Coming Attractions: July 5 Through 20 — What Will Light Your Fire
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, 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.
PlayPenn’s 2026 Conference Playwrights –Zoe Palmer, Roger Q. Mason, and Sarah Mantell Photo: James Kern
PlayPenn, a Philadelphia-based artist-driven organization dedicated to the long-term development of new plays and playwrights, will toss new play development into a laboratory for civic imagination in their 2026 New Play Development Conference: Democracy in Action, running July 17-August 2 at various venues in Philadelphia and New York City.
“PlayPenn’s nationally recognized New Play Development Conference brings together readings of new plays alongside a citywide series of civic gatherings, workshops, artist exchanges, and public conversations focusing on art, democracy, historical memory, belonging, and collective imagination. This community-focused approach to new play development reflects a broader vision of theatre in a shared civic life that illuminates what theatre can do, who participates in it, how it unfolds, and why it matters.”
“Serving as the centerpiece for the Conference are new plays that ask audiences to reconsider the architecture of freedom, featuring new works by 2026 Creative Capital Awardee Roger Q. Mason (Lavender Men with Skylight Theatre), PlayPenn Foundry alum and Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner Sarah Mantell (In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot with Playwrights Horizons), and newcomer Zoe Palmer.” Here is the rundown of events.
Might these plays make noises of dissent? Roger Q. Mason’s Bill will receive a staged reading in NYC on Monday, July 27. Here is the plot: “Democracy is dead, to begin with, and Taffeta, a Black, queer femme of impossible brilliance, refuses to be this country’s janitor once again. Instead, she appoints herself freedom’s only mourner, digging its grave.
As she honors a system that feasted on her people’s rights, three crusty yet resplendent Founding Muthafuckaz (Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Paine) drag their ghostly essences onto the scene and try to enlist Taffeta to build them a new nation for free, brick by brick. But a stranger named Bill forces Taffeta to confront whether the country she’s inherited is worth fighting for, or whether it deserves to be rebuilt at all, forcing her to choose a louder, riskier dream built on our rage, our care, and our refusal to succumb to the status quo in silence.”
Billed as sequel to Mason’s critically acclaimed play Lavender Men, the script claims “to excavate Constitutional history,” asking “who was intentionally excluded from the founding vision of ‘We, the People.'”
— Bill Marx
Film
Our Hero, Balthazar
Through July 7
West Newton Cinema
Eager to impress his activist crush, a wealthy New York teenager follows an online connection to Texas, where he’s convinced he can stop an act of extreme violence.
Trailer Treats
July 9 at 8:30 pm
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge
The Brattle’s annual celebration of the art form that is the “trailer” returns with a 23rd edition filled with weird, wild, and wicked 35mm coming attractions and shorts from The Brattle’s archive.
B.B. King performing in Summer of Soul. Photo: Searchlight Pictures
Summer of Soul
July 9 at 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline
Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969 The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed at Mount Morris Park. That footage, which was largely forgotten for decades, includes never-before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Ray Baretto, Abbey Lincoln & Max Roach, and more. Questlove’s expert 2021 assemblage of this footage is a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. This documentary/concert film demands to be seen on the big screen. The Arts Fuse review
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
July 13 at 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline
For his 1962 masterpiece, John Ford returned to black and white and assembled one of the most iconic ensembles in the Western canon: John Wayne, James Stewart, Lee Marvin, Andy Devine, Lee Van Cleef, Woody Strode, Thomas Mitchell, Strother Martin, John Carradine, and Vera Miles. The result is a striking revisionist Western and one of my personal top ten films. Its themes are distilled in the final moments with the famous line: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
A scene featuring Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jennifer Jason Leigh from The Hateful Eight.
The Hateful Eight in 70mm
July 11 at 2 p.m.
Somerville Theatre in Davis Square
Bounty hunters seek shelter from a raging blizzard and become entangled in a web of betrayal and deception. Kurt Russell and Samuel L. Jackson star as bounty hunters who meet in a snowy forest and are forced to hole up together in a refuge alongside a collection of dangerous strangers—played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, James Parks, and Channing Tatum. Shot by Quentin Tarantino and cinematographer Robert Richardson in Ultra Panavision (which the Somerville Theatre can project flawlessly), the film screens in 70mm with Carnage (35mm) as part of the Kurt & Jodie double feature series.
STArt Film Studio Premieres
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge
Living the Land
July 11 at 12 p.m.
From director Huo Meng, Living the Land follows ten-year-old Chuang, who is raised by extended family in his home village while his parents work far away. There, thousands of years of rural tradition collide with the socio-economic transformations of early-1990s China. “The Cultural Revolution is over, but its echoes remain: the bones of the unburied lie scattered in the fields. People pay for goods in grain, including ‘donations’ or ‘tribute’ to the local Party representative. A public-address system blares daily announcements, among them a directive that all married women report for medical examinations. Pregnancy monitoring is administered by the state—an intrusion into private life that goes unquestioned. The film is deeply mournful, yet pierced with moments of joy.” (Ebert.com)
This is a special screening no Brattle passes accepted and followed by an exclusive pre-recorded Q&A with the director.
Cui Hu (aka As the Water Flows)
July 11 at 3 p.m.
Set by Green Lake in Kunming, this film follows a widowed elderly man attempting to heal the emotional wounds of three generations and rebuild fractured family ties. After his wife’s sudden death, Shu Wen struggles to recover. A year later, he considers the possibility of a new romance, but his daughters disapprove, forcing him to confront his past “absence” within the family. As his focus shifts to those around him, he begins to realize he may not be as insignificant as he once believed. A pre-recorded Q&A with director Bian Zhuo follows.
A scene from Fly Me to the Moon. Photo: Window on Worlds
Fly Me to the Moon
July 12 at 12 p.m.
Sisters who move from Hunan to Hong Kong in the 1990s confront an identity crisis, deepening poverty, and their father’s drug addiction. Director Sasha Chuk Tsz-yin, working closely with her cinematographers, has crafted one of the most purely visual Hong Kong films in recent years. Its visual power is not rooted in Wong Kar-wai–style flourish, but in the structure of its storytelling.
Spanning two decades, the film traces the life of Hunan transplant Yuen—played at different stages by Chloe Hui Ho-yi, Golden Horse winner Tse, and Chuk herself—through a series of intimate snapshots. We first meet her in 1997, arriving in Hong Kong as a child with her family; then in 2007 as a teenager; and finally in 2017, as an adult working in the travel industry. An exclusive pre-recorded Q&A with the director follows.
Pick of the Week
The Phenomenon (2020), streaming on Amazon Prime
A publicity shot featuring ufologist James Fox for The Phenomenon. Photo: 1091
Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Disclosure Day, about alleged government secrets surrounding the existence of extraterrestrial life, is a well-crafted, sprawling mélange of science-fiction tropes, UFO mythology, conspiracy lore, and echoes of earlier alien-themed entertainments. It is packed with imaginative, thrilling sequences in which credibility is beside the point (Fuse review). Yet Spielberg appears genuinely intrigued by the possibility of alien life, as he noted in a recent New York Times interview with journalist Rachel Abrams.
For those interested in the subject beyond Hollywood spectacle, there is The Phenomenon, which assembles military testimony, declassified documents, and historical cases into a persuasive overview of the UFO mystery. Produced and directed by ufologist James Fox, the film arrived shortly after Navy disclosures renewed public interest in the topic, helping to shift the conversation toward a more serious, less sensational tone.
Fox’s two earlier documentaries are equally compelling: Out of the Blue (2003) and I Know What I Saw (2009). Spielberg has almost certainly seen them. All three films are narrated by Peter Coyote, whose calm, authoritative delivery lends credibility to discussions of government secrecy, eyewitness testimony, and scientific inquiry into what are now commonly called Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), formerly known as UFOs.
All three documentaries are available on Amazon Prime.
— Tim Jackson
Theater
Melanie Moore in the American Repertory Theater production of Black Swan. Photo: Hawver and Hall
Black Swan. Book by Jen Silverman. Music, lyrics, and orchestrations by Dave Malloy. Music supervision and direction by Or Matias, with additional arrangements by Matias. Directed and choreographed by Sonya Tayeh. Based on the Searchlight Pictures film Black Swan, story by Andrés Heinz. Staged by the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, through July 12.
A world premiere of a Broadway-bound musical that brings the cinematic psychological thriller Black Swan to the stage. “Pressure builds, boundaries blur, and reality begins to slip as Nina strives to rise from the ballet corps to the lead role in Swan Lake.” This adaptation is billed as “a haunting exploration of ambition, power, and the cost of perfection.” Arts Fuse review
Betrayal by Harold Pinter. Directed by Shana Gozansk. Staged by Gloucester Stage Company at the Natti-Willsky Performance Center, 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, July 9 through August 1.
Nobel Prize winning playwright Harold Pinter’s oft-revived 1978 play “traces the unraveling of a seven-year affair through an ingenious reverse chronology. As the story moves backward through time, audiences witness the shifting dynamics of love, friendship, memory, and deception with devastating clarity and emotional precision.”
The cast of ¡Que Diablos! Fausto, 2025. Photo: Susanna Jackson.
La Broa’ en tu barrio (La Broa’ in Your Neighborhood) by Orlando Hernández. Directed by Lorraine Guerra. A summer touring theatrical partnership between Rhode Island Latino Arts and Trinity Repertory Company. The production plays in parks across the state of Rhode Island, including Payne Park, Roger Williams Park, and more. Starting times and locations for this outdoor production change from date to date — please check the website. Through August 2. Free
The show is a new adaptation of an earlier production. It draws from the true tales of Latinos/as who have made Rhode Island their home, as documented by oral historian Marta V. Martínez in her book Nuestras Raíces (Our Roots). This staging will present “stories
Fireflies by Matthew Barber. Directed by Daniela Varon. Staged by Shakespeare & Co in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Lenox, through July 19.
The play that centers on an (unlikely?) love story in a small town. Here is how Shakespeare & Co sums things up: “Retired schoolteacher Eleanor Bannister lives alone in tiny Groverdell, Texas, settled into her routines and secure in her standing as the town’s most respected woman. When a hole in her roof brings Abel Brown — a charming, smooth-talking drifter — onto her doorstep, he offers to repair the house and quietly begins to upend her carefully ordered life. As an unexpected late-life romance flickers to life, gossip spreads and doubts surface. Can Abel be trusted, or is he not quite who he seems? Either way, the whole town is watching.”
Twelfth Night By William Shakespeare. Directed by Kate Kohler Amory. Staged by Shakespeare & Co at the Arthur S. Waldstein Amphitheater, Lenox, through July 26.
An observation from critic Tony Tanner in his Prefaces to Shakespeare.
“Viola’s words in Twelfth Night on learning of the possible salvation of her brother determine the atmosphere at the end of the play:
O, if it prove,
Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love!
(III, iv, 395-6)
That is probably the most defining sentence in Shakespearian comedy: salt becomes fresh; wreckage generates love; the world turns kind.”
Judy at a low point during her quest for liberation in Judy Saves The Day. Photo: courtesy of Puppet Showplace Theatre
Judy Saves The Day by Sarah Nolen of Puppet Motion. At Puppet Showplace Theatre, 32 Station Street in Brookline (Brookline Village), on July 12 at 10:30 a.m.
Well, it is about time. “After being pushed around for over 400 years, the famous hand puppet heroine Judy has had enough! Cheer her on as she goes on a quest for respect, justice, and a well-deserved nap.” Stay after the show to meet the artists and see the puppets up close!
Fannie (The music and life of Fannie Lou Hamer) by Cheryl L. West. Directed by Gilbert McCauley. Staged by Chester Theatre Company at the Chester Town Hall Theatre, 15 Middlefield Road, Chester, through July 12.
“Filled with music, humor and spirituality, this is the impassioned story of American civil rights activist and hero, Fannie Lou Hamer, from her beginnings as the daughter of a sharecropper, to co-founding the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, to her historic speech at the 1964 Democratic Convention and beyond.
A New Era by Miranda Austen ADEkoje. Directed by Summer L. Williams. Dramaturgy by Lizzy Cooper Davis. Staged by Company One at the Strand Theatre, 543 Columbia Road, Dorchester, July 18 through August 8.
The world premiere production of a script that, according to the Company One site, “blends historical source material with a present-day heartbeat. The play tells the story of real-life activist Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, founder of The Woman’s Era club and journal (played by Patrice Jean-Baptiste). As we journey to 1895, we watch Ruffin organize the First National Conference of the Colored Women in Boston from her Beacon Hill home, where six other formidable women from across the deeply divided country join her to birth a new movement. Can these women overcome their political differences to build a unified coalition when freedom is fragile and Black Lives are at stake?”
A scene from Double Edge Theatre’s revised revival of Once A Blue Moon – Cada Luna Azul. Photo: courtesy of Double Edge Theatre
Once A Blue Moon – Cada Luna Azul Conceived by Stacy Klein with Carlos Uriona. Directed by Klein. Staged by Double Edge Theatre at the Farm Center, 948 Conway Road Ashfield, July 15 through August 2.
Info on the Double Edge Theatre website: “The performance is based on lead actor and cultural strategist Carlos Uriona’s past experience with military dictatorship and cultural rebellion in his native country Argentina. Once a Blue Moon returns Carlos to Agua Santa, a fictional version of his hometown, after many years in exile. He evokes the memories of his past and the stories of the town’s colorful inhabitants as well as the events leading to his departure. The story reflects an increasingly present-day and universal situation in which ‘progress’ and ‘power’ displaces people, in this case causing a flood. It is a story of memory, culture, and song.”
“We presented a version of this performance in our 2015 / 2016 season and are looking forward to re-examining this work 10 years later and creating it anew with our current company.” The Arts Fuse review of the 2015 production.
Buyer & Cellar by Jonathan Tolins. Directed Daniel Bourque. Staged by Hub Theater of Boston at Club Café, 209 Columbus Ave., Boston, July 18 through August 1.
According to Robert Israel’s Arts Fuse review of a 2015 production of this one-person comedy at SpeakEasy Stage, the script revolves around an enjoyable, if farfetched, conceit. A man is hired by diva Barbra Streisand to keep a watchful eye over the basement empire of her Malibu, California, home, where she houses her memorabilia and tchotchkes.
Lovesong by Abi Morgan. Directed by David Auburn. Staged by Berkshire Theatre Group at The Unicorn Theatre 6 East Street, Stockbridge, July 22 through August 29.
Morgan’s play, according to the BTG website, “traces a marriage across decades, revealing how love evolves, deepens and endures over time. Moving fluidly between youth and later years, the play places two versions of a couple side by side, allowing past and present to unfold simultaneously on stage. Through their shared memories and lived experiences, the story explores love, aging and the ways in which memory shapes identity. As time moves forward, the impact of early choices reverberates across a lifetime, illuminating the fragility of happiness, the resilience of partnership and the inevitability of change.” The cast features Karen Allen, David Garrison, Rebecca Brooksher, and Shawn Fagan.
— Bill Marx
Television
Well, America’s 250th birthday has come and gone, and our feckless president didn’t succumb to heat exhaustion while delivering a speech outdoors in 100+ degree temperatures, which has no doubt left many disappointed. Let’s see what July has to offer for the next heat wave, which is likely arriving sooner than we’d like.
The family in the Little House on the Prairie reboot. Photo: Netflix
Little House on the Prairie (July 9, Netflix)
This revival of the popular ’70s series, based on the beloved books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, has already been renewed for a second season before it has even premiered. Is it really that good? Or is there simply a perversely ravenous appetite for feel-good historical homesteading dramas with a touch of the tradwife influencer aesthetic? Call me cynical. This new iteration promises storylines that explore relations between pioneering settlers and Indigenous communities, something that received only cursory attention in the original series. But here’s the thing: the revival is helmed by Rebecca Sonnenshine, creator of the excellent Archive 81 (which, sadly and inexplicably, lasted only one season). That alone will probably get me to tune in with an open mind.
The Man Will Burn (July 9, HBO)
Premiering the same day, this new four-part HBO docuseries explores the origins of the Burning Man festival, an arts-based community gathering that culminates in the conflagration of a giant wooden effigy. Since 1990, the event has been held in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert and has grown steadily, now attracting upwards of 80,000 people each summer. I have friends who started going in the early days, when it was a free-for-all with very few rules or safety protocols. The event has since become fashionable (influencers abound), increasingly elitist (celebrities arrive by jet with entourages), and expensive (vehicle passes alone start at over $500). Is it any surprise that, in recent years, attendance has waned. The event was much cooler when no one knew about it, apparently. Having attended much smaller pagan festivals for decades, I have to say Burning Man looks like a nightmare of commodified, performative chaos—but for those who like that sort of thing, that’s what they like. I’d rather stay home and watch The Wicker Man (1973).
— Peg Aloi
Visual Art
María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Freedom Trap, 2013. Photo: courtesy of the Colby Museum of Art
What do Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico have in common? They are all island nations, and they all are, or once were, under the control of the United States. They also figure in the exhibition Imagining an Archipelago: Art from Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Their Diasporas, which opens July 11 at the Colby Museum of Art. Remnants of a once-mighty Spanish Empire, these widely scattered territories were acquired by the United States largely as a by-product of victory in the 1898 Spanish-American War (in Cuba’s case, only briefly).
The Colby exhibition suggests a complicated, asymmetrical history between the ocean nations and the United States—an important fact for the islands that is probably unfamiliar to most Americans. About fifty contemporary works in numerous media, some specially commissioned and by more than forty artists, aim to create a linking of narratives—a “vivid archipelago of stories,” the museum says—that underscore the enduring impact of these histories on contemporary American life.
Daniela Rivera’s newly commissioned installation at MoCA, Hacia Cuando (To When), twists and turns its sources to focus “on the migration of histories, materials, practices, and myths.” Chilean-born and Boston-based Rivera, a professor of studio art at Wellesley College, uses a pre-Columbian fresco technique to create an inclined floor of handmade tiles painted to resemble illusionistic parquet. Microphones beneath the floor amplify visitors’ footsteps as they cross the space; the museum calls the result “a collaborative exchange with Rivera.” The installation opens July 11. In October, MoCA will present Hacia Cuando: An Opera, which combines recordings from the floor with performances by a group of collaborators.
The sea is a constant subject and metaphor in the work of Ángel Otero, who was born in Puerto Rico and divides his time between that island and New York. Ángel Otero: The Ocean Forgot Your Garden opens at the Newport Art Museum on July 10. Combining a signature technique of layered oil paint with images of waves that surround domestic objects—furniture and musical instruments—Otero’s work, the museum says, “considers the sea as a metaphor for connection, passage, and the movement of memory.”
Also opening at the Newport Art Museum on July 10, Sheila Isham: Between Worlds presents 30 paintings and works on paper spanning the six-decade career of an abstract artist influenced by the so-called Washington, D.C., Color School—particularly Sam Gilliam and Kenneth Noland—as well as by Taoist philosophy and Jungian psychology. The museum bills the show as a “rediscovery” of an artist who divided her time between Newport and stints in Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Hong Kong, Washington, D.C., and New Delhi.
Sheila Isham, Penetrating Wind, 1968. Photo: courtesy of Newport Art Museum
A small but active institution housed in a converted southern Vermont train station, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center opens no fewer than six contemporary art exhibitions on July 11. A selection of monochromatic graphite portraits of people who died as a consequence of drug addiction, Into Light Project is part of a national effort by the nonprofit INTO LIGHT Project to mount exhibitions in all fifty states “to address the unnecessary stigma and shame experienced by those struggling with substance-use disorder.”
Linda Sok: Warped Archive follows an Australian-Cambodian artist’s quest to “reincarnate” a Cambodian silk-tapestry tradition that was wiped out during the murderous Khmer Rouge dictatorship of the 1970s. Juanita Lanza: Formas Feroces y Tiernas (Fierce and Tender Forms) features drawings influenced by organic forms—including anatomical and microscopic imagery—and body-centered literature, including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the work of Puerto Rican poets Julia de Burgos and Ángela María Dávila. Other Brattleboro shows opening July 11 include Orlando Estrada & Jacoub Reyes: Magos de la Tierra (Magicians of the Earth), Madeline Fan: Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Richard Haynes: Learning to See.
Following the holiday that inspired it, the Museum of Fine Arts offers America at 250, a 60-minute guided tour of art made in the 1700s across the Americas. Designed to help visitors learn about global interdependence and “how artists shape, recount, and reflect history, while also inviting us to reconsider it,” the tour takes place July 5 and 6 from 1 to 2 p.m. Included with the price of admission, the tour is free; space is limited and seats are offered on a first-come, first-served basis.
— Peter Walsh
Jazz
Bevan Manson Trio
July 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.
Thirty-five years ago, the trio of pianist Bevan Manson, bassist Bob Nieske, and drummer Matt Wilson released an album that became a kind of underground jazz hit, Rhythm Chowder, a collection of sparkling originals and ingeniously reconfigured standards. They’re reuniting for this show joined by saxophonist Allan Chase (see July 19).
Puerto Rican percussionist and composer David Rivera. Photo: courtesy of the artist
Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival
July 10 (5:30 to 10 p.m.) and July11 (11 a.m. to 10 p.m.)
Court Square, Springfield, Mass.
FREE
The non-profit Blues to Green foundation presents a killer two-day free program of jazz, blues, roots, workshops, and other events in the heart of Springfield. The lineup this year includes Puerto Rican percussionist and composer David Rivera and his spectacular La Bámbula (Friday headliners) and (Saturday); pianist Zaccai Curtis and his Cubop Lives! band; Trinidad trumpeter and composer Etienne Charles with his Gullah Roots band; Cuban pianist and composer Omar Sosa and Quarteto Americanos; and Dumpstafunk, a project of members of New Orleans royal family the Nevilles.
The Makanda Project
July 11, 1-4 p.m.
First Church in Roxbury, 10 Putnam Street
FREE
The essential Makanda Project begins its annual free summer concert series “under the shade trees” at First Church in Roxbury. Plans include two sets of music (primarily that of the late Boston reedman Makanda Ken McIntyre) with “a poetry open mic at intermission, along with musical performances by young community members.” In case of rain, the concert moves indoors. The band of Boston-area music heavyweights includes saxophones Kurtis Rivers, Sean Berry, Brian Price, Temidayo Balogun, and Charlie Kohlhase; trumpets Jerry Sabatini and Woody Pierre; trombones Alfred Patterson, Richard Harper, and Randy Pingrey; bassist Avery Sharpe; drummer Hector Falu Guzman; and pianist and musical director John Kordalewski.
Pianist Kenny Werner. Photo: courtesy of the artist
Kenny Werner & Jerry Leake
July 15 at 7 p.m.
Mad Monkfish
Cambridge, Mass.
Two master player-composers join forces in what they’re calling the 9/11 Duo. Kenny Werner is a deep (and deeply satisfying) pianist and composer with wide interests and great chops, and percussion polymath Jerry Leake (a longtime New England Conservatory teacher) has gone everywhere, musically and otherwise, becoming deeply schooled in all manner of global rhythms, from Turkey and West Africa to Cuba and India.
The Daniela Schächter Quintet
July 16 at 6 p.m.
Long Live Roxbury Brewery & Taproom, Boston
FREE
Equally gifted as singer, pianist, and arranger, Daniela Schächter fronts a first-rate quintet for the Long Live Roxbury free Thursday night series, featuring alto saxophonist Nick Brust, tenor saxophonist Rick DiMuzio, bassist Keala Kaumeheiwa, and drummer Charlie Weller.
Allan Chase’s Jazz Impressions of Brazil
July 19 at 6 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.
Since a 2019 visit to São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Salvador (Bahia), the eminent reedman, composer, and educator Allan Chase has assembled an annual Brazilian music concert, expanding the repertoire each year. This year, with pianist Gilson Schachnik, he draws on composers including Hermeto Pascoal, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Ivan Lins, Johnny Alf, Edu Lobo, and Wilson Moreira. Joining Chase (alto and baritone sax) and Schachnik are flutist Yulia Musayelyan, electric bassist Fernando Huergo, and drummer Gen Yoshimura.
— Jon Garelick
Classical Music
Composer Philip Glass. Photo: Danny Clinch
Philip Glass’s Lincoln Symphony
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 5, 2:30 p.m.
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox
The BSO presents the world premiere of Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 15, “Lincoln,” featuring baritone Zachary James. It’s paired with John Williams’ Suite from Lincoln and Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait (with Alec Baldwin narrating). Karen Kamensek conducts.
All-Tchaikovsky
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 10, 8 p.m.
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox
Pianist Seong-Jin Cho joins the BSO and music director Andris Nelsons for an all-Tchaikovsky night, featuring the Piano Concerto No. 1 and excerpts from Swan Lake.
Emanuel Ax plays Mozart
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 11, 8 p.m.
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox
Emanuel Ax plays Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 with the BSO. Nelsons also leads Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 (with soprano Erin Morley).
Carlos Simon onstage at the Shed at Tanglewood, introducing his Fate Now Conquers on August 18, 2024. Photo: Hillary Scott, courtesy of the BSO
Simon, Barber, and Adams
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 17, 8 p.m.
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox
Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson team up reprise this spring’s excerpts from John Adams’s Nixon in China. Additional works by Carlos Simon (Meditations on Grace) and Samuel Barber (his Violin Concerto, featuring Keila Wakao) fill out the evening.
Trifonov plays Shostakovich
Presented by Boston Symphony Orchestra
July 19, 2:30 p.m.
Koussevitzky Shed, Lenox
Daniil Trifonov performs Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1. That work is framed by symphonies by Haydn (No. 22) and Beethoven (No. 2), both conducted by Nelsons.
— Jonathan Blumhofer
Roots and World Music
Klezmer virtuoso Rebecca Mac will perform at Passim this week. Photo: courtesy of the artist
Rebecca Mac
July 6
Ruth and Ben String Band
July 13
Danehy Park, Cambridge, 6:00 p.m.
Club Passim’s service to the community extends well beyond its storied walls, especially during the summer, when it offers a number of outdoor series. The free Tuesday night series in Cambridge starts with two of the region’s best string bands: One led by klezmer virtuoso Rebecca Mac (who just released an excellent LP) and the other by mother-and-son old-time masters Ruth Rappaport and Ben Wetherbee.
Las Guaracheras
July 8, 11 a.m.
Cafe 939, Berklee College of Music
If you missed out on tickets for Thursday’s sold-out MFA show by the joyful all-female Colombian salsa band Las Guaracheras, here’s a chance to learn about the rhythms that shape their unique musical identity via a free lunchtime workshop.
Vallenato Summer 2026
July 10, 10 p.m.
Mixx 360, Malden
Colombia has advanced to the round of 16 in the World Cup so, no matter what happens this week. there should be plenty to celebrate on Friday when three stars of the accordion-driven vellenato tradition team up: Jimmy Sossa, Jhonny Acevedo, and Jorge Zuleta.
The Skatalites — the originators of ska, reggae, and rocksteady. Photo: courtesy of the artists
The Skatalites with Lady Hatchet Quartet
July 12, 7:30 p.m.
City Winery, Boston
The Skatalites—originators of ska, reggae, and rocksteady—helped shape the course of modern music through both their own recordings and their session work backing artists such as the Wailers and Jimmy Cliff. While the founding instrumentalists have passed on and vocalist Doreen Shaffer has retired, the band endures, carrying forward its quintessential Jamaican jazz sound with several major figures in Jamaican music, including bassist Val Douglas and 89-year-old percussionist Larry McDonald. There is also a Boston connection: longtime keyboardist Ken Stewart and trumpeter Mark Burney, who rejoins the group for this run. Founding drummer Lloyd Knibb’s son, Dion, may also appear, bringing his powerful vocals. Opening the night is former Bostonian and ska/reggae stalwart Kristen Forbes with her latest project, the impressive and versatile Lady Hatchet Quartet.
Goodrich Family Band
July 12, 5 p.m.
Eustis Estate, Milton
The Goodrich Family Band began during the pandemic, when a group of Boston musicians—also roommates—came together to form an Americana folk-roots ensemble. Now resurfacing, the group has expanded beyond its original circle into a truly all-star lineup of local jazz and folk talent: Eleanor Elektra (guitar, vocals), Max Ridley (bass, vocals), Matt Hull (trumpet), Rich Hinman (pedal steel guitar), and Lee Fish (drums, vocals). They will kick off Mandorla Music’s summer series at the Eustis Estate in Milton.
Randy Bachman (left) and Burton Cummings of the Guess Who. Photo: courtesy of the artist
The Guess Who
Leader Bank Pavilion
July 17
Of all the disputes over classic rock band names, few have taken a stranger turn than that of the Guess Who. After the Winnipeg hitmakers behind “American Woman” and “These Eyes” dissolved in the late ’70s, bassist Jim Kale discovered that the band’s name had never been trademarked and assembled a touring version without lead singer/keyboardist Burton Cummings or guitarist Randy Bachman. When Cummings later withheld permission for that lineup to perform the group’s original hits, the touring Guess Who ultimately had to relinquish the name. Now Cummings and Bachman have reunited for a “Takin’ It Back” tour, reclaiming the moniker that long eluded them. Former Eagles guitarist Don Felder opens.
Festival Betances
July 18, Noon to 9:30 p.m.
Plaza Betances, South End
There’s a wealth of free live Latin music each summer, but the Festival Betances always snags an especially enticing lineup of talent for to mark its celebration of the food, music, dance, games, and culture of Puerto Rico. On tap this year is the beloved salsa outfit Puerto Rican Power, veteran singer Brenda K. Starr, and much more.
— Noah Schaffer
Author Events
Christopher M. Finan at Harvard Book Store
Freedom of Speech: A People’s History of Democracy’s Most Essential Right
July 6 from 7-9 p.m.
Free
“Uncovering vivid and engaging stories about 1st Amendment pioneers throughout American history, historian and leading censorship expert Christopher Finan highlights how free speech has been used to advocate for change. In the 19th century, abolitionists, advocates for women’s rights, and leaders of the labor movement had to fight for free speech. In the 20th century, the civil rights and anti-war movements expanded free speech, creating a shield for every protest movement that we have seen since.
With sharp insight and page-turning storytelling, Finan demonstrates that the most effective antidote for the growth of hate speech, misinformation, political violence, and anti-democratic efforts by government officials is support for and cultivation of a free and robust marketplace of ideas.”
Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer in conversation with Ambassador Samantha Power at Porter Square Books
On Courage
July 7 at 7 p.m.
Free
“The United States is only the latest country to face a leader who wields fear as a weapon, punishes political enemies, disappears people off the street, and undermines free and fair elections. Today nearly three out of four people on earth live under authoritarianism, the highest rate since the late 1970s.
“But even under repressive conditions, each of us holds the power to help defeat autocrats. Based on their acclaimed The New Yorker essay ‘So You Want to Be a Dissident?,’ veteran reporter Julia Angwin and political strategist Ami Fields-Meyer give us a captivating — and profoundly hopeful — guide to courage in an age of fear.”
Discussing 33 1/3: Kevin Dunn, Michael Stewart Foley, and Michael T. Fournier at Brookline Booksmith
July 7 at 7 p.m.
Free
“Join us at Brookline Booksmith for a discussion on music writing with authors from the series 33 1/3: Kevin Dunn who wrote about Stiff Little Fingers’ Flammable Material, Michael Stewart Foley who wrote about The Dead Kennedys’ Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables, and Michael T. Fournier who wrote about The Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime, in conversation with Nancy Barile.”
Letter Write-In with Abolitionist Mail Project at Brookline Booksmith
July 10 from 5:30- 8 p.m.
Free
“Abolitionist Mail Project is a pen-pal group that connects people incarcerated in Massachusetts and people on the outside. We believe that all incarceration is wrong. Until everyone is free, we must form genuine friendships between incarcerated and non-incarcerated people. These relationships will help break down walls and build a new world.”
Paul Doiron at Porter Square Books
Storm Tide
July 10 at 7 p.m.
Free
“Bowditch series fans will be impressed with the pacing, the physical tests Mike endures, and the presence of core characters in this latest book…Doiron’s fantastic procedural series continues to hit a satisfying stride.” —Library Journal
Carson Markland at Harvard Book Store
Men Like Us: A Novel
July 14 from 7- 8 p.m.
Free
“Carson Markland’s debut novel, Men Like Us, is on its surface a book about the Kennedys. But more than anything, it’s about big, messy families and what happens when too many siblings are vying for their parents’ love and approval; it’s about ambition and the trade-offs that come with that ambition; and it’s about grief and regret and the loyalty we feel toward the people we grew up with.
In prose that reads like a prayer, Markland tenderly portrays the relationship between two brothers, and the sacrifices they make for each other. The fact that we know how the story ends does nothing to lessen the impact of the quiet moments when these two men dream of what could be. I loved this book.”—Rachel Beanland, author of The Half Life and Florence Adler Swims Forever
Timothy Schraeder Rodriguez with Emely Rumble at Brookline Booksmith
Conversion Therapy Dropout
July 14 at 7 p.m.
Free
“Conversion Therapy Dropout is a behind-the-scenes look at megachurch culture, the hidden harm of non-affirming Christian spaces, and the ongoing impact of conversion therapy on gay Christians. This isn’t just a coming-out story–it’s about what happens after. About rebuilding a life outside the only world you’ve ever known. And the radical act of stepping into the light after being told your whole life to stay in the shadows. Sometimes, the greatest act of faith isn’t holding on–it’s letting go.”
Nathaniel Rich in conversation with William Giraldi at Porter Square Books
Cloudthief
July 15 at 7 p.m.
Free
“Cloudthief is a literary tour de force that takes us deep inside the immensely powerful systems that have become the secret architecture of our lives. It is at once a gripping narrative of crime and consequence, and a devastating critique of our surveillance-obsessed world. This novel confirms Nathaniel Rich as one of our most essential and prophetic voices.”
—Amitav Ghosh, author of Ghost-Eye
Julia Skinner at Harvard Book Store
Essential Food Preserving
July 16 from 7-8 p.m.
Free
“Julia has written one of the most useful resources for preserving food we have ever seen. She describes a very wide range of preservation methods in detail, making it easy to find answers to technique-based questions like “how do I pressure-can tomatoes?” or “what’s the best way to freeze broccoli?” What makes this guide unique and truly essential are the ingredient-focused chapters, where readers can look up what they have and find an intuitive, multi-disciplinary guide to preserving specific vegetables, fruits, and proteins.” —John Becker and Megan Scott, co-authors of the new edition of Joy of Cooking
Chris Arnone with Kimberly Zieselman at Brookline Booksmith
My Name Was Baby
July 20 from 7- 8 p.m.
Free
“In this fresh and affirming memoir, Chris’s struggles with anxiety, confusion, and a painful journey toward self-acceptance will be familiar to LGBTQIA+ people everywhere. But he also offers a perspective that is largely untold: that of an intersex man, existing in the toxic masculine culture of the heartland; parents who were open and accepting of his differences; and doctors who (mostly) did no harm.
It is a deep and wide exploration of religion and politics, gender and sexuality, frat parties, magic and burlesque shows. Arnone boldly shows how the lives of intersex folks can be so different and yet so familiar to everyone, helping us all take one step closer to understanding and acceptance.”
John A. Jenkins at Harvard Book Store
Summer of ’71: Five Months That Changed America
July 21 at 7 p.m.
Free
“More than a half-century later, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of events that defined the American experience during that fateful five-month period spanning May to September 1971. On May Day, President Nixon orchestrates a massive police-military response to disrupt the biggest anti-war demonstration in history. Two days later, the Supreme Court announces that it will take up Roe v. Wade. In the weeks and months that follow, friction escalates between the police and the Black Panthers, Congress debates universal healthcare, Attica prisoners riot, and the New York Times publishes the Pentagon Papers—a turning point that ultimately dooms Nixon’s presidency and his legacy.
Summer of ’71 brings it all to the page through first-person accounts that are only now becoming available: the papers, diaries, and oral histories of key players. Award‑winning journalist and author John A. Jenkins witnessed many of the events himself, and draws on a multitude of sources, including Nixon’s White House tapes, to tell the story of that time as no one else could. Here is both a fascinating, brilliantly researched read in its own right, and a critical lens through which to view today’s political discord.”
— Matt Hanson
Tagged: Bill-Marx, Jon Garelick, Jonathan Blumhofer, Matt Hanson, Noah Schaffer, Peg Aloi, peter-Walsh