Compiled by Arts Fuse Editor

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

Film

Albert Serra, or Cinematic Time Regained
through April 12
Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge

A series featuring one of the world’s great filmmakers: “Serra’s filmmaking embraces cinema’s quintessence as a photographic and documentary medium able to capture the subtlest of performances — gestures, phrases, emotions — far better than the ever-distracted human eye.“ (Harvard Film Archive)

Afternoons of Solitude: March 31 at 7 p.m. and April 12 at 9 p.m.

Serra’s observational documentary chronicles a traditional corrida fought by Spain’s most celebrated toreador, the Peruvian Andrés Roca Rey. The director depends, almost exclusively, on close-up cameras and wired microphones in an effort to capture every sound from the toreador and the bull.

Belmont World Film International Film Series
through April 14 on Mondays at 7:30 p.m.
Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond Cambridge

The Good Teacher — April 7.

Inspired by true events, François Civil is brilliant as young literature teacher in a Parisian suburb wrongfully accused of sexual misconduct by his student. The film offers a nuanced exploration of rumor, reputation, sexuality, and resilience in this riveting story set in a contemporary educational system.

Waves on April 14

Set during the Prague Spring of 1968 and the aftermath of the Warsaw Pact invasion, this historical thriller follows Tomáš, a young man who inadvertently joins a Czechoslovak public radio station. The Czech Republic’s submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar.

Boston Israeli Film Festival
through April 5
At West Newton Cinema, JCC of Greater Boston, and Congregation Kehillath Israel

Enjoy contemporary films on art, life, and history, along with moving discussions with filmmakers and special guests.

Running On Sand – March 30, 3 p.m. at JCC Greater Boston

Aumari, a young Eritrean refugee living in Israel, is about to be deported back to his home country. After a spontaneous escape attempt at the airport, he is mistaken for a Nigerian striker, who is supposed to arrive at the same time.

The Return From The Other Planet ­- March 31, 7 p.m. at West Newton Cinema

A documentary on the life of the elusive author Ka-Tzetnik, “Israel’s Eli Wiesel,” and his views on human behavior are examined in depth. However, it wasn’t until the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann that his concealed identity came to light when he provided his testimony as a witness

The Milky Way – April 1, 7 p.m. at West Newton Cinema

Tala, 33, an Israeli offbeat musician, with her first baby and single mother takes a job at the “Milky Way.” where new mothers supply breast milk for wealthy mothers. We see the complexities of motherhood while getting a glimpse into the lives of the wealthy whom she is supplying.

Bliss – April 2, 7 p.m. at West Newton Cinema

Sassi and Effi spend their days frantically running from job to job in a seemingly futile attempt to pay back the enormous gambling debt left behind by Sassi’s son. When two young men burst back into their home and work space, breaking their fragile, carefully crafted schedule, the limits of their love and humor will be tested like never before

Silver’s Uprising  – April 5, 8 p.m. at JCC Greater Boston

A rousing documentary that examines the rise and fall of the “Green Messiah” and the biggest cyber trial in the history of Israel that will the fate of a former ultra-orthodox kid who transformed the drug-dealing business.

Boston Turkish Film and Music Festival
April 4 through 15
Museum of Fine Arts Coolidge Corner Theatre and online

Hakki – April 5 at 12:30 p.m.

In a picturesque Aegean village steeped in history, middle-aged Hakkı ekes out a living selling souvenirs near ancient temple sites and guiding small tours. A chance discovery of a valuable ancient artifact leads to Hakki becoming obsessed with unearthing more treasures. He abandons his usual livelihood, sacrificing time with his family and peace of mind in order to relentlessly dig tunnels in his garden.

Fate – April 4 at 7 p.m.

After tragically losing her husband, Sultan, a widow grappling with grief and loneliness, announces her intention to remarry. This unexpected decision throws her family into turmoil and generates considerable disapproval in their small town. Even her daughter Reyhan, while supportive, believes her mother is acting too hastily.

Hesitation Wound – April 5, 3 p.m.

A criminal lawyer who divides her time between the courthouse and her mother’s hospital bed at night, has to make a moral choice that will affect the lives of her mother, the judge, and her current murder suspect client.

Cycle April 6, 1:30 p.m.

For years Sevim has worked as a housekeeper for Ayten, playing a key role in managing the household while financially supporting her daughter and son-in-law. When Ayten’s Kosovan helper, Lena, suffers an accident, it sparks a legal dispute between the parties. Under pressure from Ayten to convince Lena to drop her claim, Sevim becomes entangled in a web of moral, ethical, and class struggles, forcing her to confront the stark power dynamics that shape her life.

Rosinante (Online)

A job-seeking man, his insurance solicitor wife and 6-year-old mute son live happily together. Their life stabilizes when the husband starts a taxi business using his motorbike Rosinante, but trouble occurs.

Check the schedule for a complete list of short and online films, as well as music performance

Wicked Queer Film Festival
April 5-14
Museum of Fine Arts, Brattle Theater, ArtsEmerson Paramount, Mass College of Art

One of the longest-running Queer film festivals in the world and an all-volunteer organization presents 140 films across multiple venues with links to full schedules provided. Brattle Schedule. Museum of Fine Arts Schedule. Full Schedule PDF

It’s The Old Army Game in 35mm
April 6 at 2 p.m.
At Somerville Theater, Davis Square

W. C. Fields plays a misanthropic, small-town pharmacist whose lovely shop assistant (Louise Brooks) gets him caught up in a phony real estate scheme. The film is regarded as a high point of Fields’s silent filmography. The story was later revised and revamped in the talkies The Pharmacist (1933) and It’s a Gift (1934). Live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis

Flying Fishing Film Tour 2025
April 12 at 2 p.m.
At Somerville Theater, Davis Square

Anglers, outdoor enthusiasts, and adventure seekers are showcased via stunning cinematography, unforgettable stories, and the heart-pounding excitement of fly fishing. A diverse lineup of films highlight remote locations, unique challenges, and the passionate anglers who pursue them. There will be over $2,000 in door prizes courtesy of the screening’s sponsors.

Game Changers (Spielerinnen)
April 13, at 11 a.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline

In cooperation with the Boston Turkish Film and Music Festival, a screening of Aysun Bademsoy’s critically acclaimed short documentary, the fruits of long-term observation of Turkish female soccer players in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Pick of the Week

The Edge of Democracy, streaming on Netflix

Petra Costa’s (Elena) timely documentary from 2019 was nominated for an Academy Award in 2020.  Narrated in the first person by the director, the film highlights the experiences of Costa’s family as it examines the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff, the rise of Jair Bolsonaro, and the rise and fall of democracy in Brazil. “Bolsonaro, is an admirer of the old dictatorship and part of a global trend toward authoritarian, anti-liberal populism currently flourishing in the Philippines, Hungary, and many other countries. The facts and arguments she communicates should be studied by anyone interested in the fate of democracy, in Brazil or anywhere else.” (A.O. Scott in 2019)

— Tim Jackson

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Theater

COVID PROTOCOLS: Check with specific theaters.

La Tempestad — The Tempest by William Shakespeare Adapted and translated by Orlando Hernández, Tatyana-Marie Carlo, and Leandro “Kufa” Castro. Directed by Christie Vela. Staged by Trinity Rep at the Dowling Theater, 201 Washington St., Providence, through April 27.

According to Trinity Rep: “Shakespeare’s familiar story of magic, betrayal, comedy, and love is told through a compelling mix of The Bard’s classic English, translated Spanish dialogue, and projected subtitles so you can understand it all. La Tempestad — The Tempest purposefully weaves two languages to deconstruct colonialist narratives, all while retaining the shipwreck, romance, magic, and fantasy that make Shakespeare’s final play so beloved. Originally presented in 2018 as a touring Teatro en El Verano production, La Tempestad is the first to transfer to Trinity Rep’s main stage.”

Night Side Songs Words and Music by the Lazours. Directed by Taibi Magar. Produced by the American Repertory Theater in association with Philadelphia Theatre Company at the Cambridge Masonic Temple, 1950 Mass. Ave, Cambridge, from March 27 to April 6 and at the Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street, Roxbury, April 8 through 20.

According to the A.R.T., this “communal music-theater experience performed for — and with — an intimate audience celebrates the resilience of the human spirit. Inspired by American writer, philosopher, and cultural critic Susan Sontag’s observation that ‘illness is the night side of life,’ this genre-breaking theatrical kaleidoscope with music by Richard Rodgers Award recipients Daniel Lazour and Patrick Lazour (We Live in Cairo, Flap My Wings) and directed by Taibi Magar (We Live in Cairo, Macbeth in Stride) gives voices to doctors, patients, researchers, and caregivers. A folk-inspired score and interconnected stories spanning time and perspective take us on a journey through illness that brings us closer to life.”

Her Portmanteau by Mfoniso Udofia. Directed by Tasia A. Jones. A co-production of Central Square Theater and Front Porch Arts Collective at Central Square Theater, 450 Mass. Ave, Cambridge, through April 20. 

According to the Central Square Theater and Front Porch Arts Collective, this script, which is part of the dramatist’s nine-play Ufot Family Cycle,“delves into a story of betrayal and forgiveness, centering on a Nigerian mother in the US and her two daughters who have lived vastly different lives. Iniabasi, given up at birth by her mother, Abasiama, returns from Nigeria embittered, in search of answers and a better life for her own child. Adiaha, the American-raised child of Abasiama’s second marriage, has had a starkly different upbringing. The reunion forces them to confront their past, navigating clashing traditions and a family legacy that spans time, culture, and generations.” Note: “Each play in the Cycle stands alone, but together, they weave a rich tapestry of interconnected narratives”.

The Triumph of Love by Marivaux. Translated by Stephen Wadsworth. Directed by Loretta Greco. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Huntington Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave. Boston, through April 6.

Another revival of Marivaux’s delightful farce. The HTC sums the evening up this way: “Love takes center stage in this classic French comedy by 18th-century playwright Pierre Carlet de Marivaux. A clever princess is smitten at first sight — but to win her prince, she must woo him in disguise. Mistaken identities, hilarious complications, and deeply felt desire collide head on with Rationalist Philosophy — and surprising romantic entanglements ensue!” Arts Fuse review

Skazki: A Spell of Ice and Snow by Justin Corriss, with music composed by Jonathan Blackshire. Staged by Mystic Evidence Productions at the Plaza Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, April 11 through 20.

According to dramatist Justin Corriss, this musical theatre piece (which is receiving its world premiere) “is a reimagining of Russian folklore with thoughtful new interpretations of classic characters like Baba Yaga and Morozko, the Lord of Winter.” An article by the critically praised Russian author Mikhail Shishkin inspired the script. Corriss explains that Shishkin “decried the mass censorship and backlash against Russian culture following the invasion of Ukraine by declaring, ‘Culture, too, is a casualty of war.’ Skazki was born out of a deep love of history and culture, especially those unfairly maligned and misunderstood due to the past and present influences of totalitarian governments. The actions of a government are not the actions of its people.” The musical is a fantasy adventure, but many of the show’s deeper themes reflect upon the horrors of war and the destruction caused by such totalitarian regimes.

Bread & Puppet Spring Tour: The Obligation to Live, written and performed by Bread & Puppet Theater. Tour schedule: April 3 at Bennington, VT and on April 5 at  Amherst, MA.

Bread & Puppet Theater is out on spring tour, traveling from Vermont down the Eastern Seaboard. About this show, the troupe’s venerable artistic director Peter Schumann comments that “the obligation to be alive and act against the actors of death is just one of humanity’s many obligations. We also have the obligation to courage and the obligation to plant garlic in the rubble of the empire. Possibilitarians know this and bring giants, dragons, horses, sheep, butterflies, and the exact dance of death required for this exact moment.”

Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Directed by Tony Estrella. Staged by Gamm Theatre at 245 Jefferson Blvd, Warwick, R.I, April 3 through 27.

W.H. Auden on Shakespeare’s towering tragedy: “The plays of the period in which Shakespeare wrote Hamlet have a great richness, but one is not sure that at this point he even wants to be a dramatist. Hamlet offers strong evidence of this indecision, because it indicates what Shakespeare might have done if he had had an absolutely free hand: he might well have confined himself to dramatic monologue.”

Don’t Eat the Mangos by Ricardo Pérez González. Directed by David Mendizábal. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (527 Tremont Street, Boston), through April 27.

According to the HTC, the script “portrays life on the playwright’s home island of Puerto Rico with compassion and humor through the saga of three sisters living just outside San Juan. As a hurricane approaches the beautiful island, secrets and ugly truths are revealed that cause the sisters to wrestle with how to stay true to their familia and homeland — and seek a satisfying revenge.”

Little Big Eye written and performed by Works with Water. Presented by Puppet Showplace Theater at 32 Station Street, Brookline, through April 6.

This puppet extravaganza promises plenty of underwater wonder. “Puppet Showplace Theater’s Incubator Program for new works development is proud to present the world premiere of this new, underwater version of Little Big Eye by Works with Water. An earlier version of this show premiered in Hawai’i at Honolulu Theatre for Youth, and was performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York — Hawai’i and New York couldn’t support underwater puppets, but Brookline can!

The show features actual underwater puppets in a 60-gallon tank. Little Big Eye combines real ocean life facts, underwater puppetry inspired by traditional Vietnamese techniques, and lush, multiscale puppets into a heartwarming tale that will be enjoyed by audiences of all ages.”

The Great Reveal by David Valdes. Directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary and Charlotte Snow. Staged by Lyric Stage at 140 Clarendon Street, 2nd Floor, Boston, April 4 through 27.

“This commissioned work by Lyric Stage Boston shines a light on the complexities of family and what it takes to fight for the unconditional love that is always there despite differences and disagreements. Newly married and seven months pregnant, Lexi has planned the perfect backyard gender-reveal party with every detail immaculately in place. But not everyone is as enthusiastic about the celebration. Her immature husband, Christopher, is rattled by what the future holds for him as a father. Her brother Linus, a trans man, is caught between his sister and his partner Dosia, who is tasked with making the cake for an event that goes against everything they stand for. When emotions escalate and revelations are shared, a family and the importance of being true to oneself is tested as they all grapple to find ways to keep on loving each other.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Staged by the Actors’ Shakespeare Project at the Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts, 1321 Arsenal St, Watertown, MA, from April 11 through May 4.

This version of Shakespeare’s most popular romantic comedy was “inspired by the club culture of late ‘90s and early ‘00s New York City.”  W.H. Auden on the play: “In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare mythologically anthropomorphizes nature, making nature like man, and reducing the figurants of nature in size in comic situations. In the tragedies, however, Shakespeare does not anthropomorphize nature. Storms and shipwrecks in the tragedies are represented as the will of God, and they either reflect or contrast with human emotion.”

The Swamp Dwellers by Wole Soyinka. Directed by Awoye Timpo. Staged by Theatre for a New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY, March 30 through April 30

Given how unadventurous so much of Boston theater is at the moment, I can’t help but note the New York production of an early play (1958) by the esteemed Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature. He’s best known as a playwright and poet, though Soyinka is also a fine novelist and autobiographer. (His 1971 prison memoir, The Man Died, is a marvel. He wrote it in his cell on toilet paper: “For me, justice is the first condition of humanity.”) The writer, now 90, wrote this one-act play, set in a village in the swamps of the Niger Delta, at the age of 25 on the eve of Nigerian independence: “Yoruba myth is integrated with the mid-20th century in a story about change that includes clashes between parents and children, women and men, tradition, and modernity, rural and city life, poverty and wealth, nature and survival, and subservience to religious authority and freedom.”

Peter Malmö, a new adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo. Written by Raul Dorantes & Mark Litwicki. Directed by Armando Rivera. Staged by the Suffolk University Theatre Department at the Modern Theatre, Boston, April 10 through 13.

A summary of the script via the Suffolk University website: “The story is set on a remote small island where death, memory, snow, and ash all call home. Johnny arrives there looking for his father only to discover his family’s and the town’s past. Through the echoes of memories from the island’s residents, Johnny embarks on a doomed path through the ruins of town and the man who laid waste to it: Peter Malmö.” Armando Rivera is artistic director of Teatro Chelsea, a bilingual Latine theater company in Chelsea.

Crowns by Regina Taylor, adapted from the book by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry. Directed by Regine Vital. Music Director David Coleman. Staged by Moonbox Productions at 2 Arrow Street, Cambridge, April 11 through May 4.

According to the Arrow Street Arts website: “a musical play in which hats become a springboard for an exploration of Black history and identity as seen through the eyes of a young Black woman who has come down South to stay with her aunt after her brother is killed in Brooklyn. Hats are everywhere, in exquisite variety, and the characters use the hats to tell tales concerning everything from the etiquette of hats to their historical and contemporary social function. There is a hat for every occasion, from flirting to churchgoing to funerals to baptisms, and the tradition of hats is traced back to African rituals and slavery and forward to the New Testament and current fashion. Some rap but predominantly gospel music and dance underscore and support the narratives.”

Revels Spring Sing: Here’s to the Green Leaf of the Tree! at The Center for the Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave Ste 1C, Somerville, at 3 p.m. on March 30.

“Revel with us as we welcome in the Spring! Raise your voices with long-time Revels songleader David Coffin. Enjoy the wit of a children’s Pace Egg play inspired by customs from rural England. Be dazzled by teen rapper dancers from Great Meadows Morris and Sword, Irish dance students from O’Riley Irish dance, and performers from Duncan Dance. Finally, dance (as you are able) to joyful live music from the band Here on the Hill with guidance from an experienced caller.

It’s A Motherf**king Pleasure. The FlawBored staging, presented by Arts Emerson at the Emerson Paramount Center Jackie Liebergott Black Box, Boston, April 2 through 13.

Co-founded by Samuel Brewer, Aarian Mehrabani and Chloe Palmer, FlawBored “is a multi award-winning disability led theatre company that creates meta theatrical work with dark irreverence which aims to address complex and uncomfortable issues surrounding identity which no one has the answers to.” This satire poses some particularly awkward questions, now that our government is preparing to implement reactionary retrenchments. “Usually disabled people want to do the right thing. But what if they don’t? What if they were out to make as much money as possible from the guilt of non-disabled, anxious people (like you)?” According to The Nation, “Trump’s contempt for people with disabilities has been well documented, and it’s that animus, combined with the accelerating MAGA assault on diversity throughout the United States, that has disability rights advocates preparing to defend decades worth of hard-won protections.”

— Bill Marx

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Television

Marie Antoinette (Season 2 on PBS): This sumptuous series features stunning settings in French castles and villas, and richly-detailed costumes. The opening credits give us the young queen (played by Emilia Schüle of Berlin Dance School) running playfully through an enormous garden labyrinth: a dreamy metaphor. In the first season, her marriage to young King Louis XVI (Bridgerton’s Louis Cunningham) introduced her to the cutthroat world of the court at Versailles. Antoinette’s loneliness and yearning for human connection leads her into dangerous liaisons with ambitious and duplicitous hangers on.

Episode One of Season 2, “The Worst Winter,” is set during a calamitous cold snap. Antoinette is moved by the plight of the poor, but she is unaware of France’s dire financial straits. Pregnant with her third child, Antoinette pines for her absent lover (a Swedish soldier) and it far too trusting of the women closest to her (like Jeanne, a clever thief played by Industry’s Freya Mavor). Antoinette worries that her rekindled affair will be exposed while King Louis seeks counsel in dubious places. The writing is very good, though the dialogue’s occasional incongruous anachronisms are annoying (an attempt, perhaps, to mimic the clever style of Tony McNamara’s writing for The Great and The Favourite). This series is not just high-class eye candy; it is an eerily timely tale of a burgeoning revolution.

Evilside (April 4, Netflix): this Norwegian crime thriller series is a new entry in what has been an excellent run of Scandinavian TV. (Other enjoyable examples: Katla, Trapped, The Investigation, The Killing, Borgen, and Ragnarök).

The Handmaid’s Tale, Season 6 (April 8, Hulu): It will be the end of an era, folks, but no worries, real life in America will continue to emulate this misogynist dystopia.

Black Mirror, Season 7 (April 10, Netflix): Hard to say if the speculative fictions of Black Mirror will continue to be a prescient font of things to come, but the series has delivered plenty of dark brilliance in the past.

— Peg Aloi

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Popular Music

The Hard Quartet with Sharp Pins
March 30 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Paradise Rock Club, Boston

The Hard Quartet is a supergroup that comprises Stephen Malkmus of ‘90s indie rock standard bearers Pavement and seasoned, prolific polymaths Matt Sweeney, Jim White, and Emmett Kelly of the same genre. Given the caliber of this lineup, it is unsurprising that their eponymous 2024 debut garnered the enthusiastic reviews that it did. While its 15 tracks is ample for an entire setlist, the members will assuredly include material from throughout their decades-spanning careers at their Paradise gig. The opening set by Sharp Pins, whose latest offering will have been out all of three days on Sunday, is major incentive to wrap up your pre-show socializing and secure your spot among the early arrivals.

The Ophelias
April 8 (doors at 7/show at 8)
The Rockwell, Somerville

Cincinnati-based quartet The Ophelias will showcase its newest material in Davis Square four days after the unveiling its parent album. Spring Grove, which is the name of a cemetery in the band’s hometown, sports the touch of first-time producer Julien Baker, a three-time Grammy recipient via her membership in boygenius. As pre-release extractions, the violin-supplemented “Cumulonimbus” and the guitar-driven “Salome” serve as fine representations the record’s ethereal, spellbinding quality. The remainder of Spring Grove, meanwhile, is a horn of plenty, effortlessly capturing listeners’ attention with the first two tracks and rendering it undivided over the course of 42 well-spent minutes.

Clem Snide with Abe Partridge and Jake Mckelvie
April 10 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Warehouse XI, Somerville

Formed in Boston in 1991, Clem Snide has built a more than modest discography in the course of 27 years and had several songs appear in TV shows in the process. Their oeuvre will soon come to include Oh Smokey, which will see its official release on May 2 after having been available at merch tables since last fall. Lone constant Eef Barzelay says of the album, “I like to think of the songs as clumsy, well-meaning attempts at prayer by a lapsed Atheist raised by godless Jews.” In the meantime, Clem Snide is undertaking a three-week tour of the eastern seaboard that includes a stop at Somerville’s Warehouse XI.

The Smithereens with Vicky Peterson & John Cowsill
April 11 (doors at 7/show at 8)
The Center for the Arts, Natick

The Smithereens have generously continued to treat hardcore fans (and they have few if any casual ones) to their rich catalog of songs in the wake of the devastating 2017 death of lead singer Pat DiNizio. During this time, the mic has been occupied by Marshall Crenshaw for some tours and Gin Blossoms’ Robin Wilson for others. At their April 11 show in Natick, the band will be fronted by John Cowsill of his famous family’s band and of The Beach Boys from 2000-2023. He and Bangles drummer Vicky Peterson – who have been married for more than two decades – will also open the show with selections from Long After the Fire, which will see its official release the follow day. (Click here for my 2023 Arts Fuse interview with Smithereens drummer Dennis Diken.)

Slow Joy with Flycatcher and Cherubhead
April 11 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Crystal Ballroom, Somerville

New Mexico native and Dallas-based musician Esteban Flores assumes the moniker Slow Joy for recording and performing purposes. His debut full-length, A Joy So Slow At Times I Don’t Think It’s Coming, is slated for a May 16 release and will serve as the follow-up to last year’s EP Mi Amigo Slow Joy. A Joy So Slow… – partly recorded at Ghost Hit Recording in Springfield, MA – was preceded by lead single “Gruesome,” an upbeat, chiming, buzzy slice of thoughtful alternative rock that bodes well for the remainder of its contents. Flores will build momentum ahead the LP’s street date with a nationwide spring tour that will arrive Crystal Ballroom on April 11 with Boston’s Cherubhead providing support.

Remember Sports with Anna McClellan
April 14 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Arts at the Armory, Somerville

Remember Sports formed as Sports in 2012 when its members were students at one of Ohio’s premier institutes of higher learning, Kenyon College. After three self-releases, including the highly praised Sunchokes, the Carmen Perry-fronted quartet signed to Father/Daughter Records, which distributed three LPs between 2015 and 2021, the 2022 EP Leap Day, and a reissued deluxe edition of Sunchokes. During their decade-plus existence, the now Philadelphia-based Remember Sports have piled up fan favorites such as “Saturday,” “Tiny Planets,” “I Liked You Best,” “Get Bummed Out,” and “Pinky Ring.” These are all sure to be accounted for when they hit up Arts at the Armory, where label mate Anna McClellan will kick of the festivities.

— Blake Maddux

Beth Gibbons
April 4 (show at 8 p.m.)
Orpheum Theatre, Boston

Fans of the English trip-hop group Portishead won’t be disappointed to see its singer Beth Gibbons hit town behind likewise-atmospheric solo album Lives Outgrown on her first U.S. tour since a decade-past swing with collaborative project Rustin Man. Her mysterious, evocative vocals will get stellar support from a seven-piece band that features intriguing percussion and strings as well as guitar and keyboards. And she’ll likely even toss in a Portishead song.

— Paul Robicheau

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Visual Art

If you have ever pondered over the contents of a yard sale or an estate auction and wondered about the lives of the people who once owned them, this show might be for you. For years, artist Randi Malkin Steinberger has haunted flea markets, eBay, and other repositories of misplaced and forgotten treasures to assemble a vast archive of tintypes, old photographs, and slides, salvaging and protecting them. She embellishes the pictures with thread, nail polish, and suggestive blots to “transform the photographs into objects of wonder and mystery” and to prompt “viewers to imagine the stories they hold while acknowledging the stories we bring to them.”

As part of an artist’s residency, MASS MoCA will present Randi Malkin Steinberger: The Archive of Lost Memories starting April 5. Steinberger will create an open studio,  archive, and evolving environment within the museum’s Building 8. “The artist invites the public in to witness the daily practice of making and to consider the questions, connections, and possibilities it creates.”

The Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH, celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Surrealist Manifesto (this was actually in 2024) and its still vital influence on art with Nicolas Party and Surrealism: An Artist’s Take on Surrealism, opening April 10. The exhibition includes work by the muralist Nicolas Party, billed as “a compelling response to Surrealism’s influence,” along with such leading 20th-century Surrealists as Joan Miro, Francis Picabia, and Yves Tanguy, and prominent Surrealist-influenced female artists of the 1930s, like Doris Lee and Gertrude Abercrombie.

The Bates College Museum of Art reopens April 11 with the exhibitions Under the Parachute: Senior Thesis Exhibition 2025 and Beth Van Hoesen: Small Wonders. The latter show explores the work of the San Francisco-based print maker Beth Van Hoesen who, along with other figurative artists in the San Francisco area, continued to work in realist styles even while Abstract Expressionism dominated the American art world. Her drawings emphasize small intimacies of the everyday and the female form in contrast to the large-scale, masculine gestures of Expressionism. Influences included Dutch still life paintings, Renaissance portraits, and 1960s feminist art.

The Bates museum will hold a reception for the senior thesis show on April 11 from 5:00-7:00 pm with light refreshments. All are invited to attend.

Robyn and John Horn’s gift of 32 objects to the Fuller Craft Museum was what museums like to call “transformative”— that is, it raised the museum’s resources, institutional profile, and position among its peers to a new level. The collection includes some of the most important figures in American craft. It ranges widely in media, from wood, metal, and ceramic to basketry, glass, and stone.

The Horn collection remains one of the finest in American crafts in the United States, the Fuller claims. The Horns began collecting in the 1980s and, the museum says, “carefully selected artists dedicated to their chosen material, ones that remained passionate about creating work with exceptional technical skill and innovative approach to making.” The public will be able to view the results starting April 12, when the Fuller opens the commemorative exhibition A Shared Legacy: Gifts from the Robyn and John Horn Collection.

Elsewhere at the Fuller in April, for the recycling inclined, a workshop about how to make baskets out of old plastic bags (called plarn) or paper. Crafternoon: Paper and Plarn Baskets takes place on April 13 from 2 to 4 p.m. Recommend for ages 10 and above; under 14 must be accompanied by an adult.

Finally, if you are a fan of the 14th-century Turco-Mongol conquerer and founder of the Timurid Empire Timur (also known as Tamerlane) or the two-part Christopher Marlowe drama based on his life, Tamburlaine the Great, you may be especially interested in an otherwise somewhat esoteric demonstration at the Worcester Art Museum. “Arms and Armor Demonstration: Persian Armored Combat” explores the arms, armor, and fighting techniques of the Persians in Timur’s multi-ethnic army. It is presented by Bayt Al-Assad, a group “dedicated to the research, practice, and education on the fighting arts of the 7th-15th century Islamicate world through the practice of historical martial arts, experimental archaeology, and academic research.”

The one-hour demonstration takes place on April 12 at 11:30 a.m., repeating at 2 p.m. Admission is free with the price of museum admission.

— Peter Walsh

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Jazz

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio
through April 1
Various Locations

The remarkable pianist and composer Satoko Fujii barnstorms Massachusetts with her longstanding Tokyo Trio. They’ll be at the Lilypad in Cambridge on March 30 on a double bill with Spatial Decay; the Institute for Musical Arts, Goshen, MA, on March 31; and in a free open master class at New England Conservatory in Boston on April 1. (You can read my review of Fujii’s Altitude 1100 Meters here.)

Orchestra Mini
March 30 at 3 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

The venerable Jazz Composers Alliance has put together a smaller, more portable aggregation than its usual large-scale orchestra. The same excellent composers are contributing pieces: David Harris, Darrell Katz, Bob Pilkington, and Mimi Rabson. And many of the same players are involved: strings Rabson and Alef Ben, saxes Melanie Howell-Brooks Gill Jones, and Sam Spear; trumpeter Jerry Sabatini; trombonists Harris and Pilkington; bassist Sam Lee; and pianist Witness Matlou.

Arlington Jazz Festival
Various Locations, March 30-April 6
Arlington, MA

The grand finale of the 14th annual Arlington Jazz Festival is a concert by guitar hero Mike Stern, with drummer Dennis Chambers, whose credits include the Sugar Hill house band, P-Funk, John Scofield, Steely Dan, and a gazillion others (April 6, Regent Theatre). That caps off a week that will include shows at a variety of locations, with bands including the K&R Quartet, Subject2Change, That Trio, the Caleb Texier Group, The Morningside Minutemen, Bill Ward & Ian Coury, and players Phil Sargent, Mark Zeleski, Maxim Lubarsky, John Lockwood, Dor Herskovits, and festival founder and organizer Dan Fox.

Guillermo Nojechowicz’s Norte y Sur Quartet
April 3 at 7:30 p.m.
Arthur’s House of Jazz at the Sahara Club, Methuen, MA

Jazz listings from the cozy-looking, real-stage-equipped Arthur’s House of Jazz at the Sahara Club restaurant continue to impress. This week it’s the esteemed Argentine-born drummer and composer Guillermo Nojechowicz (pronounced no-hay-cho-wees) and his Norte y Sur Quartet, with saxophonist Tucker Antell, pianist Pavle Zvekić, and bassist John Lockwood.

“New Orleans Songbook”
April 4 at 8 p.m.
Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, MA

Jazz at Lincoln Center is presenting this touring show, which looks promising: pianist Luther Allison and singers Quiana Lynell and Milton Suggs front a band celebrating music from and about New Orleans, from Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong and second-line stomps to modern jazz swing.

Nubya Garcia
April 4 at 8 p.m.
The Sinclair, Cambridge

The celebrated London-based saxophonist Nubya Garcia and composer hits the Boston area for the first time since 2022, with a band that will probably include drummer Sam Jones (from Garcia’s most recent album, Odyssey, on Concord), double-bass Max Luthert, and keyboardist Lyle Barton.

Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra
April 4 at 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

Trumpeter, composer, and arranger Greg Hopkins — one of the treasures of the Boston scene, as a longtime teacher at Berklee as well as for his numerous gigs as a leader, sideman, and arranger — celebrates the release of his big band album, ChronoGRAPHY, with an orchestra including saxophonist Rick DiMuzio, pianist Tim Ray, and drummer Mark Walker.

Catherine Russell
April 4 at 8 p.m.
Sanders Theatre, Cambridge

The deeply learned and all-around wonderful singer Catherine Russell has been a Jazz Master in Residence at Harvard this semester. She’ll be the centerpiece of a program entitled “Harlem on My Mind: Celebrating Catherine Russell,” with the Harvard Jazz Orchestra, directed by Yosvany Terry.

Natalie Dietrich
April 6 at 4 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

Swiss-born vibraphonist, composer, and educator Natalie Dietrich is fondly remembered from her student years at Berklee. She returns to play with some of her talented cohort from the old days, flutist Hiro Honshuku, bassist Oscar Stagnaro, and drummer Mark Walker.

Point01 Percent
April 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

The Point01 Percent gang does one of its occasional mash-ups of player-improvisors with player-composers from the modern classical tradition. For the first set, composer, guitarist, and metal enthusiast/player Aaron Jay Meyers joins keyboardist Jil Christesen (piano, synthesizer) and Forbes Graham (trumpet). The second set will feature a core crew of Point01ers: pianist Pandelis Karayorgis, saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra, and drummer Miki Matsuki.

Grand Gathering: Jazz and Gender Justice
April 8 at 8 p.m.
Berklee Performance Center, Boston

A year ago, I might have introduced this item with something anodyne like, “Another cool Berklee concert with a mix of star faculty and talented students.” But that now seems insufficient, so I’ll amend: This is a show that looks musically promising but where attendance would also be a statement not just about musical interest but about supporting an institution that would appear to be politically vulnerable.

Or, as the Berklee website explains: “The Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice presents its second Grand Gathering, showcasing all nine of its ensembles, ranging from modern to mainstream and free to electronic jazz, featuring improvised dance and original compositions by contemporary composers and institute students.” Special guests include JGJ artist-in-residence Marquis Hill, as well as faculty members Kris Davis, Terri Lyne Carrington, Linda May Han Oh, Christiana Hunte, Val Jeanty, and Matthew Stevens.

Yulila Musayelyan Quartet
April 10 at 7:30 p.m.
Parish Hall, Parish of All Saints, Dorchester, MA

It’s good to see the superb flutist and composer Yulia Musayelyan back with her excellent quartet, probably playing a lot of music from last year’s excellent Strange Times (Wherego Music), and maybe a mix from the rest of her book, which includes not only Argentine and other South American strains but also the folk music of Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia. The band includes pianist Maxim Lubarsky, bassist Fernando Huergo, and drummer Gen Yoshimura.

Yoko Miwa
April 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

Pianist Yoko Miwa matches captivating playing and writing chops with unusual choices of material by others, often in arresting original arrangements. Her most recent disc, Songs of Joy (Ubuntu Music), included a roaring arrangement of the Richie Havens improvisation “Freedom” (famously created at Woodstock) as well as the Billy Preston ballad that gives the album its name. Here’s a chance to hear Miwa, a regular in Boston-area restaurant residencies, unleash her formidable chops in a club setting, pushing and pushed by her regular trio mates Brad Barrett on bass and Scott Goulding on drums.

The Makanda Project
April 12 at 7 p.m.
Twelfth Baptist Church, Roxbury, MA
Free

The Makanda Project, now in its 20th season, specializes in previously unrecorded pieces by the late Boston-born composer and improviser Makanda Ken McIntyre. Today’s show will include their “latest discoveries,” and a few other pieces being played in public for the first time. The 13-piece band, under the direction of pianist John Kordalewski, includes Boston stalwarts Sean Berry, Kurtis Rivers, Seith Meicht, Charlie Kohlhase, Jerry Sabatini, John Lockwood, and Bill Lowe. The band for this show will also include the four-piece Makanda project cello section. And it’s free.

Joe Lovano’s Paramount Quartet
April 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Somerville Theatre, Somerville, MA

Seventy-two-year-old sax master and composer Joe Lovano convenes his latest band, the Paramount Quartet, for this GlobalArts Live show at the Somerville Theatre. Joining Lovano are guitarist Julian Lage, bassist Asante Santi Debriano, and drummer Will Calhoun. The band already has an album in the can for ECM, so they should be quite tuned up for this show.

— Jon Garelick

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Roots and World Music

Ablaye Cissoko and Cyrille Brotto 
April 3
Crystal Ballroom at the Somerville Theatre

The kora and the accordion are rarely heard together — except for this season of Global Arts Live programming. Last week Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Peirani played a mesmerizing performance along with cellist Vincent Segal and soprano saxophonist Émile Parisien. Now welcome the arrival of the duo of Senegal’s Ablaye Cissoko and France’s Cyrille Brotto, in what will no doubt be a unique pairing of sounds from their own musical cultures.

Singing for Trans Rights
April 4
Club Passim, Cambridge

As the current regime continues its crackdown on both artistic expression and LGBTQ rights, it is revealing to see which arts organizations are standing up for artists and communities and which ones are staying silent. (See Arts Fuse Editor William Marx’s March 26 comments about this here.) Club Passim is sticking with folk music’s long tradition of protest and inclusion by presenting events like this one, a benefit for the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, that features performances by Jessye DeSilva, Hawk in the Nest, Don Mitchell (of Darlingside), and Almost Olive.

Susan Watts Klezmer Band with Itay Dayan and Hoffman’s Farewell
April 6, at 7 p.m.
The Boston Synagogue

Philadelphia might be known as a soul and jazz town, but it’s got a mighty impressive klezmer legacy thanks to the Hoffman family. In 1927, Ukrainian-born Joseph Hoffman published a collection of klezmer tunes in the hopes that his descendants would keep the melodies alive, and that’s what’s happened, thanks to his great-granddaughter, the marvelous trumpeter Susan Watts. The Hoffman book also inspired Boston clarinetist Itay Dayan, who’ll open this Boston Festival of New Jewish Music presentation with pieces from his excellent 2024 album Hoffman’s Farewell.

Michael Tarbox
April 10
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation, Waltham
Tarbox Ramblers
April 12
Fallout Shelter, Norwood

Boston’s Michael Tarbox plays deeply moving roots music of both the traditional and the original variety. For many of his current shows, like his upcoming one at Waltham’s Charles River Museum, he’s solo but often electric, which lets the raw bluesy intensity of his sound shine. He’s also been reuniting with one of the earliest incarnations of his Tarbox Ramblers band — drummer Jon Cohan, violinist Dan Kellar, and the beloved rockabilly bassist Johnny Sciascia — and that combo will be joining him in Norwood.

Tom Rush Club 47
April 13
The Cabot, Beverly

At 84, Tom Rush doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Occasionally he produces package shows that recreate the vibe of Club 47, the predecessor to Club Passim, where he was a favorite. For this edition he’ll be joined by fellow New England folk greats Cheryl Wheeler and Monica Rizzio, as well as Wheeler’s longtime collaborator Kenny White.

— Noah Schaffer

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Author Events

Elie Mystal in conversation with Kimberly Atkins Stohr at the Harvard Book Store
Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America
March 31 at 7 p.m.

“If it were up to me, I’d treat every law passed before the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as presumptively unconstitutional. The government of this country was illegitimate when it ruled over people who had no ability to choose the rules.” —from the introduction to Bad Law

“In Bad Law, the New York Times bestselling author of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution, brings his trademark legal acumen and passionate snark to a brilliant takedown of 10 of what he considers the most egregiously awful laws on the books today. These are pieces of legislation that are making life worse rather than better for Americans, and that, he argues with trenchant wit and biting humor, should be repealed completely.

“On topics ranging from abortion and immigration to voting rights and religious freedom, we have chosen rules to live by that do not reflect the will of most of the people. With respect to our decision to make a law that effectively grants immunity to gun manufacturers, for example, Mystal writes, “We live in the most violent, wealthy country on earth not in spite of the law; we live in a first-person-shooter video game because of the law.” See Arts Fuse interview.

Ben Ratliff in conversation with James Parker at Brookline Booksmith
Run The Song: Writing About Running About Listening 
April 3 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Out the front door, across the street, down the hill, and into Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. This is how Ben Ratliff’s runs started most days of the week for about a decade. Sometimes listening to music, not always. Then, at the beginning of the pandemic, he began taking notes about what he listened to. He wondered if a body in motion, his body, was helping him to listen better to the motion in music.

He runs through the woods, along the Hudson River, and into the lowlands of the Bronx. He encounters newly erected fences for an intended FEMA field hospital, and demonstrations against racial violence. His runs, and the notes that result from them, vary in length just as the songs he listens to do: seventies soul, jazz, hardcore punk, string quartets, Éliane Radigue’s slow-change electronics, Carnatic singing, DJ sets, piano music of all kinds, Sade, Fred Astaire, and Ice Spice.

Run the Song is also the story of how a professional critic, frustrated with conventional modes of criticism, finds his way back to a deeper relationship with music.”

Kenneth Roth at the Cambridge Public Library – Harvard Book Store
Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments
April 3 at 6 p.m.
Tickets are $31.88 with book, free without

“In three decades under the leadership of Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch grew to a staff of more than 500, conducting investigations in 100 countries to uncover abuses — and pressuring offending governments to stop them. Roth has grappled with the worst of humanity, taken on the biggest villains of our time, and persuaded leaders from around the globe to stand up to their repressive counterparts.

The son of a Jew who fled Nazi Germany just before the war began, Roth grew up knowing full well how inhumane governments could be. He has traveled the world to meet cruelty and injustice on its home turf: he arrived in Rwanda shortly after the Genocide; scrutinized the impact of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait; investigated and condemned Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians. He directed efforts to curtail the Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims, to bring Myanmar’s officials to justice after the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, to halt Russian war crimes in Ukraine, even to reign in the U.S. government. Roth’s many innovations and strategies included the deployment of a concept as old as mankind—the powerful tool of “shaming”—and here he illustrates its surprising effectiveness against evildoers.”

Katie Kitamura in conversation with Teju Cole at Porter Square Books
Audition 
April 7 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Katie Kitamura is one of our most brilliant writers, saying far more in her silences, blank spaces, and disruptions than most novelists can say in a hundred thousand words. Audition is eerie, a book so cold it feels hot. It hooked into my mind like a burr.”
—Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds and Fates and Furies

Elaine Sciolino at Brookline Booksmith
Adventures in the Louvre
April 8 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Exploring galleries, basements, rooftops, and gardens, Sciolino demystifies the Louvre, introducing us to her favorite artworks, both legendary and overlooked, and to the people who are the museum’s lifeblood: the curators, the artisans producing frames and engravings, the builders overseeing restorations, the firefighters protecting the aging structure.

Blending investigative journalism, travelogue, history, and memoir, Sciolino walks her readers through the museum’s front gates and immerses them in its irresistible, engrossing world of beauty and culture. Adventures in the Louvre reveals the secrets of this grand monument of Paris and basks in its timeless, seductive power.”

Stephanie Burt at Harvard Book Store
Super Gay Poems: LGBTQIA+ Poetry after Stonewall
April 9 at 7 p.m.
Free

“The poems in Stephanie Burt’s anthology represent the great variety of queer and trans life itself. They include near-sonnets, iambic couplets, and rhymed quatrains; skinny dimeters and shaped poems; chatty free verse and intentionally inaccurate translations; the demotic and the rococo. Arranged in chronological order, the selections trace queer culture’s recent evolutions. Frank O’Hara, Audre Lorde, Judy Grahn, James Merrill, Thom Gunn, Jackie Kay, Adrienne Rich, Chen Chen, essa ranapiri, and The Cyborg Jillian Weise — poets widely known and poets who deserve to be — share their alienation, their euphoria, and their encounters with a protean community as it discovers new solidarities and new selves.”

Elaine Pagels at Harvard Book Store
Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus
April 11 at 7 p.m.
Free

“The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just Jesus comes to life, but his desperate, hunted followers as well. They were writing in wartime and under occupation, she reminds us, endangered for spreading the gospel of a man who was executed as an insurrectionist.  Some of the most electrifying details in the Gospels, Pagels writes, may have been crafted by his disciples to avoid persecution and explain inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn’t illegitimate; instead, his mother was conceived by God. Jesus’ body wasn’t humiliatingly tossed into a common grave; he was seen alive and whole by his followers. He wasn’t a failed messiah; his kingdom lives in us.

Drawing on a lifetime of study and Pagels’ own personal journey, Miracles and Wonders beautifully depicts this lost world and captures Jesus’s enduring power to inspire and attract.”

— Matt Hanson