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

Film

Grrl Haus Cinema: International and Local Short Films
September 5 at 7 p.m.
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

The program features 17 short films that explore themes of identity, transformation, and resistance through a variety of styles: whimsical adventures to psychological explorations. Film descriptions and filmmaker profiles here.

Close Your Eyes
September 6 – 9
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

A new film from Spanish auteur Victor Erice, director of the much admired The Spirit of the Beehive (1973). BFI says: “The unfussy elegance of Erice’s filmmaking remains as fresh and clear as ever. It’s a contemplative style, allowing his superb cast time and space, regularly fading to black between scenes. More than once, songs sung and shared between characters emotionally transport them to a precious time in their past, while Federico Jusid’s plaintive piano and strings–led score subtly guides the narrative beats. It’s a film made by, and about, true believers in the transcendent potential of sound and image.” Arts Fuse review

Mountains
Through September 5 at Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline. On September 12 at 7 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston

A Haitian demolition worker named Xavier (Atibon Nazaire) is tasked with dismantling his Miami neighborhood to make way for an onslaught of gentrification. He dreams of buying a bigger home for his cramped family, a desire that remains well out of reach, even after years of overtime labor. As the lives of Xavier, his wife, and his son are gradually explored, what began as a film about quiet desperation blossoms into a lush and fervid portrait of three souls defiantly tilting at forces that want to keep them in their place. One of the Museum’s Global Cinema Now series. Arts Fuse review

Fresh Kill (1994)
September 13 at 8 p.m.
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

The Brattle calls this an “avant-anarcho-ecosatire.” “Partners Shareen and Claire find themselves in the crosshairs of a nefarious multinational corporation after they discover it is poisoning citizens through toxic cat food, contaminated sushi, and nuclear waste. When their daughter disappears, they turn to a global band of hackers and activists.” (Siskel Film Center) An activist impulse runs through all of director Shu Lea Cheang’s work. Shifting between horror, camp, and agit-prop, the film generates an electric vision of destabilization and disruption. The director will appear along with this newly restored 35mm print. (Co-presented with the Boston Underground Film Festival, Strictly Brohibited, and Wicked Queer)

Facing Cancer
September 15 at 4 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline

“As an oncologist and chief physician in Boston, Dr. Wolfram Goessling battles a disease that spreads terror around the world … cancer. As a doctor he strives to cure it, as a scientist he researches it, as a professor at Harvard Medical School he teaches others how to treat it.

“One day his doctor tells him that the pimple on his face is actually angiosarcoma — a particularly insidious cancer that is difficult to cure — he is forced to change sides. The doctor becomes the patient at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, two institutions where he has trained. Cancer is no longer just his profession, but also his destiny — and the probability of his survival is four percent.

“He takes up the fight, undergoing chemotherapy that robs him of the feeling in his fingers, radiation that burns his skin, and an operation that takes half his face and alters his appearance forever. He is treated by those he works with daily, who are suddenly no longer his colleagues, but his care team.” This documentary is a special presentation of the Goethe Institute. A post-screening Q&A will feature director Volker Heise and Dr. Wolfram Goessling.

Pick of the Week

They Shot the Piano Player
Amazon Prime

In March of 1976 young Brazilian piano virtuoso Tenório Jr., while on tour in Buenos Aires, went out one night to buy cigarettes and was never seen again. Acknowledged throughout the film as a brilliant new jazz star, commemorated as a gentle and apolitical artist, it was very likely Tenório Jr. was “disappeared” by the dictatorship’s security forces. Directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal (Chico & Rita) investigate the mystery through animation, drawing on interviews that detail the world of Latin Jazz while also supplying disturbing details about what led to the death and disappearance of thousands of people across Latin America. These murderous and repressive regimes often acted in collusion with the US (the CIA), with the goal of thwarting communism. The film’s colorful images engage the eye as they capture the atmosphere of the clubs, cities, music, and the personalities of the many interviewees, which include some of Brazil’s biggest music stars. Jeff Goldblum provides the voice of the (fictional) American reporter who led the investigation. This is a brilliant piece of artful, dissident filmmaking. (Fuse Review)

— Tim Jackson

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World Music and Roots

Jason Joshua with Johnny Burgos
September 3, 7:30 p.m.
City Winery

Last weekend, the “souldies” world had its biggest moment to date via the Fool in Love Festival in Los Angeles. The mix of legends with the young sweet soul acts beloved by the Chicano community (and, increasingly, the rest of the world) drew tens of thousands of fans. If you’d like to experience souldies in a more intimate environment, the promising singer Jason Joshua is in town to croon his love songs in a way that would make Billy Stewart proud.

Los Texmaniacs
September 4
Fallout Shelter, Norwood

The great ambassadors of Tex-Mex music are led by bajo sexto master Max Baca and his accordionist nephew Josh. The band’s original guitarist was Willie J. Laws, and the now-New England–based bluesman will be reuniting with his old bandmates for a night of San Antonio grooves.

ArrowFest
September 5-15
Arrow Street Arts, Cambridge

The late Oberon wasn’t just a place for theater — it was also a much-needed, versatile concert space. The site’s new impressive (and beautifully renovated) incarnation, Arrow Street Arts, is opening its doors by way of an ambitious and splashy festival. And music is a welcome part of the programming. Among the many options are saxophonist Gregory Groover Jr., an all-star hip-hop history workshop hosted by Jazzmyn RED, the NEJC Jazz Orchestra, Latin greats Clave and Blues, and a songwriter’s night hosted by Will Dailey.

Club d’Elf presents: A Celebration of Brahim Fribgane
September 6
Lizard Lounge, Cambridge

Casablanca-raised oud player and percussionist Brahim Fribgane was a beloved part of the local music community for many years. The master musician gave Club d’Elf much of its Moroccan tinge, and he also played with everyone from Tinariwen to Pete Seeger to Puerto Rican superstar Residente before passing away earlier this year. Now Mike Rivard and his Club d’Elf collaborators are celebrating Fribgane’s spirit. Advance tickets for both the 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. shows are sold out, but a few tickets might be available at the door.

Azymuth opening for Crumb
September 6
Roadrunner, Boston

The Tufts-bred rock band Crumb are back in town, and they’re bringing with them a very special guest: Brazilian ’70s funk pioneers Azymuth. The band, which features original bassist Alex Malheiros, is one of the many legendary acts whose careers have been resurrected by the record label and live concert programmer Jazz Is Dead. More of the label’s acts are coming to Boston later this fall: Brazilian singer Joyce Moreno, heavily sampled French band Cortez, and the Ghanaian highlife greats Ebo Taylor and Pat Thomas. These shows will take place between now and November, so watch this space (as well as the jazz picks) for details.

Danny Tucker
September 7, 1 to 4 p.m.
Corner of Hopkinton and Evans Streets, Dorchester

Danny Tucker was present at the creation of roots reggae in Boston, first as a member of Zion Initiation and then for years with his own Vibe Tribe. After retiring from his longtime hospital day job Tucker moved back to Jamaica, so it’s always a treat when he returns for events like this community block party.

Frente Cumbiero with Lautaro Mantilla
September 7, 9 p.m.
CROMA @ Arlington Street Church (Public Alley 438 entrance), Boston

This should be one of the most memorable concerts of the fall: it is a co-presentation from Non-Event and Ágora Cultural Architects featuring Colombia’s Frente Cumbiero, one of the most interesting and innovative experimental cumbia bands. The band combines electronic elements with a blazing horn section; it is the perfect booking for a space where you can listen or dance (or do both). The troupe is sticking around for a pair of workshops at New England Conservatory, where they’ll be discussing “Colombian Music Crossroads” (September 9 at 6 p.m.) and Colombian percussion (September 10 at 10 a.m). Both workshops are in the Eben Jordan Ensemble Room and are presented by the school’s Contemporary Musical Arts department.

Pan in the Park and Cambridge Caribbean Carnival
September 7-8
Central Square, Cambridge

If you missed Boston’s Caribbean Carnival last month, you can still get in a wine because many of the same mas bands will their strut through Cambridge on Sunday. This year’s map hasn’t been announced yet, but organizers are listing the location as University Park in Central Square. The day before, the mighty sounds of the steel pan will ring out as numerous steel pan groups showcase their talents at Pacific Park, also in Central Square.

Jamaica Plain Music Festival
September 7, noon to 7 p.m.
Pinebank Field at Jamaica Pond

Few communities embrace the arts as strongly as Jamaica Plain, and this annual free celebration inevitably features a wide range of local talents. Among the many highlights: country traditionalist Matt York, Latin rocker Ray Liriano, and SheBoom, which claims to be “Boston area’s only post-menopausal Brazilian-inspired percussion and vocal ensemble.”

LaLa Brooks 
September 8, 8 p.m.
The Italian Feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian, East Cambridge

The annual Italian festival in East Cambridge always brings nostalgic acts to Warren Street. This year they’ve booked an all-female lineup that includes disco and freestyle divas like Brenda K. Starr and Thelma Houston. These kind of dance acts usually perform with tapes instead of bands, but it’s probable that live musicians will accompany girl group favorite LaLa Brooks, who as a teenager sang lead on the Crystals’ girl group smash “Da Do Run Run” and still has some formidable pipes.

Echoes of Armenia
September 14, 7:30 p.m.
Mosesian Center for the Arts, Watertown

This celebration of traditional Armenian music features two important acts that span the generations: Oud master John Berberian has been performing and recording since the ’60s (He was the subject of an ArtsFuse profile a number of years ago.) Berberian will be joined by Armadi Tsayn, featuring RazAvaz, a young Boston-based band that brings a modern touch to the sounds of the Armenian Highlands.

— Noah Schaffer

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Visual Arts

Several New England Museums have been on summer vacation this year. They begin opening their doors again right after Labor Day.

The Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover reopens on September 3 with Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946-1962. It wasn’t the celebrated Paris of Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast (1920s), but mid-century Paris, portrayed in the musical comedy An American in Paris (1951), still had plenty to attract young Americas hoping to forge a life as artists. Like Gene Kelly’s Jerry Mulligan character, many of these expatriates were veterans of World War II. The GI Bill helped support American art students as they studied at the city’s various academies, explored its great modernist traditions, and settled into a rich cafe culture where issues of aesthetics, European art, and their own identities as Americans living abroad, were hotly debated.

Organized by the Grey Art Museum at NYU, the Addison show brings together 135 works by some 70 artists, including “GI artists” like Norman Bluhm, Sam Francis, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, and Jack Youngerman, mid-century figures like Joan Mitchell and Mark Tobey, together with some lesser-known artists, including Robert Breer and Shinkichi Tajiri. It explores a storied place and time with much to reveal about what it means to be American and to make American art.

Also reopening on September 3 is the Mt. Holyoke College Museum of Art in South Hadley. Featured in the museum’s fall exhibition lineup is Relaunch Laboratory, actually not so much an exhibition as “a working space for new ideas, themes, and juxtapositions,” leading up to a major reinstallation for the museum’s fall 2026 150th anniversary. Like recent reinstallations at many art museums, especially those on college and university campuses, “this full-scale rethink aims to broaden and deepen the stories we are able to share, raise the voices of marginalized communities, and unseat traditional Eurocentric and colonialist perspectives.”

At the Yale Art Gallery, which was business as usual all summer, The Dance of Life: Figure and Imagination in American Art, 1876-1917, opens on September 6. The focus is on a period of inward-looking, historical reflection in the U.S. that began in 1876 with the Centennial International Exposition in Philadelphia, marking the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It was an era of large scale, patriotic, institutional art projects meant to redefine the national self-image, with grand new museums, public libraries, schools, monuments, and government buildings, often elaborately decorated with sculpture and painted murals. Included in the Yale show are more than a hundred studies and designs for expansive figural decorations at the Boston Public Library, the Library of Congress, the Pennsylvania State Capitol, and other public buildings. Many of these preparatory pieces had been left untouched and unseen by the public since they left their artists’s studios; Yale art conservators used special methods to prepare them for public view. Among the artists: Edwin Austin Abbey, Daniel Chester French, Violet Oakley, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent and such important but less well-known figures as Evelyn Longman and Gari Melchers.

For yet another perspective on American identity during this election season, see Kay WalkingStick/Hudson River School, opening at the Addison Gallery on September 14. The show sets up Cherokee artist Kay WalkingStick’s landscape paintings in conversation with landscapes from the New York Historical Society’s collection of 19th-century Hudson River School artists. “The exhibition,” says the Gallery, “celebrates a shared reverence for nature while engaging crucial questions about land dispossession and its reclamation by indigenous peoples and nations and exploring the relationship between indigenous art and American art history.”

The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College ends its summer hiatus with the opening of States of Becoming on September 9. The show is an ambitious assembly of seventeen contemporary African diaspora artists. Though most of the group now resides in the United States, the individual artists have ties to a dozen African countries as well as one in the Caribbean and to New York, Washington, DC, New Haven, Detroit, and Los Angeles. The curators have arranged them into three groups: “artists whose relocation prompted aesthetic transformations; artists who share their homelands’ experiences within their current communities; and artists who build bridges between the African diaspora and the United States.”

Germany has for some years been second only to the United States as a destination for immigrants from around the world. As a result, what was once seen as a largely homogeneous nation has become far more multi-cultural. Harvard, home to the Busch-Reisinger, a museum devoted to an earlier idea of German art, is presenting the Busch-organized Made in Germany? Art and Identity in a Global Nation beginning September 13. The focus is on 20 artists from several generations since 1980 and the show “offers a range of reflections on German national identity, which was shaped by labor migration following World War II, the unification of East and West Germany in 1990, and the influx of asylum seekers to the country since 2015.” Featuring, in particular, new acquisitions at the Busch, the works on view “address German history and identity through film, video, photography, painting, printmaking, drawing, collage, and installation.”

Falling somewhere between art, popular American cultural history, and a Victorian vaudeville show, Peabody Essex Museum’s exhibition about art and speaking with dead people opens on September 14. Made in a period fascinated with hearing voices “from beyond,” the paintings, posters, photographs, stage apparatus, costumes, film, publications, and other objects in Conjuring the Spirit World: Art, Magic, and Mediums will “transport visitors to the age of Harry Houdini [the magician and notorious skeptic of seances, mediums and everything they claimed], Margery the Medium, Howard Thurston, and the Fox Sisters.”

— Peter Walsh

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Popular Music

Crumb with Azymuth and Discovery Zone
September 6 (doors 7/show 8)
Roadrunner, Boston

Crumb is a Brooklyn group whose four members met while studying at Tufts in the mid-2010s. While an indie rock group in the general sense of the term, Crumb incorporates psychedelia, dream pop, acid rock, and jazz into their overall musical tapestry. Despite the exploratory and jammy nature of these styles, their songs are almost all within the two- to four-minute range. The tracks on 2024’s AMAMA are not exception, although one is a mere 48 seconds and another nears the six-minute mark. The quartet will headline an impressive triple bill that includes Azymuth (see Noah Schaffer’s preview) and Berlin-based American musician Discovery Zone at Roadrunner on Friday.

GayC/DC with Stars Like Ours
September 7 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Deep Cuts, Medford

As the name makes more or less abundantly clear, GayC/DC is the self-described “world’s first and only all-gay tribute to the music of AC/DC.” Interestingly, this is not the first cleverly named tribute band that founder – and Pansy Division bassist – Chris Freeman has been part of. Prior to forming GayC/DC, he was a member of a The Gay-Gay’s, a celebration of (you guessed it) The Go-Go’s. If hearing classic songs reimagined as “Let There Be Cock” and “Dirty Dudes Done Dirt Cheap” (as well as the if-it-ain’t-broke “Big Balls”) appeals to you as much as it should, then plant yourself at Deep Cuts this Friday.

Paul Weller with George Houston
September 8 (doors at 7/show at 8)
House of Blues, Boston

While it has been only three years since Paul Weller’s last album, it has been – due to the intervening Covid lockdown – seven years since he toured the US. Thankfully, he returned in May with 66, which appeared the day before he turned that age. As with pretty much every offering, the 12-track collection finds the former Jam man and Style Council-er’s once again successful in his quest for both artistic creativity and consistency. According to a trusted source, tickets for his upcoming House of Blues show are available on StubHub at an exceedingly affordable price. (Here is the interview that I did with him in advance of 66’s release.)

Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks
September 11 (doors at 7/show at 8)
The Cabot, Beverly

Two years ago, Yes co-founder Jon Anderson celebrated the 50^th anniversary of his old band’s Close to the Edge by touring with a group of high school-age students from the Paul Green Rock Academy. (Here is the interview that I did with him in 2022.) Now, he has teamed up with The Band Geeks, whose leader Richie Castellano has played bass with Blue Öyster Cult for 20 years. (Click here for my recent Arts Fuse interview about working with the sextet.) Rather than exclusively revisit classic material, they recorded a new album, True, a magnificently solid effort whose shorter tracks – such as the singles “Shine On” and “True Messenger” – and epics – “Counties and Countries” and “Once Upon A Dream” – have been excitedly embraced by longtime fans, including me. Anderson – his voice unblemished – and his new bandmates will juggle old and new material in Beverly on September 11.

Squeeze with Boy George
September 13 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Boch Center at Wang Theatre, Boston

It would not be inaccurate to describe a bill comprising Squeeze and Culture Club leader Boy George as a nostalgic celebration of two artists who – between them – experienced their creative and commercial peak between 1978 and 1988. However, it would also sell short the timeless quality of each artists’ classic songs and the fact they have both continued to tour and record in the decades since the curtain closed on the ‘80s. For evidence of the aforementioned timelessness, Culture Club’s “Karma Chameleon” recently became a favorite of my six-year-old twins, who are as old now I was when I first heard it. Thus, for people my age and very likely some of their children, the performances by these evergreen entertainers on September 13 in Boston are sure to be remembered always. (Here is my Arts Fuse interview with Squeeze’s Glenn Tilbrook and here is my Boston.com chat with that band’s Chris Difford.)

Beabadoobee with Hovvdy and Keni Titus
September 13 (doors at 6:30/show at 7:30)
MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Boston

Born Beatrice Kristi Ilejay Laus in the Philippines and raised in London, Beabadoobee combines an indie-rock spirit with superstar potential. The former is indicated by the 2019 single “I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus” and the latter by the fact that she opened a dozen US dates on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour last year. Furthermore, her new album, August’s This Is How Tomorrow Moves (co-produced by Rick Rubin), debuted at #1 and became her third consecutive top 10 album in the UK. Finally, she has released two gold singles, “The Perfect Pair” and “The Glue Song,” and was featured on Powfu’s multi-platinum worldwide smash “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head).” Catch her upcoming show at MGM Music Hall before a venue that size becomes too small for her.

Chanel Beads with Kassie Krut
September 13 (doors at 7)
Warehouse XI, Somerville

Chanel Beads is the project of experimental musician Shane Lavers. His recent debut LP, Your Day Will Come, follows on the heels of the several EPs and singles that he has released since 2018. The approach to the album’s sound was inspired by the concept of “fake jazz,” the term that Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen used in a documentary about their album Aja: “I both liked real jazz and also fake jazz and also fake fake jazz.” Find out how this manifests itself in Lavers’ music when he plays Warehouse XI on Friday.

— Blake Maddux

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Classical Music

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Presented by Boston Pops
September 5 & 6, 7:30 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

John Williams may or may not be the all-time most widely-known composer of orchestral music, but his film music is certainly in a class all its own. The Pops, where Williams is the conductor laureate, kicks off the fall Symphony Hall season with one of his more recent Star Wars scores accompanying a screening of the film.

Mitridate, Re di Ponto
Presented by Boston Lyric Opera
September 13 at 7:30 p.m. and 15 at 3 p.m.
Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston

BLO begins the new year with Mozart’s opera seria about a powerful (and powerfully dysfunctional) family squabbling amid the backdrop of war with the Roman Empire. Lawrence Brownlee sings the title role, Brenda Rae is Aspasia, and Vanessa Goikeotxea is Sifare. David Angus conducts.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

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Theater

COVID PROTOCOLS: Check with specific theaters.

The Beginning After the End of Humanity Circus, written and performed by Bread & Puppet Theatre, in partnership with Cambridge Arts. Performance will be outdoors on the Cambridge Common, Sept. 8 at 4 p.m. Admission free — donations encouraged.

Depend on traditional circus tropes and familiar Bread & Puppet iconography to focus on current political crises. Stilt dancers, papier-maché beasts of all sizes, and a riotous brass band will, according to B & P, create a “raucous, colorful spectacle of protest and celebration.” Director Peter Schumann describes the entertainment as “tigers teaching the congress of cowards how to jump over billionaires and acquire the courage to not pay for the atrocities of the latest genocide; the proverbial sheep of The system refusing to be sheep and committing revolution against the system; and the blue horses of the peace and harmony terrorists of the Northeast Kingdom breaking through the wall of threatening clouds that hide the truth from the population and then galloping over the ruins of the truth industry.” After the show, the troupe will serve its famous sourdough rye bread with aioli.

Three Tall Persian Women by Awni Abdi-Bahri. Directed by Dalia Ashurina. Produced by Shakespeare & Co at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, August 30 through October 13.

A world premiere: this play, according to Shakespeare and Company, is “about generational differences, grief, control, and learning to let go; but more than anything, it’s a love story to immigrant mothers. Golnar, a punkish Iranian-American millennial, returns home to her mother Nasrin for the anniversary of her father’s passing and walks into hoards of family memorabilia that her grandmother Mamani has moved in with her.”

Conscience by Joe DiPetro. Directed by Lisa DiFranza. Staged by Portland Stage at 25A Forest Avenue, Portland, ME, through October 13.

A historical drama that has some direct links with what is happening today. The script takes us back, according to the Portland Stage, “to a time when Maine senators were the heart of the United States Senate. This is the story of Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a trailblazer of Maine and national politics…. the play is a deep look into her gripping political rivalry with Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy. As the two begin to form a tense friendship that becomes an unlikely alliance, Senator Smith must choose between her political success, (including a potential Vice Presidential nomination), and her own conscience, culminating in the delivery of a potentially disastrous speech on the Senate floor, her Declaration of Conscience.”

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Directed by Diane Paulus. Choreography and movement direction by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Staged by the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square, Cambridge, through October 6.

Rudy Pankow and Emilia Suárez lead the cast in A.R.T.’s “heart-pounding” (their words) new production of the Bard’s oft-oft-oft-oft produced romance. W.H. Auden on the tragedy’s view of love in his Lectures on Shakespeare: “Romeo and Juliet don’t know each other, but when one dies, the other can’t go on living. Behind their passionate suicides, as well as their reactions to Romeo’s banishment, is finally a lack of feeling, a fear that the relationship cannot be sustained and that, out of pride, it should be stopped now, in death. If they became a married couple, there will be no more wonderful speeches — and a good thing, too. Then the real tasks of life will begin, with which art has surprisingly little to do. Romeo and Juliet are just idolaters of each other, which is what leads to their suicides.”

The Arsonists by Max Frisch. Translated by Alistair Beaton. Directed by Bob Scanlan. Staged by Praxis Stage at Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet Street, Chelsea, through September 15.

A very appropriate time for Swiss dramatist Max Frisch’s tragicomic parable about what happens when denying reality becomes self-destructive. According to Praxis Stage’s PR: “What would make you hand over a book of matches to someone who you have the creeping suspicion would turn your home to ashes?… Written in the late ’50s, previously translated as The Firebugs or The Fire Raisers, the play depicts the goings-on within businessman Mr. Biedermann’s home in a town that is facing a spate of arson attacks on its homes and businesses.” Also, be “sure to come early for the cabaret atmosphere of live music and an MC with stories to tell before curtain.” Arts Fuse interview

Laughs in Spanish by Alexis Scheer. Directed by Mariela López-Ponce. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, September 13 through October 12.

SpeakEasy Stage Company bills this script by a local playwright as “part telenovela, part whodunit.” It is “a cafecito-infused comedy about mothers, daughters, art, and success. On the eve of Art Basel, Mariana is about to open a career-defining show in her Miami gallery when suddenly all the paintings from her star artist go missing.  To make matters worse, her once-famous, mostly-absent mother Estella hits town with a mysterious agenda.” The cast features Paola Ferrer, Luz Lopez, Brogan Nelson, Daniel Rios, Jr., and Rebekah Rae Robles. The performance will be performed in English with brief portions in Spanish.

Every Tongue Confess: A Ritual on Remembering, an installation & performance created by marimbist, composer, Africana studies scholar, and cultural activist Steph Davis and the Ga-Ewe folklore performing artist Dzidzor Azaglo. Presented by Goethe-Institut Boston’s Studio 170 for Artists residency at the Goethe-Institut Boston, 170 Beacon St, September 6 through 8. Free

The evening sounds intriguing, at least as described by the Goethe-Institut Boston: “An invitation to listen closely, this is an evening-length performance inspired by Zora Neal Hurtson folktales. Layering poetry, marimba music, proverbs, and prayers, physical space becomes a container for memory and healing, a way to reflect on “how it feels to be here on earth or leaving, or about the sweet pain of hanging on between the coming and going.” (Hurston). Dzidzor’s ability to collage live poems and soundscapes from speakers, sermons, and nature, combined with Steph Davis’ ability to stir, evoke, and shape the complexity of humanity through the marimba, is a merge of artistic innovation and profound storytelling — a glitch, a disruptive tapestry of memory and confession. The audience is invited to participate as witnesses through the practice of listening closely, call and response, and embodiment.”

Leopoldstadt by Tom Stoppard. Directed by Carey Perloff. Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company in association with DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company at the Huntington Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston, September 12 through October 13.

Stoppard’s historical is billed, by the HTC, as “a stirring and epic story of love, family, and enduring bravery. In Vienna, the heart of European culture at the rise of the 20th century, where deep-seated anti-Semitism coexists with a thriving intellectual scene, two brothers have conflicting visions of the future – both for their family and the Jewish people – a tension that will echo through the generations that follow.” Fuse critic Christopher Caggiano on the script’s New York production: “Leopoldstadt is a late career triumph for Stoppard, devoid of the schoolboy trickery and wordplay or his earlier works. The script tells a straightforward and heartbreaking story of the Merz and Jakobovicz families, both Jewish, comfortably upper middle class, and firmly ensconced in the worlds of commerce and academia.” Also, Roberta Silman had this to say about the historical drama: “Finally, after all those remarkable, sometimes zany plays, we have Stoppard bearing witness to the seminal events of the 20th century that intersected with events in his own life. He is telling us in his unique way that we are all accidents of history, that geography is destiny, and that we all throw shadows behind us.”

The Hombres by Tony Menses. Directed by Armando Rivera. Produced by Gloucester Stage Company and Teatro Chelsea at Gloucester Stage, 267 E. Main St., Gloucester from September 6 to 22 and then at Chelsea Theatre Works, 189 Winnisimmet St, Chelsea, September 27 through 29.

The regional premiere of Menses’ comedy, which according to GSC, “offers a fresh perspective on male friendships and machismo culture.” The script is “set against the backdrop of a bustling construction site, and it follows three Latino construction workers who unexpectedly find themselves entangled in the world of yoga next door.” The production will feature “community engagement programming in English and Spanish, inviting audiences of all backgrounds to participate in the conversation surrounding masculinity and identity. Additionally, the production will foster collaboration and cultural exchange by holding the first three weeks of rehearsals and the final week of performances at Chelsea Theatre Works.”

Don’t Open This at Arrow Street Arts, an immersive theatrical spectacle written and performed by Liars and Believers at 2 Arrow St, Cambridge, September 5 through 7 at 8 p.m.

Here is what the company says about what sounds like an anti high tech entertainment: “What does your world look like? How do you order it? Liars and Believers invites you to a private tour inside the source of all your wishes. Everything you want is just a click away. But what happens when something goes awry? When someone dares to step out of bounds and see what lies beyond the cardboard shipping box? What happens when what you ordered is not actually what your soul needs?”

Manifest Destiny’s Child, written and performed by Dennis Trainor Jr. Developed and Directed for Edinburgh Fringe by David Esbjornson. At 2 Arrow Street, Studio Theater, September 12 at 7:30 p.m.

This imported one-man show ventures where most of Boston theater refuses to go: it “takes a pickaxe to the toxic myth of American Exceptionalism and explores how America found itself in the nightmarish hellscape of Trumplandia.” The play had its world premiere at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2023.

Just Around the Bend, the 12th edition of the Puppets in the Green Mountains (PGM) international festival presented by the Sandglass Theater in and around Brattleboro, VT, September 7 through 15. The 2024 edition of the festival will take place at a number of venues in Brattleboro and Putney, check website for the location of specific productions.

Local and international artists and community leaders dramatize this year’s theme: Just Around the Bend. “The festival celebrates the thriving art of Puppet Theater as a means of enhancing perspectives, generating compassion and celebrating the human spirit. The lineup offers something for everyone with family shows, shows for adults, workshops, and forum discussions.”

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Steven Canny & John Nicholson. Directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner. At Central Square Theatre, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, September 12 through October 6.

An audience favorite, a knockabout satire of Sherlock Holmes, returns. “Enter the world of deductive reasoning and elementary logic, absurd accents and ridiculous puns as the inclusive, gender bending cast of three actors inhabit more than a dozen roles.” The cast taking the game afoot includes Aimee Doherty, Jenny S. Lee, and Sarah Morin.

— Bill Marx

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Jazz

Arturo Sandoval
Sept. 6 and 7 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

The powerhouse Cuban-born trumpeter, pianist, and composer Arturo Sandoval opens the Scullers fall season with four shows over two nights. The band will include saxophonist Mike Tucker, guitarist William Brahm, pianist May Haymer, bassist Luca Alemanno, percussionist Samuel Torres, and drummer Daniel Feldman.

Ivanna Questa Quartet
September 7 at 8 p.m.
Peabody Hall, Parish of All Saints, Dorchester, Mass.

The exciting young composer, drummer, and multi-instrumentalist Ivanna Questa released a stellar album in June, A Letter to the Earth, with supporting players like Kris Davis and Max Ridley. She comes to this Dot Jazz Series season opener with Ridley, saxophonist Rick DiMuzio and pianist José Soto.

Veronica Swift
September 8 at 7 p.m.
Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, Mass.

The technically adept and broad-reaching singer Veronica Swift knows how to wrap her virtuoso chops around a lyric and improvise fast scat with the best. She also likes to reach into repertoire far and wide, from Ellington to Beethoven, Queen, and Nine Inch Nails.

Elan Mehler Trio
September 9 at 7 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.

You may know Elan Mehler as the head man at boutique vinyl-only jazz label Newvelle Records, or as a beautifully adept jazz pianist. It’s as the latter that he comes to the Lilypad, and he couldn’t have found better company: bassist Max Ridley and drummer Dor Herskovits.

Point01 Percent
September 10 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.

Point01 Percent offers the usual intriguing mix of bands for its monthly residency at the Lilypad: First up is a quartet with pianist Steve Lantner, violinist Tom Swafford, bassist Bruno Råberg, and drummer Eric Rosenthal, followed by a trio with pianist Pandelis Karayorgis, bassist Nate McBride, and drummer Nat Mugavero.

Lee Fish & Friends
Sept. 12 at 6:30 p.m.
Eustis Estate, Milton, Mass.

Drummer Lee Fish (a regular for years with Boston’s Wally’s house band alongside players like Jason Palmer and Esperanza Spalding, now working out of Brooklyn) leads an inventive lineup on the outdoor Eustis Estate stage with tenor saxophonist Gregory Groover Jr., harpist Charles Overton, and bassist Max Ridley.

Federico Aubele
September 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, Mass.

The Buenos Aires-born singer Federico Aubele has spent serious time in Berlin, Barcelona, and, of course Brooklyn, picking up and internalizing the local accent wherever he’s traveled, and has released several albums in production partnership with electronic duo Thievery Corporation. The resulting trip-hoppy mix blends flamenco, tango, bossa nova, and various strands of American folk and rock, anchored by Aubele’s finger-picked Spanish guitar and halting baritone delivery. It could by turns remind you of Leonard Cohen or Tom Zé. As the saying goes: weirdly compelling.

NEJC Jazz Orchestra
September 14 at 2 p.m.
Arrow Street Arts, Cambridge, Mass.

The ambitious New England Jazz Collaborative (NEJC) has snagged a spot on the fall opening festival at Arrow Street Arts in Harvard Square. The 18-piece band includes too many superb Boston-area players to name here, but we can give you a list of composers who will be covered: Jason Robinson, Darryl Harper, Sam Spear, Jeremy Cohen, Randy Pingrey, Bob Nieske, and Ryan Philip Goss. Another distinguished composer and bandleader, Ken Schaphorst, will conduct.

Steven Feifke
September 14 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

Composer and keyboardist Steven Feifke is perhaps best known for his inventive, kinetic works for big band — his Generation Gap Jazz Orchestra won a 2004 Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. For this show he’s fronting an “electric trio,” with bassist Raviv Markovitz and drummer Bryan Carter, as a follow-up to his latest album, The Role of the Rhythm Section Vol. 2.

— Jon Garelick

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Author Events

Jenny Rosenstrach – Porter Square Books
The Weekday Vegetarians Get Simple: Strategies and So-Good Recipes to Suit Every Craving and Mood: A Cookbook
September 3 at 7 p.m.
Free

“100 accessible, stress-free recipes to make plant-forward cooking more streamlined than ever, from the bestselling author of The Weekday Vegetarians. Jenny Rosenstrach’s bestselling cookbook introduced home cooks to the idea that you don’t have to be a vegetarian to eat like one. In The Weekday Vegetarians Get Simple: Strategies and So-Good Recipes to Suit Every Craving and Mood: A Cookbook, she shares 100 new recipes that make eating meat-free even easier, even tastier.

“Jenny focuses on solutions to common misconceptions and roadblocks — like ‘Vegetarian cooking is so complicated!,’ which she counters with the skillet and sheet pan dinner chapter and recipes like a cozy Sheet Pan Gnocchi with Butternut Squash. Or, ‘Vegetarian dinners just aren’t filling!,’ which became the comfort food chapter, rich with recipes for hearty dishes like a Golden Greens Pie and Mushroom-Chard Bread Pudding. And, ‘I don’t want to eat pasta every single night!’ as a driver for showcasing dinner-worthy bowls like Crispy Eggplant Bowls with Pistachios & Basil and Farro Piccolo with Crispy Mushrooms & Parm.”

Anthony Abraham Jack at Harvard Book Store
Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price
September 5 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Elite colleges are boasting unprecedented numbers with respect to diversity, with some schools admitting their first majority-minority classes. But when the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial unrest gripped the world, schools scrambled to figure out what to do with the diversity they so fervently recruited. And disadvantaged students suffered. Class Dismissed exposes how woefully unprepared colleges were to support these students, and shares their stories of how they were left to weather the storm alone and unprotected.

“Drawing on the firsthand experiences of students from all walks of life at elite colleges, Anthony Abraham Jack reveals the hidden and unequal worlds students navigated before and during the pandemic closures and upon their return to campus. He shows how COVID-19 exacerbated the very inequalities that universities ignored or failed to address long before campus closures. Jack examines how students dealt with the disruptions caused by the pandemic, how they navigated social unrest, and how they grappled with problems of race both on campus and off.”

Melissa Ludtke in conversation with Tara Sullivan – Porter Square Books
Locker Room Talk: A Woman’s Struggle to Get Inside
September 5 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Locker Room Talk is Ludtke’s gripping account of being at the core of this globally covered case that churned up ugly prejudices about the place of women in sports. Kuhn claimed that allowing women into locker rooms would violate his players’ “sexual privacy.” Late-night television comedy sketches mocked her as newspaper cartoonists portrayed her as a sexy, buxom looker who wanted to ogle the naked athletes’ bodies.

She weaves these public perspectives throughout her vivid depiction of the court drama overseen by Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve on the federal bench. She recounts how her lawyer, F.A.O. “Fritz” Schwarz employed an ingenious legal strategy that persuaded Judge Motley to invoke the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in giving Ludtke access identical to her male counterparts. Locker Room Talk is both an inspiring story of one woman’s determination to do a job dominated by men and an illuminating portrait of a defining moment for women’s rights.”

Anthony Abraham Jack at Harvard Book Store
Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price
September 5 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Drawing on the firsthand experiences of students from all walks of life at elite colleges, Anthony Abraham Jack reveals the hidden and unequal worlds students navigated before and during the pandemic closures and upon their return to campus. He shows how COVID-19 exacerbated the very inequalities that universities ignored or failed to address long before campus closures. Jack examines how students dealt with the disruptions caused by the pandemic, how they navigated social unrest, and how they grappled with problems of race both on campus and off.

A provocative and much-needed book, Class Dismissed paints an intimate and unflinchingly candid portrait of the challenges of undergraduate life for disadvantaged students even in elite schools that invest millions to diversify their student body. Moreover, Jack offers guidance on how to make students’ path to graduation less treacherous—guidance colleges would be wise to follow.”

WBUR CitySpace: Adam Nimoy – Brookline Booksmith

The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father
September 8 from 2-3 p.m.
Tickets are $30 reserved, $20 general, $15 with BU ID, $10 with student ID

“When Adam Nimoy was 8 years-old, his father came home with polaroids of him in makeup and costume for a new show called Star Trek. Soon his father was a household name and the show one of the most popular of the 1960s. But their relationship was strained and they did not become close until the end of his father’s life.

Join Meghna Chakrabarti, host of “On Point” and a self-proclaimed Trekkie, on “Star Trek” Day for a conversation with Nimoy about his moving and enlightening memoir, The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father, Leonard Nimoy, where he shares his childhood memories, his struggles with addiction and the story of his eventual reconciliation with his father. Copies of the book will be available for purchase from our bookstore partner Brookline Booksmith and Nimoy will sign following the conversation.”

WBUR CitySpace: Nini Nguyen – Brookline Booksmith
“Đặc Biệt: An Extra-Special Vietnamese Cookbook
September 9 from 7 to 9 p.m.
Tickets are $30 for reserved seating, $20 general, $15 for BU faculty, $10 for student

“New Orleans-based chef Nini Nguyen has developed her own version of the Vietnamese cuisine her grandmother taught her. Growing up in the land of gumbo and po-boys, and then later working in Michelin-starred restaurants like Coquette and Eleven Madison Park in New York City, Nguyen has incorporated an inspiring menagerie of ingredients and flair into a new book, Đặc Biệt: An Extra-Special Vietnamese Cookbook. The “Top Chef: All-Stars” alum describes the term “đặc biệt” in Vietnamese culture as something special and luxurious or, more specifically in her cooking, adding something a little extra.

Join Darryl C. Murphy, host of The Common, for a conversation with Nguyen about “đặc biệt” and see a demonstration of her unique cooking skills live on stage. Copies of the book will be available for purchase from our bookstore partner Brookline Booksmith. Nguyen will sign copies and guests will enjoy a bite from the book following the conversation.”

Peter Bebergal at Harvard Book Store
Appendix N, revised and expanded edition: Weird Tales From the Roots of Dungeons & Dragons
September 11 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Drawing upon the original list of “inspirational reading” provided by Gary Gygax in the first Dungeon Master’s Guide, published in 1979, as well as hobbyist magazines and related periodicals that helped to define the modern role-playing game, Appendix N offers a collection of short fiction and resonant fragments that reveal the literary influences that shaped Dungeons & Dragons, the world’s most popular RPG. The stories in Appendix N contextualize the ambitious lyrical excursions that helped set the adventurous tone and dank, dungeon-crawling atmospheres of fantasy roleplay as we know it today.

This new edition, published on the occasion of D&D’s 50th anniversary, includes fascinating new stories, a comprehensive introduction, and a new foreword.”

Amanda Becker at Harvard Book Store
You Must Stand Up: The Fight for Abortion Rights in Post-Dobbs America
September 16 at 7 p.m.
Free

“In You Must Stand Up, Nieman Fellow Amanda Becker provides a real-time portrait of the creative resistance that unfolded in America’s first year without the protections of Roe v. Wade. Amidst daily shifts in health care access, new legal battles coming before partisan courts, and up-for-grabs state constitutions, Becker follows the leaders rising to meet these challenges—doctors and staffers turning to new financial and medical models to remain open and provide abortions, volunteers campaigning against anti abortion ballot initiatives, and medical students fighting to learn to provide what can be lifesaving care.

By depicting the splintered reality of post-Dobbs America, and by capturing how Americans have developed new ways to best protect their constitutional rights, Becker ultimately shows how outrage can beget hope, and give rise to a new movement.”

Cara Giaimo and Joshua Foer at The Brattle Theatre
Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders
September 17 at 6 p.m.
Tickets are $45 with book, $10 without

“Featuring over 500 extraordinary plants, animals, and natural phenomena, with illustrations and photos on every page, the book takes readers around the globe—from Antarctic deserts to lush jungles, and into the deepest fathoms of the ocean and the hearts of our densest cities. Teeming with detail and wildly entertaining, Wild Life reinvigorates our sense of wonder, awe and amazement about the incredible creatures we share our planet with.”

Zadie Smith with Emiko Tamagawa – Brookline Booksmith
The Fraud
September 17 from 6-7 p.m.
Tickets are $19 with book, $5 without

“In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith transports the reader to a Victorian England transfixed by the real-life trial of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher, recently returned from Australia, lays claim to the Tichborne baronetcy, with his former slave Andrew Bogle as the star witness. Watching the proceedings, and with her own story to tell, is Eliza Touchet—cousin, housekeeper, and perhaps more to failing novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. From literary London to Jamaica’s sugarcane plantations, Zadie Smith weaves an enthralling story linking the rich and the poor, the free and the enslaved, and the comic and the tragic.”

— Matt Hanson

Stephen Greenblatt, Ramie Targoff, and Diane Paulus
An-person chat about Romeo and Juliet
September 16 at the Loeb Drama Center, Harvard Square, Cambridge

This free public conversation, featuring renowned professors Stephen Greenblatt and Ramie Targoff with American Repertory Theater Artistic Director Diane Paulus, will explore Shakespeare, his iconic love story, and the A.R.T. production of the play, which is running through October 6 at the Loeb Drama Center.

— Bill Marx