Coming Attractions: May 10 Through 25 – 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.

A film screening coming up in New York reminds me that, decades ago, Boston‑area theater companies welcomed the work of major political theater artists. The Italian performer and playwright Dario Fo (1926–2016), a Nobel Prize laureate in literature, made several appearances in the Boston area during the 1990s and early 2000s. This year marks what would have been his 100th birthday, an occasion that has received scant attention in this country, though Fo’s scripts—especially Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!—were staged repeatedly in the U.S. in the ’80s and ’90s at regional, university, and politically engaged theaters. Authorities twice denied Fo and his wife Franca Rame U.S. visas in the early ’80s.

The American Repertory Theater helped introduce Fo to American audiences. The A.R.T. first invited Fo to perform in its New Stages series in 1986, marking his initial visit to the United States. Fo presented a one‑man performance that included a brilliant pantomime of a 14th century peasant so hungry that he turns, as I wrote, to “cannibalizing his innards: plucking out his eyeballs and popping them into his mouth as if they were bonbons, zestfully pulling out his intestines and slurping them up as if they were deliciously long strands of spaghetti.” It was a hilarious exercise in physical comedy worthy of Chaplin — political protest, black comedy, theater of the absurd. The A.R.T. later staged Archangels Don’t Play Pinball in 1988, directed by Fo and his wife Franca Rame, and We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! in 1999, in a new translation by Ron Jenkins. The American premiere of Fo’s Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas in 2001 was canceled by Fo and Rame “in the wake of recent events,” most likely referring to the aftermath of September 11.

Kairos Italy Theater, along with Casa Italiana Zerilli‑Marimò at NYU and the Italy‑based KIT Italia, will present the United States premiere of the 2022 documentary Dario Fo: The Last Mistero Buffo as part of their In Scena! Italian Theater Festival, with exclusive screenings at Casa Italiana Zerilli‑Marimò at NYU (24 W 12th St, New York, NY) on May 5 at 6:30 p.m. and May 13 at 8 p.m. The film, directed by Gianluca Rame—a relative of Franca Rame—will be presented in Italian with English subtitles.

Here is what Mattea Fo, Fo’s granddaughter and director of the Dario Fo and Franca Rame Foundation, had to say about the documentary in Broadway World: “The film captures something truly rare—the last moment my grandfather stepped onto the stage, on August 1, 2016, in Rome, with Mistero Buffo, the performance of a lifetime… What is most striking is how the theater of Dario Fo and Franca Rame continues, everywhere in the world, to be a space for reflection on the human condition, the distortion of power, and the voice of the oppressed. New York is not just a stop in the centenary: it is proof that this message has never stopped traveling.”

An excerpt from my 2016 interview with the late director Robert Scanlan on the Poets’ Theatre production of Mistero Buffo: the Gospel according to Dario Fo: “Like Bernie Sanders, Fo is a proud socialist. ‘Real socialism is inside man,’ he has written. ‘It wasn’t born with Marx. It was in the communes of Italy in the Middle Ages. You can’t say it is finished.’ Socialism is no longer a discredited word, and Fo brings an impish sense of divine comedy to the clash between the haves and the have-nots that Sanders misses.”

— Bill Marx

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Film

UNIQLO Festival of Films from Japan
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Through May 29

The Taste of Tea, May 16 at 2 p.m.

Quietly offbeat rhythms of the Haruno family are followed through a series of episodic vignettes. An artist mother devotes herself to an animation project; an uncle returns from Tokyo to sort through lingering romantic feelings; and children navigate private anxieties—most strikingly, a young girl haunted by the sight of her own gigantic doppelgänger trailing her through town. This is a tender, gently uncanny portrait of family life.

Angel’s Egg, May 22 at 7 p.m.

A singular achievement of animated cinema, Angel’s Egg is an arrestingly beautiful allegorical fantasy. In a haunting post-apocalyptic cityscape, a young girl protects a mysterious egg she carries everywhere. Meanwhile, a boy armed with a gun arrives searching for a bird he saw in a dream. The girl and boy form a tentative bond as they deal with a world full of uncanny rituals, fossilized memories, and looming shadows.

Two Seasons, Two Strangers, May 24 at 2 p.m.

Inspired by Yoshiharu Tsuge’s manga short stories “A View of the Seaside” and “Mr. Ben and His Igloo,” the film is made up of two contrasting narratives: a damp, windswept summer by the sea where two young strangers exchange tentative glances and halting conversation, and a quiet winter in a remote snowy inn where Li meets the enigmatic innkeeper Benzo. These mirrored seasons inspire a quietly beguiling diptych about how lives are written, translated, and reimagined through cinema.

The Passion of Joan of Arc
May 14 at 7 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s masterpiece from 1928 is based on the records of the 1431 trial that led to Joan of Arc being convicted of heresy and burned at the stake. In the film, the month-long process is condensed into a much shorter time frame, Jeanne must face a large assembly of priests and monks, who bombard her with questions aimed at pressuring her into admitting that her visions were not sent by God. She stands fast under the threat of torture.  The representation of Joan of Arc in Dreyer’s masterpiece is radically different from the traditional image of her as a national warrior heroine in shining armor. On top of that, the director almost completely leaves out the historical events of the Hundred Years’ War.

The Double Life of Véronique
May 14 at 6 p.m.
French Library at 53 Marlborough Street, Boston

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s film is about young Véronique, a beautiful French woman who aspires to be a renowned singer. Weronika lives in Poland, has a similar career goal, and looks identical to Véronique. The two are not related. The narrative follows both women as they contend with the ups and downs of their individual lives, with Véronique embarking on an unusual romance with Alexandre Fabbri, a puppeteer who may be able to help her with her troubling issues.

Make Me Famous
May 14 & 15 at 7 p.m.
Somerville Theatre, Somerville

Make Me Famous is a vibrant, fast-paced portrait of New York City’s explosive 1980s Downtown art scene—where punk met paint, and the lines between art, music, and nightlife blurred. This was the world that launched such artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Madonna, and Blondie—a cultural moment defined by its grit, glamour, and DIY ethos. Amid the chaos sits painter Edward Brezinski, a figure both present and peripheral, whose story offers a unique angle on the era’s creative frenzy.

Chime + Serpent’s Path
May 15 at 6:15 p.m.
May 16 at 12:30 & 6 p.m.
May 17 at 4:14 & 7:30 p.m.
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s masterclass in escalating dread and shocking violence –  2024’s Chime confirmed that Kiyoshi is one of modern horror’s most innovative and unpredictable visionaries. During a class, culinary instructor Matsuoka witnesses the suicide of a young student driven — he has been driven insane by what he claims is a chiming sound that controls his mind. Soon, Matsuoka begins hearing it, too, and descends into a mental abyss that warps his perception of reality, leading him to act on some of his darkest impulses. This is a offers a chilling depiction of madness that interrogates the very stability of our everyday existence.

Profiles of Boston: Portraits from the Heart of Chinatown
May 16 at 3 p.m.
Bright Family Screening Room 559 Washington St, Boston

Four short films that illuminate Boston’s Chinatown through personal stories of family, memory, and resilience.

Home Plate

When his chosen career path as a major league pitcher doesn’t pan out, former baseball standout Andrew Chin sits down for a conversation with his immigrant mother to learn what it means to start over. As she reflects on the hardships of arriving in a new country and the need to pursue a new profession, Andrew begins to see how they mirror his own struggles. 18 min

Love, Chinatown

Chinatown resident Cynthia Yee embarks on an open-hearted walking tour of Boston’s Historic Chinatown. It is a vibrant but discerning welcome for newcomers to the neighborhood that boldly confronts the community’s past trauma with the help of an unexpected local compatriot — the bright-eyed undergrad, Gwen. 18 min

Building a Community – Boston Chinatown Heritage Center

Building a Community is a sweeping portrait of Boston Chinatown, told through personal family stories that illuminate 150 years of perseverance, transformation, and belonging. 20 min

Hong Far Low 

In this short documentary, the director reflects on his family’s restaurant, which was started by his great-grandfather. He connects the eatery to the history of Chinatown. 20 min

RPM Presents “America”: Seven Films by Brian L. Frye
May 17 at 2 p.m.
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge

Brian L. Frye is a filmmaker, writer, and law professor whose work explores the relationship between history, society, and cinema through archival and amateur images. His films have been exhibited at prestigious venues, including the Whitney Biennial, the New York Film Festival’s “Views from the Avant-Garde,” and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His short films are held in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum and distributed by the Filmmaker’s Coop. There will be a post-screening Q&A with Brian L. Frye and Brett Melican.

Porte Bagage
May 18, 7 p.m.
West Newton Cinema, West Newton

A Dutch family of Moroccan descent embarks on a road trip to honor their father’s wish to return to the homeland and spend his final days at his ancestral manse. Along the way, old tensions resurface and loyalties are tested in a closely observed family dramedy about the emotional baggage we all carry as family members. Final film from the Belmont World Cinema series. Post film discussion with Ian VanderMeulen, a Fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University.

Big Mama Thornton: I Can’t Be Anyone But Me
May 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Regent Theater in Arlington

Alabama-born singer and musician Willie Mae Thornton was a preacher’s daughter who went her own way. She joined a traveling variety show at age 14 and had a smash hit with 1953’s “Hound Dog,” but had to struggle for another decade before the blues revival of the ’60s brought her back into the limelight. Given the name “Big Mama” at the Apollo Theater, she was tough, funny, a true original who was determined to do things her way and be the person she wanted to be. Featuring live Q&A between Arts Fuse critic Noah Schaffer and filmmaker Robert Clem.

Pick of the Week

Buoyancy (2019), streaming on Amazon Prime

Rodd Rathjen’s first feature and Australia’s Oscar submission follows a Cambodian boy sold into slavery aboard a Thai fishing trawler called the “Buoyancy.” The narrative, set largely in the suffocating close quarters of a single setting, can be grueling, but the film’s striking cinematography of sun-bleached horizons, along with its restless handheld camerawork, immerse us in the reality of a dread world. It is not a documentary, yet it comes across as an exposé, bearing witness to injustice with a clear-eyed, humane urgency.

— Tim Jackson

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Theater

Furlough’s Paradise by a.k. payne. Directed by abigail jean-baptiste. Staged at Yale Rep, 1120 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, through May 16.

According to the Yale Rep site, here’s the set-up for this new play: “There’s been a drought on their childhood’s road and two cousins come home dry-eyed and grieving. Sade, on a three-day furlough from prison. Mina, departing a strangely idyllic west coast. As all time ticks towards the correctional officer’s arrival, these two wrestle with all they have never said, with the fallibility of memory itself, and with visions of a future they are bound to create. Winner of the 2025 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.”

John & Jen by Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald.Directed by Gregg Edelman, with music direction by Nicolas Perez. Staged by the Berkshire Theatre Festival on the Larry Vaber Stage at The Unicorn Theatre, May 20 through June 7.

This musical, according to the BTF website, “traces the evolving bond between siblings—and later between mother and son—across three decades. Told through a soaring contemporary score that blends pop, folk and musical theatre influences, the story follows Jen as she reflects on her childhood with her younger brother John. Their connection, shaped by youthful rebellion, family expectations and unspoken love, is marked by small but powerful touchstones—including a well-worn baseball glove that becomes a quiet symbol of memory, loss and enduring devotion. As Jen grows into adulthood and raises her own son, the echoes of her past shape her hopes, fears and fierce love as a parent.”

Oedipus el Ray by Luis Alfaro. Directed by Loretta Greco. Staged by the Huntington Theatre Company in The Roberts Theatre in The Calderwood Pavilion, 527 Tremont St. Boston, through June 7.

Luis Alfaro reimagines Sophocles’ classic in Oedipus el Rey, which is set in the heart of Los Angeles. Oedipus dreams of rewriting his own story — but liberation comes at a price: can he truly escape the destiny laid out before him? What’s fate, and what’s just the system? A searing tale of love, family, and prophecy, Oedipus el Rey, we are told by the HTC website, “blends ancient myth with modern urgency and Chicano swagger with swaths of sly humor.”

Swept Away, book by John Logan. Music & Lyrics by the Avett Brothers. Directed by Jeremy Johnson. With assistance from music director Paul S. Katz and choreographer Ilyse Robbins. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage at the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston, through May 23.

The New England premiere of this Broadway musical. The plot: “A storm. A shipwreck. Four survivors. As they fight to stay alive, these New Bedford whalers must confront who they are, what they’ve done, and whether forgiveness is possible.” The cast of 11 features Christopher Chew, Max Connor, Peter DiMaggio, Bishop Levesque, and Anthony Pires Jr. Arts Fuse review

Something Rotten by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell. Music by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick. Directed by Ilana Ransom Toeplitz. Staged by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston at 140 Clarendon St, 2nd floor, Boston, through June 7.

According to the Lyric Stage website: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and then there’s Nick and Nigel Bottom. Two brothers stuck in the shadow of a certain Renaissance rock star — yes, the William Shakespeare — set forth to knock him off his perch by writing the world’s very first musical. A misinformed soothsayer plants the seeds for this brilliant idea as the task of how to upstage a literary genius without really trying hilariously unfolds. This is a history-twisting mash-up set in the 16th-Century with 21st-Century Broadway dazzle.”

The Three Little Pigs by Magpie Puppets. Presented by the Puppet Showcase Theatre, 32 Station Street, Brookline, May 16 and 17.

“Mama Pig has had quite enough of cleaning up after her fully grown little pigs! She sends them off with affection and money to make their way in the world. Which little pig will build a house that can withstand the powerful puffs of the Big Bad Wolf — surfer Georgie, farmer Jeremiah or Amelia, the avid reader? Children share their favorite sports, veggies, and books with the puppets in this delightful and interactive rendition of The Three Little Pigs.”

Cymbeline, Refinished by Willam Shakespeare & George Bernard Shaw.  Directed by Michael Sexton. A staged reading presented by NYC’s Red Bull Theatre. This event will premiere LIVE from the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre at Peter Norton Symphony Space on May 18 at 7:30 p.m. ET. A recording will be available from May 19 at 7:30 p.m. ET thru May 24 at 11:59 p.m. ET. Open captions will be available from May 20 at 7:30 p.m. ET thru May 24 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Be still, my Shavian heart! A precious opportunity to stream a rare performance of George Bernard Shaw’s revamped ending for Shakespeare’s late comedy Cymbeline. GBS initially dismissed the Bard’s script as “stagey trash of the lowest melodramatic order,” but grew to appreciate its wild, zany qualities—so much so that he substantially shortened and sharpened an ending many have found top-heavy with revelations, to the point of absurdity. The piece, which GBS called “a lark,” was first performed in November 1937 at the Embassy Theatre in London. “The reading will feature Shakespeare’s original play with Shaw’s reimagined final act, offering a seamless encounter between two singular geniuses.”

Gem of the Ocean by August Wilson. Directed by Monica White Ndounou. Staged by Actors’ Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall, Roxbury, through May 17.

The first chronological play in his acclaimed Pittsburgh Cycle (also known as the Century Cycle), a series of 10 works chronicling the African American experience across each decade of the 20th century. The setup for this play, which is set in 1904: “Citizen Barlow thinks his journey is at an end when he arrives in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, but it has only just begun. Having fled from Alabama and desperate for redemption, he finds himself on the doorstep of Aunt Ester, a 285-year-old ‘soul cleanser’ whose parlor is filled with history, music, and a lively cast of characters with plenty of stories to tell. As tensions flare between Pittsburgh’s Black community and the local steel mill, Ester sends Citizen on a fantastical journey to the City of Bones — where he must seek spiritual truth, and the key to liberation that his new city so urgently seeks.”

— Bill Marx

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Visual Art

For most of us, the modern, industrial world operates via unseen strings. Building materials like timber and stone once came from local quarries and forests. Nowadays, ore mined in Nevada can be smelted and made into copper wire in China, which is then used to power that country’s headlong urban development. Minerals and binders churned into concrete in an Idaho plant can wind up almost anywhere in the foundations for high-rises or the supports of superhighways.

The work of Arizona-born Lucy Raven reveals these hidden processes of transformation in photographic animations, film, and kinetic sculpture. An introduction, of sorts, to this work, Lucy Raven: Rounds, opens at the ICA in Boston on May 21—appropriately, in the Watershed, a former copper pipe and sheet metal factory in a working shipyard adjacent to the Boston Harbor. The exhibition includes two recent pieces: the U.S. premiere of Hardpan, co-commissioned with the Barbican Centre in London, and Murderers Bar (2025), the final installment of an ambitious series titled The Drumfire.

Hardpan, a monumental kinetic light sculpture, spins like a lighthouse beam in its chamber. Murderers Bar, a film, describes the demolition and removal of a century-old concrete dam in Northern California, allowing the Klamath River to return to its natural course as part of the largest dam removal project in American history. Murderers Bar concentrates on the immense release of water as the huge reservoir that the dam created dissipates downstream and disappears, suggesting that even monumental environmental changes are still reversible.

Tin Can on a String: Conversations from the Collection opens at New London’s Lyman Allyn Art Museum on May 16. A collaboration between two longtime friends, artists Kat Murphy and Heidi Johnson, the show features their exploration of the museum’s historical objects and digital archives, and their transformation into contemporary art. “For me, A Tin Can on a String has been about reinterpreting the objects into new forms,” says Murphy, “reviving the past through my own contemporary vision. The best part has been collaborating with a fellow artist and longtime friend, turning the archival revival into a lively conversation.”

The first career survey of multimedia artist John Hitchcock, John Hitchcock: We Are Defined by the Beat, opens May 16 at the New London Museum of American Art. An enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma with Comanche and European ancestry, Hitchcock considers his home to be the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache tribal lands of Medicine Park, Oklahoma, which lie between sacred mountains, a wildlife reserve, and Fort Sill, an army post and artillery range established during the Indian Wars of the 19th century. The sounds of this metaphorically contested land—artillery bursts and pulsing helicopters mingling with cicadas, birdsong, and wildlife, as well as Native American chants and music—suggest the simultaneous harmony and dissonance that are at the core of Hitchcock’s work, and that he creates across printmaking, neon, textiles, sound, and video. Here, “the ‘beat’ becomes both metaphor and structure.”

“What’s on the land. What’s above the land. What’s below the land,” Hitchcock says. “This work is related to the ancestral memory of land and to the idea of how sound affects us, in particular, the relationship between the history of warfare that’s gone on around Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and the descendants of the Indigenous people who grew up there, and how this relates to our mindset.”

Part of a series of exhibitions featuring the extensive gifts of the artist Alex Katz to the Colby Museum of Art, Alex Katz | Out of Sight: A Drawing Survey is billed as “the first major exhibition in more than three decades to explore Alex Katz’s drawings.” Featuring some seventy works—sketches, presentation drawings, studies, collages, and other works on paper, some of them never before exhibited—together with some related paintings, the show covers Katz’s entire career and sheds new light, the museum says, on his working process and experiments. It opens on May 21 on the Colby College campus.

In the 1820s and 1830s, two privately commissioned albums of the luxurious woodblock prints known as surimono were assembled in Japan, incorporating “playful poems.” Now on opposite sides of the globe, one album, unbound into 88 separate works, belongs to the RISD Museum in Providence; the other, still intact, is in the collection of the Chiba City Museum of Art in Japan. The Artistry and Reunion of Two Surimono Albums, opening at RISD on May 23, reunites the two albums after a separation of nearly a century. The exhibition explores the stories within these two special albums and highlights “the unique cultural and artistic contexts in which these prints were commissioned, created, and shared.”

The MFA’s Community Arts Initiative is now 21 years old. Through partnerships with community organizations, the MFA’s program introduces young people, ages six to 12, to the Museum’s collection and the art-making process, while also helping them understand how art can be an important part of their lives. For the latest iteration of Community Arts Initiative: Can You Hear the City, the museum collaborated with Boys & Girls Clubs across the metropolitan area, along with other organizations, and with Brooklyn-based artist Kelly Chen to guide more than 150 students through an audiovisual journey of the city. Assembled from audio recordings, drawings, mosaics, and their own imaginations, the large-scale collaborative installation creates a collective vision of city life.

— Peter Walsh

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Jazz

Point 01 Percent
May 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.

Once again, the Point 01 Percent folks intrigue with their monthly residency at the Lilypad. First up (7:30 p.m.) is Jorrit Dijkstra (sax & lyricon) with cellist Jeff Song, bassist Bruno Råberg, and drummer Eric Rosenthal. At 8:30, it’s Surface of Sphere, with saxophonist Noah Campbell, cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, trombonist Bill Lowe, pianist Pandelis Karayorgis, bassist Nathan McBride, and drummer Luther Gray

Darryl Yokley Quartet
May 15 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

The accomplished 44-year-old saxophonist and composer Darryl Yokely last year released Un Mundo en Soledad (Truth Revolution Collective/D-Yokes), an ambitious and fully realized musical analogue to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, beautifully weaving various Afro-Latin forms and American jazz — and a bit of Spanish narration. He promises a taste of the album as well as other original material, new and old. The band includes pianist Zaccai Curtis, bassist Boris Kozlov, and drummer Wayne Smith Jr.

Dirty Dozen Brass Band
May 15 at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, Mass.

The Dirty Dozen Brass band has been extolling and transforming the tradition of second-line New Orleans brass band parade music for nearly 50 years following their formation in the Treme. They carry on for two shows at the R-bar.

Roslindale Jazz Festival
May 16 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Adams Park & Birch Street Plaza, Roslindale, Mass.
FREE

Any chance to hear Bill Pierce is not to be missed. Today this sage of the tenor saxophone is just one of the fine Boston-area acts featured in this free event, taking place on two stages: AS3, Clear Audience, David Leach Collective, Manuel Kauffmann’s Manduca Sexta, Man On Land, and TickleJuice. Rain date: May 23.

Brandon “Swingman” Sanders
May 16 at 7 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston

The “Kansas City-born, Compton-raised, NYC-based” drummer Brandon “Swingman” Sanders comes to Scullers to celebrate his latest well rounded post-bop offering from Savant, Lasting Impression, with vibes master Warren Wolf (doubling on piano for this gig), saxophonist Gregory Groover Jr., and featured vocalist Briana Swan.

Fred Hersch
May 16 at 8 p.m.
Groton Hill Music Center, Groton, Mass.

One of the great living jazz poets of the keyboard, Fred Hersch, comes to Groton Hill with bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jochen Rueckert. The show takes place in Groton Hill’s chamber-music-sized 300-seat Meadow Hall.

Allan Chase Quartet
May 17 at 6:20 p.m. (doors at 6)
Lilypad, Cambridge, Mass.

Saxophonist and composer Allan Chase is always digging deep for material and finding a savvy cohort to play it. For this show he plays his own estimable pieces along with “rarely-heard compositions by Charles Lloyd, Joe Chambers, and more.” The players include guitarist Nate Radley, bassist Bruno Råberg, and drummer Austin McMahon-drums. Chase will focus on alto and soprano saxes.

Seth Meicht Quartet
May 17 at 5 p.m.
QArts Gallery, Quincy, Mass.

The skilled, adventurous saxophonist and composer Seth Meicht is a regular on Boston’s progressive jazz scene (Charlie Kohlhase’s Explorers Club, the Makanda Project, among others).  For this Mandorla Music series concert he fronts a quartet with likeminded voyagers: guitarist Eric Hofbauer, bassist Nate McBride, and drummer Curt Newton. The program will include “some hidden and less frequently performed compositions in the jazz canon. The band transforms and extends pieces by such jazz idealists as Carla Bley, Don Cherry, Eddie Harris, and William Parker.”

Billy Childs Trio
May 22
Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, Mass.

Protean pianist and composer Billy Childs’s bona fides extend back to his early work in the bands of J.J. Johnson and Freddie Hubbard. He’s since conquered multiple worlds of music in jazz, pop, and classical crossovers, with a clutch of Grammys to show for it. For this show he fronts an acoustic jazz trio with bassist Matt Penman and drummer Ari Hoenig.

— Jon Garelick

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Classical Music

Bach & Telemann
Presented by Handel & Haydn Society
May 15 & 16, 7:30 p.m.
Old South Church, Boston (Friday) and Sanders Theatre, Cambridge (Saturday)

Jonathan Cohen leads H&H in a set of Bach and Telemann cantatas framing the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6.

Ein deutsches Requiem
Presented by Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra
May 17, 3 p.m.
Cary Hall, Lexington

Pro Arte joins forces with Masterworks Chorale and the Concord Chorus for a performance of Brahms’s beloved requiem. Also on tap is the world premiere of Jonathan Bailey Holland’s The Nature of Lost Time.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

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Roots and World Music

30th Anniversary Celebration of Matt Smith
May 12, 7 p.m.
Arrow Street Arts, Cambridge

If you’ve ever been to a Club Passim concert you’ve likely heard Matt Smith introduce the artist from the sound board while offering a friendly reminder of all of the things the member-supported non-profit venue does for the local music community. And even if Matt isn’t hosting the night, the club’s managing director most likely booked it. Since starting as a volunteer three decades ago, Smith has given thousands of artists the chance to grace the legendary folk club’s stage. His tenure is now gone on longer than that of the venue’s its prior owners, Bob and Rae Ann Donlin. Smith will be feted by an number of Passim favorites at this well-deserved celebration, including Ellis Paul, Richard Shindell, host Rose Cousins, and two of the exciting nationally emerging groups that include Passim staffers: Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light and Sweet Petunia. Bassist Zachariah Hickman will lead the house band.

Carlos Vives
May 10, Agganis Arena, Boston
Los Inquietos Del Vallenato
May 15, Roma Lounge, Lynn

Once a neglected folkloric style from the Colombian coast, the accordion-driven vallenato sound has been given new life in recent decades. Much of that renewed attention is thanks to Carlos Vives, the Latin American superstar who continues to headline arenas. Los Inquietos del Vallenato were founded in the mid-’90s, just as Vives was breaking through. If the group has never quite achieved Vives’s level of commercial success, it has nevertheless maintained a loyal following with its romantic take on the form.

Sessa with Kolumbo
May 12
Deep Cuts, Medford

Brazilian singer-songwriter Sessa continues the great Tropicália tradition, managing to sound quietly psychedelic while incorporating a fascinating chamber-folk element. This may help explain why the artist—born Sergio Sayeg—has attracted a following that includes many indie-folk fans who don’t necessarily speak Portuguese. The NYC-based, tropically inclined electronic musician Kolumbo opens.

Roy Brown & Zoraida Santiago
May 21
Arts at the Armory, Somerville

Two of Puerto Rico’s most beloved Nueva Canción singer-songwriters join forces for an evening of Spanish-language protest music. The event is presented as part of Ágora Cultural Architects’ BoriCorridor Tour.

El Rubio Acordeón
May 22
Mamajuana Restaurant, Lawrence

Pop-bachata star Romeo Santos may have made the New York Times’ recent list of the 30 greatest American songwriters, but bachata isn’t the only Dominican sound that is alive and well. El Rubio Acordeón is the stage name of a flashy twenty-something accordionist and cacao farmer whose hard-driving musicianship, casual attire, and viral videos are giving new life to the raw, rural sound of merengue típico.

— Noah Schaffer

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Author Events

Alvin E. Roth at the Cambridge Public Library – Harvard Book Store
Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work
May 11 at 6 p.m.
Tickets are free or $37.19 with book

“Alvin Roth received the Nobel Prize for work in economics that has saved thousands of lives. In Moral Economics, Roth applies his open-minded, evidence-based thinking to controversial issues at the intersection of markets and morals, where his way of thinking could save even more lives.”—Peter Singer, author of Ethics in the Real World

Isabelle Mongeau with Elizabeth Gonzalez James at Brookline Booksmith
The Debtor’s Game
May 12 at 7 p.m.
Free

“As a palace faerie, Avery is busy preparing Lady Kassandra, a High Fae of the House of Illusion, for the upcoming coronation. Both of their freedoms rely on it: Kassandra, to escape her violent brother, and Avery, to pay off rings of debt tattoos she has inherited from her family, which force her to serve the High Fae.

But freedom from her debt grows further out of reach when she’s forced to test her loyalties, leading her to uncover secrets about the High Fae with earth-shattering implications. Soon, Avery must find out whether the faeries—and herself—are really as powerless against the High Fae as they seem…or whether she just might hold the key to freeing them all.”

Dylan Gottlieb at Harvard Book Store
Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York
May 12 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Yuppies reminds us that we still live in the shadow of the greed-is-good 1980s: Our cities are playgrounds for the wealthy, and Wall Street and Washington remain locked in a tight embrace. Dylan Gottlieb’s exquisite recounting leaves no doubt that the yuppie takeover of New York began a more unequal chapter in American life—one we continue writing today.”

Helen Benedict with Daphne Kalotay at the Brookline Booksmith
The Solider’s House
May 14 at 7 p.m.
Free

“In The Soldier’s House, Helen Benedict tells the story of an Iraq War veteran who saves the lives of his assassinated Iraqi interpreter’s widow, child, and mother by bringing them to his upstate New York home. For the soldier, this is a way of making amends, but the widow finds being rescued by the enemy both humiliating and compromising.”

Dimitry Elias Léger in conversation with Amy Bracken at Porter Square Books
Death of the Soccer God
May 15 at 7 p.m.
Free

“A passionate and improbable love story, and a roaring Pan-American tale about the price of fame. Inspired by the unbelievable yet true story of an intrepid young Haitian immigrant and energized with the high-voltage fervor of a packed stadium, Death of the Soccer God is a heady dance between life and death, an answer to the eternal question: can love save us?”

MJ Corey at Harvard Book Store
Dekonstructing the Kardashians: A New Media Manifesto
May 18 at 7 p.m.
Free

“MJ Corey, creator of the viral social media presence Kardashian Kolloquium, brings us not only the definitive chronicle of the family that’s captivated a nation, but, perhaps more important, the story of how media has transformed in the internet age and how it continues to transform us as individuals and as a culture at large.

Part media theory, part cultural analysis, Corey interweaves history from the past fifty years of Western media—from the Old Hollywood studio system, to the advent of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, to tabloid culture and beyond—with analysis of the cultural influence Kim Kardashian wields over us all and the influences that have shaped her in kind. In so doing, Corey offers proof that the Kardashians are, in fact, the First Family of our image-saturated and deeply divided nation, while also demonstrating how they hold the keys to understanding the disjointed, self-referential reality of our current era.”

Mike Schur and Joe Posnanski at The Brattle Theatre – Harvard Book Store
Big Fan: Two Friends, 82,490 Miles, and the Wild, Wonderful Sports We Love
May 19 at 6 p.m.
Tickets are $48 with book

“Two great friends. Lots of frequent flyer miles. And a bottomless appetite for experiencing sports. That’s what BIG FAN is all about.

Bestselling authors and podcast hosts Joe Posnanski and Mike Schur love games—almost any game!—and they bring readers to the front row (and sometimes even right onto the field). Whether ringside at WrestleMania in Las Vegas, singing along with the maniacs at the World Darts Championships in London, or just watching eight straight hours of football at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Dallas, they bring us to the very heart of what it means to love something so much it hurts.

Through crushing defeats and glorious wins, whether cheering penalty kicks with 65,000 fans in Liverpool or beholding a chess master castling in dead silence, BIG FAN is about why we love what we love and how fandom connects us in a time when so much else pulls us apart.”

Third Thursdays Poetry: Carey Salerno, Eric Weiskott, & Monika Ostworka at Brookline Booksmith
May 21 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Eric Weiskott teaches English at Boston College. He is the author of two books of poetry, Sisyphus the Completist (Sagging Meniscus, forthcoming), and Cycle of Dreams (punctum books, 2024). Eric’s poems appear in Cincinnati Review, Exacting Clam, Fence, Inverted Syntax, and Texas Review. He lives in Brookline

Monika Ostrowska is a writer and founder of Triangle House whose work has appeared in Joyland, New York Times Magazine, Guernica, Peach Mag, Newest York, and other publications. Born in Poland, she now lives in Greenpoint, NY with her son. Squirming is her first book. Carey Salerno is the author of three books of poetry: Shelter, Tributary, and most recently, The Hungriest Stars.”

Catherine Tudish in conversation with Fin Leary at Porter Square Books
A Thousand Souls
May 21 at 7 p.m.
Free

“Catherine Tudish’s A Thousand Souls is the work of a born storyteller, a writer’s writer, with the evidence shining forth from every page. There’s a marvelous sense of place at work here, and a deep understanding of the human heart. A Thousand Souls is why good fiction still matters.”

— W. D. Wetherell, author of A Century of November and Chekhov’s Sister

— Matt Hanson