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

The Glassworker
May 31 at 6 p.m.
Mugar Omni Theater at the Museum of Science, 1 Science Park in Boston

A young Vincent and his father Tomas run the finest glass workshop in the country and find their lives upended by an impending war of which they want no part. “This is the first hand-drawn movie from Pakistan, where there is no infrastructure for filmmaking, let alone animation.” Directed by Usman Riaz and made at Mano Animation Studios. Q&A with filmmaker follows the May 18 screening

Festival of Films from Japan
through June 1
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston
All films are linked to descriptions

Shadow of Fire – May 25 at 2:30 p.m.

Look Back – May 29 at 7 p.m.

Bushido – May 30 at 7:00 p.m.

River – May 31 at 2:30 p.m.- 4 p.m.

My Sunshine – June 1 at 2:30 p.m.

Henry Johnson
May 29 at 7:15 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline

Written and directed by David Mamet, Henry Johnson follows the title character (Evan Jonigkeit) as he navigates his search for a moral center after an act of compassion upends his life. Looking to authority figures he encounters along the way — including his eventual cellmate, Gene (Shia LaBeouf) — Henry’s journey leads him down a road of manipulation and ethical uncertainty. The film is an exploration of power, justice, and the consequences of letting others choose your path for you. Featuring an introduction from actor Evan Jonigkeit via Zoom. “David Mamet is no longer writing plays that pass the smell test of reality. He has, in his own mind, transcended that. He’s writing plays that are delivery systems for his virtuoso word salad of ‘ideas.'” Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Berkshire International Film Festival
May 30 –June 1
Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center and various locations

The festival opens with A Man With Sole: The Impact of Kenneth Cole, with director Dori Berinstein in attendance, and closes with the documentary Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore. This year features films from 22 countries: 27 documentaries, 23 narrative features, 25 short films, and a free animated shorts selection for kids. On May 31 at 7 p.m. there will be a Tribute to Brian Cox.

Belmont World Film 

Pride and World Refugee Awareness Month

June 2 at West Newton Cinema: Three Kilometers to the End of the World After returning to his conservative village in the Danube Delta, a 17-year-old boy is attacked for sharing a kiss with another young man. As his parents grapple with their love for their son and their deeply held religious beliefs, they resort to extreme measures, believing they must protect their son from himself. Romania’s submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar.

June 9 (West Newton Cinema): Souleymane’s Story A young immigrant from Guinea navigates the streets of Paris as a food delivery cyclist while striving to secure legal residency. With only two days to prepare for a critical asylum interview, he must balance the demands of his precarious job and the challenges of his uncertain status. Winner of the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for eight César Awards

Caught by the Tides
May 30 – June 5
Brattle Theater in Cambridge

Jia Zhangke, the Chinese experimentalist filmmaker, creates a structure where none was ever intended. Two of the director’s prior works, Unknown Pleasures (2002) and Still Life (2006), are partially cannibalized, along with footage from his last feature, Ash Is Purest White, along with outtakes, B-roll, and random footage that the director has captured over the last quarter century. Out of this cut-up technique he creates a semiabstract collage that is a fascinating portrait of modern China. Arts Fuse review

Forgotten Faces (1928)
June 1 at 2 p.m.
Somerville Theatre in Davis Square

Clive Brook stars as “Heliotrope” Harry, a gentleman thief tossed in jail for killing his wife’s lover. Before turning himself in, Harry leaves his baby girl on the doorstep of a rich, childless couple. To keep his alcoholic spouse Lilly (Olga Baclanova) away from their girl, he hires his former partner, Froggy, to check on the child. But Lilly will stop at nothing to get her hands on the girl’s money. Once Harry is out of the clink, he impersonates his daughter’s butler to protect her from Lilly. A Silents, Please! presentation with live accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis.

The Encampments
June 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Regent Theatre, 7 Medford Street, Arlington

From executive Producer Macklemore, The Encampments offers an urgent portrait of America’s student movement, which was ignited at Columbia University. Students around the country protested their universities’ ties to the war on Gaza, part of a nationwide uprising that led to encampments spreading across hundreds of campuses. Detained activist Mahmoud Khalil, along with professors, whistleblowers, and organizers, are part of this documentary, which dramatizes what was at stake in a historic moment that is continuing to reverberate across the globe. A university student discussion panel follows the film.

Do It Your Damn Self (DIYDS) National Youth Film Festival
June 6 at 6 p.m. at Harvard Art Museums’ Menschel Hall, 32 Quincy Street,Cambridge
June 7 at 5 p.m. at Kendall/MIT Open Space 292 Main Street, Cambridge

Founded in 1996 by six Cambridge teens at the Community Art Center’s Teen Media Program, this is the longest running youth-produced festival in the country, drawing over 800 youth and adults to public screenings every year.

Pick of the Week

Riders of Justice
Streaming on Amazon Prime

Markus, a recently-deployed soldier, is forced to return home to care for his teenage daughter after his wife is killed in a tragic train accident. Otto, a survivor of the wreck, along with two oddball hacker friends, approach Markus claiming they have evidence of possible foul play. Markus is convinced, and embarks on a mission to find those responsible. Prolific Danish screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen (The Promised Land) directs this unique revenge drama, featuring heartbreaking characters with physical and psychological flaws, leavened with dark humor and suspense. It is all held together by Jensen regular Mads Mikkelsen (Another Round, The Hunt), who turns in one of his best performances, imbuing his traumatized vet with gravitas. The film went straight to streaming, but it deserved theatrical distribution.

— Tim Jackson

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Theater

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding by Jocelyn Bioh. Directed by Summer L. Williams. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, through May 31.

Here is what the SpeakEasy Stage Company site has to say about this 2024 Tony nominee play: “It’s a hot summer day in 2019, and in Harlem, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding salon is open for business, even though its eponymous owner is hours away from getting married. Presiding over the shop’s team of talented, high-spirited West African designers is Jaja’s daughter Marie, a DREAMer who has set her sights on college. When shocking news disrupts the day’s festivities, the women must grapple with what it means to be outsiders in the place they call home.” Arts Fuse review.

Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner. Directed by Brian McEleney. Staged by the Gamm Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, RI, May 29 through June 15.

Director Brian McEleney was cast as Prior Walter in Trinity Repertory Company’s acclaimed 1996 production of Kushner’s blockbuster play, which was directed by Oskar Eustis. About helming this production, he says “Angels in America was written in a different time, and history has continued its relentless march forward in the last 30 or so years since I played Prior Walter. We are a different country now, and the pace of change in our lives continues to accelerate. As the second quarter of the 21st century approaches, I’m eager to discover how this most ambitious and prescient of plays speaks to a new generation. Kushner’s call for all of us to be angels in America could not be more urgent as we hurtle toward the future with terror, determination … and hope.” The Gamm Theatre’s production of Part Two: Peterstroika will run from September 25 through October 12.

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), written and composed by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan. Directed and choreographed by Tim Jackson. American Repertory Theater production at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, May 20 through June 29.

Christiani Pitts and Sam Tutty star in this staging of a West End hit. The sitcom-inspired plot: “A naïve and impossibly upbeat Brit, Dougal, has just landed in New York for his dad’s second wedding — the dad he’s never known. Robin, the sister of the bride, is at the airport to pick him up — and she’s late for work. Hungry for an adventure in the city he’s only seen in movies, Dougal hopes native New Yorker Robin will be his guide. ”

Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw. Directed by Eric Tucker. Staged by Central Square Theater at 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, May 29 through June 22.

I am looking forward to this production. Tucker and Bedlam have a flamboyantly effective way with GBS — a fabulous Saint Joan a few years ago sticks in my mind. An expert cast includes veterans Barlow Adamson, Melinda Lopez, Nael Nacer, and Wesley Savick. As for the 1902 play, it is GBS’s first masterpiece, its provocative thesis dramatized by multidimensional characters. From a 1927 interview, “Shaw Looks at Life at 70”: “Until we free the marriage relation from economic entanglements and from sentimental hocus-pocus, the revolting custom of husband hunting cannot be eradicated. Suffrage, while giving political freedom to woman, does not break her economic chains. Until we sublimate the marriage relation, the difference between marriage and Mrs. Warren’s Profession [owner of a chain of brothels] remains the difference between union labour and scab labour.”

Hello, Dolly! Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman. Book by Michael Stewart, Based on The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder. Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent. Music direction by Dan Rodriguez. Choreography by Ilyse Robbins. Staged by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston at 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, through June 22.

The time is right, according to the Lyric Stage Company publicity, to welcome Dolly back home again: “Brimming with classic musical theater tunes, endearing characters, and good-humor all around, Hello, Dolly! is the perfect balm for the soul. With a twinkle in her eye, Dolly Levi orchestrates matters of the heart for those looking for love as the incomparable matchmaker that she is. As romance blossoms and comedic adventures ensue, Dolly makes friends around every corner and charms her way into the hearts of everyone she meets. But is there hope of moving on from a lost love and finding a sweetheart of her own ‘before the parade passes by?'”

The Light in the Piazza Book by Craig Lucas. Music & lyrics by Adam Guettel. Based on the novel by Elizabeth Spencer. Directed by Loretta Greco. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at 264 Huntington Ave., Boston, through June 15.

This 2005 musical won six Tony Awards, including Best Original Score. It is, according to the HTC website, “the story of a mother, a daughter, and the many meanings of love. Florence, summer 1953. Protective American mother Margaret Johnson brings her daughter Clara abroad for a glimpse of Italy’s romantic history. But when a real-life attraction sparks between Clara and a local boy, Margaret must ask: can she reconcile her own hopes with her daughter’s future?” Arts Fuse review

Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage. Directed by Jackie Davis. Staged by Trinity Repertory Company at the Dowling Theatre, 201 Washington St., Providence, May 29 through June 29.

The plot of this 1995 drama, according to the Trinity Rep website: “It’s 1930 in New York City, and Harlem is sizzling. The summer heat and sultry jazz records set the backdrop as the explosive creativity of the Harlem Renaissance bleeds into the struggle of the Great Depression. And in one small apartment complex, four friends’ lives change forever upon the arrival of a mysterious stranger from Alabama.”

— Bill Marx

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Visual Art

British illustrator Ralph Steadman is best known for his many collaborations with journalist Hunter S. Thompson, especially on the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, in which Steadman’s manic, apparently out-of-control illustrations seemed the perfect compliment to Thompson’s signature drug-fueled, Gonzo writing. But Steadman’s world does not stop there. His long and extraordinarily varied career is the subject of a major retrospective opening at the Bates College Museum of Art on June 6. Ralph Steadman: And Another Thing includes more than 140 original works from six decades.

Steadman’s vast repertoire of clients and projects has included award-winning illustrations for Alice in Wonderland, album covers for the Who and Frank Zappa, illustrations for a column in The Independent newspaper, and a set of four British postage stamps to commemorate the 1985 return of Halley’s Comet. The Bates show will include photographs, sketchbooks, and notes along with finished original illustrations, branding imagery, satirical cartoons, and works for activist causes.

Two exhibitions open at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut on June 8. Nickola Pottinger: fos born is the artist’s first museum solo exhibition; much of the work on view was created specifically for the show. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Pottinger grew up in the West Indian community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where she still lives and works. Using a pulp mixture made from family documents, past artworks, and urban debris, she creates sculpture she calls “duppies,” Jamaican patois for ghosts, which are embellished with oil pastels, watercolors, gilded Yagua leaf, teeth, and other materials. Her drawings and collages are also represented in the show.

Zak Prekop: Durations presents 13 of the artist’s abstract canvases, all created in the past year. Their brightly colored, discrete shapes suggest maps or geologic charts. “I refer to my paintings as measures of time,” Prekop says. “They measure … the coexistence of different speeds at which various elements are executed, and time’s relationship to the viewer’s perception of the work.”

The museum part of the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is closed “in anticipation of building renovations,” but the surrounding sculpture park, now managed by the Trustees of Reservations, is very much still open. Nature Sanctuary, a summer addition to the park, opens June 5. The installation features “original, site-inspired commissions and loans from six women artists” and sprawls across the park’s “front lawn” into the partly wooded lakefront grounds. The works play off the history of the site as a summer home and art museum, the influence of climate change, the contradictions inherent in natural “sanctuaries,” and the institution’s current home within the nation’s first conservation and preservation nonprofit.

Born in Calgary, Canada, Elif Saydam is based in Berlin, whose cosmopolitan population and rapid gentrification have been sources of inspiration. List Projects 32: Elif Saydam, opening June 5 at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center, focuses on the fantasies of changing urban spaces and emphasizes, the museum says, “eros in the textures of daily life.” In Saydam’s paintings, with their eclectic literary and visual sources, ordinary places — gas stations, apartment blocks, convenience stores — are “layered with gold and ornament” like an imperial court frieze and can be painted on such unexpected surfaces as antique bathroom stall doors, anti-shoplifting mirrors, and kitchen sponges.

Incorporating young artists — students or just graduated — from the Boston University School of Visual Arts, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston Young Contemporaries 2025 is intended to highlight the next generation of artists working across the city. The show opens at the Boston University Art Galleries on June 5.

— Peter Walsh

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Popular Music

Annie DiRusso with Squirrel Flower
May 29 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Paradise Rock Club, Boston

Boasting a confident vocal delivery, an ear for melody, and an engaging personality, Annie DiRusso established herself as one to watch with her 2023 EP, God, I Hate This Place. This past March, she amply delivered on that promise with the full-length Super Pedestrian, which continues in the EP’s vein with self-aware and humorous compositions such as “Legs,” “Wearing Pants Again,” “Good Ass Movie,” and one that she should probably avoid at the Paradise on May 29, “Derek Jeter.” Acclaimed Arlington-raised singer/songwriter Squirrel Flower — née Ella O’Connor Williams — will open this show.

Tennis with Billie Marten
May 30 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Roadrunner, Boston

Joined by nuptial vows since the late aughts, Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley have been recording as Tennis since 2011. Since then, with seven LPs and two EPs the duo has garnered critical acclaim for their distinctive brand of 70s-influenced lo-fi dream pop. Unfortunately for fans, Moore and Riley have announced that their latest effort — Face Down in the Garden — and the tour in support of it will be their last of each. Thankfully, their last hurrah includes a stop at Roadrunner, which the exceptionally talented singer-songwriter Billie Marten will open.

Suzanne Vega
June 5 (doors at 7/show at 8)
The Cabot, Beverly

Forty years after the release of her eponymous debut, Suzanne Vega continues to solidify and build on her reputation as a unique talent among her generation of singer-songwriters with the brand-new Flying with Angels. Throughout the record’s 10 tracks, Vega is by turns political (“Speakers’ Corner” and “Last Train to Mariupol”), reverent (“Chambermaid” and “Lucinda”), wry (“Rats”), and supremely poignant (the Richard Thompson-level “Galway”). A decade is a long time to go without new Suzanne Vega material, but this collection was unsurprisingly worth the wait. In fact, the new songs are as much of a reason to be in the Cabot audience on June 5 as “Marlene 0n the Wall,” “Luka,” and “Tom’s Diner.”

Aimee Mann with Jonathan Coulton
June 6 (doors at 7/show at 8)
The Wilbur, Boston

The Boston area will be blessed with back-to-back singer-songwriter masterclasses when Aimee Mann visits The Wilbur the night after Suzanne Vega plays The Cabot. Mann will not be bringing any newly recorded stuff with her, but will rather celebrate the 22-1/2 anniversary of 2002’s Lost in Space. Thus, she will treat fans to highlights such as “The Moth,” “Humpty Dumpty,” and “Lost in Space.” Mann’s frequent touring partner and occasional songwriting collaborator Jonathan Coulton will open the show and surely join her during hers.

The Ocean Blue with Brian Tighe of The Hang Ups
June 6 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Arts at the Armory, Somerville

In the ’80s, the northern UK had Liverpool’s Echo & the Bunnymen, Manchester’s The Smiths, Hull’s The Housemartins, and Grangemouth’s Cocteau Twins. One of the United States’ answers to these artists was the product of — of all places — Hershey, PA. The Ocean Blue was a quartet of junior high friends that faultlessly recreated the spooky, shimmery, and jangly sounds of its influences on alternative rock hits such as “Between Something and Nothing,” “Drifting, Falling,” “Ballerina Out of Control,” and “Sublime.” The trio of albums that the band released between 1989 and 1993 remain their most celebrated ones, and they will perform the first two — The Ocean Blue and Cerulean — in their entirety at Arts at the Armory on June 6.

— Blake Maddux

Boston Calling Music Festival
Harvard Athletic Complex, Allston
May 25, 1 p.m. to 11 p.m.

The Dave Matthews Band usually plays multiple nights at amphitheaters, while Fall Out Boy headlined Fenway Park. But they’ve chosen to top daily bills at the Boston Calling Music Festival this Memorial Day Weekend on Harvard’s athletic fields. Friday gets a country kickoff led by Luke Combs and Megan Moroney, Avril Lavigne precedes Fall Out Boy for Saturday’s early 2000s punk-pop buzz, and Vampire Weekend joins the jammy ranks of DMB at Sunday’s finale. Yet there’s lots of stylistic variety old and new mixed in, from rockers the Black Crowes and Cage the Elephant to veteran rappers Public Enemy and T-Pain, plus local bands including Future Teens, Latrelle James, and Rebuilder.

–Paul Robicheau

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Television

Boglands (May 26, Acorn): This new English/Irish production (originally titled Crá) is a bilingual thriller series set in a remote Irish village. The story is told through both English and Irish Gaelic languages (via English subtitles). The story centers around a missing person case that is revived when the body of a woman missing for 15 years is found in a peat bog (swampy sites that naturally preserve bodies). The woman is the mother of local police officer Conall Ó Súilleabháin (Monster’s Dónall Ó Héala), who is eager to work on the case, but his chief is adamant that Conall not be involved. Meanwhile, local journalist Ciara-Kate (Hannah Brady) is putting together a podcast about the investigation and finds she is able to get possible witnesses to open up to her in ways that law enforcement cannot. That prompts Conall to attempt to work with her to find answers and justice. Co-written by Doireann Ní Chorragáin and Richie Conroy and directed by Philip Doherty, Boglands presents sweeping cinematic views of the gorgeous Irish countryside, coming up with fresh views of an authentic, familiar cultural setting. Fascinating touches of folklore and Celtic mysticism permeate this narrative of loss, mystery, and corruption.

Dept. Q (May 29, Netflix): Okay — we have a cool-looking cold case crime thriller set in rural Ireland, so why not a cold case crime thriller set in Edinburgh, Scotland? Adapted from Danish crime novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen, the series stars Matthew Goode (Downton Abbey) as Carl, a detective whose promising career is derailed after a debacle that leaves one of his colleagues dead and another grievously injured. Struggling with his guilt and anger, Carl is assigned to a new department, leading a team of ragtag but similarly brilliant officers who are tasked with investigating cold cases. Dept. Q’s fine cast also includes Kelly Macdonald (Operation Mincemeat), Mark Bonnar (Shetland), and cameos by British luminaries like Shirley Henderson, Kate Dickie, and Chloe Pirrie.

— Peg Aloi

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Jazz

Fred Hersch Trio
May 25 at 5 p.m.
Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, MA

One of the great living poets of the keyboard, Fred Hersch brings a superb trio to Rockport music, with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Jochen Rueckert.

Jared Sims Quartet
May 29 at 7:30 p.m.
Peabody Hall, Parish of All Saints, Dorchester, MA

The multi-sax and flute man Jared Sims has been working on this project for a while — a band with a fluency in a variety of Afro-Latin styles: pianist Rebecca Cline, bassist Fernando Huergo, and drummer Gen Yoshimura. “Expect upbeat and funky original music infused with Latin rhythms.”

The Levin Brothers feat. Pat LaBarbera
May 30 at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

Bass hero Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, and a million others) joins forces with his brother Pete on keyboards (Gil Evans, Jimmy Giuffre, a million others), saxophonist Pat LaBarbera (Elvin Jones, Buddy Rich, et al.), and drummer Jeff Siegel (Sir Roland Hanna, Ron Carter, Dave Douglas, et al.).

Ian Coury Quintet
May 30 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

The young Brazilian musician Ian Coury is deeply schooled in the hybrid musical tradition of choro, and he’s also a virtuoso of the Brazilian 10-string mandolin, the bandolim. He’s joined by a crew that includes some of the Boston area’s most adept players in all manner of Brazilian and Latin jazz styles — pianist Maxim Lubarsky, bassist Ebinho Cardoso, percussionist Rafael Heredia, and drummer Mark Walker

Ari Hoenig Trio
May 31 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

Ari Hoenig is one of those drummers whose mastery of rhythmic complexity is so organic and colorful that it’s easy to overlook the math-y genius behind it and just enjoy the ticklish grooves that make you giggle and shout. He comes to Scullers with the trio from his excellent 2024 release Tea for Three, pianist Gadi Lehavi and bassist Ben Tiberio.

Jeff Platz’s New Root System
May 31 at 8 p.m.
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, MA

As a bandleader, Jeff Platz’s emphasis on compositional awareness and group exploration can sometimes overshadow his considerable skill as an inventive guitarist. His group New Root System is in the midst of preparing a new recording. Get a sneak peek during this show, with Brendan Carniaux on tenor saxophone and reeds, Scott Getchell on trumpet, bassist Kit Demos, and drummer Max Goldman.

Bert Seager’s Heart of Hearing
June 4 at 7 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

Pianist and composer Bert Seager’s Heart of Hearing quartet always invigorates as it pushes traditional song forms and rhythms, mixing standards with Seager originals, occasional dips into lesser-known Peruvian rhythms, and always at least one Monk tune. He’s joined by his usual Heart of Hearing compatriots — saxophonist Rick DiMuzio, bassist Andrew Schiller, and drummer Dor Herskovits.

Vance Provey Quartet
June 5 at 8 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

Trumpeter Vance Provey has been a regular at various free-improv sessions at the Lilypad. Tonight, in this Creative Music Series event, he leads his own ensemble, with pianist Eric Zinman, bassist Scott Samenfeld and drummer John Loggia.

Eliane Elias
June 7 at 8 p.m.
Groton Hill Music Center, Groton, MA

Pianist, composer, singer Eliane Elias’s fusions of traditional Brazilian samba and bossa with modern jazz are always spellbinding. She comes to Groton Hill with guitarist Leandro Pellegrino — a master and longtime Elias group band member — plus drummer Mauricio Zottarelli, and her husband and musical partner, the great bassist Marc Johnson. Arts Fuse inteview

— Jon Garelick

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Roots and World Music

Melissa Carper and Todd Day Wait
May 27
Club Passim, Cambridge

One of the purest and most endearing voices in country music belongs to Melissa Carper, who also happens to be an excellent upright bassist and songwriter. After impressing with the Wonder Women of Country supergroup (which included Brennen Leigh and Kelly Willis), she’s coming back to Passim with her own combo of guitarist Greg Harkins and Asleep at the Wheel fiddler Katie Shore for a pre-Pride celebration.

Sonic Passports
May 28, 6 p.m.
Hatch Shell, Boston

The Esplanade Association and its partners have gifted the city Groundbeat, an eclectic free multiweek series that showcases the many performing talents who call Boston home. Up this week is a world music celebration curated by the stirring Afro-Caribbean soul singer and cultural activist Safiya Leslie and her Travel Through Music Journeys. She’s lined up an excellent bill that includes spoken word artist Amanda Shea, the mesmerizing Malagasy singer Niu Raza, and Boston roots reggae legends Conscious Band, featuring the pioneering vocalist Errol Strength. The series picks up on June 4 with a Latin night.

Gigantic Gospel Explosion
June 1, 4 p.m.
Global Ministries Christian Church, 670 Washington Street, Dorchester
Info: 617-282-7794

Tireless promoter Jeannette Farrell is yet again presenting a full afternoon of the best in traditional gospel quartet music at Global Ministries Christian Church, where Rev. Bruce Wall is pastor. Visiting artists include such popular groups as Lil’ Sammy and the New Flying Clouds of Philadelphia, Tyrese Hall and the Golden Stars of New Haven, Lil’ David and Baltimore’s Sensational Bells of Joy, and Florida’s New C Lord C’s. There will also be appearances from Boston’s own Spiritual Encouragers, Test-a-Mony and W.O.R.D.

— Noah Schaffer

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Classical Music

 

John Williams’ Playlist
Presented by Boston Pops
May 29 and 31, 7:30 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

Lockhart and the Pops continue their Symphony Hall season with a program of film music specially curated by the iconic composer. Williams, a note on the BSO’s site points out, will not be in attendance — but cellist Ani Aznavoorian will be the concert’s featured soloist.

Serenade for Spring
Presented by Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra
June 8, 3 p.m.
Second Church, West Newton

Pro Arte is joined by Tanglewood Festival Chorus conductor James Burton for an afternoon of orchestral serenades and suites by Elgar, Copland, and Dvorak. Aron Zelkowicz is the soloist in Luigi Boccherini’s Cello Concerto No. 3.

Tallis Scholars
Presented by Boston Early Music Festival
June 9, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston

The Tallis Scholars are joined by The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble to open BEMF’s 2025 Festival with a concert of works by Lassus, Palestrina, Gombert, and others.

The Boston Camerata
Presented by Boston Early Music Festival
June 10, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall

Anne Azéma and The Boston Camerata present “A Gallery of Kings,” comprising coronation music for kings, good and bad, from around 1300.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

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Author Events

Rose Waldman & Todd Portnowitz with translator Lisa Newman — Brookline Booksmith
Sons and Daughters
May 25 at 4 p.m.
Free

“Originally serialized in the 1960s and 1970s in New York–based Yiddish newspapers, Chaim Grade’s Sons and Daughters is a precious glimpse of a way of life that is no longer — the rich Yiddish culture of Poland and Lithuania that the Holocaust would eradicate. We meet the Katzenellenbogens in the tiny village of Morehdalye, in the 1930s, when gangs of Poles are beginning to boycott Jewish merchants and the modern, secular world is pressing in on the shtetl from all sides. It’s this clash, between the freethinking secular life and a life bound by religious duty — and the comforts offered by each — that stands at the center of Sons and Daughters.”

Paul Elie in conversation with Stephen Prothero at Harvard Book Store
The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s
May 29 at 7 p.m.
Free

“The 1980s are usually seen as a slick, shrill decade. The Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers urged ‘Death to America’; Ronald Reagan was in the White House, backed by the Moral Majority; John Paul II was asserting Catholic traditionalism and denouncing homosexuality, as were the televangelists on cable TV. And yet ‘crypto-religious’ artists pushed back against the spirit of the age, venturing into vexed areas where politicians and clergy were loath to go — and anticipating the postsecular age we are living in today.

“That is the story Paul Elie tells in The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s, an enthralling group portrait. Here’s Leonard Cohen writing ‘Hallelujah’ in a Times Square hotel room; Andy Warhol adapting Leonardo’s The Last Supper in response to the AIDS crisis; Prince making the cross and altar into ‘signs of the times.’ Through Toni Morrison the spirits of the enslaved speak from the grave; Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen deepen the tent-revival intensity of their work; U2, Morrissey, and Sinéad O’Connor give voice to the anguish of young people who were raised religious; Wim Wenders offers an angel’s-eye view of Berlin. And Martin Scorsese overcomes fundamentalist opposition to make The Last Temptation of Christ — a struggle that anticipates Salman Rushdie’s struggle with Islam in The Satanic Verses.

“Much of that work drew controversy, and episodes such as the boycott sparked by Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’ video and the tearing up of Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ in Congress were early skirmishes in the culture wars. But in this book’s interlocking tales of the crypto-religious, the artists are the protagonists, and their work speaks to us because it deals with matters of the spirit that are too complex to be reduced to doctrines and headlines.”

An Evening of Poetry: Carrie Bennett, Ruben Quesada, & Kevin McLellan – Brookline Booksmith
May 29 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Ruben Quesada is a poet, translator, and editor. His new poetry collection, Brutal Companion, won the Barrow Street Editors Prize, and was recognized as a Notable Book of 2024 by the University of California. Carrie Bennett is the author of four poetry collections, most recently The Mouth Is Also a Compass, winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Prize. Kevin McLellan is the author of Sky. Pond. Mouth. (winner of the 2024 Granite State Poetry Prize selected by Alexandria Peary and a finalist for the Thom Gunn Award in Poetry).”

Summer Festival – Longfellow House Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site
105 Brattle Street, Cambridge, June 1- September 7
Free

“The Longfellow Summer Arts Festival brings music, poetry, and community to the East Lawn of the Longfellow House on Sunday afternoons through the summer. All events are free and open to the public. In the case of inclement weather, poetry readings will be moved indoors. Concerts will be rescheduled to September.

Ron Chernow at First Parish Church | Harvard Book Store
Mark Twain
June 2 at 7 p.m.
Tickets are $50 with book, $15 without

“Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.”

Sarah Yahm with Joanna Rakoff – Brookline Booksmith
Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation
June 4 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Bursting with humor and heartbreak, and inspired by Yahm’s own experience as a disabled author facing the existential terror of parenting while ill, Unfinished Acts of Wild Creation leaps into the trials of motherhood, the impossibility of adolescence, the hopelessness of grief, and all the wild beauty and hilarity that makes life worth living anyway.”

Richard Russo at the Cambridge Public Library – Harvard Book Store
Life and Art
June 5 at 6 p.m.
Tickets are $29.75 with book, Free with RSVP without

“Life and Art — these are the twin subjects considered in Richard Russo’s 12 masterful new essays — how they inform each other and how the stories we tell ourselves about both shape our understanding of the world around us. In ‘The Lives of Others,’ he reflects on the implacable fact that writers use people, insisting that what matters, in the end, is how and for what purpose. How do you bridge the gap between what you know and what you don’t, and sometimes can’t, know? Why tell a story in the first place?

“What we don’t understand, Russo opines, is in fact the very thing that beckons to us. In ‘Stiff Neck,’ he writes of the exasperating fault lines exposed within his own family as his wife’s sister and her husband — proudly unvaccinated — develop COVID. In ‘Triage,’ he details with heartbreaking vividness the terror of seeing his seven-year-old grandson in critical condition. And in ‘Ghosts,’ he revisits Gloversville, the town that gave rise to the now-legendary fictional town of North Bath, and confronts the specter of its richly populated past and its ghostly present.”

Tim Weed in conversation with Charles Coe – Porter Square Books
The Afterlife Project
June 5 at 7 p.m.
Free

“With humanity facing imminent extinction, Centauri Project scientists use technology originally designed for interstellar travel to send a test subject 10 millennia into Earth’s future. Marooned in an uninhabited wilderness, microbiologist Nicholas Hindman searches for evidence of remnant populations. He has a protocol to follow and is determined to do so to the bitter end — though he knows he’s probably searching in vain, stranded on an empty planet silently orbiting the sun.

“Meanwhile, back in 2068 AD, a devastating hyperpandemic has quelled all talk of interstellar travel and thrown the future of humanity into grave doubt. Four surviving members of the Centauri team board a vintage solar-powered sailing yacht for a harrowing journey in search of a second test subject. Their destination is a small volcanic island north of Sicily rumored to harbor that rarest of creatures: a woman capable of getting pregnant, thereby ensuring this generation of Homo sapiens isn’t the last. But first they must make it halfway across the post-apocalyptic globe, risking heatwaves, oceanic megastorms, murderous gangs, deranged cult leaders, a volcanic eruption, and the dangerous microbes that continue to circulate through the planet’s atmosphere.

“A finalist for the Prism Prize for Climate Literature, Tim Weed’s The Afterlife Project encompasses a desperate quest for the key to the future of humanity, an impossible love story, and a search for meaning across the inconceivable vastness of geological time.”

Michael Koresky in conversation with Loren King at Harvard Book Store
Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness
June 10 at 7 p.m.
Free

“In this insightful, wildly entertaining book, cinema historian Michael Koresky advances a bold take on the Code Era, calling our attention to how queerness inherently resists erasure, abiding even in films that are ‘bad for us.’ Bookended by These Three and The Children’s Hour — both based on the same play by Lillian Hellman and both unfairly reviled today —Koresky’s nuanced account finds new meaning in ‘problematic’ classics such as Rope, Tea and Sympathy, and Suddenly, Last Summer, reckoning with these complex films’ enduring capacity to enthrall, move, and, yes, delight us.

“At the same time, he lifts up the period’s underappreciated queer filmmakers. On second glance, midcentury Hollywood may begin to seem surprisingly, even gleefully, subversive. Now, at a time when book bans and gag laws are on the rise, Sick and Dirty reminds us that nothing makes queerness speak louder than its opponents’ bids to silence it.”

— Matt Hanson