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

Melville et Cie.
Harvard Film Archives
through October 27

The screenings of the films of esteemed French director Jean-Pierre Melville continue: “a self-professed film noir enthusiast who once claimed to have been ‘formed and deformed to a great extent by the first American gangster novels … like a generation of résistants after the war,’ his people are characters with unresolved inner turmoil.”

The 27th Annual Manhattan Short: The World’s First Global Film Festival

Arlington Regent Theater
October 2, 3, and 4 at 7:30 p.m.
October 6th at 2 p.m.

The Spire Center for Performing Arts in Plymouth
October 6 at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Experience the only film festival to unfold simultaneously, in more than 500 cinemas on six continents, bringing over 100,000 film-lovers in all corners of the globe together for one week to view the work of the next generation of filmmakers. Across the globe, audiences are asked to vote for Best Film and Best Actor.

Schlock & Awe: The William Castle Experience
October 1 – 10
Coolidge Corner Theatre

Here is a chance to experience the actual gimmicks that powered cheesy producer William Castle to prominence. The series begins with Macabre, where the audience will be insured against “death by fright”. The Tingler follows, with viewers sitting (comfortably?) on the electrifying “Percepto” vibrating seats. The ghostly apparitions of 13 Ghosts will materialize via the wearing of custom “Illusion-o” viewers. House on the Haunted Hill features an “Emergo” illusion, which includes a skeleton flying overhead. Also on the bill: Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, and Polyester, the latter shown in Odorama

Psychedelic Cinema
October 5– November 7
Harvard Film Archive

In the late ’60s Hollywood films took a more radical direction when the studio system began to falter. Psychedelics helped usher in the New Hollywood, along with wilder methods of film production. Directors as diverse as Bob Rafelson, Stanley Kubrick, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ed Pinkus, Roger Corman, Kenneth Anger, the elusive Harry Smith, and even Walt Disney populate this unique series.
Complete Schedule

Global Cinema Now
October 5 – November 8
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

This film series features four releases of excellent international and transnational cinema from Cannes, Venice, and other festivals around the globe. Descriptions in links:

The Boy and the Heron October 5 at 2:30 p.m.

Io Capitano October 12 at 2:30 p.m.

Auction (Le tableau volé) October 13 at 2:30 p.m.

Marinette November 8 at 7 p.m.

Music for Mushrooms 
October 6 at 7 p.m.
Regent Theater in Arlington

Apropos of September as National Mushroom Month, the Regent presents East Forest’s documentary,which explores Krishna-Trevor Oswalt’s journey around the world, introducing the interested to the symbiotic relationship between music and psychedelics. Forest is a pioneer in the psychedelic music scene, serving as a musician, producer, and ceremony guide. This film offers an intimate, thoughtful space to process questions of spiritual healing and connection. There will be a Q&A with producers Christopher Seward and Lewis Kofsky at 5 p.m. for a Meet & Greet Reception.

Six Films by Jan Egleson
October 4 – 6
Brattle Theater in Cambridge

Egleson teaches filmmaking at B.U. and grew up in Cambridge. He is among the rare local filmmakers who have shot narrative films in their home territory. Vincent Canby, writing on Billy of the Lowlands, opined: “Egleson’s style is straightforward, direct, without fancy affectations and frequently informed by the kind of humor that usually eludes film makers in this genre.” This is a rare opportunity for Boston film fans to become familiar with the range of Egleson’s work. The director will appear at selected screenings. Complete Schedule

Roger Corman: King of Cult
October 11 – 24
Brattle Theatre in Cambridge

The late director, writer, and producer Roger Corman, known as “King of the B’s” was legendary for his ability to produce films quickly and on the cheap for the burgeoning teen market. In doing so, he fostered the careers of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Peter Bogdanovich, John Sayles, Robert Towne, and Ron Howard. Jonathan Demme said, “Roger is arguably the greatest independent filmmaker the American film industry has ever seen and will probably ever see.” This series features some Corman’s campiest and most enjoyable B movies, many of them examples of the early work of now renowned directors.
Complete Schedule

 

Nosferatu with New England Film Orchestra
October 12 at 7 p.m.
Somerville Theater

Czechoslovakian cimbalom virtuoso Matěj Číp with Gina Naggar & The New England Film Orchestra produce their no doubt distinctive version of the original solo score for F. W. Murnau’s 1922 Expressionist classic. The band will include electric guitar, delays, melodic feedback, acoustic guitar and hammered dulcimer. Max Schreck stars as Count Orlok.

New Hampshire Film Festival
October 17 – 20
Portsmouth NH in Various Venues

NHFF has been an annual fall event since 2001 with four days of 100 or so independent films and lively panel discussions and other events. Complete Schedule

Pick of the Week
My Psychedelic Love Story
Paramount + and Amazon

In 2013, Joanna Harcourt-Smith wrote a memoir called Tripping the Bardo With Timothy Leary: My Psychedelic Love Story. This entertaining documentary is based on that book and makes a perfect companion for National Mushroom Month, the Music for Mushrooms screening, and the HFA’s Psychedelic Series. Harcourt-Smith, born at the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz, is an engaging interview subject. Her remarkable life and outlandish stories often stretch credulity. The storyline follows the woman’s romance with Leary in Europe, when she was 26 and he was 52. At the time, Leary was on the lam. He told her: “You are looking for a way out of the decadent aristocratic game, the limbo of Jet Set desperados. I’ll show you the way.” Including encounters with the Rolling Stones, Andy Warhol, and FBI harassment, her counterculture yarn is one for the ages.

— Tim Jackson

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World Music and Roots

Honk!
October 4-6

The beloved festival of activist street bands is yet again taking over Davis Square on Saturday and Harvard Square on Sunday. Well over 25 barking and blaring troupes from all around the country as well as Brazil will perform, representing traditions that range from Haitian rara to New Orleans second line. Guaranteed: plenty of joyful noises. And, given the state of the world, lots to honk about.

JD McPherson
October 6
The Sinclair

When McPherson burst on the scene a bit more than a decade ago he was frequently pegged as a retro roots rocker, but his new album shows he can write, play, and sing a lot more than rockabilly and early R&B. Nite Owls finds him moving a few decades forward, cultivating an indie and new wave inspired feel, augmented by some twangy guitar and even a touch of plaintive doo-wop. McPherson has been a dependable live act long enough — he most likely has plenty of fans who will embrace this change of pace. Plus he’s probably made plenty of new admirers playing guitar on the recent Robert Plant and Alison Krauss tour.

Breabach
October 7
Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theater

Scotland’s traditional folk scene has been surging in recent years, and one of the most exciting and forward looking acts of the current generation is the quintet Breabach. Making the night even more enticing: Boston fiddler Jenna Moynihan, a master of both Scottish fiddle and the Scottish-derived fiddle tradition found in Cape Breton, is joining the group for its fall tour.

Bala-Bila with opener Boubacar Diabate
October 7, 8 p.m.
Arts at the Armory, Somerville

Medford’s Balla Kouyate is one of the very few New England artists who have been named a National Heritage Fellow, the highest honor awarded to traditional artists. Now the Malian balafon master is presenting a new project: A cross-cultural duo with Matchume Zango from Mozambique, one of the great ambassadors of the timbila. Both musicians are also fine singers and accomplished multi-instrumentalists, so this special collaboration should find them presenting a wide variety of both traditional and very new sounds

The Hangaz album release party
October 13, Noon to 6 p.m.
Chez-Vous Roller Rink, Dorchester

Boston hip-hop duo The Hangaz are releasing Respect My Fanhood, a spirited album of odes to Boston sports teams. The pair are especially interested in singing about a major sport that has been least associated with hip-hop and fans and players of color: hockey. For years, whenever one of The Hangaz has gone to watch his beloved Bruins, he has tried to bring along a person of color who has never been to an NHL game before. Now the duo are teaming up with the Bruins to celebrate the album’s release at a different kind of skating rink: The Chez Vous Roller Rink in Dorchester. The event, Black ‘n Gold, will include a performance of the group’s track “Something’s Bruin” along with appearances from broadcaster Jack Edwards and mascot Blades the Bruin.

— Noah Schaffer

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Visual Arts

No one knows if the American painter Georgia O’Keeffe and the British sculptor Henry Moore ever actually met. They crossed paths briefly in 1946 in New York, at Moore’s retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. It was his first trip to the United States; she had by then moved to New Mexico. O’Keeffe had her own retrospective at MoMA the same year, the first featuring a woman artist in the museum’s history. There is no record of any interaction between Moore and O’Keefe in New York or anywhere else. Both artists died in 1986.

Nevertheless, the Museum of Fine Arts is mounting an ambitious exhibition, Georgia O’Keefe and Henry Moore, opening October 13. The show seeks to bring the two 20th-century modernists in “conversation,” the MFA says, “using compelling juxtapositions to explore their common ways of seeing. Each artist experimented with unusual perspectives, shifts in scale, and layered compositions to produce works that were informed by their surroundings…”

There are other similarities: both were inspired by large personal collections of animal bones, stones, seashells, and other natural materials. Both were representational artists who worked in a semi-abstract style. But there are major differences as well. O’Keeffe, the painter, worked on a domestic scale in a deeply personal style and most famously painted objects — flowers, landscapes, animal bones — and the southwest, including her own home and studio. Moore concentrated on the human form and, as his career progressed, worked on an increasingly monumental scale, eventually on high profile commissions that included a 12-foot tall work commemorating the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, installed on the site where it took place on the University of Chicago campus. Moore made a considerable fortune creating such massive works for public places, funds which now sustain the Henry Moore Foundation, one of the collaborators on the exhibition.

Judging whether or not the juxtaposition makes any sense at all will have to wait for the show’s opening. But it will definitely be a major exhibition regardless: about 90 works by Moore and 60 by O’Keeffe, in multiple media, many of them very significant pieces. The MFA will mix in “dialogues” with other modernists from the museum’s collection and “faithful recreations” of both artists’ studios.

The ICA will hold a Fall Opening Celebration for its three fall exhibitions on October 8, 7-9 p.m. Free to members, RSVP required. Interested public can join the museum’s membership program to attend.

The ICA’s fall shows include Charles Atlas: About Time (opening to the public October 10), the filmmaker and video artist’s first U.S. museum survey. As a “filmmaker-in-residence” at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Atlas worked with the leading modern choreographer and his dancers in creating a stunning record of a normally ephemeral art form; developments in technology helped Atlas come up with an entirely new approach to filming performance, which lead to collaborations with Michael Clark, Yvonne Rainer, Leigh Bowery, and other contemporary performers. The ICA exhibition will span 50 years of Atlas’ career, organized into immersive, “walk-through” multi-screen installations.

The Portland Museum of Art opens As We Are on October 11. The show is an exhibition of 14 “emerging” artists, all with “strong ties to Maine,” working in media that includes painting, drawing, photography, ceramics, and sculpture. The exhibition explores themes that run through a lot of contemporary art, including identity, ecology, and kinship. All members of the small Maine art community, the artists on view also often share schools, mentors, and friendships.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s fall-winter lineup includes three shows about artists and their families. Manet: A Model Family (opening October 10) is, the museum claims, “the first exhibition to explore Manet through the lens of the complex familial relationships between and amongst the artist and his sitters.” Manet’s family wealth helped him sustain his often controversial career. Family members also supplied his most frequent models, much of his inspiration, and a home life that was happy despite its complex and unconventional nature.

Mary Ellen Mark: A Seattle Family, also opening October 10, narrates one of the prominent photojournalist’s “long-time personal and artistic partnerships.” Working on a story about runaway teens in Seattle for Life magazine in 1983, Mark met Erin Blackwell, a thirteen-year-old girl who had escaped a difficult home life to live on the streets. Over the next 30 years, Mark documented Blackwell and her family “through pregnancies and addictions, hardships and love.” The exhibition, the Gardner says, “invites visitors… to feel the trust and inspiration that blossomed between Erin Blackwell and Mary Ellen Mark — a relationship that transcended that of artist and collaborator.”

Based on a series of photographs she took of her mother, Sandra Bush, snapped while Thomas was still a student at Yale, Mickalene Thomas: Sandra, She’s a Beauty, 2009 is a large-scale photo collage created for the Gardner’s entrance facade. Inspired by Manet’s portrait of his own mother in the Gardner collection, the public work “simultaneously immortalizes [Thomas’s] first muse and interrogates the nature of how Black women are represented across historical art and contemporary culture.” The piece goes on view October 1.

Featuring artists from India, Pakistan, Vietnam, China, South Korea, and Japan, Im/Perfect Modernism opens at the Worcester Art Museum on October 5. Drawn from the museum’s collection of post-World War II Asian art, the show “explores how artists in Asia have engaged with the realities and legacies of colonization, war and cultural transformation in the post-war era through the lens of [Western] Modernism… from which they have historically been ‘othered.’”

— Peter Walsh

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Popular Music

Boston Immersive Music Festival and OVC (Outerspace Visual Communicator), Boston Cyberarts, 141 Green Street, Jamaica Plain, through October 26.

“Greater Boston has no shortage of live-music events that seek to combine different musical eras, genres, live and recorded performance. But this series of live-music events, on weekends though the end of October raises the bar dramatically.

“The Boston Immersive Music Festival brings together, in real time, five elements of a multimedia, multisensory experience (for audiences and performers alike). Each concert will draw from these components: a live performance by some of the Boston area’s most acclaimed artists in the jazz, classical, experimental, and folk traditions; the Outerspace Visual Communicator, a keyboard-triggered instrument that harnesses the power of light to interpret sound; Bill Sebastian, inventor of the OVC, “painting in real time” in response to live or recorded music; the musical legacy of Sun Ra, the late, great avant-garde composer who worked with Bill and inspired the OVC, as reimagined by today’s musicians; and audience reaction (through virtual-reality goggles and high-resolution projections) to music and light.”

— Bill Marx

Yarn
October 5 (doors at 6/show at 7:30)
City Winery (Haymarket Lounge), Boston

After an eight-year recording break, alt-country/Americana trio Yarn reappeared in July with Born, Blessed, Grateful & Alive. Critics from numerous genre-focus publications – including No Depression, PopMatters, American Blues Scene, and Americana UK – have spoken, and the praise is high indeed. Highlights include the poppy and even funky “Heart So Hard,” the tongue-in-cheek “Play Freebird,” and the folky “Nomad Man,” one of several life-on-the-road reflections among the record’s dozen tracks.

Nada Surf with Office Dog
October 5 (doors at 7:30/show at 8:30)
Paradise Rock Club, Boston

In a Facebook comment, Jeff Ousborne of the Boston rock band Stop Calling Me Frank compared Nada Surf to a “great restaurant in a great location.” This is by any measure an apt comparison, as Nada Surf’s fun, poignant, and thoughtful portions of retro/modern/contemporary alternative/power pop have kept the quartet in business for almost three full decades. Moreover, the four or so years that have transpired between each of their last several albums have fully sharpened their listeners’ appetites as they await the serving of the next course. Their latest menu item is the brand new Moon Mirror. Longtime and more recent fans will be as delighted as ever by these 11 new cuts, any one of which could be considered a highlight on any given listen. And for the uninitiated, it is as good of a place as any start riding the Nada Surf-board.

Amy Rigby
October 11 (doors at 6/show at 7:30)
City Winery (Haymarket Lounge), Boston
Since the 2018 release of her last album, The Old Guys, Amy Rigby has written a memoir (here is my Arts Fuse interview with her about it), relocated from the Hudson Valley with husband Wreckless Eric (click for my Q&A with both of them) to his native England, and turned 60. It is the last of these that is the subject of the first song (“Hell-oh Sixty”) on her new album, Hang in There with Me. The theme of aging (in a factual, not rueful manner) continues with “Too Old to Be So Crazy,” and “Dylan in Dubuque” is another entry in her ongoing chronicle of her fondness for the titular Nobel Prize winner (as well as a further indication of her ability to expertly namedrop). Nearly 30 years after the landmark Diary of a Mod Housewife, Rigby’s ingenuity, pensiveness, and drollery are as intact as ever.

Yard Act with Omni
October 11 (doors at 7:30/show at 8:30)
The Sinclair, Cambridge

From Yorkshire and with the accents to match, Yard Act builds on the success of their 2022 debut, The Overload, with Where’s My Utopia?, which hit stores in March. Part of this building comes in the form of deviating from the more obviously post-punk stylings of the former in favor of danceable, disco-inspired flavorings. This may have been a bit of risk (perhaps a calculated one), but as lead singer James Smith queries at the end of the lengthy, spoken-word/faux interview “Blackpool Illuminations,” “So why the fuck was I wondering what wankers would think of album two?”  On the whole, tracks like “Dream Job,” “We Make Hits,” and “When the Laughter Stops” – as well as the first words of track #1 – make Where’s My Utopia? a fun record that deserves to be taken seriously even if it doesn’t seem to do so itself.

Daniel Pearl Music Day
October 12 (doors at 6/show at 7)
The Burren, Somerville

Local promoter and musician Dino Cattaneo (aka, Dee Zaster) will be presenting the 12^th annual show in honor of slain journalist Daniel Pearl at The Burren for the third consecutive year on October 12. Daniel Pearl Music Day is, in the words of its press release, “an international network of concerts that uses the power of music to reaffirm our commitment to tolerance and humanity … [and] the universal language of music to encourage fellowship across cultures and build a platform for ‘Harmony for Humanity.’ This year is dedicated to Wall Street Journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was held hostage in Russia from March 29, 2023 to August 1, 2024. Among the featured artists will be Dee Zaster & The Designated Drivers, Beggars’s Ride, Tom Bianchi, Susan Cattaneo (to whom Dino is married and I interviewed for The Arts Fuse), and Leesa Coyne.

Richard Thompson
October 13 (doors at 7/show at 8)
The Wilbur, Boston

A new album by Richard Thompson is always good news, as it means both a fresh batch of songs and an opportunity to see him perform his unmistakable fretwork wizardry live and up close (which I did when I reviewed his 2022 show in Rockport). Like Amy Rigby, Thompson released his last record in 2018 and published a memoir not long after. This year’s Ship To Shore – with its somewhat tacky, seemingly Wes Anderson movie poster-influenced cover – is the latest in a string of showcases for his seemingly bottomless well of inspiration and all-around talent.

Fake Fruit with Spllit
October 14 (doors at 7)
Warehouse XI, Somerville

On Fake Fruit’s sophomore effort Mucho Mistrust, I – a non-connoisseur of wine – detect notes of Gang of Four’s angular post-punk, Sonic Youth’s noisy alternative, Pavement’s skewed indie, and units of whichever genre(s) The Feelies are properly categorized as. (And while I’m namedropping, I should add that the album takes its title – as some will have already noticed – from a line in Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.”) Despite a name that suggests something that appears scrumptious and nourishing but isn’t either, the Oakland quintet’s sound is plenty of both. The band hits its stride on track #1, from which point it fully demonstrates its zippy instrumentation (“Gotta Meet You” features cowbell and saxophone) and singer/songwriter Hannah D’Amato’s self-perceptive lyrics (e.g., “I decided to assert myself/After I lost all my sense of self”) and self-assured vocals. Ample parts raucous and melodic, Mucho Mistrust makes Fake Fruit a band to keep an ear and eye on.

— Blake Maddux

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Classical Music

Mahler’s Symphony No. 8
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
October 4 & 5 at 8 p.m., 6 at 2 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony in Mahler’s so-called “Symphony of a Thousand” – the first time it’s been heard at Symphony Hall in twenty years. The all-star lineup of soloists includes Christine Goerke, Ying Fang, and Ryan Speedo Green.

Say It Ain’t So, Joe
Presented by Guerilla Opera
October 5, 7:30 p.m.
Mosesian Center for the Arts, Watertown

Curtis Hughes’ operatic meditation on the 2008 presidential election gets a timely reprise. Aliana de la Guardia, Amanda Keil, Jennifer Ashe, Isabel Randall, and Brian Church all star.

The Creation
Presented by Boston Baroque
October 4 & 5, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall (Friday) & GBH Calderwood Studio (Saturday)

Martin Pearlman opens his final season as the director of BB with performances of Haydn’s spectacular oratorio. Hera Hyesang Park, Paul Appleby, and Nicholas Newton are the soloists.

Emanuel Ax in recital
Presented by Celebrity Series
October 10 at 8 p.m. and 13 at 3 p.m.
Groton Hill Music Center (Thursday) & Jordan Hall (Sunday)

The classical music portion Celebrity Series’ new season kicks off with the celebrated pianist. His program, which will be heard in two venues, pairs works by Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Schumann.

Gershwin Double-bill
Presented by Odyssey Opera
October 12, 7:30 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston

Two of George and Ira Gershwin’s three political satires come to town, just weeks before Election Day. Of Thee I Sing imagines a presidential campaign running on a platform of “love” while its sequel, Let ‘em Eat Cake, envisions the loser of a presidential race installing a fascist regime in D. C. Gil Rose conducts.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

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Theater

COVID PROTOCOLS: Check with specific theaters.

The Effect by Lucy Pebble. Directed by Steve Kidd. Staged by the Gamm Theatre 1245 Jefferson Boulevard, Warwick, Rhode Island, through October 13.

The plot of this controversial London hit, according to Gamm Theatre publicity: “A couple meet during a clinical trial for a new antidepressant. As the trial progresses, they fall in love. Is their chemistry real or is it simply ‘chemistry’? Ethics and emotion, sex and science, free will and fate collide in this gripping exploration of neurons versus neurosis.​”

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.” Arts Fuse review

Nassim, written and performed by Nassim Soleimanpour. Directed by Omar Elerian. Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Calderwood, 527 Tremont St. Boston, October 5 through 27.

The NYTimes review of a 2018 production of this show says that it is “a play about displacement … it speaks, at times eloquently, of trying to live and work in a place and with a language not your own.” “A mysterious script in a box, and a new surprise performer every night – from local talent to big time celebrities!,” shouts the HRT publicity.

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, 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. Arts Fuse review

Beasties, a Sci-Fi Rock Opera, written and produced by Gary Sohmers. Lyrics by Gary Sohmers. Music by Gary Sohmers and Bill Holloman. Music Director Bill Holloman Jr. Presented at the Regent Theatre, Arlington, on October 10 and 11.

Get ready, according to the show’s publicity for this world premiere production, to have your mind blown. Big-time! “18 songs performed by an All-Star cast telling the story of an epic alien encounter at a concert in Central Park to try to save the Earth from climate destruction and corporate political corruption.” The plot: “Voice is the lead singer of a rock band. Grā, a retired singer, lands the job of a lifetime working as stage manager for the newly successful musicians who are performing a monumental free concert in New York City’s Central Park. However, in a bizarre turn of events, Grā becomes inhabited by an alien Impulse, and a corrupt politician, Dick T. Raitor, unexpectedly attempts to take over the show. As surprises and chaos ensue, Voice, Grā, Impulse, and the band must rally humanity and their “Beasties” in order to save the planet.” This is billed as “a new form of live entertainment … a live, immersive, sci-fi graphic novel, a visual-storytelling, rockin’ rollin’ musical theatrical experience.”

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, through October 13.

Stoppard’s historical play 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.” Arts Fuse review

The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe by Jane Wagner. Performed and directed by Kathryn Van Meter. Staged by Merrimack Repertory Theatre at the Nancy L. Donahue Theatre at Liberty Hall, Lowell, October 2 to 20.

According to MRT publicity, this one-person script “intertwines colorful, complex, and hysterically funny characters… and is about what makes us human. In a role originated by the formidable Lily Tomlin and written by Emmy Award Winner Jane Wagner, the story holds lasting and quick-witted power as an examination of American society.” I am old enough to have seen Tomlin perform the play in the mid-’80s.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Steven Canny & John Nicholson. Directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner. At Central Square Theatre, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 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. Arts Fuse review

Urinetown: The Musical, music and lyrics by Greg Hollmann and book and lyrics by Greg Kotis. Directed by Courtney O’Connor. Music direction from Dan Rodriguez and choreography by Christopher Shin. Presented by the Lyric Stage of Boston at 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, through October 20.

A revival of the Broadway hit musical that satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics. The show also parodies musicals such as The Threepenny Opera, The Cradle Will Rock, and Les Misérables, and the Broadway musical itself as a form. The Lyric Stage publicity sums the show up: “A greedy and unethical corporation profits from the citizens of a city in the middle of a water shortage by banning public toilets forcing the people to pinch their pennies for the ‘privilege to pee.’ But revolution is in the air. Led by Bobby Strong, a hopeful hero who rallies a cornucopia of colorful and quirky characters to take on the oily tycoon Caldwell B. Cladwell, the road to freedom is paved with straight-faced silliness, cheeky musical parodies, and boisterous comedy. With heart and hope, this modern classic reminds us just how great and revelatory the American musical can be.”

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, music and lyrics by David Yazbek and book by Jeffrey Lane. Directed by Allison Olivia Choat. Choreography by Brad Reinking. Music Direction by Catherine Stornetta. Staged by Moonbox Productions at Arrow Street Arts, 2 Arrow Street, Cambridge, through October 20.

Based on the 1988 hit film comedy of the same name, this 2004 musical, enthuses Moonbox Productions, “follows the misadventures of two con-artists: Freddy Benson and Lawrence Jameson. Freddy is just one more hardscrabble huckster trying to make a (dis)honest living — that is, until he meets Lawrence, a high-society swindler whose polish and connections have landed him a glamorous gig on the French Riviera. When Lawrence invites Freddy to team up, it seems like the two have finally found the perfect con — until they realize that their egos are the only thing more massive than their earnings. Friction turns to an outright feud when the perfect target arrives in town — Christine, an heiress who is just as beautiful as she is gullible. Who will be the first to steal Christine’s heart and, more importantly, her wallet?”

— Bill Marx

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Jazz

Josh Sinton & Jeb Bishop
October 1 at 8 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.

Baritone saxophonist (and clarinet player) Josh Sinton and trombonist Jeb Bishop have diverse resumes in new music that have overlapped for years, including about a decade or so working from time to time as a duo. Sinton’s recent releases have included solo-baritone etudes, including, as one subject, Steve Lacy (an abiding interest in Sinton’s quartet Ideal Bread). Aside from his work as a leader, Bishop has been a regular in the Ken Vandermark Five (Chicago) and in Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club and the collaborative band Cutout (both Boston).

Yoko Miwa
October 4 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

Though she’s known for her weekly residency at the Mad Monkfish restaurant, pianist Yoko Miwa’s annual performances at Scullers are always special events — and she tends to pack the joint, so don’t sit on this. She’s joined by her regular crew of bassist Brad Barrett and drummer Scott Goulding.

BLINK
October 4 at 8 p.m.
Boston Cyberarts, Jamaica Plain, Mass.

BLINK is anchored by the Driff Records house band of sorts — Jorrit Dijkstra on alto saxophone, Nate McBride on double bass and electric bass guitar, Eric Rosenthal on drums and percussion. They’re joined for this show by guitarists Eric Hofbauer and Gabe Boyarin, with live VR by the video artist Bill Sebastian as part of Boston Cyberarts’ Boston Immersive Music Festival. “VR goggles will be available to the audience (optional) and Bill’s live VR ‘painting in real time’ in response to the music will be projected behind the band.”

Edmar Colón
October 5 at 3 p.m.
Roxbury Community College, Boston
FREE

The 32-year-old Puerto Rican saxophonist and composer Edmar Colón has become a force on the Boston scene — a valued soloist with various bands as well as a writer for the Boston Pops Orchestra (check Eclipse, his 2022 trio disc with bassist Mauricio Morales and drummer Anthony Fung). He plays this free Celebrity Series Neighborhood Arts show with drummer Terri Lyne Carrington (a regular employer as well as Berklee colleague) and pianist Isaac Wilson (bassist TBA). The program will include originals by Colón and selections Geri Allen, Tineke Postma, and “the quintessential Puerto Rican composer Bobby Cappo.

Bevan Manson Septet feat. Tierney Sutton
October 5 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, Mass.

By all reports, last year’s performance by the Bevan Manson Septet was a huge success, thrilling a sold-out crowd at the Regattabar. Now pianist and composer Manson returns with essentially the same crew: singer Tierney Sutton; Ted Nash on clarinet and tenor sax; Dave Glasser, flute and alto; trombonist Ed Neumeister; bassist Bob Nieske; and drummer Matt Wilson, with Daniel Ian Smith as a special guest on bass clarinet.

Christian Sands
October 6 at 5 p.m.
Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, Mass.

The exciting pianist Christian Sands (a mainstay in Christian McBride’s bands) comes to Rockport Music on the heels of a new release, Embracing Dawn, with a trio that includes bassist Jonathon Muir-Cotton and drummer Ryan Sands (Christian’s younger brother).

Kris Davis Trio
October 7 at 7 p.m.
The Red Room at Café 939, Berklee College of Music, Boston
FREE

After forays into various mixed ensembles (notably with two celebrated recordings by her celebrated Diatom Ribbons band), pianist and composer Kris Davis returns to the trio format with her new Run the Gauntlet. She marks its release at Berklee’s Café 939 with her trio mates from the album, bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Johnathan Blake. “The album is dedicated to six trailblazer women jazz pianists: Geri Allen, Angelica Sanchez, Marilyn Crispell, Carla Bley, Renee Rosnes, and Sylvie Courvoisier.” An audience Q&A will follow the performance.;

Ize Trio
October 9 at 7:30 p.m.
Friend Recital Hall, Berklee College of Music, Boston
FREE

The Ize Trio — pianist Chase Morrin, cellist Naseem Alatrash, and percussionist George Lernis — have combined their various musical and personal backgrounds in the attractively eclectic new disc The Global Suites, “blending influences from jazz, classical, and the Middle East.” They’ll perform music from the album in this free show at Berklee, “advocating for immigrant rights and equity in our communities.”

Joel Ross
October 10 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, Mass.

Over the course of four albums for Blue Note, star vibraphonist Joel Ross has conceived of his instrument as part of an intriguing orchestral blend, aspiring to holistic ensemble interplay as much as solo firepower — but the fire is still very much evident. He follows up his latest, nublues, with these two shows at the Regattabar. The band will include tenor saxophonist María Grand, pianist Jeremy Corren, and bassist Kanoa Mendenhall.;

JCA Orchestra
October 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.

Performances by the Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra have become a valued component of Boston cultural life over that organization’s nearly 40-year existence (b. 1985). This show will include new music by resident composers David Harris, Darrell Katz, Mimi Rabson, and Bob Pilkington as well as one reprise I’m especially looking forward to: singer Debo Ray performing Katz’s “December 30, 1994,” about the murders at a Brookline women’s health clinic that happened on that day. Ray’s performance — and the band’s — last year at Berklee was searing, and unforgettable.

— Jon Garelick

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Author Events

Marian Schembari at Harvard Book Store
A Little Less Broken: How an Autism Diagnosis Finally Made Me Whole
September 30 at 7 p.m.
Free

“In this deeply personal and researched memoir, Schembari’s journey takes her from the mountains of New Zealand to the tech offices of San Francisco, from her first love to her first child, all with unflinching honesty and good humor.

A Little Less Broken breaks down the barriers that leave women in the dark about their own bodies, and reveals what it truly means to embrace our differences.”

Clair Wills in conversation with Neel Mukherjee at Porter Square Books
Missing Persons: or, My Grandmother’s Secrets
October 7 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Clair Wills shines a brilliant, unsparing light into the dark recesses of her family’s history—and the history of Ireland. Missing Persons is a stunningly eloquent exploration of how truth-telling, secret-keeping, and outright lies are part of all family stories—indeed, the stories that unite all communities—and how truths, secrets, and lies can both protect and destroy us.” —Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle and Hang the Moon

An Evening of Poetry: Ayokunle Falomo, Joshua Nguyen, & M.A. Cowgill at Brookline Booksmith
October 8 from 7- 8 p.m.
Free

“Ayokunle Falomo is Nigerian, American, and the author of Autobiomythography of (Alice James Books, 2024), AFRICANAMERICAN’T (FlowerSong Press, 2022), a recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, MacDowell, and the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program.

M.A. Cowgill lives in Maine. She earned her MFA from the University of Virginia, as well as support from the Vermont Studio Center and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Her poems have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Colorado Review, West Branch, and elsewhere.

Joshua Nguyen is the author of Come Clean (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021), winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry, the Writers’ League of Texas Discovery Award, and the Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Poetry Award.”

Todd Stern at Harvard Book Store
Landing the Paris Climate Agreement: How It Happened, Why It Matters, and What Comes Next
October 8 at 7 p.m.
Free

“A unique peek behind the curtain of one of the most important international agreements of our time, Landing the Paris Climate Agreement is a vital and fascinating read for anyone who cares about the future of our one shared home.”

Tom Colicchio at Brookline Booksmith
Why I Cook
October 13 from 2-3 p.m.
Tickets are $38 with book

“Tom Colicchio cooked his first recipe at 13 years old—a stuffed eggplant from an issue of Cuisine magazine that he picked up out of boredom—and it changed his life. Now for the first time ever, Tom recounts the extraordinary personal journey that brought him from his working-class Italian background in Elizabeth, New Jersey, to the award-winning kitchens of New York City’s best restaurants, to the set of Top Chef and the stage of the Emmy Awards.

Through 10 memoir chapters and 60 recipes, Why I Cook shares Tom’s personal reflections of more than 40 years behind the stove. From pre-dawn fishing excursions with his grandfather to running the flat-top at the snack shack of the local swim club, to finding his way as a young chef in New York City, Tom chronicles the dishes and memories that have shaped him as a person and chef.”

TICKETED: Dr. Anthony Fauci presented by Porter Square Books
On Call
October 14 at 7 p.m. at Temple Israel, 477 Longwood Ave, Boston
Tickets are $45 including a copy of book

“Anthony Fauci is arguably the most famous – and most revered – doctor in the world today. His role guiding America sanely and calmly through Covid (and through the torrents of Trump) earned him the trust of millions during one of the most terrifying periods in modern American history, but this was only the most recent of the global epidemics in which Dr. Fauci played a major role. His crucial role in researching HIV and bringing AIDS into a sympathetic public view and his leadership in navigating the Ebola, SARS, West Nile, and anthrax crises, make him truly an American hero.

His memoir reaches back to his boyhood in Brooklyn, New York, and carries through decades of caring for critically ill patients, navigating the whirlpools of Washington politics, and behind-the-scenes advising and negotiating with seven presidents on key issues from global AIDS relief to infectious disease preparedness at home. On Call will be an inspiration for readers who admire and are grateful to him and for those who want to emulate him in public service. He is the embodiment of “speaking truth to power,” with dignity and results.”

Paula Fredriksen at Harvard Book Store
Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years
October 15 at 7 p.m.
Free

“The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities, Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity — or rather, of early Christianities — through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople. It is a story with a sprawling cast of characters: not only theologians, bishops, and emperors, but also gods and demons, angels and magicians, astrologers and ascetics, saints and heretics, aristocratic patrons and millenarian enthusiasts. All played their part in the development of what became and remains an energetically diverse biblical religion.”

Julie C. Dao in conversation with Kalyani Saxena at Porter Square Books
Now Comes the Mist
October 16 at 7 p.m.
Free

“The first book of a duology that retells Dracula from the point of view of Lucy Westenra, this gothic romance is perfect for fans of Penny Dreadful and Danielle L. Jensen. “Dracula’s Lucy Westenra like you’ve never seen her before: In this retelling from critically acclaimed author Julie C. Dao, the perfect woman bites back.”

Benjamin Nathans at Harvard Book Store
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement
October 16 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Benjamin Nathans’s vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents — from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was “simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people.”

An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR’s totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin’s Russia—and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today.”

Nikkya Hargrove at Harvard Book Store
Mama: A Queer Black Woman’s Story of a Family Lost and Found
October 18 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Nikkya Hargrove spent a good portion of her childhood in prison visiting rooms. When her mother—addicted to cocaine and just out of prison—had a son and then died only a few months later, Nikkya was faced with an impossible choice. Although she had just graduated from college, she decided to fight for custody of her half brother, Jonathan. And fight she did.

Nikkya vividly recounts how she is subjected to preconceived notions that she, a Black queer young woman, cannot be given such responsibility. Her honest portrayal of the shame she feels accepting food stamps, her family’s reaction to her coming out, and the joy she experiences when she meets the woman who will become her wife reveal her sheer determination. And whether she’s clashing with Jonathan’s biological father or battling for Jonathan’s education rights after he’s diagnosed with ADHD and autism, this is a woman who won’t give up.”

— Matt Hanson

Iraqi American Poet Dunya Mikhail
Tablets: Secrets of the Clay
At the Somerville Library (Main) on October 8 at 6:30 p.m.
At the Salem Athenaeum, Salem, on October 9 at 7 p.m.

About this book, a collection of short poems in Arabic and English and original drawings, novelist, poet, and memorist Dunya Mikhail writes: ” What I received from my ancestors are offerings of the future…” Reading is hosted by Her Story Is and Center for Arabic Culture.

— Bill Marx