Check out our (very extensive) list of what you can get up to this winter in Boston.
THEATER
‘The Little Prince’
Nov. 22-Dec. 21
Arsenal Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal St., Watertown
$30-$60, 617-923-8487
New Repertory Theater presents this musical adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s charmingly surreal children’s fantasy about a pilot lost in the desert who encounters a strange visitor from another—very tiny—planet. As children’s stories go, though it’s a deep one, containing lessons it takes a lifetime to learn—or, as the case may be, fail to learn. ‘The Light Princess’
Dec. 6-Jan. 4
Loeb Drama Center
64 Brattle St., Cambridge
$15, 617-547-8300
www.americanrepertorytheater.org
This children’s play, a popular draw last year, returns to the Loeb for another run. Based on a story by 19th century Scottish fantasy master George MacDonald, it tells of a princess who’s lost her tie to gravity—both the physical and emotional types—due to a witch’s curse. If the curse isn’t lifted by her 16th birthday, she’ll lose her kingdom forever. ‘Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike’
Jan. 2- Feb. 1
Boston University Theater
264 Huntington Ave., Boston
$15-$76, 617-266-0800
This 2012 comedy by Christopher Durang takes inspiration from Chekov. Vanya and Sonia are middle-aged and rather morose sisters; their other sister Masha is a movie star whose faltering income has, so far, supported them. She visits for the weekend with her meathead boyfriend, Spike, (amusingly) forcing Vanya and Sonia from their melancholic cocoon and into a confrontation with reality. ‘A Future Perfect’
Jan. 9-Feb. 7
Calderwood Pavilion
527 Tremont St., Boston
$25-$56, 617-933-8600
In this dark comedy by Ken Urban, seeing its world premiere this January with SpeakEasy Stage Company, Claire and Max are a couple with solid careers and no particular interest in having kids. They don’t feel any shame about it until their friends Alex and Elena announce their impending child. Are they sell-outs, or are Claire and Max still harboring delusional “anti-establishment” self-images? ‘Motown: The Musical’
Jan. 27-Feb. 15
Boston Opera House
539 Washington St., Boston
$40-$130, 800-745-3000
Motown wasn’t just a record label—it was a signature style that left an indelible mark on pop music. Any one of the characters that made Motown great could sustain his or her own musical, but take them all together and it’s easy to see why this show, written by Motown founder Berry Gordy himself, was such a hit on Broadway. ‘Intimate Apparel’
Feb. 13-March 14
Lyric Stage
140 Clarendon St., Boston
$25-$63, 617-585-5678
Esther, the heroine of this play, stands in a curious zone between social classes—a seamstress in Manhattan in 1905, she makes lingerie for wealthy socialites and prostitutes alike. As close as her job puts her to others’ “intimate” lives, she longs for love herself, and when a mysterious stranger from far away offers his affections, it’s hard to say no. ‘Angels in America’
Feb. 19-22
Boston University Theater
264 Huntington Ave., Boston
$15-$20, 617‐933‐8600
Boston University presents Hungarian composer Peter Eotvos’ operatic adaptation of Tony Kushner’s AIDS epic “Angels in America”, one of the truly monumental works of American theater. One could imagine few ways to enhance the already maxed-out intensity of the original, but turning it into an opera definitely seems like one. The opera had its American debut here in Boston in 2006. MUSIC
Handel Messiah
Nov. 28-Nov. 30
Symphony Hall
301 Mass. Ave., Boston
$25-$94, 617-266-3605
Harry Christophers and the Handel and Haydn Society inaugurate the holiday season with this immortal work. The “Hallelujah” chorus that concludes Handel’s “Messiah” is doubtless one of the most well-known bits of classical music, up there with Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, and no less communicative of luminescent glory. As always, the period instrument orchestra provides a particularly authentic rendition. The Christmas Revels
Dec. 12-Dec. 28
Sanders Theater
45 Quincy St., Cambridge
$10-$40, 617-496-2222
The Cambridge-based organization Revels holds many sing-along events throughout the year, but its Christmas show remains the most iconic. Each year is has a different thematic setting, and this year they’ve chosen Victorian England, specifically the Great Exhibition of 1851. Drawing inspiration from the music hall shows of the era, it includes dances, carols, storytelling and comedy. Boston Pops: ‘Home Alone’
Dec. 26, 8 p.m.
Symphony Hall
301 Mass. Ave., Boston
$43-$118, 888-266-1200
As Kevin Macalaster would say, “Yessss!” The Boston Pops, with help from the Wellesley High School Chorus, will perform John “Star Wars” Williams’ soundtrack to “Home Alone” live alongside a screening of the film. The movie’s notorious slapstick antics tend to overshadow everything else, but the music, often surprisingly intense, is crucial in anchoring its deeper, more serious themes. A Far Cry: Improvisation
Jan. 9, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall
30 Gainsborough St., Boston
$10-$50, 800-838-3006
Orchestral music isn’t known for its wild improvisational excursions, but A Far Cry, famously untethered to any conductor, is more freewheeling than your average orchestra. For this concert, they’ll show the potential of improv in a classical context, with special guest and improv master Robert Levin on piano. They’ll also debut a brand new commission from Russian composer Ljova. Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
Jan. 16, 8 p.m.
Jordan Hall
30 Gainsborough St., Boston
$50-$70, 617-482-6661
With sense of humor befitting the inherent campiness of their project, the tuxedo-clad Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain runs through an eclectic, decades-spanning array of pop tunes, their eight ukes, of varying timbres, combining to sound at times almost like a single harp. It’s silly and fun, and there are more than a few moments of twinkly beauty in these renditions. ‘The Long Count/The Long Game’
Jan. 15-17
Institute of Contemporary Art
100 Northern Ave., Boston
$30, 617-478-3103
This performance concludes Matthew Ritchie’s residency at the Institute of Contemporary Art, and he’s going out on an epic scale, with a multimedia show about nothing less than the beginning of time itself. Inspired by Mayan cosmology and myth, its musical offerings run the gamut from a capella to what the ICA describes as “subtle, scintillating rock.” I’ve Found a New Baby: Baroque Meets Afro-Latin Jazz
Feb. 7
First Church in Cambridge
11 Garden St., Cambridge
$15-$35, 617-461-6973
Baroque and Afro-Latin Jazz—they’re as different as you can imagine two music genres getting, but they combine at this concert like opposites attracting, appropriately enough, just a week before Valentines Day. The groups La Donna Musicale and RUMBARROCO will share the stage, performing a mix of instrumental and sung material, featuring mezzo-sopranos Daniela Tosic and Roselin Osser. ART
Adriana Varejao
Nov. 19-April 5
Institute of Contemporary Art
100 Northern Ave., Boston
$10-$15, 617-478-3100
This is the first solo exhibition of Brazilian artist Adriana Varejao in the United States. Varejao is one of Brazil’s biggest artists, and her nation’s cultural history is her great focus, from architecture to religion. The perspective is deeply personal; a highlight of the multimedia show is a series of self-portraits portraying her along the full spectrum of Brazilian racial possibilities. Fran Forman
Nov. 22-Jan. 4
Pucker Gallery
171 Newbury St., Boston
Free, 617-267-9473
Fran Forman’s collages, as haunting as they are humorous, combine antiquated imagery and solitudinous background landscapes to create an iridescent symbolic world. Motifs repeat—children, birds, bodies of water, centuries-old maps—as they do in dreams. Forman’s describes herself, on her website, as “Painting stories with light,” and it’s the evocative but elusive sense of narrative here that intrigues most. Michel Delacroix
Dec. 6-Dec. 31
Axelle Fine Arts
91 Newbury St., Boston
Free, 617-450-0700
French painter Michel Delacroix’s work depicts an idyllic interwar Paris of nostalgic memory, hiding a masterful sense of color and light hiding behind a deceptively naive front. After a while you realize the real subject of these paintings is nostalgia itself, its emotional warmth and comfort, and, far from being truly naive or simplistic, these are works of a deep, weary experience. Gordon Parks: Back to Fort Scott
Jan. 17-Sept. 13
Museum of Fine Arts
465 Huntington Ave., Boston
$23-$25, 617-267-9300
This exhibition focuses on a series of photographs taken by Gordon Parks in the 1940’s for Life Magazine, depicting the segregated world of his own hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas. Parks was one of the few black photojournalists at the time, and the project, which was never published, found him at the intersection of both personal and ethnic histories. Dignity: Tribes in Transition
Jan. 30-March 29
Boston University Art Gallery
855 Comm. Ave., Boston
Free, 617-353-3329
This is a series of portraits of various indigenous peoples by photographer Dana Gluckstein. “Indigenous” is a highly politicized term with indefinite universal meaning, but here it refers to societies who’ve maintained their millennia-old traditional cultures in the shadow of the global industrial behemoth. “Dignity” has travelled the globe as part of a campaign to protect these societies’ integrity. COMEDY
ImprovBoston’s Holiday Spectacular
Nov. 28-Dec. 27
ImprovBoston
40 Prospect St., Cambridge
$14-$18, 617-576-1253
“What happens after the pumpkin spice is all gone, who invited your weird uncle, and what, exactly, is wrong with Amy?” These are the difficult sorts of questions ImprovBoston promises to address with their holiday show, a music-infused mix of scripted and improvised comedy reflections on the most wonderful (read: insane) time of the year. Oh, and they have a bar. Perfect. Garfunkel and Oates
Dec. 6-7
The Wilbur Theater
246 Tremont St., Boston
$28, 800-745-3000
Comedy music duo Garfunkel and Oates (real names Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci, respectively) hit that tried-and-true sweet spot between earnest melodies and strange, subversive lyrics. Sex is the big subject of their satires, from phony religious prudery to unexpected orgasms while go-karting to a (disturbingly) touching tale of love between man and duck — all delivered with hilariously straight, smiling faces. Bill Nye
Dec. 18, 8 p.m.
The Wilbur Theater
246 Tremont St., Boston
$35-$68, 800-745-3000
With his 90’s TV series “Bill Nye the Science Guy”, Bill Nye got the millennials stoked about science. His former lives as both an improv comedian and a mechanical engineer prepared him well for this task, and he remains as amusing as he is informative, an exuberant communicator of the Universe’s awesome weirdness—or is it weird awesomeness? Jake Johannsen
Dec. 18-20
Laugh Boston
425 Summer St., Boston
$20-$35, 617-725-2844
Legend has it that Jerry Seinfeld originally offered the part of George Costanza to comedian Jake Johannsen, and it’s easy to understand the reasoning—Johannsen’s set is “about nothing” in the same way “Seinfeld” was, filled with non-stories, the humor deriving from his hilariously hyperbolic exasperation at all of life’s pointless experiences. Demetri Martin
Jan. 31, 7 p.m.
The Wilbur Theater
246 Tremont St., Boston
$37, 800-745-3000
Demetri Martin belongs to the standup tradition of Stephen Wright and Mitch Hedberg, loading his act with charmingly absurd, quasi-philosophical one-liners. A typical boast: “I can move objects with my mind if I use my hands.” To enhance the absurdity, he sometimes accompanies himself with a guitar or brilliantly silly “charts”—a signature gimmick he impressively manages to keep fresh.
Winter Arts in Boston: 20 shows, comedians, art exhibits and concerts to check out
Evgenia Eliseeva
