GOING OUT
Frost Beat
Friday and Saturday
Frost Ice Bar
200 State St., Boston
$20
www.artweekboston.org
You may have heard of the Frost Ice Bar, a downtown saloon literally constructed from ice, with a temperature maintained at a constant 21 degrees. If you haven’t been, this event is a good excuse, since it will feature percussionist Maria Finkelmeier performing music on all-ice instruments crafted by ice sculptor Sarah Cohen. Note for minors: Friday is 21+; Saturday is all ages.
THEATER
Good Television
Through May 17
Plaza Theater, Boston Center for the Arts
527 Tremont St., Boston
$20-$30, 617 933 8600
www.bostontheatrescene.com
This play by Rod McLachlan centers on Connie, a therapist and producer of a reality TV show that stages interventions. Looking to boost her ratings, she agrees to travel to South Carolina to take on an especially difficult case. But as it proves bigger bite than she can chew, she finds herself at risk for a breakdown of her own.
Icarus
Thursday through May 11
Oberon
2 Arrow St., Cambridge
$25-$35, 617-547-8300
www.americanrepertorytheater.org
Local experiment troupe Liars and Believers presents this twist on the ancient Greek myth of Icarus, transposed to a shady American carnival during the Great Depression. The production features puppetry by Faye Dupras, and in-house indie-folk band Store Bought Absinthe provides an era-appropriate score. For additional mood enhancement, each show includes extra “sideshow” performances and specialty drinks at the bar.
On the Verge
Saturday through May 25
Arsenal Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal St., Watertown
$40, 617-923-8487
www.newrep.org
You couldn’t call it sci-fi exactly, but this play by Eric Overmyer does involve a little time-travel, taking three Victorian women and plopping them in the mid 1950’s. Overmeyer would go on to write for such decidedly un-whimsical TV shows as “The Wire” and “Law and Order”, but here he’s simply smitten with wordplay and other witty delights.
MOVIES
Jellyfish Eyes
Thursday through May 26
Institute of Contemporary Art
100 Northern Ave., Boston
$5-$10, 617-478-3100
www.icaboston.org
In this debut film from Japanese director Takashi Murakami, a young boy who’s sent to live in an “experimental city” where each child gets his own enormous robotic pal, kind of like a giant Furby. They seem harmless, but they’re really part of an evil plot. But worry not—however freaky it sounds, we’re told the film is family friendly.
COMEDY
Blackadder Goes Forth Live
Through May 11
Charlestown Working Theater
442 Bunker Hill St., Charlestown
$20-$40, 866-811-4111
www.charlestownworkingtheater.org
British TV fans, take note: Theater on Fire is presenting a live staging of the beloved fourth series of “Blackadder”, the century-hopping 80’s comedy that followed a family of conniving opportunists through the course of English history. These final episodes, set on the front in World War I, contain a few moments of poignancy mixed in with the usual silly/clever satire.
MUSIC
Samson
Friday and Sunday
Symphony Hall
301 Mass. Ave., Cambridge
$20-$86, 617-266-3605
www.handelandhaydn.org
For their season finale, the Handel and Haydn Society performs Handel’s epic oratorio “Samson”, which tells the story of the famous Biblical strongman whose only weakness was his bodacious hairdo—cut it off, and away goes his super-strength. Then again, maybe his real weakness was falling for his wife, Delilah—after all, she’s the one who does cuts it off.
I Puritani
Friday through May 11
Citi Shubert Theater
265 Tremont St., Boston
$30-$225, 866-348-9738
www.citicenter.org
The Boston Lyric Opera presents Bellini’s last opera, which takes place during the English Civil War. Our heroine, Elvira, descends into madness when she comes to believe her true love has abandoned her for someone else. He actually didn’t, though—in fact, he was under the impression the woman he absconded with was Elvira! And it only gets more complicated from there.
DANCE
Point of Change
Friday through Sunday
Green Street Studios
185 Green St., Cambridge
$20-$25, 781-307-2563
www.acrosstheagesdanceproject.com
We tend to think of dance as an art form you can only practice professionally when you’re young—then you retire to instruction or choreography. The Across the Ages Dance Project is different. Their ensemble features dancers of all ages, from teens to seniors, and the selections for this, their fourth annual concert, come from choreographers of all ages.
Natyanjali, Swaranjali: The Language of Indian Music and Dance
May 6, 8:15 p.m.
Berklee Performance Center
136 Mass. Ave., Boston
$8-$12, 617-747-2261
www.berklee.edu/bpc
Berklee College of Music faculty and students will come together with visiting artists to present a showcase of Indian music and dance, from classical to contemporary forms, drawing from the wide variety of traditions that have evolved in India over the centuries. There will be a particular focus on the poetry between “nritta” (movement) and “nritya” (facial expression).
BOOKS
Ben Tarnoff
Tuesday, 12 p.m.
Boston Athanaeum
10 ½ Beacon St., Boston
Free, 617-720-7600
www.bostonathenaeum.org
When you think of San Francisco’s literary heritage, you probably think of the Beats, but a century before them came the Bohemians, a circle which included the young Mark Twain as well as less-remembered players like Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard and Ina Coolbrith. Author Ben Tarnoff will discuss his new book on this group’s crucial shift in the focus of American literature.
ART
Peter DeCamp Haines and Leslie Wilcox
Through May 18
Boston Sculptors Gallery
486 Harrison Ave., Boston
Free, 617-482-7781
www.bostonsculptors.com
On one side of this dual exhibition, you’ve got the alternately cute and sinister bronze teddy bear army of Peter DeCamp Haines, inspired by the slightly creepy theme song of a radio show he used to listen to as a kid. On the other are the delightfully gross textures of Leslie Wilcox’s work, meant to represent different kinds of bad behavior.
Portraits of Boston: The Street Photography of Ivan Velinov
Friday through May 25
Piano Craft Gallery
793 Tremont St., Boston
Free, 401-215-6568
www.pianocraftgallery.org
The Piano Craft Gallery inaugurates its new location with this exhibition, which captures Boston not as the stiff, dusty historical museum it’s often perceived as, but as a living, ethically diverse, modern locale. And it does this simply by focusing not on the city but the people in it, in all their variety—rich and poor, young and old, weekend tourists and settled locals.
ROCK SHOWS
Little Barrie
Thursday, 9 p.m.
Great Scott
1222 Comm. Ave., Allston
$10, 18+, 800-745-3000
www.ticketmaster.com
This British band plays a surf-inflected brand of raw, stripped-down garage rock, quite different from recent American surf revivalists, who tend to mix the genre’s trappings with a hazy, echoey shoegaze sound. Also in their mix is a groovy soul/funk element that gives some songs an almost hip-hop feel, adding a contemporary resonance to their classic vibe.
Vinnie Paz with Army of the Pharoahs
Saturday, 6 p.m.
The Paradise
967 Comm. Ave., Boston
$20, 800-745-3000
www.ticketmaster.com
Philadelphia-based MC Vinnie Paz first came to prominence in the hip-hop duo Jedi Mind Tricks. Later he formed the supergroup Army of the Pharoahs. A highly political rapper, Paz, like Immortal Technique, is no stranger to wild conspiracy theories. That said, he’s just as personal as he is political, as evidenced on the soul-searching autobiographical track “Is Happiness Just a Word?”
Dance Gavin Dance
Sunday, 6 p.m.
Brighton Music Hall
158 Brighton Ave., Allston
$15, 800-745-3000
www.ticketmaster.com
This Californian emo (or, if you prefer, post-hardcore) band has two singers, one who sings melodic parts in a histrionic tenor matched only by Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez, and another who shouts/raps. Their complex music contains a similar juxtapostion of shimmering melodies and rhythmic violence, often favorably recalling At the Drive-In and the Mars Volta.
