A week of events in Cambridge, Somerville: Record Fest, chess blitz, Rock Rumble’s end
Monday
Blacksmith House poetry reading from 8 to 9 p.m. at The Cambridge Center for Adult Education, 42 Brattle St., Harvard Square. Tickets are $3. David Baker reads from his most recent poetry collection, “Swift.” Information is here.
ionnalee performs from 7:30 p.m. to midnight at The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Harvard Square. Tickets are $25. The avant-garde pop singer-songwriter, producer and director ionnalee (Jonna Lee of iamamiwhoami) brings her flawless Swedish synth pop and stunning stage show on a three-continent tour that got Kickstarted fully in only five days. Allie X opens. Information is here.
Tuesday
Live Open Mic Night from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Cambridge Community Television, 438 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Free. Stage time for musicians, poets, comedians and more – enthusiastic audience members are also welcome – that gets broadcasts on Cambridge cable channel 8 with the help of hosts Tricia Bitetto and Cheyenne Harvey. (Sign up for five- to eight-minute slots at tinyurl.com/yy44vq2d.) Information is here.
Tufts Chamber Orchestra’s spring concert from 8 to 9 p.m. at the Granoff Music Center at Tufts University, 20 Talbot Ave., Somerville. Free. Works from three musical periods: “Orawa,” by Wojciech Kilar, a post-minimalist piece for strings; the “Concert Românesc,” written in 1951 by György Ligeti, painting a high-intensity picture of Eastern Europe with a collection of folk and Klezmer tunes; and Mozart’s “Haffner” symphony. Information is here.
Shakespeare’s Birthday Slam from 8 to 9:30 p.m. in the microcinema at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square. Tickets are $10. Theatre@First hosts a sign-ups for scenes or monologues from Shakespeare and Shakespeare-adjacent works. Sign up to perform here. Information is here.
Wednesday
Team selection semis at the Boston Poetry Slam from 7:15 p.m. to midnight at The Cantab Lounge, 738 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Tickets are $3 to this 18-plus event. Competing poets are likely to reach deep into their pockets or even try untested work, saving major ammunition in case they’re among the eight of 13 poets – Lip Manegio, pictured, among them – advancing to the May 15 finals (with four going on to make up a 2019 National Poetry Slam Team). That makes these semifinals possibly the most interesting night of the selection series. Information is here.
Thursday
Poet Fred Moten reads (rescheduled) from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Edison Newman Room at Houghton Library, at Quincy and Harvard streets in Harvard Yard. Free. Moten, author of “consent not to be a single being” (2018) and “The Service Porch” (2016) rings in the T. S. Eliot Memorial Reading, co-founded with the T. S. Eliot Foundation, with an introduction by Teju Cole. A reception follows. Information is here.
Play Night at CCTV from 6 to 9 p.m. at Cambridge Community Television, 438 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Free, with donations accepted. The studio brings out its cool new fancy and fun equipment, including a 360-degree camera, virtual reality headsets, drawing tablets, GoPros and Playtronica set, which turns any object into a musical instrument. Information is here.
“Julius Caesar” from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. (and repeating Friday and Saturday) in Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy St., near Harvard Square. Free, but reserve tickets here. Harvard’s Hyperion Shakespeare Co. presents the classic play of tyranny, assassination and the terror of civil war, staged inventively in beautiful Swedenborg Chapel by director Johnathan Creed. Information is here.
Massenet’s “Cendrillon” from 8 to 10 p.m. (and repeating Friday) at the Granoff Music Center at Tufts University, 20 Talbot Ave., Somerville. Free. The Tufts Opera Ensemble, directed by Carol Mastrodomenico and Thomas Stumpf, performs Jules Massenet’s fairy tale opera based on the Cinderella story, in an English translation. Information is here.
Friday
Community Chess Weekend from 3 to 7 p.m. (and continuing Saturday and Sunday) at the Smith Campus Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square. Free to $10. Take part in the square’s chess-playing tradition, first with a day of open play with no registration required, followed by a challenge with the masters, chess exhibition with grandmaster Larry Christiansen and an open blitz tournament. Information is here.
Photographic Resource Center student show reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at Lesley University’s Lunder Arts Center, 1801 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square. Meet the photographers behind the student show running through May 17 (including Airieanna Lane of Emmanual College, whose work is shown.) Information is here.
Record Hospital Fest from 6 to 11 p.m. Friday (and continuing Saturday) at the Massasoit Elks Lodge, 55 Bishop Allen Drive, Central Square. Admission is $8 for one day or $12 for both in advance, or $10 for one day or $14 for both at the door, benefiting the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. An all-ages, 17-band festival inspired by the “Record Hospital” show on Harvard’s WHRB radio station. Information is here.
Somerville Theatre Festival from 7 to 8 p.m. (and continuing Saturday) at The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville. General admission is $20. Original short plays on the theme of “human rights” from the Performing Fusion Theatre. Information is here.
“Avatars // futures” art reception from 7 to 9 p.m. at The Nave Gallery, 155 Powderhouse Blvd., near Teele Square, Somerville. Free. Artists A_Marcel, Christina Balch, Jamezie, Joy Buolamwini, Lori Landay, Mac Pierce, Melissa Glick, Philip Knodle and Tony Astone show representation of bodies, ideas, nations and the dead in a world where the physical and virtual, human and non-human, self and other are increasingly intertwined and indistinguishable. Information is here.
“The Diary of Anne Frank” from 7:30 to 9:45 p.m. (with five more performances through May 4) in the Loeb Experimental Theater, 64 Brattle St., Harvard Square. Free, but reserve here. This production of the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play – adapted from the diary of a young Jewish girl time hiding from the Nazis in an attic – aims to spark discussion with an immersive lobby experience and post-show talkbacks. Information is here.
“Musica Russica” from 8 to 9 p.m. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Ave. General admission is $5. The MIT Chamber Chorus performs Stravinsky’s “Ave Maria:” and “Pater Noster”; Schnittke’s “Three sacred hymns”; Borodin’s “Polovtsian Dances” from “Prince Igor” ; Tchaikovsky’s “Chorus of Peasant Girls” from “Eugene Onegin” and additional Russian piano music and solo vocal music. Information is here.
Astronomy After Hours from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston, on the Cambridge border. Free. Friday nights from April to October – weather permitting – brings a variety of hands-on astronomy and space science activities, including viewings through the Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope in the Gilliland Observatory. Information is here.
Bridgeside Cypher from 8 to 11 p.m. in Graffiti Alley, across from Pearl Street on Massachusetts Avenue, Central Square. Free. A collective of hip-hop artists perform at Central Square’s most colorful and iconic location, starting with an hour of freestyle circle and an hour of live video recording and open mic. Information is here.
Rock & Roll Rumble finals from 8 to 11:45 p.m. at Once Lounge + Ballroom, 156 Highland Ave., Somerville. Tickets are $15 in advance, or $20 day of show. The three-band faceoff is based on semifinal rounds, with special guests Carissa Johnson & the Cure-Alls performing afterward. Information is here.
“Julius Caesar” from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. (and repeating Saturday) in Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy St., near Harvard Square. Free, but reserve tickets here. Information is here.
Massenet’s “Cendrillon” from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Granoff Music Center at Tufts University, 20 Talbot Ave., Somerville. Free. Information is here.
Saturday
Indonesian Food Bazaar from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Masonic Lodge, 1950 Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square. Free. More than 40 foods made by vendors from around the region, accompanied by music and dance performances. Information is here.
Drunk Opera History: Puccini Edition from noon to 2 p.m. at The Burren, 247 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville. There’s a suggested general admission donation of $20. A historian dishes dirt about Puccini – the kind of intrigue and scandal that gets left out of history books and program notes – and a troupe of singers belt out some of his works for the brunch crowd. Information is here.
Toni Bee’s Jam from 3 to 5 p.m. at The Middle East Corner, 480 Massachusetts Ave., Central Square. Free. Bee brings a posse of poets, singers and musicians to help roll out her first book, “22 Again.” Information is here.
“Anna in the Tropics” reading with music from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Loeb Mainstage, 64 Brattle St., Harvard Square. Tickets are pay-what-you-can, with all proceeds going to The Theater Offensive, a local theater company that works to present lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer lives in art. A romantic drama by Nilo Cruz depicts a family of cigar makers in Depression-era Ybor City, Florida, directed by Amanda Gonzalez-Piloto with musical accompaniment by the Harvard College Latin Band. The staged reading will be followed by a talkback with the artists as part of the The Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club’s Developing Artists Festival. Information is here.
Empty Bowls Benefit for Food For Free from 5 to 8 p.m. at Mudflat Studio, 81 Broadway, Somerville. General admission is $25 in advance. Choose a handmade ceramic bowl made by Mudflat artisans to fill with soups from restaurants including: 1369 Coffeehouse, Commonwealth Cambridge, Cuisine en Locale, Daily Table, Highland Kitchen, iCaterBoston, Juliet, La Brasa, Sound Bites, Viale, Veggie Galaxy and Whole Heart Provisions — before taking it home to keep. Information is here.
“Prevailing Winds and Whales,” the MIT Wind Ensemble’s 20th anniversary concert from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Ave. General admission is $10 (with fees, $11.49). There’s science about the world of whales and the technologies changing how we study them, and there’s traditional and new music, including works commissioned by the ensemble. Information is here.
“The Photon Epoch” performed by the Leap of Faith Orchestra from 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St., Harvard Square. Free. Twenty musicians, including theoretical composer and mathematician David Peck (known as PEK) perform a 75-minute piece of unique work – somewhere in the neighborhood of avant garde free jazz. Information is here.
“The Diary of Anne Frank” from 2 to 4:15 p.m. (with four more performances through May 4) in the Loeb Experimental Theater, 64 Brattle St., Harvard Square. Free, but reserve here. Information is here.
Community Chess Weekend from 2 to 5 p.m. (and continuing Sunday) at the Smith Campus Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square. Free to $10. Information is here.
Record Hospital Fest from 6 to 11 p.m. Friday at the Massasoit Elks Lodge, 55 Bishop Allen Drive, Central Square. Admission is $8 in advance, or $10 at the door, benefiting the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. An all-ages, 17-band festival inspired by the “Record Hospital” show on Harvard’s WHRB radio station. Information is here.
Somerville Theatre Festival from 7 to 8 p.m. at The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Davis Square, Somerville. General admission is $20. Information is here.
“Julius Caesar” from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. (and repeating Saturday) in Swedenborg Chapel, 50 Quincy St., near Harvard Square. Free, but reserve tickets here. Information is here.
Sunday
Mexican Street Food Festival from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the parking lot at 95 Prospect St., Central Square. General admission is $5. The Central Square Business Association’s first outdoor celebration of the season brings together more than 20 restaurants and food trucks serving Mexican street food including tacos, flautas, enchiladas, tortas, tamales, street corn and gorditas, as well as a beer Garden, margarita bar and more than 100 artists, makers, import and vintage goods dealers. Information is here.
Bach Society Orchestra season finale, “Songs of Hiawatha,” from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at Harvard’s John Knowles Paine Concert Hall, 3 Oxford St., just north of Harvard Square and Harvard Yard. Free, but no children under the age of 5. The orchestra performs Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Hiawatha Overture” and Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World,” conducted by Reuben Stern. Information is here.
American Classics’ George M. Cohan Revue from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Longy School of Music, 27 Garden St., Harvard Square. Tickets are $25. The troupe’s first all-Cohan show, with “Yankee Doodle Boy,” “Give My Regards to Broadway,” “Forty-five Minutes from Broadway,” “Little Johnny Jones” and “Harrigan” being just the beginning – some forgotten tunes will be revived as well by vocalists Eric Bronner, Amelia Broome, Bradford Conner, Caryn May and Benjamin Sears, with Steve Sussman on piano. Information is here.
“The Diary of Anne Frank” from 2 to 4:15 p.m. (with three more performances through May 4) in the Loeb Experimental Theater, 64 Brattle St., Harvard Square. Free, but reserve here. Information is here.
Community Chess Weekend from 10 a.m. to noon and 2 to 4:30 p.m. (and continuing Sunday) at the Smith Campus Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave., Harvard Square. Free to $10. Information is here.
