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

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

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

Underground
Monday March 9th 7:00 PM
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

The DocYard presents activist filmmaker Emile de Antonio’s 1976 profile of five key members of the Weathermen, the group that was a part of the Students for a Democratic Society, but who went underground with plans to overthrow the U.S. government. The FBI attempted to confiscate the film footage in order to track down the group’s members. This is subversive cinema at its most direct and political. Co-director Mary Lampson, who shot the film with the great cinematographer Haskell Wexler, will appear in person for the post-screening Q&A. Arts Fuse review

Salem Documentary Film Festival
Through March 12
Cinema Salem One and other locations in Salem, MA

This unique documentary festival features an eclectic blend of films from around the world. Now in its 8th year, this is a friendly and carefully curated festival where you have a singular opportunity to see some fascinating movies and meet the filmmakers. See schedule for the full range of offerings.

Open Screen
March 10 at 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA

Boston’s only open mic night (a self-programmed festival) for filmmakers returns! “If your movie (or part thereof) is under 10 minutes, we’ll screen it.” Sign up begins at 7 p.m.; the show starts at 7:30 p.m.

Hard to be a God
March 11 & 12
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

The late Russian director Aleksei German “builds an entire civilization from scratch.” Based on the Strugatsky Brothers’ novel Hard to Be a God, the film took six years to make — it was completed after the filmmaker’s death. This restored masterpiece dramatizes an alien world where “existence is brutal, messy, and grim: the rain-battered streets are covered in mud, as is just about every available surface, including many inhabitants’ faces; the place is governed by a brutal slob named Don Reba (Aleksandr Chutko); and the streets are thronged with soldiers, thugs, peasantry, and assorted grimacing idiots in various stages of disfigurement and/or derangement. Arkanar is currently in the grip of a campaign to suppress art, culture, and knowledge of any kind, and is patrolled by militia known as the Greys—about to be succeeded by an even more brutal monastic warrior order, the Blacks.” (Film Comment)

To the Beat of Shirley Clarke
March 13 through 29
Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge, MA

Shirley Clarke produced and directed narrative films that seriously played with the documentary form. She was a white woman filmmaker who focused on Black subjects. She helped co-found the Filmmakers’ Co-Op with Jonas Mekas. She began her career as a dancer and went on to make ground-breaking movies. This weekend The HFA will screen two of the films that epitomize her trail-blazing aesthetic. The Connection (1962) is a filmed version of the Jack Gelber play which was first staged by the Living Theater.  In the theater, the script blurred the line between fiction and nonfiction: it does so in this beautifully filmed version as well, with its seemingly random plot and realistic characters. Portrait of Jason (1967) is a 105-minute monologue spoken by the black gay hustler Jason Holliday (Aaron Payne) that somehow seems to walk the razor-thin line between confession and performance. Ingmar Bergman called it “the most fascinating film he had ever seen.” Judge for yourself!

— Tim Jackson

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by David Hare, an adaptation of Katherine Boo’s book of the same name. Directed by Rufus Morris. At the Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA, March 12 at 7 p.m.

“Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo spent three years in Annawadi recording the lives of its residents. From her uncompromising book, winner of the National Book Award for Non-Fiction 2012, David Hare has fashioned a tumultuous play on an epic scale.” This NT Live screening promises to be very special – I read some very powerful reviews of this epic production, such as the notice by the Guardian‘s veteran theater critic Michael Billington: “Without in any way sentimentalising slum life, the play leaves one deeply affected by its stress on the possibility of goodness in a world of desperate deprivation.”

— Bill Marx

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Dance

Paradise Lost: Lost in Time
March 13, 8 p.m.; March 14, 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.
Multicultural Arts Center
Cambridge, MA

Paradise Lost combines dance and physical theatre in a debut solo production that promises to be fresh and unexpected. With works that look at the company’s past, present, and global future, Lost in Time gives its 14 actors, performers, and dancers a chance to embrace nostalgia, comedy, and social justice.

Dorrance Dance
March 13 & 14, 8 p.m.; March 14 & 15, 3 p.m.
Institute of Contemporary Art
Boston, MA

Michelle Dorrance comes to Boston (courtesy of World Music/CRASHArts) this week with the local premiere of The Blues Project. This is a must-see show that is as much about music as it is dance, featuring nine impeccable tap artists performing alongside world-renowned musician and composer Toshi Reagon with her band, BIGLovely.

Israel Folkdance Festival of Boston
Kresge Auditorium, MIT
Sunday, March 15, 3 p.m.
Cambridge, MA

Boston’s annual Israel Folkdance Festival is one of the largest of its kind in the country. Enjoy an evening where the stage as well as the aisles are teeming with energetic Israeli dancers. Hundreds of performers converge in the city for this event, representing 20 different performance groups both local and national.

And further afield…

Ragamala Dance Company: Song of the Jasmine
March 12 at  7:30 p.m.
Fine Arts Center Concert Hall
Amherst, MA

An award-winning saxophonist and a renowned Bharatanatyam dancer are an unlikely pairing, but Rudesh Mahanthappa and Aparna Ramaswamy taking on this challenge in their new work Song of the Jasmine. Travel to Western MA for an evening (featuring Ragamala Dance Company under the direction of Aparna and Ranee Ramaswamy) that will be shaped by bicultural identity and global themes explored through music and dance.

Bodytraffic
March 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, UConn
Storrs, CT

Bodytraffic returns to New England with what will most likely be a stellar show, this time at the Jorgensen in Connecticut. This powerful company has taken the national dance scene by storm: it has been celebrated for its strong ensemble of local dancers performing superb new contemporary works by choreographers ranging from the U.S. to Europe.

— Merli V. Guerra

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Theater

Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage. Directed by Summer L. William. Staged by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston at 40 Clarendon Street, Copley Square, Boston, MA, through March 14.

Nottage’s tough but tender play deals with race, sex, and class. The script is a “loving and evocative portrait of Esther, an independent but lonely African American seamstress in early 20th-century Manhattan who earns a living sewing exquisite lingerie for wealthy socialites uptown, and women of ill repute downtown. When Esther receives a letter from a stranger who is laboring on the Panama Canal, she begins an epistolary courtship with him, only to discover that he is not all that he seems.” Arts Fuse review

Simon Says: A Dramatized Séance by Mat Schaffer. Directed by Myriam Cyr. Staged by Little Seer Productions at the Plaza Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, through March 14.

A drama whose conflict is sparked by a VOICE FROM BEYOND. “In an effort to scientifically prove the existence of the soul after death, Professor Williston (Ken Baltin) has spent more than a decade studying James (Anthony J. Goes), a young psychic. James achieves his extrasensory ability by channeling Simon, an all-knowing being, offering wisdom from beyond. When Annie (Brianne Beatrice), a recent widow, comes to their home for a reading, events that took place two thousand years ago culminate, achieving reunion, redemption and resolution in the present day.”

Greenland by Nicolas Billon. Directed by Meg Taintor. Staged by the Apollinaire Theatre Company, Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St., Chelsea, MA, through March 15.

According to director Meg Taintor, former artistic director of the heralded local company Whistler in the Dark, “all people in this play are writing their own creation myth, and then pitching it to us.” The script “centers on a family that has fallen apart after a serious internal tragedy, which is mirrored by one of the characters discovering a new island off of Greenland’s coast. In three monologues, we meet husband, wife, and adopted daughter, and we learn that something is seriously broken in their family dynamic. The island has separated from the mainland in the same way the three characters have separated from each other, and there is no turning back.” Arts Fuse review

Canadian dramatist Billon has been receiving a lot of attention lately, including critical praise for the lyrical intensity of his language. Greenland (2009) has been published in Billon’s Fault Lines: Three Plays: the other two scripts are Iceland (2012) and Faroe Islands (2013). According to a review of the volume on pageandstage.com: “Billon’s three plays are broadly related by the idea of fault lines or fractures, discontinuities wherein stress is both accumulative and instantaneous, and where energy is most strikingly experienced as a dramatic upheaval. Billon has affinities with Wallace Shawn as well as with Neil Labute. He is less political than Shawn, but he shares with the American satirist a facility with the monologue form.”

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Brian Mertes. Staged by Trinity Repertory Company at the Chace Theater, 201 Washington St., Providence, Rhode Island, through March 29.

Williams’s oft-oft-produced warhorse will no doubt receive a radical revamping in the hands of director Mertes, who is nothing if not enterprising. The cast features Mia Ellis as Laura Wingfield, Brian McEleney as Tom Wingfield, and Anne Scurria as Amanda Wingfield.

That Hopey Changey Thing by Richard Nelson. Directed by Weylin Symes. Staged by the Stoneham Theatre, Stoneham, MA, through March 15.

A collaborative event: the New England premiere of the first of Richard Nelson’s much-praised The Apple Family Plays. Over the course of the next two seasons, Stoneham Theatre and Gloucester Stage will produce all four scripts: That Hopey Changey Thing, Sweet and Sad, Sorry, and Regular Singing. The kickoff installment “introduces us to the Apples, a typical liberal American family that cares very deeply about one another, yet still manages to push each other’s buttons.” The impressive cast includes Karen MacDonald, Sarah Newhouse, Laura Latreille, Bill Mootos, Paul Melendy, and Joel Colodner. Arts Fuse critic Joann Green Breuer saw two of the plays in New York and had this response: “Nelson’s art is an act of love, as art is meant to be.

Grounded by George Brant. Directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner. Staged by the Nora Theatre Company at the Central Square Theatre, Cambridge, MA, through March 22.

According to the New York Times review, this one-person play, “which won the 2012 Smith Prize for works about American politics, obliquely ponders how advances in technology are affecting the psychology of men and women in the armed forces. Does the increased distance from the targets they are pursuing lead soldiers to dehumanize them, or to minimize the danger of killing civilians?” Arts Fuse review

The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe. Directed and choreographed by Billy Porter. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Boston University Theatre, Boston, MA, through April 5.

I remember enjoying George C. Wolfe’s savvy satiric revue back in the ’80s. It will be interesting to see if the show still contains much sting after two decades. Again, this major theater revival raises the question of why we need to go back so far in time to find a stage piece that addresses racial issues. Aren’t there any pieces penned after the millennium that tackles these issues? Does commercial success have to determine whether a piece with political bite can be produced? Aren’t there any young dramatists with something to say about what is going on today? Just wondering …

Badass, a festival of new works by Magdalena Gómez, Robbie McCauley, and Kate Snodgrass. Staged by Sleeping Weazel at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA, through March 14.

This feisty company celebrates Women’s History Month “with extraordinary new works by three renowned women theatre artists. This evening combines theatre, performance, and poetry in an unexpected marriage of the social and the existential that will have audiences falling out of their seats in laughter and tears.”

The Amish Project by Jessica Dickey. Directed by Elaine Vaan Hogue. Staged by the New Repertory Theatre in the Black Box Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, through March 22.

A play inspired by the 2006 killing of five girls in a hostage-taking incident at an Amish school in Pennsylvania. “This one-woman exploration of the Nickel Mines shooting conjures seven characters, from gunman to victims, and delves into the stories that tie these characters together, as well as the path of forgiveness and compassion forged in the wake of tragedy.”

Shockheaded Peter, created for the stage by Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott. Original music and lyrics by The Tiger Lillies. Originally conceived and produced by Michael Morris for Cultural Industry, London. Directed by Steven Bogart. Staged by Company One at Suffolk University’s Modern Theatre, 525 Washington Street, Boston, MA, through April 4.

“The most damning [tale] ever told on stage” — I will be the judge of that. “Fall into the world of Victorian SteamCRUNK nightmares as a manic music-box spins stories of naughty children and misguided parents.”

Walking the Tightrope by Mike Kenny. Directed by Caitlin Lowans. Staged by the Stoneham Theatre, Stoneham, MA, March 14 through 21.

A “family-friendly play about love and loss” that stars Johnny Lee Davenport as an elderly man, Grandad Stan: “Every summer Esme takes a train to visit her grandparents. When she arrives this year, Grandad is there as always, but where is Nanna?”

From The Deep by Cassie M. Seinuk. Directed by Lindsay Eagle. Staged by Boston Public Works at the Black Box Theater, Boston Center for the Arts, March 12 through 28.

The East Coast premiere of this script (winner of the 2014 Boston University Jewish Cultural Endowment Grant) about two men in captivity is the second up-by-your-bootstraps project undertaken by “Boston Public Works, a playwright-driven theater collective thatʼs forgoing the traditional routes for play development by producing their own plays and leaving a road-map for like-minded playwrights to follow.”

Tristan & Yseult, devised and performed by Kneehigh Theatre. Adapted and directed by Emma Rice. Presented by Arts Emerson at the Emerson/Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston, MA, through March 15.

According to an ecstatic 2013 Guardian review of this show, “Wagner, Roy Orbison, circus skills, and bird-spotting hardly seem to belong within the same cultural hemisphere, let alone on the same stage. Yet Kneehigh’s theatrical alchemy is at once playful and profound.” Arts Fuse review

Culutre Clash 30th Anniversary Tour: The Muse & Murros by Culture Clash. Presented by Arts Emerson at the Jackie Liebergott Black Box at the Emerson/Paramount Center, Boston, MA, March 12 through 29.

From the Arts Emerson website: “For 30 years, Culture Clash has scoured all points of the Nation searching for the American Character through the oral histories of its citizens.” In this show the trio of “master storytellers” give a “voice to the voiceless” in Boston.

Big Fish Book by John August. Music & Lyrics by Andrew Lippa. Based on the novel by Daniel Wallace and the Columbia Motion Picture written by John August. Directed by Paul Daigneault. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Boston Center for The Arts, March 13 through April 11.

A revival (with some streamlining changes) of the Broadway musical about “Edward Bloom, a traveling salesman whose larger-than-life stories of epic adventures delight everyone around him, except his pragmatic son Will.”

Silent Rage: Heroin/e (Keep Us Quiet) by Carson Kreitzer and Dutchman by LeRoi Jones. Directed by Scott Zigler. Staged by the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Zero Church Performance Space, Cambridge, MA, March 13 through 21.

I don’t often list student productions, but this looks like an interesting double bill of the (relatively) old and the new. Playwright Carson Kreitzer is garnering an enormous amount of buzz as well as numerous grants. This play “explores the ambiguous lines between sanity and insanity, justice and crime.” The piece “is inspired by the lives of two women: Anna Pankiev, the older sister of Sigmund Freud’s patient, the Wolf Man; and Ellie Nesler, a woman who shot her son’s accused molester while he was testifying in court.” The ever-controversial Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones) died last year. Does his once incendiary play (Dutchman) have any fire left in its belly?

The Misadventures of Spy Matthias by Joe Byers. Directed by Darren Evans. Staged by Theatre on Fire at the Charlestown Working Theater, Charlestown, MA, March 13 through April 4.

The world premiere of what sounds like a solipsistic apocalyptic comedy/romance: “In a universe of blistering dread, when everyone you love is either burning or drowning or vaporizing into limbo, maybe the best you can do is save yourself.”

— Bill Marx

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Classical Music

Katya Kabanova
Presented by Boston Lyric Opera
March 13-22, times vary
Shubert Theater, Boston

Leo Janacek’s great tragic opera receives its first performances from BLO, heard here in an English translation by Norman Tucker. Elaine Alvarez sings the title role and David Angus conducts.

Music by John Adams
Presented by Composer Focus Concerts
March 15, 7 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

The Worcester-born Adams isn’t too much of a presence in local concerts, so this latest installment of Composer Focus Concerts’ inaugural season is most welcome. The program features three pieces: the Minimalism-inspired Phrygian Gates, the violin/piano score Road Movies, and selections from Adams’s wacky string quartet John’s Book of Alleged Dances.

Boston Modern Brass
Presented by Equilibrium Concert Series
March 17, 8 p.m.
Seully Hall, Boston

EQ presents Boston Modern Brass in a program that includes works by Henry Brant, Carl Ruggles, Gottfried von Einem, and others.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Music for Food
March 9 at 7 p.m.
At New England Conservatory’s Williams Hall, Boston, MA
$25 suggested donation/$10 for student; 100% of proceeds benefit Food for Free

The program includes Alan Ridout’s Ferdinand and the Bull (violinist Levon Chilingirian and speaker Susan Pattie); Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 66 (violinist Levon Chilingirian, cellist Natasha Brofsky, and pianist Pei-Shan Lee); Schubert’s Fantasie in C Major, D.934 (violinist Angelo Yu and pianist Pei-Shan Lee).

Venice Baroque Orchestra with Avi Avital, mandolin
March 13 at 8 p.m.
Presented by Boston Early Music Festival at the First Church Congregational, 11 Garden St, Cambridge, MA

On the program: music of Vivaldi, Albinoni, Marcello, Geminiani, and Paisiello.

Trans-Atlantic: Sonatas for Cello and Piano via Brazil, France, and Norway
March 14 at 8 p.m.
Presented by Brandeis University at Slosberg Music Center, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA

Cellist Joshua Gordon and pianist Randall Hodgkinson play a program that includes Koechlin’s Sonata, Op. 66 (1917); Villa-Lobos’s Sonata no. 2, Op. 66 (1915); Grieg’s Sonata in A minor, Op. 36 (1882-83).

BEAUTIFUL AS A DOVE
March 14 at 8 p.m.
Cappella Clausura performing at the Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury Street, Boston, MA.
(Same Program on March 15 at 4 p.m. at the Eliot Church, 474 Centre St., Newton, MA)

From the Cappella Clausura website: “A unique opportunity to hear the exquisite sacred motets of Renaissance composer Raffaella Aleotti alongside settings of similar texts by her famous contemporaries: Gregorio Allegri, Alessandro Scarlatti, Francisco Guerrero, Tomas Luis de Victoria, Giovanni da Palestrina, and Clemens non Papa. Includes the beloved ‘Miserere’ by Allegri and several settings from the Renaissance favorite, the Song of Songs.”

Bach: Mass in B Minor
March 14 at 8 p.m.
Musica Sacra at the First Congregational Church, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA

This performance will feature soloists Teresa Wakim, soprano; Douglas Dodson, countertenor; Eric Christopher Perry, tenor; and Bradford Gleim, baritone.

— Susan Miron

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Jazz

Maggie Scott
March 9, 8 p.m.
Top of the Hub, Boston, MA

The Berklee prof, and doyenne of Boston pianist/vocalists — her former students include Lalah Hathaway and, more recently, Sarah McKenzie — holds forth in her monthly residency at the Pru’s lofty dining room and lounge, with her longtime, superbly swinging sidekicks, bassist Marty Ballou and drummer Jim Gwin.

Berklee Salutes Scullers and Fred Taylor
March 11, 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA

The name of the club is in the title, but the focus here is ageless, indefatigable impresario Taylor, whose canny bookings have helped keep jazz in the forefront of the Boston music scene for nearly 50 years. Taylor will receive the George Wein Impresario Award (named for Taylor’s old friend, and Newport Jazz Festival programmer, Wein) from Berklee and be toasted by a cast of thousands from that school’s faculty: evening organizer Bill Banfield, plus saxophonist Tia Fuller, pianist George Russell Jr., bassist John Lockwood, drummer Yoron Israel, singer/pianist Maggie Scott, and singers Gabrielle Goodman and Donna McElroy. Writer Bob Blumenthal will introduce the music with his own summation of Taylor’s career.

Pat Martino Organ Trio
March 13, 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA

One of the inventors of the modern-jazz guitar vocabulary, Pat Martino comes to the R-Bar with organist Pat Bianchi and drummer Carmen Intorre Jr.

Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra
March 14, 8 p.m.
Berklee Performanc Center, Boston, MA

The dynamic pianist, composer, and arranger Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra is the toast of New York. The Celebrity Series brings them to Boston, with New Orleans alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, in a program called “CubaNOLA,” exploring common strands in the early traditions of both cultures.

Lee Konitz
March 15, 2 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

Billed as “An Afternoon in Words and Music with Lee Konitz,” this MFA “two-part program” presents the iconic 87-year-old alto saxophonist in conversation with the trumpeter Tim Hagans and in performance with pianist Dan Tepfer, himself one of the brightest young lights on the jazz scene, and a regular collaborator with Konitz over the past half decade or so. We won’t say Tepfer “pushes” Konitz, but we will say that this is one pianist who can open up avenues for the brilliant reedman that he might not otherwise have considered. And the older man is always eager to take them.

Cassandre McKinley
March 18, 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA.

Deep-voiced and adept Boston-born singer Cassandre McKinley formerly stuck with straight-ahead jazz until she had a crossover breakthrough with a jazz treatment of the music of Marvin Gaye. She’s joined tonight by veteran Boston pianist Paul Broadnax.

— Jon Garelick

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Rock

of Montreal
March 10
Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA

Kooky psych rockers of Montreal are tough to categorize. Their sound morphs from album to album and, despite their name, they aren’t even from or of Montreal, or Canada in general. “Fun” is a good category for their sound — they’re an enormous amount of fun.

Upcoming and On Sale…

Swervedriver (3/28/2015, The Sinclair); Carl Barat and the Jackals (3/28/2015, Brighton Music Hall); Belle and Sebastian (3/30/2015, House of Blues); The New Highway Hymnal (4/10/2015, Middle East-Upstairs); Jeff Beck (4/19/2015, Orpheum Theatre); They Might Be Giants (4/23/2015, House of Blues); Manic Street Preachers (4/24/2015, The Sinclair); Sufjan Stevens (5/4/2015, Citi Performing Arts Center); Faith No More (5/11/2015, Orpheum Theatre); Kasabian (5/15/2015, House of Blues); Primal Scream (5/17/2015, Royale); Crosby, Stills and Nash (5/19/2015, Citi Performing Arts Center); Boston Calling (featuring Beck, Pixies, My Morning Jacket) (5/22-24/2015, City Hall Plaza); The Who (5/24/2015, Mohegan Sun Arena); Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (6/6/2015, Boston Opera House); 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); Huey Lewis and the News (6/27/2015, Indian Ranch); U2 (7/10, 11, 14, 15/2015, TD Garden); Mudhoney (7/11/2015, Brighton Music Hall); Billy Joel (7/16/2015, Fenway Park); Foo Fighters (7/18-19/2015, Fenway Park); Modest Mouse (7/23/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Interpool (7/23-24/2015, House of Blues); Willie Nelson & Family (8/21/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); AC/DC (8/22/2015, Gillette Stadium); Death Cab For Cutie (9/11/2015, Blue Hills Bank Pavilion); Mark Knopfler (10/9/2015, Orpheum Theatre); The Who (10/29/2015, TD Garden)

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Author Events

William Nicholson
Amherst
March 11 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA
Free

The Oscar-nominated screenwriter will read and discuss his latest novel, which details the story of two different love affairs, both of which involve the famously introverted Emily Dickinson. A contemporary screenwriter goes to Amherst to research the notorious literary legend of Dickinson’s brother Austin and his affair with an Amherst College faculty wife. While investigating this juicy story, she happens to fall into an affair of her own, with another married academic.

Wellesley Distinguished Writer’s Series:
Dorianne Laux and Kevin Young
March 11 at 4:30 p.m.
Newhouse Conference Room, Wellesley, MA
Free

Two celebrated poets will read as part of Wellesley University’s distinguished writers series. Laux is the author of several books of poems, including a a guide to writing poetry, and has received many awards, including three Best American Poetry prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Kevin Young has written several acclaimed works of both poetry and nonfiction and edited several anthologies. His most recent collection, Book of Hours, was released in 2014 (Arts Fuse review)

Dennis Lehane
World Gone By
March 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Guastavino Room, Central Library in Copley Square, Boston MA
Free but seating is first come, first served

Boston’s own Dennis Lehane, a bestselling novelist and Hollywood screenwriter, will read and discuss his latest novel. Set in WWII-era Cuba and Florida, the story sets out to vividly recreate a bygone era, with disillusioned mob kingpin Joe Coughlin confronting his own violent legacy as well as the enduring machinations of passion, crime, and power.

Erik Larson
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
March 12 at 7 p.m. (doors open at 6:30)
First Parish Church, Cambridge MA
$5 tickets available

The bestselling author of Devil in White City will discuss and sign copies of his latest volume, which retells the story of the pivotal sinking of the Lusitania, the fastest ocean liner of its time. Larson focuses on the story of William Thomas Turner, the boat’s charismatic captain who, tragically, incorrectly assumed that a gentleman’s code of combat would keep the vessel safe when it sailed through dangerous waters.

Stephen Kurkjian
Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the World’s Greatest Art Heist
March 13 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA
Free

In 1981, a secret meeting of the Boston underground planned a heist of the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, tempted by the building’s combination of lax security and countless priceless artworks. A decade later the robbery occurred, one of the biggest in American history. Twenty five years later, the case is unsolved and the art remains missing. Why? Kurkjian, one of the top investigative reporters in the country, has worked on the case for years and tells the story of the heist and the aftermath as it has never been told before.

Literary Jeopardy with 826 Boston
March 13 at 7 p.m.
Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA
Free with pre-registration strongly encouraged

Put your literary knowledge to the test and compete against other teams at an evening of literary ‘Jeopardy,’ Porter Square Books-style. The competition is for the sake of a good cause: the Boston chapter of the beloved nationwide 826 workshop, which promotes literacy and creativity to Boston youth. Local authors Celeste Ng and Kelly Link will drop by and refreshments will be served.

Sarah Manguso
Ongoingness: The End of a Diary
March 14 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA
Free

For years the acclaimed essayist kept a meticulous diary — her ambition was to “end each day with a record of everything that had ever happened.” Maintained over twenty-five years and encompassing over 800,000 words, the diary came to take on an almost religious aura: until Manguso became a mother. Ongoingness is a spare, ruminative work that scrambles up time recorded and time lost.

— Matt Hanson