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.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Boston area theaters have decided to pretty much ignore what is happening in America and beyond — mounting threats to democracy, the country’s slide toward authoritarianism, the climate crisis, growing economic inequality, ICE’s violent roundup of immigrants, the expansion of internment camps, ongoing genocide in Gaza, war crimes in the West Bank, transphobia, the grueling war in Ukraine, etc. I have decided to point out a production in Coming Attractions — staged in America or elsewhere — that grapples with today’s alarming realities. Sometimes the stagings will be available via Zoom, sometimes not. It is important to present evidence that theater artists — maybe not here, but elsewhere —  are reflecting, and reflecting on, the world around us.

A scene from the Fiasco Theater production of The Verge. Photo: Valerie Terranova

Sometimes a theater company finds that revisiting the past can be a means of exploring the future. NYC’s Public Theater is presenting a rare revival of Susan Glaspell’s 1921 play The Verge through November 22. Glaspell was a Pulitzer Prize winner and a founder of the Provincetown Players. The plot: “Botanist Claire Archer is on a quest to create a new life: a plant unlike any that has ever come before. When her husband, lover, and soulmate each arrive in her greenhouse seeking heat in a snowstorm, chaos ensues. But as Claire pushes—sometimes violently—against the constraints of her own good breeding, she wonders if the only way to transcend boundaries is to destroy them.”

This is a modernist investigation of conventional gender roles, with an emphasis on the struggle for female autonomy. The invasion of cold into the greenhouse—endangering the plants—resonates with the current climate crisis. Nature is vulnerable. Jessie Austrian directs the Fiasco Theater production.

— Bill Marx

Film

Boston Jewish Film Festival
through November 15
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brattle Theatre, Riemer-Goldstein Theater, West Newton Cinema, Museum of Fine Arts, and Somerville Theatre

This year’s Boston Jewish Film Festival lineup spotlights women fighting against the odds alongside stories of righteous courage that challenge injustice and refuse to look away. The program includes seven narrative features, four feature documentaries, and four short films spanning a variety of genres and cultures, with special guests and performances accompanying the screenings. Film schedule and tickets.

A scene from Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life Photo: Kino Lorber

Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life
November 8 at 2 p.m.
Somerville Theatre, Davis Square

In 1924, neophyte filmmakers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack (the makers of King Kong) hooked up with journalist and sometime spy Marguerite Harrison and set off to film an unparalleled drama: the migration of the Bakhtiari tribe of Persia (now Iran). Twice a year, more than 50,000 people and half a million animals surmounted seemingly impossible obstacles to reach pasture. A Silents, Please presentation. Trailer

Love Cycle
November 8 at 4:30 p.m.
The Museum of Modern Renaissance

This one-of-a-kind museum, filled with psychedelic murals and sculptures, is rarely open to the public. Today, it welcomes visitors for the premiere of performing artist and assistant professor of voice Zoë Knight’s 22-minute psychedelic art-rock odyssey, featuring five stand-alone music videos. A live Q&A with several of the participating artists follows the screening.

Permanent Vacation
November 10, at 7:30 p.m.
Variety at 8:45 p.m.
Brattle Theatre

This single-admission double feature begins with Jim Jarmusch’s Permanent Vacation, a rarely screened, 75-minute film funded with scholarship money intended for his tuition.

It is followed by Bette Gordon’s Variety, a wonderful feature (from 1983) about an unassuming young woman, Christine McLeod, who is hired to sell tickets at a porn theater near Times Square. At first, she treats it as just a job, but she soon becomes obsessed with the patrons who come night after night. It is a rare film that deals frankly with female sexuality and honestly with the inscrutable idiosyncrasies of the inner fantasy life. It also stars Luis Guzmán, Nan Goldin, and Will Patton.

A scene from My Undesirable Friends: Part-II–Exile. Photo: NYFF

My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile, Chapters 1–3
November 11, at 4:00 and 7:30 p.m.
My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile, Chapters 4–5
November 12, at 4:00 and 7:30 p.m.

Special premiere screenings. A group of Russian independent journalists flee the country after the invasion of Ukraine and navigate life in exile. The film follows their dispersed lives and ongoing struggle for truth across different nations. While Part I documented their lives in Moscow amid mounting pressure from the Putin regime, Part II chronicles their forced displacement and new realities as they continue their mission against authoritarianism. Tickets for each day must be purchased separately. (Arts Fuse review)

Boston Turkish Festival’s Documentary and Short Film Competition
November 13–15
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The program features three acclaimed new films from Türkiye and Germany, including a political thriller inspired by the director’s own experiences, a visually striking documentary about a community displaced by a dam, and the 2026 Berlin Golden Bear winner.

Night of Blindness (Kör Gece)
November 13, at 7:30 p.m.

On the Dry Rock (Kuru Taşın Başı)
November 14, at 2:00 p.m.

Yellow Letters (Gelbe Briefe)
November 15, at 2:00 p.m.

A scene from Tiger in the Smoke. Photo: HFA

Tiger in the Smoke
November 13, at 9:15 p.m.
At Harvard Film Archive

Tiger in the Smoke unfolds in a fog-choked postwar London, where war widow Meg Elginbrodde’s plans for remarriage are upended by photographs suggesting that her first husband is still alive. Her cousin, Albert Campion, navigates alleys and underworld gangs to confront escaped killer Jack Havoc before more blood spills. Part of the HFA series Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema.

Four Minus Three
November 15, at 11 a.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre

Barbara and her partner, Heli, lead a happy and loving family life with their two children, Fini and Thimo. As professional clowns, they do not take life too seriously and try to laugh at whatever fails to work out. But, when Barbara suddenly loses her family in a car accident, her world falls apart. The loss makes Barbara question her existence as a clown and the meaning of her own life. She is forced to confront her fate, and she takes a courageous and unconventional path. She finds her own way of dealing with her grief.

Riverdogs & The Same River Twice
November 18 and 20 at 6:30 p.m.
West Newton Cinema

In 1978, local documentarian Robb Moss filmed a group of friends, young river guides, on a 35-day rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. He has continued filming them ever since.

Riverdogs (1982, 32 min.) is Moss’s original record of that summer on the Colorado River. It is a lyrical and unselfconscious portrait of youth and the canyon. (Note: The film contains nudity.) The Same River Twice (2003, 78 min.) catches up with five of those friends—Barry, Cathy, Danny, Jeff, and Jim—20 years later. Two have served as mayors and one as a county commissioner, and all five are weighing the free lives they once led against the ones they have built. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

The Hole (1998)
November 20–22
Brattle Theatre

Set on the eve of the 21st century, Tsai Ming-liang’s this vaguely futuristic story follows two holdouts in a crumbling apartment building who refuse to leave despite a virus that has forced the surrounding area’s evacuation. As rain falls relentlessly, an unfinished plumbing job leaves a hole in a lonely man’s floor—and opens a strange connection with the woman downstairs. Blending deadpan humor, an austere vision of urban loneliness, and unexpected musical numbers, Tsai crafted one of the most original films of the 1990s. New 35mm print!

Pick of the Week

Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) and Alina (Cristina Flutur) in a scene from Beyond the Hills.

Beyond the Hills
Kanopy and AMC

From his latest film, Fjord (2026) (Arts Fuse review), to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), Romanian director Cristian Mungiu explores the clash between personal responsibility and institutional authority. In Beyond the Hills (2012), two women who formed a close, protective bond in an orphanage reunite years later at an isolated Orthodox convent in Romania.

Voichita has settled into a spare life of work and prayer alongside a small community of nuns and a kindly mother superior, all under the watchful eye of an aging priest. Alina arrives from Germany volatile, uncertain about her future, and desperate to reclaim her friend’s affection. Hints of a past sexual relationship deepen Voichita’s confusion and guilt, while Alina’s defiance unsettles the convent’s rigid order. The priest sees her distress as demonic interference and turns to ritual rather than compassion. With austere precision and long takes attuned to the textures of the convent and the nuances of behavior, Mungiu reveals the human cost of certainty untempered by understanding.

— Tim Jackson

Theater

Chadwick Stokes in rehearsal for 1972. Photo provided by A.R.T.

1972: a Rock Opera, by Chadwick Stokes with Jessie Nelson. Directed by Jessie Nelson. Staged by the American Repertory Theatre at Farkas Hall at 527 Holyoke Street, Cambridge,  through December 6.

Chadwick Stokes, best known for his bands Dispatch and State Radio, brings his long-awaited rock opera to fruition with co-creator Jessie Nelson, telling the story of Hannah, a pregnant woman who rides the rails in search of an abortion one year before the Supreme Court (then) made such procedures legal. Played by Gracie McGraw, Hannah finds support and empowerment from underground network the Janes, and Stokes’s current band the Pintos move the still-timely narrative with onstage music. Arts Fuse review

— Paul Robicheau

Swive [Elizabeth]  by Ella Hickson. Directed by A. Nora Long. Produced by The Suffolk Universtiy Theatre Department at the Modern Theatre, 525 Washington Street, Boston, November 19 through 22.

A student production, but of an enticing script about gender, ambition and authoritarianism. Hickson’s historical drama premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London in December 2019. Time Out wrote about the premiere production that “there is something of Sarah Kane’s stark ferocity to this savage play about Elizabeth I’s rise to power.”

It Takes Two – Rodgers & Hammerstein, Ashman & Menken, and others, an American Classics production at the First Church Congregational in Cambridge on November 13 at 7:30 p.m.and at 3 p.m. at First Parish Church in Bedford on November 15.

American Classics, led by Artistic and Producing Directors Bradford Conner and Benjamin Sears, turns 30 this year. “Celebrating our 30th season is a profound milestone that honors our musical journey, audiences, and the performing arts community.” Sears and Conner exclaim, “Over the course of 150 memorable performances, including six commissions, American Classics has had the immense privilege of spotlighting more than 200 of the Boston area’s most exceptional theatre and music luminaries, proving that AC’s enduring legacy is the brilliance of our local talent. The music is pretty good, too.”

This performance, the kick-off in a series dedicated to “teams of songwriters, lyricists, and composers who brought their talents together to create enduring songs,” will feature singers Sarah Kornfeld, Davron Monroe, Julia Nelson, Marcus Schenck, Michelle Deluise, Bradford Conner, and Benjamin Sears. This season’s pianists are Steve Sussman and Catherine Stornetta.

Out of the Darkest Forest, staged by Double Edge Theatre at the Farm Center, 948 Conway Road Ashfield, November 19 through 21.

An evening of two works: “The first will be an indoor adaptation of Hidden Territories, inspired by the company’s 2022 / 2023 Summer Spectacle, The Hidden Territories of the Bacchae. Double Edge founder Stacy Klein directs. Also on the bill:  a performance by Acosia Red Elk, who will share original dances alongside a short documentary Guardian of the Land in which she appears. Directed by LaRonn Katchia, the film offers Indigenous perspectives on Bigfoot and its relationship to the land. Footage features Acosia Red Elk, along with artist Toma Villa, tribal council member Carlos Calica, and anthropologist Phil Cash Cash.

Seagulls by Beth Hylan, inspired by Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. Directed by Rebecca Willingham. With Music Direction by Carrie Tully. Staged by the Wilbury Theater Group at 475 Valley Street, Providence, RI, November 19 through December 13.

Chekhov’s 1896 masterpiece is “stripped to its bones” and “reimagined as four college musicians, two love triangles, one industry predator, and a lot of songs played live by the actors performing them.” A New England premiere.

Tell Me, Mother, devised and directed by Yana Gladkikh. Choreographed by Suli Holum. At Arlekin Players Theatre, 368 Hillside Avenue, 2nd Floor, Needham, November 19 through December 13.

This is “an original, choral piece that explores motherhood as a primal, spiritual state of shared memory, joy, trauma and humor drawing from lived experience, testimonials, and the poetry of Gabriela Mistral. Weaving together physical theater, dance and spoken word, the piece invites audiences into the deeply personal stories of mothers and watches them transform into universal realities for the actors and audience alike.”

Performed in Russian by Arlekin’s resident company, this run will feature English supertitles projected on screens.

The HawtPlates in action in Dream Feed. Photo: Daniel Vasquez

Dream Feed, written and performed by The HawtPlates (Jade Hicks, Kenita Miller-Hicks, Justin Hicks). Directed by Phillip Howze. Presented by ArtsEmerson at the Emerson Paramount Center, Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre, 559 Washington St, Boston, November 19 through 22.

“Part concert, part theatrical event,” this “genre-defying, electro-acoustic theatrical experience invites audiences into a mesmerizing world where the boundaries between dreams and waking life begin to dissolve. Through an inventive fusion of live vocals, atmospheric soundscapes, and imaginative storytelling, The HawtPlates explore the mysteries of the subconscious, transforming the fleeting images, emotions, and sensations of dreaming into a shared musical experience.”

Peter Pan Goes Wrong, by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields. Directed by Paul Melone. Staged by Lyric Stage Company, 140 Clarendon Street, 2nd Floor, Boston, November 13 through December 31.

You want a holiday farce for the whole family? No need to ask AI — here you go. “The Cornley University Drama Society is at it again. Chaos unfolds as a troupe of inept actors boldly takes on the ambitious staging of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. A wardrobe malfunction or two, a series of harrowing falls, some flubbed lines, and an epic meltdown courtesy of Captain Hook himself turn the play upside down. Throw in a love triangle, a tormented narrator, and blunders around every corner, and it’s a frenzied comedic battle to the finish. Another comic catastrophy from the creators of The Play That Goes Wrong.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A New Musical, a updated adaptation of William Shakespeare’s comedy by Daniel and Patrick Lazour, along with Mark Sonnenblick. Directed by Patrick Lazour. A production of the Boston College Theatre Department at the Robsham Theater Arts Center, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, November 18 through 22.

A student production — but the world premiere airing of an intriguing-sounding musical. Patrick and Daniel Lazour were 2015-2016 Dramatists Guild Fellows and received the 2016 Richard Rodgers Award and the 2021 Jonathan Larson Grant. “Shakespeare’s Ancient Greece becomes modern-day Miami, and the enchanted forest becomes the Everglades. The story unfolds on the eve of the “wedding of the century” between Demetrius, now a billionaire film producer, and Hermia, a District Attorney.”

A scene from Anne Gridley’s Watch Me Walk. Photo: Maria Baranova

Watch Me Walk, written and performed by Anne Gridley. Directed by Eric Ting. Choreography by Asli Bulbul. Yale Rep presents the Soho Rep Production at 1120 Chapel Street, New Haven, November 14 through December 5.

The set-up for this edgy dark comedy: “Anne has a disease you’ve probably never heard of and that doesn’t have a cure. Her doctor says it shouldn’t define her, but she’s going to define it for you. Direct from an Off-Broadway run, this is a play “about disability, pity, and family mythologies that will stay with you long after the curtain—or Anne—falls.”

Fall Rep Festival, produced by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre at 949 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, though November 22.

Two new plays in rep: Yide Cai’s White Phoenix, directed by Dmitry Troyanovsky,”compresses decades of China-America entanglement into one room and two actors playing four characters, turning geopolitics into a story about siblings separated by adoption and trying to find their way back.” Rachel Beth Greene’s jessica of venice, directed by Josh Glenn-Kayden, “reclaims Shakespeare’s Jessica, usually dismissed as a selfish daughter, through a curious Orthodox girl secretly reading The Merchant of Venice, drawing on Greene’s own upbringing in the observant Jewish world.”

“One play explores the concept of holding on, while the other tackles breaking away. Together, they ask what it costs to span the distance between two worlds, explored in Yide and Rachel’s just released Q&A, where they discuss their plays and each other’s work.”

Rebecca Gibel in the Central Square Theater presentation of The Getaway Driver. Photo: Nile Scott Studios.

The Getaway Driver by Deborah Salem Smith and Charlie Thurston. Directed by Chris Columbus.  Staged by Central Square Theater, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, through November 22.

“Based on the true story of Katherine Ann Power and Clare Schroeder,” this new drama follows two women bound by a single, life-altering moment. It’s 1970. College student Power joins an activist group to protest the war. When their resistance turns deadly, Schroeder must grow up in the shadow of her father’s murder while Power disappears and spends decades on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Years later, when Power resurfaces seeking redemption, she must confront Schroeder and the past that shaped their lives. The play asks: How far is too far in the fight to do what’s right?” Arts Fuse review

The Wash by Kelundra Smith. Directed by Tasia A. Jones. Staged by the Front Porch Arts Collective at the Roberts Studio Theatre at the Calderwood Pavilion, Boston, through Nov. 22.

Set in an Atlanta laundry cooperative in 1881, the script follows a group of underpaid washerwomen who risk their livelihoods to demand fair wages. Inspired by a historic strike in the aftermath of Reconstruction, this often humorous drama explores the friendships, conflicts, and collective resolve that turn working women into a force for change. The cast includes MaConnia Chesser, Lindsey McWhorter, Eliza Fichter, Kiera Prusmack, Marhadoo Effeh and Victoria Omoregie. Arts Fuse review

Shannon A. Mullen performs the play she wrote and produced,  An Addition of One.  Photo: Dina Rudick/Anthem Multimedia

An Addition of One written, directed, and performed by Shannon A. Mullen. At the Waldo Theatre in Waldoboro, Maine, through November 21.

This one-woman show “is based on the true story behind artist Jamie Wyeth’s controversial 1967 portrait of President John F. Kennedy.”

“Wyeth was just 20 years old when he turned down an official commission to paint a posthumous portrait of President Kennedy — instead he made the painting on his own terms. Unusual, intimate and intense, it was rejected by some in the Kennedy family and sparked a national outcry.”

“The portrait is now widely considered an iconic masterpiece and is part of the permanent collection at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.”

“Based on historical records, personal conversations and other primary sources, the play tells an all too timely story about family, politics, art, agency and the weight of truth.”

— Bill Marx

Visual Art

Like this year’s semiquincentennial, the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, held in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, celebrated an important anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was also America’s first world’s fair. Meanwhile, back in Providence, RI, a group of women who had raised funds for Rhode Island’s contribution to the fair decided to invest their $1,675 surplus in a new school of art and design along with an associated art museum, rejecting less ambitious alternatives, such as constructing a public fountain. Both the school and the museum were intended to contribute ideas, models, and trained design staff to help Providence’s burgeoning textile and jewelry industries and to serve related concerns around the region.

Aaron Siskind, “Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 37”; , from the portfolio, Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation, 1953. Gift of Aaron Siskind. RISD Museum, Providence, RI

The school prospered to become the Rhode Island School of Design, considered one of the finest art schools in the United States, while the RISD Museum, often enriched by gifts from the school’s collector-presidents and trustees, acquired an encyclopedic collection of more than 100,000 objects from around the world.

A century and a half after its founding, on November 21, as part of a campus-wide sesquicentennial celebration, the RISD Museum will open In the Making: 150 Years of Collecting at RISD Museum. The more than 50 objects on view in the exhibition reflect, says the museum, “one-of-a-kind artistic production to larger-scale manufacturing locally and beyond, global textiles and decorative objects that speak to materials and techniques, photographs and posters that capture important sociopolitical movements, and bold acquisitions that challenged cultural norms.” The selection will also offer a rare backstage view of a museum creating itself over many generations, exploring how and why the objects entered the collection and revealing “collecting as an active, reflective practice—one that continues to shape how these works are studied, taught, and understood today.”

Three special animals—the dragon, the tiger, and the monkey—are woven throughout East Asian mythology, culture, and the visual arts. Beasts of Legend: Animals in East Asian Art, opening at the Worcester Art Museum on November 21, follows these creatures over seven centuries, up to the present day, and will include paintings, sculptures, puppets, textiles, and works on paper.

Chinese imperial robes, Japanese woodblock prints and screens, and Korean hanging scrolls explore the rich heritage of the dragon, woven in particular into the symbolic fabric of Chinese imperial authority. Puppets and richly decorated clothing present the tiger as a symbol of courage and protection, and the legend of the Monkey King, a trickster-hero and supernatural helper, extends into the present with a new large-scale painting commissioned by the museum from Taiwanese-American artist Mu Pan.

Ronny Quevedo, weaving portals (detail), 2024, metal leaf and pattern paper on carbon paper.  Photo: courtesy of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art

When you live within the culture you were born into, your cultural identity tends to stay mostly in the background. But if you move to another culture, for whatever reason, becoming part of a diaspora, or you live as part of a minority within a larger, not necessarily nurturing culture, identity moves to the foreground, sometimes in agonizing ways. It is rarely something you can just ignore. The nine artists in the Bowdoin College Museum of Art exhibition hyperVISIBLE: Building Community in Diaspora through Contemporary Art, opening November 19, explore these effects of diaspora through works in multiple media created over fifty years.

“The heightened attention based on race, ethnicity, and place of origin experienced by many individuals living in diaspora,” the museum claims, “places the burden of representation onto these individuals, effectively reducing dynamic identities and cultures into monoliths.” The exhibition is thus designed to show “how each artist navigates this phenomenon in their personal and cultural contexts.”

Sascha Braunig: Wrist Painter, opening November 13 at the Portland Museum of Art, is a mid-career retrospective and the artist’s largest exhibition to date. The show includes the artist’s surrealism-influenced paintings, which meditate on abstractions derived, sometimes rather grotesquely, from the female body, along with preparatory sketches, maquettes, drawings, and sculptural work. These objects, the museum says, examine “how everyday symbols shape ideas of womanhood in daily life, turning familiar images into thought-provoking commentary.”

On November 14, the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center opens a new season of contemporary art exhibitions too numerous to do more than name. They include Hayal Pozanti: The World Sang Through Me, Sara Jimenez: the story never stops beginning or ending, Our Listening Hands: Recent Prints by the Mokuhanga Sisters, Margaret Shipman: An Invitation to Notice, Teach Me How to Hold, and Bacons.

N.C. Wyeth. Eight-Bells, 1937. Photo: courtesy of New Britain Museum of American Art

Every now and then, a Wyeth show is mounted by an art museum other than the two institutions most heavily involved with the Wyeths: the Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford, PA, and the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, ME (which opened Andrew Wyeth: Human Nature on November 7). Both sometimes feel more like publicity outlets for the family than independent institutions. The New Britain Museum of American Art opens The Wyeths: Three Generations | Works from the Bank of America Collection on November 20, 2026.

The New Britain exhibition features more than sixty paintings, drawings, and illustrations by the great American illustrator N. C. Wyeth; his son Andrew, one of the nation’s most famous painters and watercolorists; and his grandson Jamie. It takes a slight jog from the expected trinity with works by N. C.’s daughter Henriette and her husband, Peter Hurd.

“Each generation of Wyeth painters,” says the museum, “seems always mindful of their inheritance, whether artistic, familial, or historical. Their work is visual lore: a collage of knowledge and lingering memory.” The show’s subtitle, though, unfortunately emphasizes its corporate origins, suggesting once again that the family’s work has been overmarketed and excessively popularized, detracting from the standing of what has always been a serious group of artists.

— Peter Walsh

Jazz

JCA Orchestra
November 8 at 2 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge
November 9 at 8 p.m.
Berklee Performance Center, Boston

The Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra opens its 41st season with concerts on consecutive days, the first at the tiny Lilypad in Cambridge, the next at the capacious Berklee Performance Center. Resident composers David Harris, Darrell Katz, Bob Pilkington, and Mimi Rabson conjure “the noises the Green Line makes, a meeting in a bar of a Bulgarian, an Arab, and an Ethiopian, and a setting of a Charles Coe poem about inviting Duke Ellington to dinner.”

The Bad Plus
November 11 at 8 p.m.
The Sinclair, Cambridge

When the Bad Plus emerged as a piano trio in 2000, they didn’t sound like anyone else — certainly no other jazz piano trio (Black Sabbath and Nirvana covers? Check). Ending their career as a piano-less quartet — with founders Reid Anderson (bass) and David King (drums), plus reedman Chris Speed and guitarist Ben Monder — they remain unique. This is their last swing through the area before hanging it up for good in Minneapolis in December.

The late Sheila Jordan, in her official portrait as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master; she was inducted in 2012. Photo: Michael G. Stewart

Sheila Jordan: You Are Our Sunshine!
November 12 at 7 p.m.
The Mad Monkfish, Cambridge

Sheila Jordan, who died in 2025, would have turned 98 on November 18. In celebration of her life, fans of the great jazz singer have organized a special double bill at the Mad Monkfish, where Jordan sang often in her later years. In the 7 p.m. set, the exciting young singer Mikayla Shirley will join the trio that usually backed Jordan in her Monkfish appearances: pianist Yoko Miwa, bassist Brad Barrett, and drummer Scott Goulding. At 8:30 p.m., singer Dominique Eade will be joined by pianist Tim Ray, bassist Harvie S, and guitarist Roni Ben-Hur. Both Harvie S and Ben-Hur were longtime collaborators with Jordan, and Eade has long been recognized as one of the few jazz singers of her generation who come close to Jordan’s generous spirit of invention.

Tierney Sutton–Tamir Hendelman
November 12 at 7 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

It will be interesting to hear how — or if — singer Tierney Sutton and pianist Tamir Hendelman adapt their recent album, Spring (“Waters of March,” “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” et al.), to the change in seasons. Sutton has a pretty vast repertoire, so I’m sure they’ll come up with something. The duo format should allow even greater intimacy for Sutton’s insightful readings of all manner of jazz standards and arrangements of contemporary pop (including a Grammy-nominated disc of Sting covers).

Charlie Ballantine Trio
November 13 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

With Life Is Brief: The Music of Bob Dylan (2018), Charlie Ballantine instantly aligned himself with other jazz guitarists who draw freely from the Americana well — John Scofield, Bill Frisell, and, of the younger generation, Julian Lage. His book now includes music by Monk, Ornette Coleman, and the Beatles, as well as any number of well-turned originals.

Pianist Bill Charlap. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Bill Charlap Trio
November 13 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.; November 14 at 7 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

No one gets inside the guts of a standard like pianist Bill Charlap — the song becomes a physical space, with corners, doors, and windows. He’s joined by regular teammates David Wong (bass) and Dennis Mackrel (drums).

Jason Robinson’s Janus Orchestra
November 14 at 7 p.m.
Pickman Hall, Longy School of Music, Cambridge

Reedman and composer Jason Robinson celebrates the release of Blue Salience: For Yusef Lateef with his 17-piece Janus Orchestra. A tribute to his former mentor, the album explores all the possibilities of the standard big-band format with compositions that are truly orchestral — rhythms, colors, and structures that traverse varied landscapes, suggesting symphonic breadth along with a jazz composer’s knack for exploiting distinctive individual voices.

Hellbender
November 14 at 8:30 p.m.
Boston Harbor Distillery, Boston

Of reedman and composer Jared Sims’ many worthy projects, this is one of the most intriguing, if only for its front line of heavy-cat guitarists: Andrew Stern, Jeffrey Lockhart, and Steve Fell. Also joining Sims (saxes, flute, electronics) in this outfit are keyboardist James Rohr, bassist Jesse Williams, and drummer Randy Wooten. Sims says to expect “heavy funk, psychedelic rock, and high-octane improvisation.”

Laszlo Gardony Sextet
November 15 at 6 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge

Although Laszlo Gardony is best known for his many fine performances and recordings with a trio — and a couple of standout solo-piano discs — one of the finest products of his career has been Life in Real Time (2015), a sextet disc with an unlikely front line of three tenor saxophones. Now he returns to that format with two of the original saxophonists, Stan Strickland and Don Braden, plus next-generation reedman Temidayo Balogun, bassist Avery Sharpe, and drummer Yoron. Expect Strickland to double on bass clarinet and do some singing.

Guitarist John Scofield. Photo: Nick Suttle

John Scofield
November 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Somerville Theater, Somerville

Guitar master John Scofield’s most recent trip to the Boston area (Regattabar, Cambridge) featured his superb trio. The current tour is being billed as his “Electrospective,” harking back to his groove-oriented projects Blue Matter, Überjam, and A Go Go (his collaboration with Medeski Martin & Wood). Expect a mix of old material and new. The band includes keyboardist Larry Goldings, drummer Adam Deitch, and bassist Oteil Burbridge.

Gary Smulyan & Frank Basile
November 20 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

Two master baritone saxophonists, Smulyan and Basile, join forces in “Boss Baris” for what should be some hard-swinging post-bop and a master class on the big horn. The band will include Boston stalwarts Tim Ray (piano) and Marshall Wood (bass).

Benito Gonzalez–Buster Williams–Lenny White
November 21 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

The exciting Venezuelan pianist Benito Gonzalez — last heard in these parts in the McCoy Tyner Legacy Band — has joined forces with storied elders Buster Williams (84, bass) and Lenny White (76, drums).

The Makanda Project
November 21 at 7 p.m.
12 Baptist Church, Roxbury
Free

For its last concert of 2026, the Makanda Project will feature the accomplished New York-based singer Brianna Thomas. The program will include pieces by the ensemble’s namesake, the late Boston-born Makanda Ken McIntyre (1931–2001). The long-running 13-piece ensemble, augmented by a five-cello string section, features some of the best players in the Boston area under the direction of pianist and arranger John Kordalewski. The show is free.

Saxophonist Joe Lovano. Photo: Aquapio Films Ltd

Coltrane 100
November 21 at 8 p.m.
Berklee Performance Center, Boston

A truly all-star touring band celebrates the John Coltrane centennial in this presentation by Vivo Performing Arts (formerly Celebrity Series of Boston): saxophonists Joe Lovano and Melissa Aldana, pianist Leo Genovese, bassist Linda May Han Oh, and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts.

— Jon Garelick

Roots and World Music

Water with Shahzad Ismaily
Nov. 10
Jordan Hall

If you’re a fan of adventurous music, you’ve likely heard Shahzad Ismaily. The multi-instrumentalist is one of the most in-demand side musicians around, as well as a core member of Marc Ribot’s trio Ceramic Dog and Love in Exile with Arooj Aftab and Vijay Iyer. His eclectic and open-minded approach makes him the perfect guest artist for one of the extravaganza concerts presented by New England Conservatory’s Contemporary Musical Arts department. Producers Eden MacAdam-Somer and Anthony Coleman have come up with over a dozen pieces related to the theme of water. The program includes compositions by Björk and George Brecht, as well as songs from Chinese, Italian, Irish and Hindustani musical traditions.

Fiddler Jason Carter. Photo: Club Passim

Jason Carter Band
Nov. 11
Club Passim

One of the most successful creative partnerships in bluegrass began when fiddler Jason Carter brought his inventive but traditional approach to the Del McCoury Band. After 30 years, Carter finally left the group when he realized that he had reached the age that Del was at when Carter joined the McCourys. He’s now hitting the road with his own band.

Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto con Fruko y Carmelo Torres
Nov. 13
De La Cruz, Holyoke

Here’s a most road trip-worthy event for cumbia fans: Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, a band that preserves the deep Afro-Colombian roots of the music, is teaming up with 80-something year old accordionist Carmelo Torres and the influential bassist/producer Fruko for a night they call Madre Cumbia. It’s being presented by Secret Planet, which has a whole season of great global sounds coming to Western Mass.

Grupo Niche with Edwin Pabon
Nov. 15
Lynn Auditorium

Speaking of legendary Colombian bands: Grupo Niche, the greatest exponent of that country’s vibrant salsa scene, is coming to town for a night that starts with Boston’s own great salsero Edwin Pabon. Expect our city’s finest salsa dancers to be out in force for this one.

The War and Treaty
Nov. 17
The Sinclair

As the War and Treaty, Michael and Tanya Trotter pair heartfelt country songwriting with a rock-and-soul spectacle that recalls Ike and Tina Turner at their peak. This is one of America’s best live bands. After a foray into mainstream Nashville, the duo have happily returned to their storytelling roots on their latest album, The Story of Michael and Tanya.

Appreciation Service for Deacon William Wilson
Nov. 21, 2 p.m.
St. John Missionary Baptist Church, Roxbury

The historic St. John Missionary Baptist Church is honoring the chair of its Deacon Board with an afternoon of gospel music and prayer. The singers include Boston’s own Spiritual Encouragers and BBG (Blessed by God), along with a special guest who will be announced at the service. Pastor James Ruffin of the Sounds of a New Beginning Church will lead a devotional service. No tickets are required, but a free will offering will be taken.

— Noah Schaffer

Rock, Indie, and Alternative

Marshall Crenshaw
November 11 at 7:30 p.m.
City Winery, Boston

Marshall Crenshaw has written any number of perfect pop songs, including “Someday, Someway,” “Cynical Girl,” and “Dime a Dozen Guy.” He returns to City Winery on the heels of The Bootleg Sounds of Marshall Crenshaw: 1984-87 (Arts Fuse review).

— Jon Garelick

— Blake Maddux

Classical Music

Composer Osvaldo Golijov. Photo: courtesy of the BSO

Creation
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
November 12 & 13 at 7:30 p.m., and 14 at 8 p.m.
Symphony Hall

The largest (and only evening-length) premiere of the BSO’s 26-27 season brings together music by Osvaldo Golijov, a book by David Henry Hwang, and lyrics by Leah Hager Cohen. What it will sound like is anyone’s guess, but if Golijov’s earlier output is any guide, Creation will defy easy categorization. Cécile McLorin Salvant and Davóne Tines are the vocal soloists; Eric Jacobsen conducts.

Anthracite Fields
Presented by Chorus pro Musica
November 14, 8 p.m.
Cutler Majestic Theatre

Jamie Kirsch and CpM present the Boston premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning oratorio, a haunting tribute to life, labor, and loss in Pennsylvania coal mining communities.

Dover Quartet
Presented by Vivo Performing Arts
November 15, 3 p.m.
Jordan Hall

The Dovers return to Boston with a program that pairs a couple of canonic totems—Brahms’s Quartet No. 3 and Dvorak’s No. 11—with Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s orchestration of Indigenous songwriter Pura Fé’s Rattle Songs.

Jan Lisiecki plays Mendelssohn
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
November 19 at 7:30 p.m., 20 at 1:30 p.m., and 21 at 8 p.m.
Symphony Hall

Pianist Lisiecki returns to Symphony Hall to perform Mendelssohn’s charming Piano Concerto No. 1. Samy Rachid leads further orchestral works by Weber and Schumann.

Benjamin Zander conducting the Boston Philharmonic with Benjamin Hochman. Photo: Hilary Scott

Zander conducts Schubert & Bruckner
Presented by Boston Philharmonic Orchestra
November 22, 3 p.m.
Symphony Hall

The BPO’s final season continues with a pair of landmark Romantic symphonies: Schubert’s No. 8 (the so-called “Unfinished”) and Bruckner’s monumental No. 5. Benjamin Zander conducts.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Author Events

Pitchapalooza: American Idol for Books
November 9 from 7–8 p.m.
Porter Square Books, Cambridge
Free

“Pitchapalooza is American Idol for books (only without Simon). Twenty writers will be selected at random to pitch their book. Each writer gets one minute — and only one minute! In the last month, three writers have gotten publishing deals as a result of participating in Pitchapalooza.”

Story Hour! with illustrator Ping Zhu
Animals of the Chinese Zodiac
November 8 at 10:30 a.m.
Brookline Booksmith
Tickets: $37.10 with book.

“This joyful celebration of cultural traditions offers a funny, interactive, and beautifully illustrated introduction to the Chinese Zodiac for curious kids ages 6–9. Readers will meet the twelve animals of the Zodiac—from the powerful Dragon to the energetic Horse—each with its own personality traits and traditions. But, there’s a twist! While Zodiac animals are determined by birth year, readers can also take the book’s playful flowchart quiz to discover which animal truly matches their personality, reminding them that, ultimately, no label can define them.

“Spanning nearly 70 pages, Animals of the Chinese Zodiac is packed with fascinating facts and vibrant storytelling. A fold-out retelling of The Great Race legend reveals how the twelve animals earned their place in the Zodiac, while lively profiles introduce each animal’s strengths, lucky numbers, best friendships, possible future careers, and more. Ping Zhu’s lavish hand-painted illustrations are bold, colorful, and expressive, and the book’s eye-catching foiled cover makes it a perfect gift to be treasured for years to come.”

Lloyd Schwartz at Harvard Book Store
Artur Schnabel and Joseph Szigeti Play Mozart at the Frick Collection (April 4, 1948) and Other Poems
November 9 at 7 p.m.
Free.

“Lloyd Schwartz’s luminous new collection Artur Schnabel and Joseph Szigeti Play Mozart at the Frick Collection (April 4, 1948) and Other Poems reaffirms his place as one of our most keenly attentive poetic voices. With characteristic wit, intimacy, and musical acumen, these poems move fluidly between the rooms of memory and the rooms we live in, between wry horror, elegy, and celebration. The title poem ‘has so many planes,’ said Helen Vendler. ‘It’s one of the most dramatic lyrics I think that it’s possible to write.’

“One of our most celebrated music critics tunes his verse to what Nicholas Everett tags the ‘idioms and nuances of American speech.’ It’s like being invited into the cluttered study of a good and brilliant friend, where even the most mundane observation is shot through with a bemused heart buoyed by the nimblest of intellects. Each line twinkles at ‘That dark, knowing little joke,’ that we are all of us connected deeply and across time by the art we love and create, and that attention itself is the highest form of devotion.”

Sarah Bruhn In conversation with Andrea Flores at Porter Square Books
Holding On to Home: Immigrant Women and the Promise of Sanctuary
November 10 at 7 p.m
Free.

“Holding On to Home, based on five years of fieldwork and over one hundred in-depth interviews, illuminates how immigrant women’s care work—in their families, schools, and communities—makes real the promise of sanctuary. Through their resistive care work, immigrant women weave together an enduring fabric of protection that transforms inclusive policies into meaningful practices that support immigrant mothers as they nurture their children and loved ones.

“Holding On to Home reveals how these women confront both overt threats to sanctuary—anti-immigrant policies and increasingly violent and arbitrary immigration enforcement—alongside a less obvious threat to sanctuary, but one that widens inequality in our urban landscapes: gentrification. Tracing the meaning of sanctuary across shifting political contexts, Sarah Bruhn powerfully demonstrates how immigrant women resist these forces of exclusion to lay claim to their right to create a home and to belong in our shared cities.”

Rachel Maddow with Nicolle Wallace at The Orpheum Theatre — Brookline Booksmith
The Department of Fate
November 11 at 8 p.m.
Tickets:$64.70.

“Rachel Maddow leads a revelatory, rollicking trip through the history of the Justice Department, finding heroism and treachery in equal measure—and, in the end, a rescue effort for our battered democracy. Written in her typical whip-smart prose and with a biting sense of clarity, Department of Fate invites us to see how the history of this key institution illuminates a path ahead for a more resilient, re-democratized America committed to making good on even its loftiest promises. In a moment beset with polarization and misinformation, Maddow’s voice shines in this blistering demand to do better—to rebuild the republic, and stronger this time.”

Version 1.0.0

Mona Chalabi at WBUR CitySpace
Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are
November 13 at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets: $23.11, or $50 with book.

“Mona Chalabi has spent years using illustrations to translate complex statistics. Now in her new book, Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist wrestles with the pressing issue of just how much wealth it takes to feel safe in the United States. Chalabi followed 10 people over five years to document how wealth shaped their lives. Join us for a conversation with Chalabi about those stories and how her own life would intertwine with the subject of her illustrations as she grappled with her own financial safety after her mother’s sudden illness.”

Melissa Clark at the Brattle Theatre
The Big Book of Dinner
Presented by Harvard Book Store.
November 16 at 6 p.m.
Tickets: $58.75.

“The Big Book of Dinner gives you her ultimate treasure trove: all the recipes you need, the ways to riff off of them, and lessons you learn from them along the way to make you a great cook. She shares the building blocks that make these recipes work, so you’ll know exactly how to follow them to perfection, or how to go off-script if you want and to make it your own.

“With Melissa’s friendly instructions guiding the way, you can take classic Italian-American Meatballs, and switch them up with aromatic spices reminiscent of Middle Eastern kibbe, or use them in an easy sheet-pan dinner with roasted vegetables. Super-quick Sweet and Spicy Chicken with Cumin and Honey can be transformed with ginger and marmalade for a fresh punch, or honey mustard and lemon for a different spin.

“Throughout, there are signature Melissa favorites like Creamy Corn Pasta with Tomatoes and Chile Flakes, lessons on cooking the perfect steak or nailing a braise every time, plenty of vegetables and plant-based dishes, a baker’s dozen (and then some) of perfect desserts, and beautiful photographs for every recipe. Whether you’re a novice in the kitchen or a longtime cook, a devotee of Melissa’s or just getting to know her, The Big Book of Dinner will be your cooking companion for a lifetime.”

Shaul Magid and Zev Mishell at the Harvard Book Store
Jewish Anti-Zionism: A Historical Anthology
November 16 at 7 p.m.
Free.

“In the decades since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, many have equated Zionism with Jewish identity—and anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Few remember now that the Zionist movement triggered passionate debate among Jews, with many expressing ambivalence or opposition to the Zionist project. In Jewish Anti-Zionism, Shaul Magid and Zev Mishell have gathered a broad selection of documents, written between the late nineteenth century and the present day, many of them newly translated into English from multiple languages, revealing the rich variety of Jewish opposition to Zionism over the decades.

“Following Magid and Mishell’s authoritative introduction on the history of anti-Zionism among Jews, the book features dozens of texts by Jewish writers from diverse backgrounds discussing why they reject the Zionist idea as the best option for Jewish flourishing.”

Askold Melnyczuk and Mary Cappello with P. Carl at Brookline Booksmith
With Madonna in Kyiv and Frost Will Come
November 17 at 7 p.m.
Tickets: Free admission option; $24.63 with an individual book, or $58.65 with both books.

“Collected here for the first time are selected essays, reviews, and remembrances by the award-winning Askold Melnyczuk—novelist, poet, essayist, translator, and editor—who has, for half a century, played an active role in shaping the American literary conversation. Articulating an unwavering faith in the civilizing power of literature, Melnyczuk’s With Madonna in Kyiv brings together meditations on the literary arts alongside recollections of writer-friends Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Oksana Zabuzhko, and others. This ardent, wide-ranging volume also includes pieces on writers such as Samuel Beckett, Grace Paley, Elias Khoury, Julian Barnes, Milan Kundera, Olga Tokarczuk, Delmore Schwartz, Alvaro Mutis, Orhan Pamuk, Chinua Achebe, Lesia Ukrainka, Vasyl Stus, and Volodymyr Dibrova.

“When her octogenarian poet mother was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer, Mary Cappello and her wife moved into the living room of Rosemary’s one-bedroom apartment in Philadelphia to help fulfill her wish to live out her life at home. A memoir in the form of lyric essays—with her mother’s own writing interspersed—Frost Will Come is a daughter’s tribute to her mother’s months-long transition from a deeply lived life to a difficult, beautiful, and uneasy death.

“Cappello renders an immersive and emotionally honest portrait of modern caregiving in a prose style that is the very definition of candor. While paying homage to expert caregivers and medical professionals, Cappello also brings her signature razor-sharp analysis to all the things that fall outside the realm of (medical) knowledge—from platitudes around the time death takes to the defiance of a ‘peaceful death’ as a sign of a moral failing. More than a memoir of grief, Frost Will Come is a rare reckoning with the very fundamentals of existence: how we come into being, how we care, and how we die.”

Rodrigo Nunes at the Harvard Book Store
Anatomy of Disintegration: What Brazil Reveals About the Global Far Right
November 19 at 7 p.m.
Free.

“For four years, Jair Bolsonaro led Brazil and the popular, far-right movement that bore his name. His rise, defeat, and the chaos he left in his wake reflect patterns that are playing out in several countries, from the US to Argentina to India. In Anatomy of Disintegration, Rodrigo Nunes uses Brazil as a point of departure to make sense of why the far right is on the rise all over the world, where its appeal comes from, and explain the dystopian horizon it is moving toward.

“Through sharp, original analyses of the social composition of its supporters, the material and affective conditions that underpin it, and the mainstream’s inability to respond to it, Rodrigo Nunes argues that the contemporary far right is better understood not as an effort to block but as an attempt to harness and accelerate forces of social disintegration set in motion by capital and intensified by the crisis of neoliberalism.”

Grubbie Debut: Margaret Woo at Porter Square Books
The City of Jade Trees
November 20 at 7 p.m.
In conversation with Alysia Abbott.
Free.

“The City of Jade Trees is Woo’s family’s story, beginning with her great-grandfather, an early ‘sojourner,’ and her grandfather, whose arrival coincided with the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and continuing with her father, a trained navigator in the Flying Tigers, and her mother, the privileged daughter of a member of the infamous Green Gang. By the time Woo stepped foot on American soil at the age of seven to join her family, who now ran a Chinese restaurant, it was during a rare welcoming window of immigration reform.

“Illuminating the greater arc of Chinese American history and the history of immigration to the United States, The City of Jade Trees is a powerful, moving story of each generation of a family forced to negotiate their own identity as they leave all that they know behind for a future they cannot yet see.”

— Matt Hanson