Our expert critics supply a guide to film, dance, visual art, theater, author readings, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.

Film

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
December 17 at 9:30 p.m.
Brattle Theater in Cambridge

A young Pietari and his friend Juuso think a secret mountain drilling project near their home in northern Finland has uncovered the tomb of a monstrous, evil Santa, a St. Nick very unlike the figure of legend. Then Pietari’s father captures a feral old man in his wolf trap who may hold the key to why reindeer are being slaughtered and children are disappearing. A 2010 Finnish horror spoof from Jalmari Helander, the director of one of this year’s craziest films, Sisu.

Double Feature: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians with Little Shop of Horrors
December 17 at 7 p.m.
Somerville Theater in Davis Square

“The Attack of the B-Movies” $5 Double Feature offers plenty of campy entertainment for your money. There’s 10-year old Pia Zadora in her first film role, followed by a feature in which a young Jack Nicholson plays a masochistic dental patient named Wilbur Force. How can you go wrong!

Double Feature: Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and True Stories
December 31, All day screenings
Brattle Theater in Cambridge

Here is an alternative way to spend your New Year’s Eve — with Tim Burton’s Pee-wee and then David Byrne’s directorial effort from 1980.

Pick of the Week

Nyad, steaming on Netflix

This film has not landed on many “Best” lists, possibly because it had next to no theatrical distribution before heading to Netflix. It is worth seeing. Annette Bening is excellent in the role of Diana Nyad who, in her 60s, made three attempts to swim the 110 miles from Cuba to Miami, which she had failed to do when she was 28. The extraordinary story is based on Nyad’s autobiography, Find a Way. Bening is supported by a salty Jodie Foster as her assistant and Welsh actor Rhys Ifans as a dauntless navigator.

— Tim Jackson

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Roots and World Music

Errol Strength and Dion Knibb
December 21
Slade’s Bar and Grill, Roxbury

This year the essential Reggae Takeova series returned, no pun intended, to its roots as a floating night dedicated to conscious Jamaican sounds. It’s celebrating its seventh anniversary with two bonafide Boston legends: Errol Strength and Dion Knibb, who’ll be fronting the great Roots Alley Collective. It’ll be a new sound for a very old and beloved location: Slade’s Bar and Grill in Roxbury, which has been serving wings and nightlife for close to a century.

The Collaborators
December 29
Irish Social Club, Roxbury

After missing their 2022 debut, this soul fan’s New Years resolution was to catch the next appearance by the all-star Boston R&B vocal group known as the Collaborators. Their first show was a tribute to the Sugar Shack; this time around they’re saluting other long-gone Boston R&B night spots, such as Estelle’s, Connolly’s, and Roscoe’s. These are fine singers — Leon Beal, Gilbert White, Andrew Storms, Clyde Cross, and David Fuller — so you can bet they’ve graced more than a few of the stages they’ll be honoring.

First Night Rockport
First Night Chatham
December 31

It’s no secret that the once prolific First Night celebrations of New Year’s Eve in a family friendly and generally alcohol-free atmosphere have been in steady decline for years. The latest casualty is Beverly’s event, which has been canceled after almost three decades. Boston’s version, which has been in an artistic free fall for years, is now being held at City Hall Plaza. The sorry headliners are Sammy Adams, an also-ran from the thankfully brief “frat rap” craze of a decade ago, and Ayla Brown, the country crooner daughter of former Senator Scott Brown. It’s a bill that pretty much guarantees that every other festival held in 2024 will have a better lineup.

Happily, a few towns are still providing events with dozens of performers who draw on the rich tapestry of jazz, gospel, and classical music that used to be found at First Night Boston. Rockport features local gospel family The Bullock Brothers, family folk favorites Lorraine and Bennett Hammond, and the fine New Orleans singer Henri Smith. In Chatham there’s cabaret great Suede and the Caribbean rhythms of PanNeubean Steel along with many others.

— Noah Schaffer

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Theater

COVID PROTOCOLS: Check with specific theaters.

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme: Only sounds that tremble through us  in the Hayden Gallery at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, through March 3, 2024.

Given how grievously Boston’s theaters are overlooking events in the contemporary world, particularly in the Middle East, this multi-channel sound and video installation suggests possibilities, for stage artists, of how the ongoing turmoil might be dramatized. This is a new site-specific iteration of Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahm’s May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth (2020–ongoing), a multipart project that brings together “fragments of communal song and dance in Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen, which the artists collected from videos posted on social media over the past decade, with new filmic performances created by the artists with dancers and musicians who responded to specific gestures, music, or texts from the archive. In looking at ephemeral performances in politically marginalized parts of the world and asking what it means to archive sound and gesture through embodiment, the artists reveal performance to be both a critical space of resilience and an ever-evolving repository of memory.”

Legally Blonde: The Musical. Music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin and a book by Heather Hach, based on the novel Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown. Directed by Katie Anne Clark with musical direction by Mindy Cimini and choreography by Taavon Gamble. Staged by Moonbox Productions at the BCA Calderwood Pavilion – Roberts Theatre, 527 Tremont Street, Boston,  through December 31.

This musical, like the enormously successful film version, “chronicles the journey of the famously perky Elle Woods, a fashion-savvy, UCLA sorority girl who finds her life turned upside down when she is dumped by her boyfriend Warner. In an effort to prove to Warner that she is more than just some blonde sorority girl, she follows him to Harvard Law School, where she struggles to fit in and do well. Ultimately, she defies expectations and manages to stay true to her delightfully pink personality.”

Yippee Ki Yay written by Richard Marsh. Directed by Hal Chambers. Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Huntington Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston, December 28 through 31.

“In Yippee Ki Yay, when gunmen seize an LA skyscraper, off-duty policeman John McClane is the hostages’ only hope. This uplifting action romp (and unauthorized parody) pays affectionate tribute to the iconic ’80s fan favorite, and is essential viewing for Hans Gruber superfans and newcomers alike. This US tour of this joyfully funny show told in verse follows a critically acclaimed tour of the UK and two seasons of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where it was one of the ‘Picks of the Fringe’ in The Stage and recommended by The British Comedy Guide.” Performed by Darrel Bailey.

Real Women Have Curves: The Musical Music & lyrics by Joy Huerta & Benjamin Velez. Book by Lisa Loomer. Additional Material by Nell Benjamin. Based on the Play by Josefina López. And HBO’s Real Women Have Curves, Screenplay by Josefina López & George LaVoo. Music supervision by Nadia DiGiallonardo. Directed & choreographed by Sergio Trujillo. Staged by the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, through January 21, 2024.

“Summer 1987, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. After eighteen years under the roof of her immigrant parents, Ana is ready to spread her wings. Her dreams of college and a career in New York City are bursting at the seams, but her family’s expectations would keep her home, working at their garment factory. Is it worth sacrificing the dreams of her family, who have sacrificed everything for her?” Based on the play by Josefina López that inspired the iconic hit film, this empowering world premiere “explores life’s unexpected curves.”

The Heart Sellers by Lloyd Suh. Directed by May Adrales. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Calderwood Pavilion/Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, through December 23.

A New England debut for this script: “Jane and Luna run into each other in the grocery store on Thanksgiving in 1973 and find they have much in common: each are recent Asian immigrants, a bit homesick and lonely with hardworking absentee husbands, and adjusting to a new country filled with new opportunities. Over sips of wine and a questionable frozen turkey, they dream of disco dancing, learning to drive, and even a visit to Disneyland, and share their hopes and challenges for making a new home in a new land with grace and dignity. ” Arts Fuse review

Midwinter Revels: The Feast of Fools – A Medieval Celebration of the Solstice. Written and directed by Patrick Swanson and co-directed by Debra Wise, with music direction by Elijah Botkin. Staged by Revels at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street, Cambridge, through December 28. Virtual Encore Streaming Window: December 25 – January 7.

“This year’s musical extravaganza takes audiences on a colorful journey to Medieval Europe. At the Feast of Fools, everything is topsy-turvy by design; rulers are temporarily deposed by servants, wit triumphs over power, and a Lord of Misrule finds himself steering the ship of state. This musical adventure features vibrant processionals, lively carols, delicate harmonies, vigorous dances, and a generous ritual serving of the wild and the holy. On the shortest day of the year, anything is possible!” The cast will feature David Coffin, René Collins, Susan Dibble, Eliza Fichter, Roger Reed, Vincent Siders, and Laurel Swift, as well as musicians Karen Burciaga, Barbara Allen Hill, Ben Matus, and Hideki Yamaya.

Lunch Bunch by Sarah Einspanier. Directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques. Staged by Apollinaire Theatre Company at the Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St., Chelsea, December 29 through January 21.

“A tart, heartsick comedy,” according to The New Yorker. “In a city not unlike New York, in a public defenders office not unlike The Bronx Defenders’ Family Defense Practice, amidst the distinct fear/feeling that things are falling apart/going to shit more than usual, 7 public defenders seek meaning, belonging, and some semblance of order via their frenzied quest for the perfect Lunch (Bunch).”

— Bill Marx

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Visual Arts

MFA Conservator Linda Vagts reveals secrets of John Singer Sargent’s genius for depicting folds, colors, and textures of clothing in Conservation Up Close: Sargent’s Mastery of Fabrics, a special tour on December 20, starting at 1 p.m., in conjunction with the popular exhibition, Fashioned by Sargent. No charge beyond general admission to the museum but limited to the first dozen participants to show up. Group meets in the MFA’s Sharf Visitor Center to begin.

The first African American singer to perform at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, operatic contralto and Civil Rights activist Marian Anderson carefully constructed her on-stage image, with particular attention to her costumes. She worked closely with prominent costume and fashion designers to create stage clothing that entertained and dazzled in its own right, using silk, metallic thread, and sequins to create shimmering effects. Marian Anderson: Dressed for Success, an exhibition opening at the Wadsworth Atheneum on December 21, features two of Anderson’s dresses, now in the Atheneum collection, worn in performances in the 1930s and ‘50s, along with material locating them within Anderson’s career.

In 1965, Bobby Seale, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, invited a University of California  student named Stephen Shames to be the organization’s official photographer. Three years later, Seale was in media reports across the country, bound and gagged as one of the “Chicago Eight” in the infamous trial of activists who protested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Shames went on to a more than five decades career as a photojournalist, calling attention to a wide range of social issues, including poverty, race, climate change, and the rights of children. Over the course of eight years in the turbulent late ‘60s and early ‘70s, he made hundreds of images of the Panther Party’s activity. Many of these photographs were of the women who made up 65 percent of the party’s membership.

Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party, opening at the MFA on December 20, brings together 27 of Shames’ Panther photographs that depict “comrade sisters,” as the Panther women were called, at work in community schools, free medical clinics, voter registration sites, nutrition programs, and elder care centers throughout the United States. Shames’ documentation shows that women, despite public appearances, were at the heart of this social justice movement.

The Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme continues two recurring holiday traditions including FOOD DRIVE: Gracious Holiday Generosity daily (except when the museum is closed for the Christmas holiday) through the end of December, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.  Visitors to the museum are encouraged to bring a non-perishable food donation for the Shoreline Soup Kitchens and Pantries. In return, the museum will deduct $1 off admission for each member in the party.

Meanwhile, Miss Florence’s Teas continue daily through December 30, except  Sundays and Mondays. There are two leisurely, up to two-hour seatings at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. The $45 tickets include tea, tea sandwiches, and seasonal sweets served with views of the picturesque Lieutenant River, which borders the museum grounds. Admission to the museum and gardens included. Limit of six tickets per person per tea.

For a somewhat less genteel museum outing, there is the Worcester Art Museum’s Live Arms and Armor Program: Medieval Armor on December 23 at 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. and again at 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. The hands-on, interactive program will explore the arms and armor used by knights and soldiers in the later Middle Ages and the strengths and weaknesses of wearing armor in combat. Free with museum admission.

For generations, parents have told their children that the best gifts are their own, handmade works of art —  gifts that are often proudly displayed for decade after decade. The New Britain Museum of Art is offering kids ages 9-12 one last chance this season to pick up some ideas and homemade gift skills on December 21 from 4 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. The workshop, Studio@4 | Gifts of Art, is led by Joan Shackford and will be inspired by favorite works on view at the museum. Registration required; tickets are $48.99, $34.65 for museum members.

In conjunction with First Night Hartford, the Wadsworth Athenaeum is screening It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World at 2 p.m. on December 31. The 1963, Stanley Kramer-directed epic comedy has a truly gigantic cast, consisting of a large portion of America’s 20th-century celebrity comedians and comic actors: Jimmy Durante, Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Peter Falk, Jonathan Winters, Phil Silvers, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Zasu Pitts, Carl Reiner, the Three Stooges, and many, many, many more. The plot involves a madcap rush to find a treasure buried in a public park and it’s billed as family fare, though the 160-minute run time may be a bit much for smaller children. Admission with a First Night Hartford button: $12 adults, $3 kids.

— Peter Walsh

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Jazz

Glynis Lomon
December 19 at 7 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.

Cellist Glynis Lomon spent her formative years in the orbit of experimental trumpeter, composer, and conceptualist Bill Dixon at Bennington College. Her collaborators since then have included Jimmy Lyons, Cecil Taylor, Butch Morris, and William Parker. For this quartet show she’ll be joined by Dave Peck on clarinets, flutes, and double-reeds; Eric Woods, “analog synthesis”; and drummer Jared Seabrook.

Tony Malaby’s Firebath
December 21 at 7 p.m.
Myrtle, Providence, Rhode Island

Saxophonist and composer brings Tony Malaby brings his freewheeling Firebath to the new Myrtle performance space in East Providence. If you’ve seen Malaby lead this large ensemble in directed improvisations (the best way to describe the mix of written cues and free improv) at Cambridge’s Lilypad, you know the kind of spectacular magic it can ignite. The players for this outing are Malaby, Brendan Carniaux, and John McKenna on saxes; Nate McBride and Evan Palmer on basses; Tom Swafford, violin; and drummers Max Goldman and Matt Crane.

“Third Thursdays”
December 21 at 8 p.m.
Harvard-Epworth Church, Cambridge, Mass.

Keyboardist Dave Bryant turned over the curating duties for this special solstice edition of his Third Thursdays program at the Harvard-Epworth Church to visual artist, multi-instrumentalist, poet, and fellow harmolodic scholar (see: Coleman, Ornette) Matt Lavelle. Lavelle’s “visual and poetic interpretation of his musical concept” will include performance by dancer K.J. Holmes as well as Bryant with bassist Frederick Williams and drummer James Kamal Jones.

Elan Trotman
December 31 at 8:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

Saxophonist Elan Trotman’s pop approach to jazz saxophone often floats on the Caribbean-inflected melodies and rhythms of his native Barbados. The Berklee associate professor and his band will hold forth for two shows in Scullers’ New Year’s Eve festivities.

— Jon Garelick

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Classical Music

Gloria! An Italian Christmas
Presented by Boston Camerata
December 21 at 8 p.m.
First Church in Cambridge

Boston Camerata’s second program of the month features seasonal Italian music from the Renaissance and early Baroque eras.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

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Author Events

Jake Berman
The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been
At the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, Rabb Hall, 6 to 7 p.m. on December 20.

For those curious about underground worlds of transit beyond the MBTA. The Lost Subways of North America “offers a strikingly visual — and fun — journey through past, present, and unbuilt urban transit. Using meticulous archival research, cartographer and artist Jake Berman has successfully plotted maps of old train networks covering twenty-three North American metropolises, ranging from New York City’s Civil War–era plan for a steam-powered subway under Fifth Avenue to the ultramodern automated Vancouver SkyTrain and the thousand-mile electric railway system of pre–World War II Los Angeles. He takes us through colorful maps of old, often forgotten streetcar lines, lost ideas for never-built transit, and modern rail systems — drawing us into the captivating transit histories of US and Canadian cities.”

— Bill Marx