Arts Fuse critics select the best in music, film, visual arts, theater, author readings, and dance that’s coming up in the next week.

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

Boston Area Film Schedules — What is playing today, Where and When

The Big Parade
Tuesday, November 11
At Old South Church, 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA
6 p.m. Champagne Reception; 7:15 p.m. film screening.

This screening of a great silent film will feature live  and improvised accompaniment by ‘International Sonic Artist’ Peter Krasinski on the church’s pipe organ. The event begins with a “Meet and Greet Reception” at 6 p.m. in Gordon Chapel, also located at Old South Church, where Anthony Fountain, the grandson of the film’s star, John Gilbert, will give a short overview of his famous grandfather’s career. “This Veterans Day Fund Raising Event  is presented to provide support and funding for various organizations that support and care for veterans.”

— Bill Marx

Hannah and Her Sisters
Monday, November 10 at 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA

Woody Allen’s great 1986 film examines the lives, loves, and infidelities among a tight-knit artistic clan over three Thanksgivings. The comedy-drama is being screened as a tribute to the late Boston film critic Jay Carr.

Finding Vivian Maier
Tuesday, November 11 at 7 p.m.
Bright Family Screening Room, Boston MA

Who is Vivian Maier? Now being considered one of the 20th century’s finest street photographers, Maier was a mysterious nanny who secretly took over 100,000 photographs that went unseen during her lifetime. Maier’s strange and riveting life and art are revealed through never-before-seen photographs, films, and interviews with dozens who thought they knew her. Discussion with Photrapher Camilo Ramirez follows. Free Admission. Trailer

International Pancake Festival
Thursday, November 13 at 8:30 p.m.
Brattle Theatre Cambridge, MA

That’s right. It’s a strange as it sounds – an evening of do-it-yourself animations for a pancake-based film festival, showcasing films and videos with a good portion of their length dedicated to flapjacks (or hotcakes, johnnycakes, latkes, crepes, blintzes, and griddle cakes).”

National Gallery
Sunday, November 16 at 12:30 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

Co-presented with The DocYard and the MFA, this is Frederick Wiseman’s latest examination of the workings of an a institution. Here “the filmmaker goes behind the scenes [and] peeks in on discussions among administrators as they consider marketing schemes that risk commercializing the museum’s public image and wrangle with the impact of budget cuts. He observes framers at work, listens in on talks among curators who carefully position paintings in galleries while calibrating the effect of lighting and positioning on the viewing experience.” (The New Yorker)

–Tim Jackson

---

Dance

Boston Ballet Swan Lake
Through November 16
Opera House
Boston, MA

Mikko Nissinen’s version of classical ballet’s 1895 standard-bearer, Swan Lake, features new costumes and sets by Robert Perdziola, who so successfully refreshed the company’s version of The Nutcracker two years ago. Boston Ballet has also developed some fun downloadable activities to get the kids ready for their trip to the theatre, including a workbook that reveals there’s not a single feather on stage: it’s all done with ribbons. Arts Fuse review.

Billy Eliot the Musical
Nov 12-18
Various cinemas in the Boston metropolitan area and beyond

When a boy from a mining town discovers ballet, anything can happen. London’s production of the smash musical with a score by Elton John is broadcast to local cinemas in a taped program that includes a reunion of 25 of the actors who have played Billy on stage. Fathom Events does not make it easy to figure out where it’s playing, but check the website for details about the screenings at Boston and suburban theatres.

Joan Jonas: Reanimation
November 13
Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts
Boston, MA

It’s been sold out for months, but you may want to line up early for wait-listed seats to catch a rare local performance by legendary performance artist and MIT professor emerita Joan Jonas. In Reanimation, Jonas combines drawings, objects, closed-circuit video projections, and choreographed to evokes scenes from Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness’s novel Under the Glacier. The work is set to a new jazz score by Jason Moran.

HoverDive
November 14 -15
Boston University Dance Theater
Boston, MA

At a time of rising water levels and climate crisis, Contrapose Dance offers an evening long work inspired by “the science and beauty of the ocean” that builds on scientist Larry Pratt’s work on fluid and wave dynamics, translating them into the choreography of Courtney Peix, music by Amber Vistein, costumes by Jennifer Varekamp and lighting by Stephen Petrilli.

Identified Moving Objects
Nov 15-16
Dance Complex
Cambridge, MA

A program of seasoned local dancemakers and emerging choreographers is highlighted by a solo by Jazz griot Adrienne Hawkins and works in progress by members of the aMaSSiT (a Make it, Share it, Show it) Creative Lab, a mentoring project housed at The Dance Complex. The Sunday program is preceded by an introduction to Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, which helps choreographers refine their visions.

Diversity in Movement
November 15th, 2014
Green Street Studios
Cambridge, MA

Penumbra:Exchange celebrates local dance by choreographers of color in a showcase benefit that presents nine dancemakers whose affiliations range from Urbanity Dance to the Costasis Arts Collective and Moksha Dans. The program also features a group of hip hop students studying in an immersive Japanese language program. That’s globalism.

and further afield…

Raphael Xavier
Nov 14-15
Flynn Space, Burlington, VT

Hip hop and spoken word are the foundations of this autobiographic ensemble piece, The Unofficial Guide to Audience Watching Performance, by Philadelphia-based dancer and choreographer Raphael Xavier.

— Debra Cash

---

World and Roots Music

Robyn Hitchock
Wednesday, November 12
Somerville Armory, Somerville, MA

A one-man flurry of psychedelia, British songsmith Hitchcock has, if anything, only gotten weirder with age. He’s currently on a solo tour.

Susana Baca
Thursday, November 13
Berklee Performance Center, Boston, MA

Peruvian diva Baca isn’t just a major musical figure – she’s also her country’s minister of culture. A longtime fighter for the preservation of Afro-Peruvian culture, her mix of music and activism should make for an inspiring lesson for the Berklee students she’ll be performing with this evening.

Jean Jean Roosevelt
Friday, November 14
City Limits, Randolph, MA

Haitian singer/songwriter/guitarist Jean Jean Roosevelt sings about both love and social consciousness in a way that brings to mind Marvin Gaye or Bob Marley. His music mixes the Creole rhythms of his homeland with the sweetness of reggae, R&B, and Afrobeat. This “cultural night” event also includes performances from local Haitian pop artists Malida and Ada.

Diego el Cigala
Friday, November 14
Berklee Performance Center, Boston, MA

Most of the flamenco acts who make it to the U.S. are either flashy dancers or hotshot guitarists. But Cigala has attracted a major worldwide following with just his voice – a smoky, passionate instrument.

The Art of Bulgarian Singing
Sunday, November 16
Arts at the Armory Café

Bulgarian born, New York City-based Vlada Tomova teams up with Valentina Kvasova (Russia) and Shelley Thomas (U.S.) for this combination workshop/concert devoted to the rich, complex Bulgarian and Cossack folk song tradition.

— Noah Schaffer

---

Theater

The Sailor Moon Shoujo Spectacular
November 16
At Oberon, Cambridge, MA

Join kawaii curators Amy Macabre and Jade Sylvan for an evening of performance dedicated to one of the most influential and long-lasting shoujo animes of all time – Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon! Let out your inner magical girl! Hosted by Queen Beryl AKA Amy Macabre.

Dusk Rings a Bell by Stephen Belber. Directed by Michael Bloom. At the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, Lowell, MA through November 16.

What’s in a kiss? Apparently quite a bit in this play: “Molly and Ray unexpectedly meet 25 years after their teenage romance. Though their kiss has had a lasting effect on both of them, the memory of their youthful fling is overshadowed by tragic revelations about what has happened in the intervening years.” Be warned: “Contains adult language.”

A Disappearing Number by Théâtre de Complicité. Directed by Elaine Vaan Hogue. Staged by Underground Railway/ Catalyst Collaborative@MIT 10th Anniversary Production at the Central Square Theater, Cambridge, MA, through November 16.

A local production of the award-winning British play that was inspired by the collaboration during the 1910s between two of the most remarkable pure mathematicians of the twentieth century, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor Brahmin from South India, and the Cambridge University don G.H. Hardy. “Drama, comedy, Indian dance and music weave an immersive experience the New York Times called ‘mesmerizing,’ a love story that combines the clashes of culture, the sensuality of ideas, while illuminating the mystery of mathematics.” Arts Fuse review

In Darfur by Winter Miller. Directed by Kristen van Ginhoven. Staged by WMA Theatre at Shakespeare and Company’s Berry Family Studio at the Elayne P. Bernstein Center, Lenox, MA, through November 16.

Playwright Winter Miller was inspired to write this play after she served as columnist Nicholas Kristof’s researcher at the start of the Darfur genocide in 2004. This is a “powerful and provocative tale of three lives that intersect in the most challenging of circumstances: a camp for internally displaced persons. The story follows an aid worker’s mission to protect lives, a Darfuri woman’s quest for safety and a journalist’s pursuit to deliver a front page story to call world attention to a humanitarian crisis.” The play premiered at The Public Theater in Manhattan for a three-week sold-out run.

The Saint Plays by Erik Ehn. Directed by Wesley Savick
November 13 through 16
Presented by the Suffolk University Theatre Department at the Modern Theatre, Boston, MA

“Ehn’s on-going collection of short plays are contemporary fairy tales for the stage inspired by the lives of saints, biblical characters and angels. The Saint Plays explore spiritual yearning, human conflict, good and evil, and the divine.” I heard some interesting scuttlebutt about these scripts, so may be worth a look.

Chosen Child by Monica Bauer. Directed by Megan Schy Gleeson. At the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, Boston, MA, though November 22.

The plot sounds like a soap opera on steroids: “Three generations of mothers and memories combine to change the fate of a schizophrenic man at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, as he waits for a sister he hardly knows, to fulfill an agreement that was never made. Adoption, desertion, and forgiveness— all this makes up a family.” But the cast is first-rate—Margaret Ann Brady, Lee Mikeska Gardner, Melissa Jesser, Lewis D. Wheeler, and Debra Wise.

Ether Dome by Elizabeth Egloff. Directed by Michael Wilson. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company (produced in association with Alley Theatre, Hartford Stage, and La Jolla Playhouse) in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, through November 23.

Director Michael Wilson suggests that this script is anything but a dry historical study about “America’s greatest medical discovery—anesthesia.” For him, the play—set in Boston’s own Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846—”holds an unflinching mirror up to our ambitious American character and the ways in which class, greed, and prejudice form a twisted path to innovation.” Arts Fuse review

Happy Days, by Samuel Beckett. Directed by Andrei Belgrader.
November 18 through 23
Presented by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company in the Carling-Sorenson Theater, Babson College, Wellesley, MA

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company Artistic director Steven Maler sums it up: Over fifty years since it premiered, “the play resonates just as forcefully with audiences and performers as the day it was written, and CSC has many reasons to be proud of this extraordinary production. Brooke Adams and Tony Shalhoub are the perfect duo to take on the delicate balance of humor and pathos, and Andrei Belgrader, known locally for his brilliant work with the American Repertory Theater, remains one of the most acclaimed interpreters of Beckett’s work.”

Sane New World, written and performed by Ruby Wax
November 18 through 23
Oberon, Cambridge, MA

“Hugely popular comedian, bestselling writer, and mental health campaigner Ruby Wax shares her candid, comedy-spiked manual on how to survive the 21st century in this one-woman show inspired by her bestselling #1 book.” Do you have to be brave to be sane? — paging Aldous Huxley.

Bad Jews by Joshua Harmon. Directed by Rebecca Bradshaw. Staged by the SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, through November 29.

The New England premiere of a comedy in which Jews behave badly. The plot sounds like a variation on Arthur Miller’s The Price: “two cousins wage war over a coveted family heirloom after the death of their beloved grandfather.” See Arts Fuse review

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen. Adapted and directed by Tony Estrella. Staged by the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, October 23 through November 30.

We had Ibsen lite with the recent production of Arthur Miller’s sledgehammer-the-message-home adaptation of An Enemy of the People at the Barrington Stage. Let’s hope the Feinstein-Gamm production gives us the real complicated thing. From what I have seen, Marianna Bassham has what it takes to play Hedda, a volatile combination of steel, self-destruction, and idealism. See Arts Fuse review

Phèdre by Jean Racine. Translation by Ted Hughes. Directed by M. Bevin O’Gara
November 19 through December 7
First Church In Boston, Back Bay Boston, MA

“A pedigree filled with philandering gods and bloodthirsty warriors does not make for domestic tranquility, as evidenced in this smoldering tale of erotic obsession and betrayal. Phèdre Paula Plum), daughter of King Minos, and second wife to Theseus (Robert Walsh), falls hard for her stepson, Hippolytus, after her husband’s six-month absence appears to becoming more of a permanent vacation.” Hughes’s translation has garnered plenty of critical praise. The Guardian on a National Theatre production: “Hughes’s version, first heard in Jonathan Kent’s 1998 West End production, replaces Racine’s alexandrines with a language that is characteristically sinewy, abrasive, and even animalistic. Phèdre, guilt-ridden over her passion for her stepson Hippolytus, cries: ‘Venus has fastened on me like a tiger.’ Later, she declares: ‘I stink of incest and deceit.'”

Awake and Sing! by Clifford Odets. Directed by Melia Bensussen.
Through December 7
Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company at the Boston University Theatre, Boston, MA

Odets, where is thy sting? Does this ’30s warhorse still feel, according to a blurb on the HTC web site, as if it could have been written yesterday?

— Bill Marx

---

Classical Music

Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra
Presented by the Boston Philharmonic
November 9, 2 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

The BPYO opens its season with a Slavic-themed program featuring Dvorak’s ever-popular Cello Concerto (played by Natalia Gutman), Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Festive Overture.

Elizabeth Rowe and John Ferrillo play Haydn and List
Presented by the Boston Classical Orchestra
November 9, 3 p.m.
Faneuil Hall, Boston

The BCO’s season continues with another pair of soloists from the BSO. This time, flautist Rowe and oboist Ferrillo team up for a pair of duo-concerti. C.P.E. Bach’s Symphony in D and Haydn’s Symphony no. 35 round out the program.

The Great War at 100: Great Britain in Song and Verse
Presented by New England Light Opera
November 9 (2 p.m.), 15 (7:30 p.m.), and 16 (2 p.m.)
Hancock Church (Lexington on the 9th), Melrose Highlands Congregational Church (Melrose), St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (Brookline)

NELO commemorates Veteran’s Day and the centenary of the Great War with a program of (mostly) British music for baritone, piano, and strings. Works by Gerald Finzi, Herbert Howells, Ivor Gurney, George Butterworth (killed in France in 1916), and Samuel Barber’s Dover Beach will be heard and there will be readings of poems by Wilfred Owen.

Elizabeth Rowe and John Ferrillo play Haydn and List
Presented by the Boston Classical Orchestra
November 9, 3 p.m.
Faneuil Hall, Boston, MA

The BCO’s season continues with another pair of soloists from the BSO. This time, flautist Rowe and oboist Ferrillo team up for a pair of duo-concerti. C.P.E. Bach’s Symphony in D and Haydn’s Symphony no. 35 round out the program.

Brett Dean’s Dramatis personae
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
November 13-15 and 18, 8 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

Nelsons’ November residency continues with one of his most intriguing programs of the season: the American premiere of Dean’s Dramatis personae (featuring trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger) framed by Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem Hamlet and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610
Presented by Boston Baroque
November 14 and 15, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall, Boston, MA

Boston Baroque opens its season with Claudio Monteverdi’s epic Vespers. Yulia Van Doren, Teresa Wakim, Thomas Cooley, and Aaron Sheehan are the soloists; Martin Pearlman conducts.

San Francisco Symphony
Presented by the Celebrity Series
November 16, 5 p.m.
Symphony Hall, Boston

The Los Angeles Philharmonic was here in March, now it’s San Francisco’s turn: Michael Tilson Thomas, celebrating his 20th season at the helm of the SFSO, brings his band to town with a spry, colorful program. Gil Shaham is the soloist in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto no. 2 and MTT conducts works by Liszt and Ravel, plus Samuel Carl Adams’s Drift and Providence.

New American Trios
Presented by Collage New Music
November 16, 8 p.m.
Pickman Hall, Cambridge, MA

CNM presents the Calyx Trio in a program of music for piano trio by living (!) American composers. Augusta Read Thomas, Lansing McLoskey, and Richard Festinger are on the program, as are a pair of local premieres of new pieces by Amy Beth Kirsten and Derek Bermel.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Masterworks Chorale
November 14 at 8 p.m.
At Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, MA
Pre-concert talk by Laura Prichard at 7:30 p.m.

A performance of Eric Whitacre’s Cloudburst and Carl Orff’s popular Carmina Burana with Randall Hodgkinson and Leslie Amper, duo pianists. Steven Karidoyanes conducts. The singers include Holly Cameron, soprano, Gregory Zavracky, tenor, and Lesley Ray Thomas, baritone. This is a Horizons for Homeless Children / Awareness Through Music event.

Jupiter String Quartet
November 14 at 8 p.m.
Presented by the M.I.T Music Department at Kresge Auditorium 48 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA

The esteemed group performs an evening of Beethoven string quartets: F Major, Op. 18, No. 1; A Major, Op. 18, No. 5, and A minor, Op. 132

A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra and Amanda Forsythe, soprano
November 15 at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 1 Roanoke Ave, Jamaica Plain, MA
(Same program at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA on Nov. 16 at 1:30 p.m.)

On this vocal group’s latest program (entitled “Obsession”): Antonio Vivaldi’s Nulla in mundo pax sincera; Johann Meder’s Sonata Der polnische Pracher; Georg Frideric Handel’s Armida Abbandonata, and Antonio Vivaldi’s La Folia.

Capturing Music: Writing and Singing Music in the Middle Ages
November 15 at 3 and 8 p.m.
At the First Church Cambridge, 11 Church Street, Cambridge, MA

A multimedia event presented by Blue Heron in collaboration with Thomas Forrest Kelly (Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music, Harvard University), in two parts. Part one: key moments in the art of music from c. 800 to c. 1400, including Gregorian chant, organa by Leonin and Perotin, and music of Machaut, Senleches, de Vitry and Cordier. Part Two: an exploration of the power of written music in pictures and sound. This will be a “live action” version of Prof. Kelly’s book Capturing Music: The Story of Notation.

— Susan Miron

---

Jazz

Seith Meicht Big Sound Ensemble
November 10, 7 p.m.
Lily Pad, Cambridge, MA.

Saxophonist and composer Seth Meicht has a sure grasp of the tension between form and freedom. He assembles his Big Sound Ensemble for this one: alto sax Rick Stone, baritone Charlie Kohlhase, trumpeters Jerry Sabatini and Forbes Graham, trombonist Bill Lowe, bassist Sean Farias, and drummer Luther Gray.

Yoko Miwa Trio
November 13, 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA

Pianist and composer Yoko Miwa is one of the shining lights of the Boston jazz scene — with a bravura technique that’s subordinated to an affecting personal style. She’s joined by her longtime trio mates, bassist Will Slater and drummer Scott Goulding.

Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars
November 14, 7:30 + 10 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the great drummer Tommy Campbell is going to be in town. The former Berklee grad and Boston-scene regular was the long-time drummer in the Dizzy Gillespie band. He joins former Dizzy bandmate bass player (and All-Stars leader) John Lee, along with trumpeter Freddy Hendrix, alto saxophonist Mark Gross, and pianist Jeb Patton.

Pat Metheny Unity Group
November 16, 7 p.m.
Hanover Theater, Worcester, MA.

Pat Metheny’s mighty Unity Group (with saxophonist Chris Potter, bassist Ben Williams, drummer Antonio Sanchez, and multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi) sold out Boston’s Wilbur Theatre last March following the release of their epic Kin (←->). They return to play Worcester’s jewel box Hanover Theatre.

Magos Herrera & Javier Limón
November 19, 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

The exciting Mexican-born jazz singer Magos Herrera teams up with Spanish guitarist, composer, and producer Javier Limón on their new album, Dawn. Expect them to cover American and Latin-American jazz standards, as well as originals, in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

René Marie
November 19, 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA.

Singer René Marie’s latest album is I Wanna Be Evil: With Love to Eartha Kitt. She pays tribute without subverting her own charismatic personal style and formidable technique. This is homage, not mimicry.

— Jon Garelick

---

Rock

Stevie Wonder
November 11
TD Garden, Boston, MA

The great Stevie Wonder is at the Garden this month, and will perform his classic 1976 release Songs in the Key of Life in full. “Sir Duke,” “Pastime Paradise,” “Isn’t She Lovely,” and the rest of the tunes on the double album will make appearances, as will the four songs (“Saturn,” “Ebony Eyes,” “All Day Sucker,” and “Easy Goin’ Evening (My Mama’s Call)”) included on the A Something’s Extra EP that accompanied Key of Life.

Bob Dylan
November 14
Orpheum Theatre, Boston, MA
November 15
Providence Performing Arts Center, Providence, RI

Recent stops by the Bard to greater Boston have seen him and his cracking band play to half empty arenas, which is depressing, but perhaps understandable. It’s not that he doesn’t sing the “old” songs, so much as when he does they aren’t instantly recognizable, and many people don’t take kindly to this. And then there’s the fact that he’s in or around town every year or so, so it’s not like you have to drop everything and see him on any particular stop. Still, regardless of how many times Dylan comes around or how thin the crowd, his performances are always worth checking out, and these venues are the perfect size for him and his band. Plus, the six-disc (!) boxset The Basement Tapes Complete has just been released, so perhaps there’s a chance for some true deep cuts getting slipped into the set.

Johnny Marr
November 16
Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA

The former Smiths guitarist Johnny “Fuckin” Marr has a new solo album out, Playland. In addition, the Smiths have recently (read: “finally”) been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which has led to all kinds of questions, such as, “If they get in, will they show up?” “If they show up, will they reunite and perform?!?!” Those questions are perhaps best left for another day though. In the meantime, we have the legend, in the flesh, in Boston. That’s enough.

London Grammar
November 17
House of Blues, Boston, MA

Back in April, British trio London Grammar were playing at the Paradise. A little more than six months later they’ve already made the jump to the larger House of Blues, which is a good sign for them and their electro pop.

Randy Newman
November 19
Wilbur Theatre, Boston, MA

If you only know him for his (admittedly pretty great) Disney songs, or his (admittedly pretty great) misunderstood song “Short People,” you might not realize that Newman is one of the greatest songwriters of his, or any, generation. If you doubt this, give the classic “Louisiana 1927” a listen. Keep the tissues close.

(Film Screening) Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets
November 19
Brattle Theater, Cambridge, MA

Pulp are not nearly as well known in the States as they are in their native Britain, but even here, if you peruse “best of” lists for the ‘90s, and certainly “best of” lists of the Britpop era, you will find the band and their defining, brilliant, song “Common People.” They’re more than just this one song though, as this documentary, with its mix of concert footage and interviews with everyday (okay, “common”) people from the group’s native Sheffield, sets out to illustrate.

Upcoming and On Sale…

Daniel Lanois (11/22/2014, Brighton Music Hall); Greg Trooper (11/23/2014, Atwood’s Tavern); Julian Casablancas + The Voidz (11/26/2014, House of Blues); Keep Boston Safe (Benefit for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts) (12/10/2014, Brighton Music Hall); Future Islands (1/7/2015, Royale); The Vaselines (1/17/2015, Brighton Music Hall); Belle and Sebastian (3/30/2015, House of Blues); The Who (5/24/2015, Mohegan Sun Arena); The Who (10/29/2015, TD Garden)

— Adam Ellsworth

---

Author Events

Masha Gessen
Putin’s War: Against the West
November 12 at 7 p.m.
FPC Parish House, Cambridge MA
Free

The Russian-American journalist, author, and LGBT activist will come to Cambridge (courtesy of the Harvard Book Store) to discuss two of her books: The Man Without A Face, about the life and rise of Vladimir Putin, and Words Will Break Cement, which is a chronicle of Pussy Riot’s controversial demonstrations against the repressiveness of Putin’s regime. Arts Fuse review

Robert Brustein
Winter Passages: Reflections on Theatre and Society
November 14 at 6 p.m. (doors open at 5:30)
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge MA
$5 tickets

The founding artistic director of the Yale repertory theatre will come to the Brattle to speak about the state of theatre in the contemporary world. Brustein will be discussing and signing copies of his nineteenth book. He will be examining the relationship between theatre and society, contrasting the largely indifferent attitude towards the arts in America with the history and current international attitudes to theatre worldwide.

Adrienne Mayor
The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World
November 17 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

Who were the Amazons? Where they real? Mayor comes to Cambridge to share her research and insight and prove that the famous women warriors who enjoyed fighting, hunting and sexual freedom (many who were, evidently, buried with their weapons) were every bit the equal of their often lauded male contemporaries.

Robin Cherry
Garlic: An Edible Biography
November 17 at 7 p.m.
Trident Booksellers & Café
Newbury St, Boston MA
Free

Garlic may not always get a good rap – referred to as “Russian penicillin” and “Italian cologne”- but it remains one of the most useful of all produce. Travel writer and historian Cherry will bring homemade samples of garlic brittle and explain garlic’s roots in history, politics, and mythology. She will discuss some of the 100 recipes in her book, spanning everything from Italy’s Aglio Olio to China’s Good Fortune Garlic Lettuce.

Becky Thompson
Survivors on the Yoga Mat: Stories for Those Healing from Trauma
November 18 at 7 p.m.
Porter Square Books, Cambridge MA
Free

Becky Thompson, a professor at Simmons College, draws connections between the yoga mat and the repercussions of trauma. She will bring her own expertise as well as the experiences of yoga practitioners from all walks of life to discuss how to heal the body and mind and how survivors use their time on the mat to heal wounds of the body as much as the soul.

— Matt Hanson

Thomas McNeely
Ghost Horse
Emerson College, Barnes and Noble, Boston, MA, November 13
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA, November 14
Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA, November 17
University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, November 20

Local author McNeely reads from his first novel, in which, according to Kirkus Reviews, the writer “beautifully portrays the confusion of a boy doing his best to deal with matters that are beyond his understanding but fully capable of doing him harm…. A dark, deeply stirring novel about the quiet tragedy of growing up in a broken family.”

— Bill Marx