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

Belmont World Film 

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

June 16 (West Newton Cinema) Under The Volcano Final film of the Belmont World Film International Series. While enjoying the final day of their vacation in Tenerife, Spain, a blended Ukrainian family’s world is upended when news breaks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rendering their return to Kyiv impossible. Stranded on the island, they must navigate feelings of isolation, fear, and uncertainty, all while confronting the evolving dynamics within their family. Poland’s submission for Best International Feature Film Oscar.

Pavement in its heyday (below); the cast of Range Life (above). Photo: Michael Wong and Daniel Stahl

Pavements 
through June 12
Brattle Theater in Cambridge

Pavements is split into segments: a biopic being filmed on the eponymous Indie called “Range Life: A Pavement Story”; a jukebox musical known as “Slanted! Enchanted! A Pavement Musical”; the conceiving of a museum exhibition called “Pavements 1933-2022: A Pavement Museum”; and a 2022 reunion tour. Only half of these events are real but they all collide and blend with each other in this spoof of rock bio musicals. Arts Fuse review

Bleak Week Series
June 8-15
Coolidge Corner Theatre

This distinctive series features several tough but remarkable films from a selection of radical auteurs: Dancer in the Dark with Dogville (Lars Von Triers, 6/8), Killing of the Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, 6/9); Ratcatcher and We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsey, 6/10); Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 6/11), White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 6/11); Kids (Larry Clark, 6/12 ), Dead Presidents (Albert & Allen Hughes, 6/14), Happiness (Todd Solondz, 6/15) and Funny Games (English language remake Michael Haneke, 6/15)

A scene from Come See Me in the Good Light, which will be screening at the Provincetown International Film Festival.

Provincetown International Film Festival
June 11-15

10,000 plus film-goers, movie buffs, and arts patrons attend this five-day festival, which this year will feature 80 American and international independent, narrative, documentary, and animated features and shorts, panel discussions, and special events. 2025 Honorees and conversations include Ari Aster for Filmmaker on the Edge, Murray Bartlett for Excellence in Acting, and Eva Victor and River Gallo as Next Wave Filmmakers. PIFF Film Calendar

Ron Delsener Presents
June 12 7:30 p.m.
Arlington Regent Theatre

In a career that has spanned almost 60 years, concert promoter and impresario Ron Delsener has been a force behind virtually every major contemporary music concert in New York City. From the Beatles at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, to bringing David Bowie to Carnegie Hall and Patti Smith to the Palladium, to somehow convincing Simon and Garfunkel to come back together to play the biggest concert ever in Central Park, Delsener had a hand in it all. He is in his 80s, and he just can’t stop.

Roxbury International Film Festival
June 19-25
Multiple Locations

RIFF is dedicated to celebrating films by, for, and about people of color around the world. This year there are 100 features and short films. There will be Q&A sessions with filmmakers, daily script reads, hangouts, panels, and more. There will also be several free screenings and special events. Film Schedule. Listing of all events. List of Films & Shorts

Pick of the Week

Pee-wee as Himself (in two parts) HBO (MAX)

A scene from Pee-wee as Himself. Photo: HBO (MAX)

Paul Reubens sat for 40 hours of interviews with director Matt Wolf to reveal, explain, and define himself and his evolution as the character Pee Wee Herman. Part One explores Reubens’s evolution as an actor, bent on making a mark for himself in the world as an actor and a gay man. His early career, love of the circus and of comedy and drag, Warhol/Paul Morrissey films, and fascination with outsiders inspired what would become his iconic character. Part Two covers the creative work that went into the making of Pee Wee. After that, it moves into the performer’s scandals and his undeserved vilification by law enforcement and the press. Reubens’s wit and his willingness to discuss his life are admirable considering that, unknown to the director, the actor had already been diagnosed with cancer. As Reubens says in the course of one interview, “This is such a dumb thing to say, but death is so final that to be able to get your message in at the last minute, or at some point, is incredible.” This is a moving portrait, told in his own words, of a brilliant entertainer and committed artist.

— Tim Jackson

Theater

L to R: Hass Regen (Prior Walter), Ben Steinfeld (Louis Ironson) in the Gamm Theatre production of Angels in America, Part One. Photo: Cat Laine

Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner. Directed by Brian McEleney. Staged by the Gamm Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, RI, through June 22.

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: Pererstroika will run from September 25 through October 12.

The Victim by Lawrence Goodman. Directed by Daniel Gidron. Staged by Shakespeare & Company at 70 Kemble Street, Lenox, June

A description of the play according to the Shakes & Co website: “A successful New York doctor whose racial diversity training has gone horribly wrong. A health aide grappling with racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. A Holocaust survivor facing her own horror, and finding her way back to love and healing. Three women, three interconnected monologues. Who gets to call herself a victim? Who is the perpetrator?”

Christiani Pitts (Robin) and Sam Tutty (Dougal) in rehearsal for A.R.T.’s North American premiere of Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). Photo: Nile Scott Studios

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, 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. ” Arts Fuse review

Our Class by Tadeusz Slobodzianek. Adapted by Norman Allen. Directed by Igor Golyak. Staged by Arlekin at the Calderwood Pavilion at Boston Center for the Arts, Boston June 13 through 22.

According to the press release, this is “the story of Ten Polish classmates — five Jewish and five Catholic — who grow up as friends and neighbors, then face the awakening of hatred, with life and death consequences. Inspired by real life events surrounding a 1941 pogrom in a small Polish village, this shocking, timely story follows their lives from childhood through eight decades. exploring themes of friendship, betrayal, and the consequences of hatred.”

“This contemporary production of Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s masterpiece stars the internationally celebrated film and stage actress Chulpan Khamatova as Rachelka/Marianna, with Richard Topol as Abram and Ilia Volo as Wladek, reprising their roles from the New York premiere. Boston favorites have just been announced to join the international cast including Deborah Martin, Gigi Watson, Jeremy Beazlie, and Arlekin company member Gene Ravvin. This cast, a mix of New York, Boston, Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish and Polish actors is rounded out by Zach Fike Hodges, Kirill Robtsov and Ryan Czerwonko from New York.”

Melinda Lopez and Luz Lopez in the Central Square Theatre production of Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Photo: Nile Scott Studios.

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

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.” Arts Fuse review

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?'”

Sarah-Anne Martinez (l) and Emily Skinner (r) in the Huntington Theatre Company production of The Light in the Piazza. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

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

The Bohemian, adapted from Willa Cather’s short story “The Bohemian Girl.” Directed by Brenda Withers. Staged by Harbor Stage, 15 Kendrick Ave, Wellfleet, June 12 through July 5.

A stage adaptation of an early Willa Cather story, first published in McClure’s in August 1912. Critics classify it as Cather’s first mature work to explore the Nebraska immigrant experience, anticipating themes and characters she would later develop in her celebrated novels like O Pioneers! and My Ántonia. The tale has also inspired an opera. According to the Harbor Stage website: “Ten years after striking out on his own, Nils Ericson returns home in search of what he left behind: the land he knew, the family he confounds, and the girl he (almost) lost.”

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, 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.”

A scene from the Bread & Puppet production of Oh You Beast Descendants. Photo: Facebook

Oh You Beast Descendants, written and performed by Bread & Puppet Theater in the Paper Maché Cathedral at the Bread & Puppet Farm, Glover, VT, Fridays through June.

Here is the description of the show on the Bread & Puppet website: “We human beasts, descendants of revenge and elimination gods, and of the gods of love who preach by killing love, how can we survive while our very own evil empire promotes incinerations and starvation warfare and supreme inhumanity is performed in front of our eyes? We, the numerous people here on the face of the earth, we occupants of not knowing where else to be, living in the jungle of beastly minutes, need Mother Dirt to rebirth our joy muscles, strip us of our horror inhumanity, and make water and bread of life obligatory.”

Magdalene by Mark St. Germain. Directed by Keira Naughton. Staged by Chester Theatre Company at the Town Hall Theatre, 15 Middlefield Road, Chester, June 19 through 29.

The biblical plot: eighteen years after the death of Christ, Peter seeks out Mary Magdalene, whom he banished after the crucifixion. Peter needs an ally against a self-proclaimed Apostle angling for power in the growing church. Adam LeFevre and Danielle Skraastad star.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Doug Lockwood. Staged by Gloucester Stage Company at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, through June 28.

From the director: “This is a play whose characters and language have haunted me from the first time I ever read it. As a director, rather than run away from this feeling, I have learned to lean into it, and to get the chance to do so with these incredible actors and designers in this magical theatre on the harbor just feels really, really right.”The cast includes De’Lon Grant, Adrianne Krstansky, Patrick O’Konis, and Liza Giangrande.

— Bill Marx

Visual Art

Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is one of several institutions that claim to be America’s oldest art museum. It’s partly a matter of semantics. The PAFA was founded as an academy — an association of leading artists who hold exhibitions of their work and often collectively offer instruction to students. They can also maintain an art collection for use as teaching models. The new PAFA added these functions in stages. It opened its first building in 1806 and began mounting exhibitions in 1811. Art instruction began in 1810.

William Sidney Mount, The Painter’s Triumph (detail), 1838. Oil on wood. Photo: Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia

Over two centuries, the PAFA’s teaching programs have educated an impressive list of major American artists, including Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, William Glackens, Maxfield Parrish, and Charles Sheeler, and formed an even more impressive historic collection of American art, acquired decade after decade as American art itself developed and acquired an international reputation. With its Frank Furness-designed, National Historic Landmark building undergoing renovations, PAFA is lending out a selection to create 200 Years of American Art from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. This is a very rare chance to see a large group of PAFA’s prime holdings outside Philadelphia. The diverse, 85-work exhibition opens at the Peabody Essex Museum on June 14. With featured work by such figures as Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mary Cassatt, and Stuart Davis, including some of the most famous art works in the history of American art, this is a show not to be missed.

More, perhaps, than any other nation, America’s self-image was shaped by its landscapes, the pathways through them, and their depiction in art. (Un)Settled: The Landcape in American Art, opening June 14 at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, takes on the “muse in American art” from the early 19th-century Hudson River School to contemporary art, from the extraordinary western canyons and basins that so impressed European visitors, to the open roads of the automobile era.

The more than 40 works on view include the artists Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, Ana Mendieta, and Ed Ruscha, among others. This selection also encompasses furniture, glass, ceramics, and baskets. The show “highlights,” the museum says, “ongoing conversations around the landscape and its relationship to establishing cultural and national identity over the last two centuries.”

A sample of Yu-Wen’s work at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Photo: courtesy of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

One of several summer exhibitions focusing on one of Mrs. Gardner’s chief obsessions, Yu-Wen Wu: Reigning Beauty, 2025, opens at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on June 17. For the museum’s Anne H. Fitzpatrick Facade, Wu has created a collage of photographs of “the Gardner’s flowers,” focusing on Isabella’s passion for plants and the loving care given long after her death to the museum’s living collection by the museum’s dedicated horticultural team. Violets, nasturtiums, and hydrangeas cascade against dark storm clouds on the facade, “at once an homage to the fleeting beauty of the natural world and a meditation on the … vulnerability of the environment.”

The great 20th-century architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses were particularly famous for blending outside and inside, an idea that has played a key role in American domestic architecture ever since. Wright’s efforts in this direction reached a peak with his Usonian houses, modest homes compared to his earlier work for wealthy clients, designed for people who lived in the new middle-class suburbs that began to be built in the 1930s and especially after World War II. These houses used innovative materials and construction methods to keep costs down, installed large, plate glass windows overlooking lawns and gardens, and used corner windows, large glass doors, and strategically placed planters to erase the lines between the house’s interiors and its natural surroundings. Their designs skillfully incorporated the needs and aspirations of their patrons, meaning each remains remarkably individual within Wright’s distinctive styles: the opposite of a standardized tract house.

Two of these houses were constructed in Manchester, New Hampshire — rarities because most of Wright’s work was built in the Midwest, Southwest, and California, reaching all the way to Japan. Very few were built in New England. Both of the Manchester houses now belong to the city’s Currier Art Museum, the only museum in the world to have two Wright buildings in its collection (they are open seasonally for tours).

Lucille Zimmerman at home. Photo: Currier Museum of Art Library and Archives

Frank Lloyd Wright in Manchester: The Histories of the Zimmermans and Kalils, opening at the Currier on June 11, draws on letters, photographs, and original blueprints to tell the stories of the houses and their original owners. The Zimmerman house, commissioned by Isadore and Lucille Zimmerman, both physicians and avid amateur musicians, was built in 1950. Although Wright never visited Manchester, he was able to design a house for his clients wrapped in warm, natural wood that not only fit its site but suited and helped shape the lives of their owners. (When I met her years later, Lucille noted that the house had so much built-in furniture, another characteristic of late Wright houses, that the only things they needed to add were their music stands.) The Kalil House, made for the Zimmerman’s friends, Toufic and Mildred Kalil, was constructed in 1955 of Wright-designed concrete blocks, another innovation. The museum speculates that the Zimmermans and Khalils, both somewhat outside the Old Yankee culture of upper crust Manchester, “may have found in Wright’s designs a mirror for their own values — modern, forward-looking, and unbound by tradition.”

Bernard Langlais was born in Maine in 1921. Although he had a career as a painter in New York City, he returned frequently to his home state, where he developed a style of making sculpture from rough hewn, raw, and painted wood. His popular humorous animals and elaborate abstractions eventually populated the entire state, from the bluffs of the southern summer resort of Ogunquit to the fields of Aroostook County in the north.

The Langlais estate, including nearly 200 of his works, came to the Colby College Museum of Art in 2010 by bequest. The museum placed examples of his work in collections and on sites across Maine. It has now organized Love Your Langlais: A Community Curates, an exhibition chosen by residents of the nearby Waterville community from works temporarily placed around town and the Colby College campus. Their final selection opens to the public on June 18.

Two exhibitions open at the Newport Art Museum on June 21. Through A Collector’s Lens: Iconic Photography from the Christopher Hyland Collection features a selection of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, among them Edward Steichen, Edward Weston, Sally Mann, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Robert Mapplethorpe. Bobby Anspach: Everything is Change encompasses sculptural installations by the late American artist, who was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1987, all from the series Place for Continuous Eye Contact.

— Peter Walsh

Television

The Waterfront. (L to R) Jake Weary as Cane Buckley, Melissa Benoist as Bree Buckley.
Photo: Dana Hawley/Netflix

The Waterfront (June 9, Netflix): This new series from the creator of the WB/CW network’s Dawson’s Creek looks somewhat similar to Netflix’s drama Bloodline (by the creative team behind FX’s Damages—both excellent, by the way). The show’s taglines even include “There’s blood in the water” and “Blood is thicker than water.” In addition, the trailer utilizes ’70s classic “Smoke on the Water” for a moody vibe. Bloodline was about hotel owners in the Florida Keys and dark family secrets, whereas The Waterfront follows the Buckley family, successful commercial fishermen and restaurant owners in coastal North Carolina, which is faced with pressures that lead them to dangerous drug dealing (a sort of maritime Breaking Bad vibe). Like Dawson’s Creek, the story is semi-autobiographical for creator Kevin Williamson, a personal connection that bodes well. Though it doesn’t quite match the excellent cast of Bloodline (Sam Shepard! Sissy Spacek! Ben Mendlesohn! Linda Cardellini!), it does have Holt McCallany (Mindhunter) and Maria Bello as Harlan and Mae Buckley, and Topher Grace in a funny, wild-eyed turn as a sociopathic kingpin.

The Gilded Age, Season 3 (June 22, HBO). I’m partial to this series because, for the last several years, HBO has descended on my small upstate town to film some of our Gilded Age architectural wonders. The scenic crew spent three days painting resin planters to look like cast metal with verdigris, and the greensman even admired my garden, exclaiming “That’s a little slice of heaven!” They transformed our paved streets into dirt paths suitable for dozens of horse-drawn carriages, remade our storefronts into greengrocers and apothecaries, and clad local extras in stunningly rendered costumes that gussied up our brick-walled alleyways. The network has spared no expense or effort crafting the show’s exquisitely authentic details. Suitably impressed, and blushing with local pride, I am driven to overlook the somewhat uneven writing and watch with admiration this story of 1880s New York: new money clashes with old, and a society still smarting from the Civil War tries to find its way forward. The casting strikes me as a bit odd at times: Cynthia Nixon and Carrie Coon are stellar actresses that, initially, felt out of place. But their intriguing character trajectories have won me over. Christine Baranski and Nathan Lane chew the scenery delightfully, while Taissa Farmiga, Denée Benton, and Blake Ritson seem elegantly, compellingly, right at home.

— Peg Aloi

Popular Music

Lovina Falls. Photo: Joan Hathaway

Lovina Falls with The Daylilies and Roser
June 13 (doors at 7/show at 8)
Deep Cuts, Medford

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Valerie Forgione spent the late nineties and early aughts fronting the Boston quartet Mistle Thrush. The vocals that she provided on the band’s three LPs led the late Boston Globe music critic Steve Morse to declare that she had “some of the most versatile pipes since the dream-pop heyday of Kate Bush.” Forgione released her first album under the name Lovina Falls, Calculating the Angle of Our Descent (on which she played — among other instruments — autoharp, accordion, and Moog), in May 2023. Two new singles followed in 2024, and now she’s back with second single of 2025, “Light and Low.”

zzzahara opening for Cults
June 21 (doors at 7:30/show at 8:30)
The Sinclair, Cambridge

“When I finally sat down in the studio, I just had all this fucking anger … In the end, I just took it all out on the record.” This is how the uniquely monikered musician zzzahara describes the creation of his third LP, this year’s Spiral Your Way Out. This wrath is evident enough in the lyrics of the record’s 10 tracks. Musically, however, the music is often bouncy and upbeat, providing a bittersweet contrast that evinces the lifelong Angeleno’s unmistakable talents as a lyricist and composer. (My boston.com preview focusing on Cults is on this page.)

Hannah Frances opening for Charlie Cunningham
June 22 (doors at 7/show at 8)
The Sinclair, Cambridge

I’m not sure how Hannah Frances didn’t appear on my radar until a few months ago. Thankfully, a trusty publicist reached out to me about her and included a copy of her latest album in the missive. The seven songs on Keeper of the Shepard are lengthy but never overstay their welcome. Frances’s subtle and engaging voice hovers over a subtle and sophisticated musical foundation that further reveals a stunning mastery of songwriting and guitar playing. This 27-year-old Chicagoan my not be destined for stadium-level superstardom, but Keeper of the Shepard is sure to be ubiquitous on year-end lists and sufficient to direct you to her bandcamp page, where you can name for price for each of her previous offerings. (My Charlie Cunningham-focused boston.com preview is on this page.)

— Blake Maddux

Roots and World Music

Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between
June 19
Regent Theater, Arlington

Rock singer/songwriter Garland Jeffreys is one of the voices that epitomize New York. His music is a distinctive synthesis of his Black, Puerto Rican, and white heritage, as well as his love for doo-wop, folk, and reggae. While there are plenty of on-screen testimonials from celebrities like Laurie Anderson and Bruce Springsteen, the fact that they are friends, as well as admirers, elevates them above the usual talking head appearances. Even more compelling: homages from fellow rockers of color, like Alejandro Escovedo and Vernon Reid. Best of all, the viewer sees and hears how Jeffreys’s music developed from his early folk days, moving from his signature song “Wild in the Streets” to his ’90s masterpiece LP, Don’t Call Me Buckwheat, and his late-career self-releases. The film is so even-handed in its depiction of the ups and downs of Jeffreys’s career that I did not realize until the closing credits that it had been directed by his wife, Claire Jeffreys. I named it one of the best film documentaries of 2023 when it was on the festival circuit, and now it is making its local big screen premiere.

Barrence Whitfield & Friends: A Savage 70th Birthday
June 13
Regent Theater, Arlington

It’s a big birthday for Boston’s foremost rock ‘n roll screamer, Barrence Whitfield. As he mentioned in his 2022 Arts Fuse interview, he’s got a wide variety of projects on the horizon, so it’s likely that the promised special guests will come from many walks of the local music community.

Blues Bash 3
June 13
Fallout Shelter, Norwood

Boston has lately been falling off the schedules of blues bands’ tours, but Norwood’s Fallout Shelter has been working to reverse that trend. Later this summer, they’ve got a rare area date from Louisiana blues great Kenny Neal; but first, a pairing of two of the best New England singer/harpists and their bands: the suave Sugar Ray Norcia and the Bluetones, and the soulful former James Cotton Band lead singer Darrell Nulisch.

Skavoovie and the Epitones
June 20
The Sinclair

There was no shortage of teenage ska bands in the ’90s, and the story of Skavoovie and the Epitones was typical: the Newton-based band met in high school, toured around the country in an old school bus, put out a series of excellent Jamaican jazz records on the then-influential Moon Ska label, and broke up so its members could go to college. But, since then, Skavoovie’s alumni have become seemingly inescapable: one is a member of The War on Drugs, another has made music for Sesame Street and with Björk, a third started the dance band Escort, and other members have been prominent in fields that range from punk to graphic African hip-hop. And that doesn’t include the comic book artistry of lead singer Ansis Puriņš. Now, after years of fan pleas, the group is reuniting for a show at the Sinclair, and they’ve convinced their old rockabilly pals, the Amazing Royal Crowns, to also get back together for the occasion.

Cambridge River Festival
June 21

After its successful revival last year, the free Cambridge River Festival is back, and once again, they’ve had the excellent idea of asking two of Cambridge’s most beloved arts organizations to curate a stage. Club Passim’s folk and roots stage will include such key singer/songwriters as Naomi Westwater, Pamela Means, and Cliff Notez. Global Arts Live is presenting a day that features the pan-Mediterranean sounds of Zafarán, the psychedelic Congolese-inspired combo Maison Électronique, and the great Malian virtuoso Balla Kouyaté.

— Noah Schaffer

Jazz

Fully Celebrated Orchestra + Charlie Kohlhase
June 11 at 8 p.m.
Midway Café, Jamaica Plain

The Fully Celebrated Orchestra would be worth catching in any of their monthly residency shows at the Midway (or anywhere, for that matter) but tonight brings a special double bill. The FCO (alto sax Jim Hobbs, cornet Taylor Ho Bynum, guitarist Ian Ayres, bass Timo Shanko, and drummer Luther Gray) play the middle and closing sets. The indomitable multi-reedman and composer Charlie Kohlhase opens the night with his Saxophone Support Group (CK, plus saxophonists and multi-reed players Allan Chase, Neil Leonard. Seth Meicht, Brian Price, Temidayo Balogun, Jason Robinson, Jared Sims, and Kathy Olson). Then Kohlhase follows the FCO with his venerable Explorers Club, where he’s joined by Meicht, trumpet and flugelhorn Dan Rosenthal, bass trombone Bill Lowe, tubist Josiah Reibstein, bassist Tony Leva, and drummer Curt Newton. (I guess that makes it a triple-bill.)

The Mozambique-born guitarist, singer, and songwriter Albino Mbie. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Albino Mbie
June 12 at 6:30 p.m.
Eustis Estate, Milton

The Mozambique-born guitarist, singer, and songwriter Albino Mbie plays this Mandorla Music event as part of its alfresco summer series at the Eustis Estate. Mbie — a former full-scholarship student in Berklee’s African Scholars program — mixes virtuoso guitar chops with adept songwriting and appealing vocals in Afropop and “Moz jazz” styles.

Gabrielle Stravelli
June 13 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

The format of the Gabrielle Stravelli trio’s Beautiful Moons Ago (2024) — piano, bass, singer, no drums — puts the singer’s voice, diction, and phrasing in the spotlight, all in service of the songs, including the familiar and not-so-familiar from the Great American Songbook (the title song is from Nat “King” Cole and his trio-mate, guitarist Oscar Moore). She’s up to the task. Pianist Michael Kanan and bassist Pat O’Leary help her keep things swinging.

Anthony Geraci and the Boston Blues All-Stars feat. Sal Baglio
June 14 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

A stalwart of the New England blues scene (charter member of Sugar Ray & the Bluetones, Ronni Earl & the Broadcasters), the pianist and singer Anthony Geraci brings in singer/songwriter/guitarist Sal Baglio (the Stompers) as a featured guest with singer/guitarist Barrett Anderson, saxophonist Henley Douglas, bassist Tom Terry, and drummer John Medeiros.

Saxophonist and composer Jimmy Greene. Photo: Anna Webber

Jimmy Greene Quintet
June 14 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

The elegant and warmhearted saxophonist and composer Jimmy Greene (last seen in these parts with Ron Carter’s quartet) fronts a superb band, with guitarist Mike Moreno, pianist Aaron Goldberg, bassist Dezron Douglas, and drummer Jonathan Barber. They’re celebrating Greene’s latest release, As We Are Now.

Brazilian bandolimist Ian Coury and cellist Catherine Bent. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Ian Coury/Catherine Bent
June 19 at 6 p.m.
Long Live Roxbury Brewery, Boston
FREE

If you missed the show by Brazilian bandolim virtuoso Ian Coury’s quintet last month at the Lilypad, here’s a chance to catch him (for free!) in his ongoing duo with the excellent cellist Catherine Bent (skilled in classical, jazz, and improv). The two focus on the choro tradition of Brazilian song, mixing fleet-fingered fireworks and dance rhythms with clear-textured lyricism. It’s part of Long Live Roxbury’s free early-evening Thursday jazz shows.

Steven Bernstein (right) and Sexmob. Photo: Greg Aiello

Steven Bernstein Sexmob
June 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

Slide-trumpeter Steven Bernstein leads his long-running downtown-New York-born Sexmob with the original crew intact: saxophonist Briggan Krauss, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollesen.

Listen to This
June 19 at 8 p.m.
Harvard Epworth Church, Cambridge

The “guests” this week for keyboardist/harmolodic maestro Dave Bryant’s Third Thursdays series is Listen to This, an aggregation that digs into the gnarliest of late-’60s/early-’70s electric Miles Davis. The crew includes drummer Jerome Dupree, saxophonist Russ Gershon, bassist Rick McLaughlin, bass clarinetist Todd Brunel, trumpeter Bryan Murphy, guitarist J Johnson, percussionist Rick Barry, and, of course, Bryant on keyboards.

JCA Strings
June 20 at 8 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge

The latest spin-off from the Jazz Composers Alliance brand (which includes the 22-piece JCA Orchestra) is this string trio, with Mimi Rabson and Helen Sherrah-Davies, on five-string violins, and cellist Alef Ben. They’ll play pieces by JCA resident composers Rabson, Sherrah-Davies, David Harris, and Darrell Katz.

Mumbai-born electric bass guitarist Mohini Dey. Photo: Facebook

Mohini Dey
June 20 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

The explosive Mumbai-born electric bass guitarist Mohini Dey — whose chops can skew jazz-rock, prog, or metal — fronts a trio with her longtime musical partner (and former husband) Mark Hartsuch, on sax, and drummer Gino Banks.

— Jon Garelick

Classical Music

The Tallis Scholars. Photo: Nick Rutter

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, Boston

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

Angela Hewitt plays Bach
Presented by Rockport Music
June 13, 7:30 p.m.
Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport

Pianist Hewitt—just the musician you want to hear playing Bach—opens Rockport Music’s Chamber Music Festival with the master’s Goldberg Variations.

A Juneteenth Celebration
Presented by Boston Landmarks Orchestra
June 14, 2 p.m.
The Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Center, Boston

Christopher Wilkins and BLO offer an early celebration of Juneteenth with a program that includes music by Joseph Bologne, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Teresa Carreño, and William Grant Still. Flutist DeShaun Gordon-King is the featured soloist.

The Cambridge Symphony Orchestra in action. Photo: Michael Sherman

Revelry
Presented by Cambridge Symphony
June 14, 7 p.m.
Kresge Auditorium, Cambridge

The CSO and conductor Cynthia Woods wrap their season with Ravel’s Mother Goose and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. The latter features dancers from City Ballet of Boston and choreography by Gianni Gino DiMarco.

Pimpinone and Ino
Presented by Boston Early Music Festival
June 14, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston

Telemann’s comic opera after a story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses comes to Boston as part of this year’s BEMF festival. Christian Immler and Amanda Forsythe sing the title characters.

Black liberation icon Douglas Douglass. Photo: Wiki Common

Frederick Douglass
Presented by Boston Modern Orchestra Project
June 20, 7:30 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston

The latest installment of BMOP’s “As Told By…” series turns to Ulysses Kay’s opera on the life of Black liberation icon. Kenneth Kellogg sings the title role and Gil Rose conducts.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Author Events

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 under-appreciated queer filmmakers. On second glance, mid century 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.”

Dr. Pria Anand at BioMed Realty – Harvard Book Store
The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains
June 12 at 12:15 p.m.
Tickets are free or $30.80 with book

“Harvard Book Store and BioMed Realty welcome Dr. Pria Anand—neurologist at the Boston Medical Center and an Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Medicine—for a discussion of her new book The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains. She will be joined in conversation by Dr. Jason Silverstein—writer and anthropologist in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, where he co-directs the Media, Medicine, and Health Programs.

This event is the second event in our newly announced BioMed Realty Discover Here Author Series, an engaging collaboration between BioMed Realty and Harvard Book Store. This series will feature thought-provoking talks by authors of recently published books on a variety of topics, including science, mental wellness, AI, history, and more. Each event includes an insightful discussion or presentation, followed by light refreshments and a book signing by the author. The series is open to both tenants of BioMed Realty and the general public.”

Ammiel Alcalay at Brookline Booksmith
Controlled Demolition
June 13 from 7- 8 p.m.
Free

“A work in four books that combines three of Ammiel Alcalay’s previously published poetic texts—Scrapmetal (2007), the cairo notebooks (1993), and from the warring factions (2002)—with a new work, “Controlled Demolition.” Unlike most writing categorized as “documentary” poetry, here the author and his process are constant reference points, serving as a prism to refract changes over time and circumstance in what becomes a mix of memoir, poetry, auto-critique, prose narrative, history, and investigative journalism by other means.” Alcalay grew up in Boston: he is a renowned poet, novelist, translator, critic, and scholar. He is a Contributing Editor to the new on-line journal The Markaz Review.

Tamara Myles – Porter Square Books
Meaningful Work
June 18 at 7 p.m.
Free

“In Meaningful Work, Wes Adams and Tamara Myles, advisers to some of the world’s most successful companies, leverage the science of positive psychology to show leaders why and how to make meaning the cornerstone of leadership practice. It is a practical playbook based on decades of research, including their own groundbreaking multi-year study of meaning at work, and stories from leaders you already admire and others that will surprise and inspire you.”

Jessica Shattuck in conversation with Tova Mirvis at Porter Square Books
Last House
June 19 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Last House is an ambitious historical epic that doubles as an intimate family saga. Jessica Shattuck captures and connects it all—the imperial ambitions of the postwar generation, the rebellion of their offspring in the Sixties, the fallout that we’re still sifting through today. Shattuck writes incisively about marriage, siblings, social activism, and the self-deceptions that allow us to preserve our belief in our own innocence despite all the evidence to the contrary. This is a wide-ranging novel to savor.” — Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Tracy Flick Can’t Win.

— Matt Hanson