A week of events in Cambridge, Somerville: Final Childsplay concert, Found Footage Fest
Monday
Massmouth “Down to the Wire” from 7 to 9 p.m. at Club Passim, 47 Palmer St., Harvard Square. General admission is $12. Five-minute, true short stories from 10 names drawn at random from a box, with five volunteer judges looking at how well each story is told, how well it is constructed, how well the story explores the theme and how well it honors the time limit. Information is here.
Marti Epstein@60 Mini-Festival “From Wakefulness to Sleep” at 7:30 p.m. at the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St., Harvard Square. Free, with requested donations of $10 or $20. The Ludovico Ensemble presents a career-spanning mini-festival of the music of Marti Epstein to celebrate her singular compositional voice and impact on musical life in Greater Boston. Information is here.
Tuesday
Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” from 6 to 8 p.m. (and repeating Thursday) at the Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Free. Perhaps Shakespeare’s best comedy – the one with twins separated in a shipwreck – is back, performed by the Frances Addelson Shakespeare Players. Information is here.
Story Club Boston from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Cambridge Community Television, 438 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. There is a $5 suggested donation to hear the competing stories of Kendra Dawsey, Nick Martucci, Stephanie Elliot, Larry Fulford, Andrew Vickers and Courtney Pong, hosted by Angela Sawyer. Information is here.
Singer-Songwriter Night XXVI from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. at ZuZu, 474 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Admission is $7 for this 21-plus show. Local acts perform 40-minute sets, this time including Liam Anastasia-Murphy, Mimi Tanski and Cactus Island. Information is here.
Wednesday
Puppet Palooza “Arabian Adventure” from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Connexion, 149 Broadway, Somerville. Free. The Tanglewood Marionettes perform a swashbuckling tale of a Persian prince who must escape prison, defeat a diabolical vizier and save his love from a tragic fate. Clever stage illusions and lighting effects add to the drama. Information is here.
Best of the Weird Local Film Fest from 7:30 tp 9 p.m. at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square. General admission is $11. If you can judge from titles, you should know that these 19 short works by filmmakers in or near Somerville include “Escar-Gogh” by Hunter Silvestri, “Manicorn” Jim McDonough and “Peen Zine” by Simeon Kondev. Information is here.
Tufts Early Music Ensemble’s “Misterios y Pastorelas” from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Granoff Music Center at Tufts University, 20 Talbot Ave., near Powder House Square, Somerville. Free. Christmas music from 16th and 17th century Spanish colonies by Spanish master Francisco Guerrero, Franco-Flemish works performed widely in the new world and works from New Spain by Juan de Araujo, among others. Information is here.
Maya Phillips at the Boston Poetry Slam, from 7:15 p.m. to midnight at The Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. There’s a $3 cover for this 18-plus show. Emerson grad and onetime Cantab host Phillips is now a Brooklynite Web producer at The New Yorker and freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Vulture, Slate and more; her debut poetry collection is “Erou.” She features after two hours of open mic starting at 8 p.m. Information is here.
Thursday
Photoshoot wearing your favorite garment from 5 to 7 p.m. at Lesley University’s Lunder Arts Center, 1801 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square. Free. Get photographed in a portrait-style setting as artist Lauren Clay explores the relationship between people and their favorite clothing. Information is here.
Disasterpiece Theatre viewing of “Panther Squad” from 7:30 to 10 p.m. at High Energy Vintage, 429 Somerville Ave., near Union Square in Somerville. This 21-plus show is free, but RSVPing is a necessity, because attendance is limited to about 30 people; there’s a suggested donation of $5 for enjoying pizza and refreshments. In a continuing series of seriously bad films on VHS comes “Panther Squad,” a 1984 movie in which a crack squad of lady mercenaries take out environmental terrorists who have kidnapped an astronaut. Information is here.
“Hamlet” from 8 to 10 p.m. (and repeating Friday and Saturday) at Unity Somerville, 6 William St., just off College Avenue near Davis Square, Somerville. General admission is $20 (with fees, $16.74). A “fast-paced, emotional journey through the Bard’s finest work” is promised as a capper to a season of Shakespeare-adjacent work such as “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged],” “The Revenger’s Tragedy” and a staged reading of Paul Rudnick’s “I Hate Hamlet.” “We’ve been talking about Hamlet all year,” says Elizabeth Hunter, who will be directing a strong cast of local favorites. “Now we close the circle by bringing our audiences back to the original.” Information is here.
“The One You Feed” dance from 8 to 10 p.m. (and repeating Friday and Saturday) at MIT Theater Arts, 345 Vassar St., in the MIT/Area II neighborhood. General admission is $5; the show is sold out through its run, but you can show up a half-hour before performances to be added to a waitlist. An immersive dance theater piece set in a deconstructed suburban house, with extreme dancing, dramatic scenes and a “murder tent” inspired by sources ranging from Gertrude Stein and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to Michael Pollan and Jean-Paul Sartre. Director/choreographer Dan Safer leads the creative team. Information is here.
Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Cambridge Main Library, 449 Broadway, Mid-Cambridge. Free. Information is here.
Friday
“Sorry To Bother You” screening from 7 to 9 p.m. at CultureHouse, 500 Kendall St., Kendall Square. Free. Boots Riley’s surreal takedown of capitalism (one of our top 10 films of 2018) gets a watch at our public living room. Information is here.
“Bluebeard’s Castle” concert from 7:30 to 9 p.m. (and repeating Sunday) at the New School of Music, 25 Lowell St., West Cambridge. Free, with donations appreciated. Bass Andrew Potter and mezzo soprano Renée Rapier perform Bela Bartok’s one-act expressionist opera with accompaniment by Eric Trudel. Information is here.
Found Footage Fest, Vol. 9, from 9:45 to 11:15 p.m. at the The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Harvard Square. Tickets are $15. A live guided tour through new VHS finds, including the 1988 Miss Junior America Wisconsin pageant, a mysterious tape labeled “bonion sergery,” home movies taken at a Canadian hose factory and a training video for church ushers called “Blessed Usherance.” Information is here.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, Dvořák and Mendelssohn from 8 to 10 p.m. at Granoff Music Center at Tufts University, 20 Talbot Ave., near Powder House Square, Somerville. Free. The Tufts Symphony Orchestra presents its first concert of the season under director John Page, with the raucous “Slavonic Dance No. 1” by Antonín Dvořák, Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto” (with soloist Sarita Uranovsky) and Shostakovich’s demanding Symphony No. 5, called perhaps the most challenging work the orchestra has taken on. Information is here.
“Hamlet” from 8 to 10 p.m. (and repeating Saturday) at Unity Somerville, 6 William St., just off College Avenue near Davis Square, Somerville. General admission is $20 (with fees, $16.74). Information is here.
“The One You Feed” dance from 8 to 10 p.m. (and repeating Saturday) at MIT Theater Arts, 345 Vassar St., in the MIT/Area II neighborhood. General admission is $5; the show is sold out through its run, but you can show up a half-hour before a performance to be added to a waitlist. Information is here.
Saturday
The Art Outlet: Affordable Art for Everyone from noon to 4 p.m. (and repeating next week) at Washington Street Art, 321 Washington St., Somerville. Free to enter. A salon-style group exhibition showcasing handmade objects and art pieces by local painters, photographers and sculptors selling at affordable prices – for holiday gifts, to begin an art collection or for a peek into an artist’s earlier or more experimental work. Information is here.
MIT Video Game Orchestra concert from 8 to 9:30 p.m. in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kresge Little Theater at Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Ave. Free. Student arrangements of music from “Super Mario 64,” “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” “Spirited Away,” “The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks” and more. Information is here.
MIT Chamber Chorus performs Pärt, Bach and more from 8 to 10 p.m. at the MIT Chapel, 50 Massachusetts Ave., Area II. Free, but register here. The chorus sings “Berliner Messe” by Arvo Pärt (pictured), “O Magnum Mysterium” by John Harbison, Mass in A major, BWV 234, by Johann Sebastian Bach and “Die Spirale Symphony” by Urmass Sisask with conductor William Cutter and organist and assistant conductor Karen Harbey. Information is here.
“Hamlet” from 3 to 5 p.m. at Unity Somerville, 6 William St., just off College Avenue near Davis Square, Somerville. General admission is $20 (with fees, $16.74). Information is here.
“The One You Feed” dance from 3 to 5 p.m. and 8 to 10 p.m. at MIT Theater Arts, 345 Vassar St., in the MIT/Area II neighborhood. General admission is $5; the show is sold out through its run, but you can show up a half-hour before a performance to be added to a waitlist. Information is here.
Sunday
Childsplay: The Final Tour from 3 to 5 p.m. and 8 to 10 p.m. at Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy St., near Harvard Square. Tickets range from $30 to $51. This fiddle supergroup formed more than 30 years ago by luthier Bob Childs plays music from the group’s seven albums, with every fiddle seen on stage created in Childs’ Cambridge workshop and used by some of the most talented fiddlers in the world – including all-Ireland champion Sheila Falls, national Scottish champions Hanneke Cassel and Katie McNally, Boston Symphony violinist Bonnie Bewick and Grammy Award nominee Liz Caroll. Information is here.
Tufts Chamber Music from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Granoff Music Center at Tufts University, 20 Talbot Ave., near Powder House Square, Somerville. Free. Wrap up the weekend and prepare for the week ahead with student-performed works for strings, winds, brass and piano. Information is here.
“Bluebeard’s Castle” concert from 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the New School of Music, 25 Lowell St., West Cambridge. Free, with donations appreciated. Information is here. Information is here.
