun-jou Tsai’s The Dream Project proffers an exceptional mix of fluidity and agility. The work is based on the visualization of the characters in Chinese writing; the performers embody the strokes of the calligrapher’s brush. This work is presented as part of the Somerville Arts Council’s “Dancing in the Streets” series. Here is a review of the production when it debuted this past winter.

Esprit de Corps Killed the Body! A History of a Boston Art Collective
July 10 from 7 to 10 p.m.
Mobius Gallery
Cambridge, MA

Esprit de Corps—a multidisciplinary collective that took the Boston art scene by storm from 2002-2005—comes back together for the first time in a decade to present a selection of new and old works at Mobius Gallery. Visit the Mobius website for a full list of events, which will be staged throughout the week, then enjoy the final performance and closing reception on July 10.

BoSoma Dance Company
Saturday, July 11 at 8:30 p.m.
Foss Park
Somerville, MA

A current cultural critique  revolves around ‘shutting down’ the overwhelming presence of technology in our lives. BoSoma Dance Company uses its “Dancing in the Streets” performance (hosted by the Somerville Arts Council) to challenge its viewers to do exactly that—to shut down—and to reassess their own relationships with the fast-paced world of technology.

And further afield…

Nederlands Dans Theater 2
July 8–11 at 8 p.m., July 11 & 12 at 2 p.m.
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Becket, MA

Nederlands Dans Theater 2 brings its energetic contemporary dance style to the Pillow. The performance showcases works for ensemble by Israeli choreographers Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, Spanish/British choreographers Sol León and Paul Lightfoot, and Swedish choreographer Johan Inger.

— Merli V Guerra

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Jazz

Gaia Wilmer
July 7, 6 p.m.
Regattabar Courtyard, Cambridge, MA

Brazilian composer, arranger, and saxophonist Gaia Petrelli Wilmer is one of the bright young lights at Berklee College of Music. She leads her octet in a free concert in the Charles Hotel upper courtyard as part of the “Berklee at the Regattabar” series. Did I mention that it’s free? And outdoors?

Luther Gray Trio
July 9, 8 p.m.
Outpost 186, Cambridge, MA.

One of the most versatile and swinging drummer/conceptualists in town, Luther Gray last year put out the provocative Drums and Horns, Horns and Drums with alto saxophonist Jim Hobbs and multi-sax guy Allan Chase (see July 15). Tonight they reconvene, with, most likely, a mix of original compositions, left-field covers (the CD included a Bad Brains tune), and spontaneous improvisations.

Paquito d’Rivera
July 10, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

The great Cuban saxophonist and clarinetist Paquito d’Rivera hits town for two shows with a terrific small band: Oscar Stagnaro on bass, Paulo Stagnaro on percussion, pianist Alex Brown, and drummer Mark Walker.

Kevin Harris & Steve Langone
July 11, 8 p.m.
Third Life Studio, Somerville, MA.

Kevin Harris came up playing church piano in his hometown of Lexington, Ky., and has since gone on to become a particularly soulful and free-ranging jazz pianist and composer, digging deep into Afro-Latin rhythms as well as core repertoire by Monk and Charlie Parker. He and versatile Boston drummer Steve Langone trade ideas at the Third Life studio, including original compositions, standards, and free improvisations.

Allan Chase Trio
July 15, 8 p.m.
Lily Pad, Cambridge, MA.

The superb saxophonist and composer Allan Chase (see also July 9) hauls his soprano, alto, and baritone down to the Lily Pad to play with bassist Bruno Råberg and percussionist Fabio Pirozzolo.

— Jon Garelick

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Visual Arts

Brand New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s
July 11 – October 18
Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME

A stint studying at the recently-founded Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture during 1949-50 produced, in the painter Alex Katz, two life-long devotions: the State of Maine and figurative painting. For decades, Katz has spent summers in an old house in rural Lincolnville, off the Maine coast in the same general territory as Robert Indiana and the Wyeth family, working on portraits and landscapes. Katz has also been especially generous to two Maine museums: the Farnsworth in Rockland and the Colby College Museum of Art, which opened a large wing devoted to his work in 1996.

Drawn from the more than 800 Katz works in the Colby collection, Brand New & Terrific explores the vision of the young artist during the 1950s, when, as a figural painter, he was swimming against the tide of Abstract Expressionism. These efforts, less resolved and deadpan than the large-scale portraits which later made him famous, are light filled, colorful, and presented with a charming lack of affect. They show Katz forging a style for himself, bringing elements of European modernism to American folk art.

George Daniell: Island Life: Grand Manan and Monhegan
July 10 – August 9
Ogunquit Museum of American Art (ogunquitmuseum.org)

Yonkers-born George Daniell was another New York artist attracted to the northeast coast. Though he is not especially well known, he moved, in New York City and in Italy, among elite circles of movie stars, modern artists, and other culturati. He made, in the 1950s, portraits of actresses like Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn, playwright Tennessee Williams, and painter Georgia O’Keefe. The work considered his finest, though, is a series of images of fishermen and other ordinary island folk he made on Canada’s Grand Manan, in the Gulf of Maine, in the mid-1930s. From these Manan pieces and from another series made on Maine’s Monhegan Island, comes Ogunquit’s Island Life, part of the Maine Photo Project, organized collaboratively by the Maine Curators’ Foundation.

Aspects of Portraiture: Photographs from the Atheneum Collection
July 11 – November 15
Wadsworth Atheneum, Harford, CT

The Wadsworth’s Aspects of Portraiture, yet another summer collection show, includes some fifty examples of portraiture photography chosen by museum director Susan Talbott. The focus is on the Wadsworth collection’s strengths in post-World War II photography and includes twentieth-century classics by such figures as Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Patti Smith, Adrian Piper, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawood Bey. The emphasis is on diversity: from traditional studio portraits to Dadaist and Surrealist images to contemporary explorations of social history, identity, and race.

— Peter Walsh

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Theater

Henry V by William Shakespeare. Directed by Jenna Ware. Staged by Shakespeare & Company in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, MA, through August 23.

Those hungry for more history plays by the Bard after Henry VI, Part 2 have an opportunity to continue the adventure with the prequel: “Henry V is rare among Shakespeare’s works because it contains explicit references to true events in England’s history. Following the death of his father, Prince Hal takes on the crown, rallies his exhausted troops and sets forth to repair his post-civil war nation.” Is the text pro-war? Anti-war? A little of both? It depends on where director Ware puts the emphasis.

Saving Kitty by Marisa Smith. Directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner. Staged by the Nora Theatre Company at the Central Square Theater, Cambridge, MA, July 9 through August 2.

A political satire in which American ids and odds collide: “Kate and Huntley Hartley, atheist Manhattanites, anxiously await the arrival of their daughter, up-and-coming television news producer Kitty, and her new beau Paul, for dinner—and much, much more. When Paul turns out to be an Evangelical Christian educator—the liberal, cultured Kate’s worst nightmare—everything is turned upside down as Kate tries to scuttle the budding romance.” Jennifer Coolidge (American Pie, Best in Show, and TV’s 2 Broke Girls) makes her Boston debut as Kate.

Dying City by Christopher Shinn. Directed by Cameron Cronin. Staged by the Happy Medium Theatre in Boston, MA, through July 11.

The local staging of this script—a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama—will be up front and personal. Cronin directs the “star power-house Fringe couple, Kiki Samko and Michael Underhill” in a “play about grief, identity, and violence in the human psyche—the lies, betrayal and self-deceptions and the centrality of hate in human existence.”

As for attending the show, please note that the production will take place in the living room of the performers, so special arrangements have to be made: “Due to the loss of the Factory Theater, HMT had to improvise this whole season and after not much deliberation, we collectively decided to still bring this wonderful piece of theater to the community in the most intimate form possible: the actual home of Kiki Samko and Michael Underhill. For privacy purposes, we are withholding the address in our press releases, but it will be provided by sending a reply email to mikeydiloreto@gmail.com.” Arts Fuse review

The How and the Why by Sarah Treem. Directed by Nicole Ricciardi. Staged by Shakespeare & Company in the Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, MA, through July 26.

Dramatist Sarah Treem once told an interviewer that for a good play, “you put people in a room who have very good reasons to be furious at each other and you don’t let them leave. The How and the Why is somewhat based on that principle.” Tod Randolph and Bridget Saracino star in this production of a clash between two highly intelligent female scientists. See the Arts Fuse feature on The How and the Why. And here is the Arts Fuse review.

Out of Sterno by Deborah Zoe Laufer. Directed by Paula Plum. Staged by the Gloucester Stage Company, 267 Main Street, Gloucester, MA, through July 18.

This “zany” feminist satire tells “the story of Dotty, who lives a kind of reverse Alice-in-Wonderland existence in the colorful and cartoon-like apartment she shares with her husband Hamel. Dotty’s life in Sterno is a fairy tale despite the fact that, in their seven years of marriage Hamel has forbidden her to leave their tiny apartment or speak to anyone.” The cast includes Amanda Collins, Jennifer Ellis, and Richard Snee. Arts Fuse review

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. A new version written and directed by Robert Kropf. Staged by the Harbor Stage Company at 15 Kendrick Avenue, Wellfleet, MA, through July 11.

As far as I am concerned, you can never have too many productions of Ibsen. Stacy Fischer plays the door-slammer, Nora, in a production which will be an “elegant new version of an enduring classic [that] explores the struggle for authenticity within the confines of an artificial society.”

Blood Wedding by Federico García Lorca. Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. Staged by Apolinaire Theatre Company in collaboration with Escena Latina Teatro at the PORT Park, 99 Marginal Street, the Chelsea Waterfront, Chelsea, MA, July 8 through 26.

An unusual summer offering on several fronts. Lorca’s lyric tragedy about ill-fated love is not your standard summer fare. Escena Latina Teatro will be producing its own distinctive version of the Spanish original on Friday nights. And the location for this ambitious production (English and Spanish versions) will be at “Chelsea’s new PORT Park, which features an amphitheater inside what was a large oil storage tank. Audience members will also get to explore the park’s structures and playgrounds where some of Lorca’s more surrealistic scenes will be staged.” In case of rain, call (617) 887-2336 to check status.

Thoroughly Muslim Millie by Ryan Landry. Performed by The Gold Dust Orphans. At the Provincetown Theater, 238 Bradford Street, Provincetown, MA, through September 6.

Leave it to Landry to take musical parody where most American theaters fear to tread. Seen many plays about the Middle East lately? With music? The satiric set-up: “A young girl from a Canadian convent! Thrust across the border into the Middle East and straight into the arms of the Prince of Persia! And what do Dick and Lynne Cheney have to do with all this?” WARNING: This is an ADULT parody! DO NOT BRING YOUR CHILDREN!

Thoreau or, Return to Walden, written and performed by David Adkins. Directed by Eric Hill. Staged by the Berkshire Theatre Festival at The Unicorn Theatre (The Larry Vaber Stage), Stockbridge, MA, through July 11.

Adkins stars in the world premiere production of his homage to the life and thought of Henry David Thoreau. The one-man show is billed as a “dramatic and uplifting tale as he [Thoreau] battles with himself, with his own thirst for blood and for the soul of our American conscience. It’s 1859. The Union is on the verge of civil war over the issue of slavery.” Note that this return to transcendental nature “includes brief nudity.”

Off the Main Road by William Inge. Directed by Evan Cabnet. Staged by the Williamstown Theatre Festival on its Main Stage, Williamstown, MA, through July 19.

This is an intriguing world premiere of a script that was “until recently, a lost work among Inge’s canon – found and reintroduced by the Inge Estate in 2008.” “Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner Krya Sedgwick makes her WTF debut in the world premiere of a play by Pulitzer Prize-winner Inge. As the second wave of feminism crests in America, the elegant but emotionally fragile Faye Garrit (Sedgwick) seeks refuge from her husband, a former professional baseball player, by checking into a run-down resort on the outskirts of St. Louis with her 17-year-old daughter.” Arts Fuse review

Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin. Lyrics & Music by Irving Berlin. Book by Hershey Felder. Directed by Trevor Hay. Presented by Arts Emerson at the Emerson/Culter Majestic Theatre, Boston, MA, July 8 through 26.

The latest in Felder’s series of dramatic explorations of the music and lives of famous composers. According to the Los Angeles Times review, his take on Irving Berlin is “richly entertaining and ultimately touching, though not without some issues. Repetitions in tone and text could stand a few trims, and Berlin’s output affords Felder less options for concert fireworks at the keyboard than previous excursions.”

Legacy by Daniel Goldfarb. Directed by Oliver Butler. Staged by the Williamstown Theatre Festival on its Nikos Stage, Williamstown, MA, through July 12.

A world premiere starring Tony Award-nominee Jessica Hecht and Drama Desk Award-winner Eric Bogosian. They play a couple in what is billed as a “funny and turbulent” script. The plot: “When renowned novelist Neil Abrams (Bogosian) is panned by The New York Times, he reopens the conversation with his wife Suzanne (Hecht) about starting a family.”

Halcyon Days by Deirdre Kinahan. Directed by James Warwick. Staged by Chester Theater Company at Chester’s Historic Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road, Chester, MA, July 9 through 19.

A New England premiere of what sounds like a script inspired by the film Awakenings: “Patricia storms into the nursing-home conservatory where Sean sits alone, submerged in his memories. Her feisty zest for life prompts an intriguing intimacy—by turns charming and combative, tender and funny. A witty, touching play about reawakening to life’s possibilities, from one of Ireland’s most celebrated contemporary playwrights.”

— Bill Marx

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Roots and World Music

Kabaka Pyramid
July 8
Middle East Upstairs, Cambridge, MA

Earlier this year, Chronixx drew a large crowd to the Paradise for his “reggae revival” sound. Kabaka Pyramid is another hard-touring Rastafarian upstart, but his self-conscious lyrics are as likely to be delivered over hip-hop beats as foundation Jamaican riddims.

Green River Festival 2015
July 10 through 12
Greenfield Community College, Greenfield, MA

This ever-eclectic Western MA festival offers big names in roots, indie, and world music performing in a surprisingly intimate environment. Highlights include Afrobeat revivalists Antibalas (whose members served in the house band for the Broadway musical Fela), the beguiling Tune-Yards, the brotherly harmonies of the Milk Carton Kids, powerful songwriters Sean Rowe, Lydia Loveless, and the Punch Brothers, whose leader Chris Thile will apparently be taking over hosting duties on public radio’s Prairie Home Companion.

This year the festival grows to three days with a new Friday night edition. One of the stages on the latter evening will be devoted to world music: the lineup includes Puerto Rican virtuoso Jose Gonzalez, Banda Criollo, and the outspoken Colombian-via-New York grooves of the M.A.K.U Soundsystem.

A few of the festival’s other headliners will be making Boston stops as well. Steve Earle, whose new album Terraplane Blues is more Mississippi than Nashville, will be at the Wilbur Theatre on July 14. And Stax legend Booker T. Jones is at Johnny D’s on July 9.

— Noah Schaffer

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Classical Music

Opening Night at Monadnock Music
Presented by Monadnock Music
July 10, 7:30 p.m.
Peterborough Town House, Peterborough, NH

The New Hampshire summer festival marks its 50th-anniversary season with the start of a five-year survey of the nine Beethoven symphonies. To kick off both, artistic director Gil Rose conducts the Monadnock Music Festival Orchestra in the First and Third.

Cameron Carpenter at Tanglewood
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 10, 8:30 p.m.
Tanglewood Music Shed, Lenox

Organ virtuoso Carpenter is soloist in two pieces at Tanglewood: Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Timpani, and Strings and Saint-Saens’ Symphony no. 3. The program opens with Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Stéphane Denève conducts.

Tosca at Tanglewood
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 11, 8:30 p.m.
Tanglewood Music Shed, Lenox

Sandra Radvanovsky and Bryn Terfel headline the cast who will perform the first act of Puccini’s masterpiece. Bramwell Tovey conducts the program, which also includes further Italian music TBA.

Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 13, 8 p.m.
Seiji Ozawa Hall, Lenox

The TMCO offers an enticing program that closes with a new piece by Osvaldo Golijov, Sign of the Leviathan, commissioned to commemorate the Music Center’s 75th season this summer. Former BSO assistant conductor and current Seattle Symphony music director Ludovic Morlot conducts. Also on tap is the Prelude to Parsifal, Hindemith’s Konzertmusik for Strings and Brass, and Debussy’s Images.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Anonymous 4
July 9 at 8 p.m.
Presented by Rockport Music at the Shalin Liu Performance Center, 37 Main Street, Rockport, MA

The program: 25 songs from Anonymous 4’s 25 albums featuring music from the Middle Ages to today. The program has five primary sections — Ladymass, Visions & Miracles, Sisterhood, Ardor, and Partings.

Light and Shadow
July 9 at 7:30 p.m.
At the Francestown Old Meetinghouse, 1 New Boston Road, Francestown, NH

Electric Earth Concerts presents Music for three strings and flute by Mozart, Andrew Norman, and Stephen Jaffe. The musicians: violinist Gabriela Diaz, cellist Robert Burkhart, violist Jonathan Bagg, and flutist Laura Gilbert.

Chamber Music
July 10 at 8 p.m.
At the Shalin Liu Performance Center, 37 Main Street, Rockport, MA

Rockport Music presents clarinetist Richard Stoltzman along with pianists Yehudi Wyner and David Deveau performing a program that includes Peter Sculthorpe’s Songs of Sea and Sky; Schumann’s Fantasiestücke for clarinet and piano, Op. 73; Hindemith’s Sonata for clarinet and piano; Wydner’s Commedia for clarinet and piano; Brahms’ Sonata in F minor, Op. 120, No.1.

Escher Quartet with Gilles Vonstattel
July 11 at 8 p.m.
At the Shalin Liu Performance Center, 37 Main Street, Rockport, MA

Rockport Music presents the acclaimed group in a program that includes Mozart’s Quartet No. 15 in D minor, K.421; Janacek’s Quartet No. 1 Kreutzer Sonata; Taneyev’s Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 30.

— Susan Miron

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Rock

U2
July 10, 11, 14, and 15
TD Garden, Boston, MA

It’s been nearly a year since U2 upset everyone by placing their album Songs of Innocence in every iTunes library in the world, for free, whether the holder of that iTunes library wanted it or not. Ten months later, it’s hard to imagine anyone would much care if that happened again—they’re all too busy streaming music to pay attention to what’s sitting in their personal libraries. With that furor now behind them, and with lead singer Bono healed after taking a nasty spill on his bicycle back in November 2014, U2 have embarked on yet another ambitious concert trek, this one dubbed the “iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour.”

To be honest, I don’t know much about the show. It’s been 10 years since I saw the band live, and I just want to be surprised when I see them this time. I’ve avoided setlists, YouTube videos, and reviews. All I know is there will be a long strip of stage running down the middle of TD Garden, and the band will no doubt use all of it. That, and they’ll most likely be mixing new songs with tunes from throughout their 35 year career.

Mudhoney
July 11
Brighton Music Hall, Boston, MA

When iconic Seattle proto-grunge band Green River split up, some of the members formed Mother Love Bone (which after the death of singer Andrew Wood evolved into Pearl Jam) and the others formed Mudhoney. The latter, which will be in Boston this month, certainly didn’t achieve the mainstream success of Pearl Jam, but they definitely left their mark, with classic songs including “Touch Me I’m Sick” and “Sweet Young Thing Ain’t Sweet No More.”

Upcoming and On Sale…

Billy Joel (7/16/2015, Fenway Park); Raekwon & Ghostface Killah (7/17/2015, Paradise Rock Club); 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); Greg Trooper (7/25/2015, Atwood’s Tavern); Bombino (7/27/2015, The Sinclair); X (7/30/2015, The Sinclair); Veruca Salt (7/30/2015, Paradise Rock Club); (the) Thurson MoOre Baand (8/2/2015, The Sinclair); Brandon Flowers (8/3/2015, House of Blues); Jamie XX (8/9/2015, The Sinclair); Dick Dale (8/15/2015, Middle East-Downstairs); 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); J. Geils Band (8/27/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); The Vaccines (8/30/2015, The Sinclair); Death Cab For Cutie (9/11/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Rancid (9/15/2015, House of Blues); Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters (9/20/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Albert Hammond Jr. (9/20/2015, The Sinclair); Bob Mould (9/23/2015, The Sinclair); Frank Turner & the Sleeping Souls (9/25/2015, House of Blues); Boston Calling (featuring Avett Brothers, Alt-J, and Alabama Shakes) (9/25-27/2015, City Hall Plaza); Ghost (9/28/2015, House of Blues); The Jesus and Mary Chain (9/29/2015, House of Blues); Kurt Vile and the Violators (10/2/2015, Paradise Rock Club); Kraftwerk (10/3/2015, Wang Theatre); Ride (10/3/2015, Paradise Rock Club); Mark Knopfler (10/9/2015, Orpheum Theatre); Catfish and the Bottlemen (10/16/2015, Royale); Garbage (10/21/2015, 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

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Author Events

Gordon Teskey
The Poetry of John Milton
July 6 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

In an event cosponsored by Mass Humanities, the Harvard Professor and Milton scholar will read and sign copies of his latest work. Teskey takes a comprehensive view of Milton’s work — one of the highest peaks of world literature — from his early pastoral poems to the masterworks, Paradise Lost among them. He argues that Milton’s poetics tie truth to beauty, investing value into ethics — a new approach of justifying the ways of God to man.

Breaking the Mold: A Discussion with Indie and Small Press Authors
July 8 from 7-8 p.m.
Trident Booksellers, Boston MA
Free

Trident will host a gathering of local authors who have published independently or with small presses. The goal is to discuss their experiences as writers working outside the mainstream of American publishing. Writers will explain how they engage with a diverse array of genres, from fantasy and graphic novels to children’s literature and postapocalyptic science fiction. There will hopefully be something for every literary taste.

Justin Locke
Real Men Don’t Rehearse
July 8 from 10:30- noon
Tewksbury Public Library, Tewksbury MA
Free

As part of Tewksbury library’s Book Brunch reading series, an 18-year veteran of the Boston Pops shares his behind-the scenes reminiscences about the venerable classical music orchestra. Registration is required, so call ahead to RSVP.

Caitlin Moran
In Conversation with Meredith Goldstein
How to Build A Girl: A Novel
July 8 at 6 p.m. (Doors open at 5:30)
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
$5 tickets on sale now

The bestselling novelist has been called “the UK’s answer to Tina Fey, Chelsea Handler, and Lena Dunham all rolled into one.” Moran comes to Cambridge to discuss her newest novel, which concerns the life of a teenage girl who discovers that everything her parents have taught her will not be enough, so she does what any self-respecting young person does and finds books, movies, and pop songs that help her figure out herself and her world.

Kevin Comtois
Troubadors & Troublemakers: The Evolution of American Protest Music
July 9 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Tewksbury Public Library, Tewksbury MA
Free

Ever wondered where the protest song came from? Comtois, a professor of American music, will read and discuss his latest book examining the work and enduring relevance of figures like Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and (of course) Bob Dylan. Comtois also traces the history of music as a means to voice political dissent and as a spur for social progress, starting from the country’s beginnings on through slavery and Abolition, finally arriving at labor anthems, Okies, rockers, and contemporary hip-hop.

An Evening with Nick Flynn
July 10 from 7- 8:30 p.m.
Mabel Louise Riley Seminar Room, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston MA
Tickets are $10 for MFA members, $12 for non-members

A great night for poetry in the Hub: Boston’s Nick Flynn, an acclaimed poet, playwright, and screenwriter, will read from his latest collection, My Feelings. There will also be contributions from Boston’s Poet Laureate Danielle Legros Georges and UMass-Boston alum Jeffery Taylor.

Anne-Marie Oomen
Love, Sex, and 4-H
July 11 from 7:30- 9 p.m.
Founder’s Room, Pine Manor College, Chestnut Hill, MA
Free

As the ’60s began, Anne-Marie Oomen was a small-town girl from Michigan whose mother kept her out of trouble by keeping her at the 4-H club as much as possible. Luckily, she managed to break out of the enforced domesticity; this memoir is about  her growing up and getting the most out of her life.

Go Set A Watchman Midnight Release
July 14 at 12:00 a.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

Harper Lee’s fans have waited a long time for a new novel to come from the author who penned the classic To Kill A Mockingbird. At last, the wait is over. Lee’s brand new novel will be available to the reading public at midnight, following a special 9:30 screening at the Brattle Theatre of the revered film version of Mockingbird starring Gregory Peck. This is a literary event decades in the making. The book is already available for preorder, so Mockingbird fans, set your watches.

— Matt Hanson