Calendar

Every Fri.–Sun. Three different audiovisual planetarium shows suitable for all ages. Did an Asteroid Really Kill the Dinosaurs? (11:30 a.m.) looks at cosmic collisions across the solar system including the 6-mile-wide asteroid that hit the earth 66 million years ago. The Sky Tonight (12:30 & 2:30 p.m.) is an exploration of the current night sky, with tips on how to find the cardinal directions, constellations, and planets on your own. Living in Balance (1:30 p.m.) explores native Anishinaabe stories of constellations and moons. Various times, U-M MNH, 1105 North University. $8 at the door. Limited capacity. 764–0478. 

Every Fri.–Sun. Three different audiovisual planetarium shows suitable for all ages. Did an Asteroid Really Kill the Dinosaurs? (11:30 a.m.) looks at cosmic collisions across the solar system including the 6-mile-wide asteroid that hit the earth 66 million years ago. The Sky Tonight (12:30 & 2:30 p.m.) is an exploration of the current night sky, with tips on how to find the cardinal directions, constellations, and planets on your own. Living in Balance (1:30 p.m.) explores native Anishinaabe stories of constellations and moons. Various times, U-M MNH, 1105 North University. $8 at the door. Limited capacity. 764–0478. 

Every Fri.–Sun. Three different audiovisual planetarium shows suitable for all ages. Did an Asteroid Really Kill the Dinosaurs? (11:30 a.m.) looks at cosmic collisions across the solar system including the 6-mile-wide asteroid that hit the earth 66 million years ago. The Sky Tonight (12:30 & 2:30 p.m.) is an exploration of the current night sky, with tips on how to find the cardinal directions, constellations, and planets on your own. Living in Balance (1:30 p.m.) explores native Anishinaabe stories of constellations and moons. Various times, U-M MNH, 1105 North University. $8 at the door. Limited capacity. 764–0478. 

Every Fri.–Sun. Three different audiovisual planetarium shows suitable for all ages. Did an Asteroid Really Kill the Dinosaurs? (11:30 a.m.) looks at cosmic collisions across the solar system including the 6-mile-wide asteroid that hit the earth 66 million years ago. The Sky Tonight (12:30 & 2:30 p.m.) is an exploration of the current night sky, with tips on how to find the cardinal directions, constellations, and planets on your own. Living in Balance (1:30 p.m.) explores native Anishinaabe stories of constellations and moons. Various times, U-M MNH, 1105 North University. $8 at the door. Limited capacity. 764–0478. 

Mar. 31–Apr. 2  & Apr. 14–16.  EMU drama professor Phil Simmons directs EMU drama students in the 2009 musical based on the 1980 hit feminist film, with music and lyrics by Dolly Parton and a  book by Patricia Resnick. Music direction by EMU musical theater lecturer R. MacKenzie Lewis. Appropriate for ages 14 and up. 7 p.m. (Fri. & Sat.) & 2 p.m. (Sun.), EMU Legacy Theatre, 124 Judy Sturgis Hill Bldg., Ypsilanti. Tickets $7–18 in advance at emich.ludus.com & at the door. 487–2282.

Apr. 14–16 & 21–23. Concordia drama professor Amanda Williams and student McKinley Schmitz direct drama students in the 1960 Charles Strouse and Lee Adams Tony Award–winning musical comedy, a thinly veiled take-off on Elvis Presley’s 1957 conscription into the U.S. Army. The show’s many well-known tunes include “Put On a Happy Face,” “One Boy,”  “A Lot of Livin’ to Do,” and “Kids.” 7 p.m. (Fri. & Sat.) & 2 p.m. (Sun.), Concordia University Kreft Center Black Box Theatre, 4090 Geddes. $20 ($15, students and seniors; free for Concordia students, faculty, and staff). Tickets on sale Mar. 1. Preregistration required at cuaa.edu/events. 995–7537.

Apr. 13–16. Claire Federhofer directs Huron students in J.D. Atkins’ 2001 comic musical mystery set among the gods and mortals of ancient Greece and centering on inquisitive Pandora. 7 p.m. (Thurs.–Sat.) & 2 p.m. (Sun.), HHS Ingram Theater, 2727 Fuller. Tickets $8 (students, staff, & seniors, $6) in advance at huronplayers.weebly.com/links & at the door. 994–2040.

A competition featuring Indian classical music and dance performances by U-M student ensembles, including Michigan Bhangra Team, Taal, Izzat, Maize Mirchi, Michigan Manzil, and Michigan Sahana & Dance. 7 p.m. Michigan Theater. Tickets $12–$20 in advance at mutotix.umich.edu, MichiganSahana.com, or at the door.

This bestselling fantasy writer joins WUOM Stateside host April Baer to discuss her new book, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, a genre-defying tour de force about a young woman in 18th-century France who is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets when she makes a Faustian bargain to live forever. Everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, she stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore who remembers her name. 7 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 120 S. State. Mask required. Tickets $23 (includes a signed copy of the book) in advance at literatibookstore.com. 585–5567.

Apr. 13–15. Cleveland comic, a former Showtime at the Apollo winner, whose warmth lets him get away with almost any subject matter, like the problem with skinny women, and how not to explain sex to your daughters. Preceded by 2 opening acts TBA. Alcohol is served. 7:15 p.m. (Thurs.–Sat.) & 9:45 p.m. (Sat.), 212 S. Fourth Ave. $18 (Thurs., $13) reserved seating in advance at etix.com before 6 p.m. the night of the show; $20 (Thurs., $15) general admission at the door. 996–9080.

This Cleveland-based sextet led by vocalist Amanda Powell and drummer-composer Anthony Taddeo performs modern arrangements of Italian folk songs mixed with global music and jazz. 7:30 p.m., KCH, 415 N. Fourth Ave. Masks encouraged. Tickets $29–$50 (students, $19) in advance at kerrytownconcerthouse.com and at the door. 769–2999.

Every Fri.–Sun., Mar. 31–Apr. 23. Carla Milarch directs the Michigan premiere of Pulitzer-winning playwright Lynn Nottage’s 2018 tale of plunder and commerce in which the ghost of a murdered elephant haunts all who profit from its death. It’s a world in which we’re all unsettlingly connected and unconditional virtue is nonexistent. The New York Times reviewer called it a “visually inventive” and “transfixing,” work that “never feels sensational, on the one hand, or pious, on the other.” 7:30 p.m. (Fri. & Sat.), 3 p.m. (Sat.), & 2 p.m. (Sun.), Theatre Nova, 410 W. Huron St. Mask & proof of vaccination required. Tickets $22 ($10 for kids under 17) in advance at theatre-nova.ticketleap.com and (if available) at the door. 635–8450.

Every Thurs.–Sat., Apr. 7–22. Craig Ester directs Christian St. Croix’s award-winning 2021 drama about a gay Black man whose husband dies, leaving him both the owner of a drive-in movie theater and a caregiver to his late husband’s straight, white teenage son. United by their love of classic American monster movies, the 2 have strong bond—until peer pressure and homophobia come between them. Suitable for ages 15 & up (strong language). 8 p.m. (Thurs.–Sat.), Stone Chalet Inn, 1917 Washtenaw Ave. Tickets $20 (seniors, $18), in advance at PennySeats.org and (if available) at the door. 926–5346.

Apr. 13–16. Cameron Graham directs this accomplished local town-and-gown company in Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic operetta spoofing the excesses and moral libertinism of the Pre-Raphaelite movement that swept England in the 1870s. The plot concerns one Reginald Bunthorne, a pretentious aesthete who affects a love of poetry and art simply to impress the local maidens. He succeeds in winning the admiration of all except the refreshingly unsophisticated milkmaid Patience—who happens to be the only woman he’s interested in. Patience remains faithful to her childhood sweetheart, Archibald Grosvenor, who woos her (and irritates Bunthorne) with his sincere, properly Victorian idyllic verses. Meanwhile the local dragoons are dismayed that their girlfriends all pine for Bunthorne. The farce is happily resolved in the end, and all finally get what they deserve. Patience is known mainly for its extravagant comic energy and many memorable tunes, including “The Soldiers of Our Queen” and “In a Doleful Train.” Rebecca Clark as Patience, Matthew Grace as Bunthorne, and Aidan Davis as Grosvenor. 8 p.m. (Thurs.-Sat.) and 2 p.m. (Sat. & Sun.), Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. $30 (seniors, $27; students with ID, $15) in advance at the Michigan League Ticket Office, muto.umich.edu, and at the door. 763–8587.

Apr. 13-16. Devanand Janki directs musical theater students in Jonathan Larson’s Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning 1996 musical, based on Puccini’s La Bohème, about an impoverished community of artists in the East Village living under the shadow of AIDS. It features an inventive rock score with intricate choral work and dexterous lyrics. 7:30 p.m. (Thurs.), 8 p.m. (Fri. & Sat.), & 2 p.m. (Sun). Tickets $32–$38 in advance at tickets.smtd.umich.edu and at the door. 764–0583.

Apr. 14–16. Leah Block directs this U-M student troupe in Stephen Karam’s 2016 Tony-winning one-act play, a “painful comedy … also possibly a horror story,” as the New York Times puts it, about an awkward family Thanksgiving dinner in a run-down Manhattan apartment. 8 p.m. (Fri. & Sat.) & 2 p.m. (Sun.), U-M Walgreen Drama Center Arthur Miller Theatre, 1226 Murfin, North Campus. Tickets $12 (students, $6) in advance at muto.umich.edu & at the door. 763–1107, rudes.production@umich.edu.

This acclaimed 33-year-old jazz singer and MacArthur fellow has a deep, velvety voice and an eclectic repertoire made up of her own compositions and rarely recorded, forgotten songs with unexpected twists. “Her craft is undeniable, but built into her craft is the freshness of encountering each tune as though for the first time, figuring it out in the moment from one note to the next,” says a Pitchfork review. After 3 Grammys for Best Jazz Vocal Album, her 2022 work, Ghost Song, is “her most revealing and rewarding album yet,” according to the New York Times. Her quintet includes pianist Sullivan Fortner, guitarist Marvin Sewell, flutist Alexa Tarantino, and percussionist Keita Ogawa. 8 p.m., Hill Auditorium. Tickets $15–$66 in advance at ums.org, the Michigan League, & by phone, and (if available) at the door. 764–2538.

Film screenings every Tues. & Thurs.–Sun. Tickets $10.50 (children under 12, students, seniors age 65 & older, & U.S. veterans, $8:50; MTF members, $8; matinee $7.50) in advance online (recommended) & at the door. For updated schedule, see MichTheater.org.

Apr. 4: “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Edward Berger, 2022). Third film adaptation (the others were in 1930 & 1979) of the 1929 Erich Maria Remarque novel about a young German soldier whose romantic view of war is shattered by the realities of World War I trench warfare. Oscar winner for best international feature film. Followed by a discussion led by U-M history professor Kira Thurman. 5 p.m. 

Apr. 6: “Drive My Car” (Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021). Moving, complex drama about a stage director in mourning for his screenwriter wife. After taking a job directing a pan-Asian, multi-lingual production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima, he bonds with his driver, who has sorrows of her own. Winner of the best international feature film at the 2021 Academy Awards. Japanese, Chinese, Tagalog, Korean Sign Language; subtitles. 7:15 p.m. 

Apr. 6: “Big Night” (Campbell Scott & Stanley Tucci, 1996). Much-loved comedy-drama about Italian American brothers, played by director Tucci and Tony Shalhoub, who put all their efforts into preparing a meal for Italian American bandleader Louis Prima in hopes that it will save their struggling New Jersey restaurant. 7:30 p.m. 

Apr. 7: “Donnie Darko” (Richard Kelly, 2001). Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this dark, original, and somewhat incoherent psychological sci-fi thriller about a hallucinating teen. Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore. 9:30 p.m. 

Apr. 8: “Decision To Leave” (Park Chan-wook, 2022). South Korean noir romantic thriller in which an insomniac police detective investigates the death of a retired immigration officer, who fell from a mountaintop cliff. The detective begins to suspect, and develop an attraction to, the dead man’s wife, a Chinese immigrant. Chan-wook won best director at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival for the film. Korean, subtitles. 1 p.m. 

Apr. 14: “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1” (Bill Condon, 2011). Romantic fantasy vampire film; the fourth installment in the Twilight Saga film series. 9:30 p.m.

Apr. 21: “Adaptation” (Spike Jonze, 2002). Meta comedy-drama with a script by Charlie Kaufman about his struggles to adapt Susan Orleans’ 1998 nonfiction book The Orchid Thief for the screen while suffering from writer’s block. Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper. 7 p.m.

Apr. 21: “Face/Off” (John Woo, 1997). Operatic sci-fi action thriller with a cult following. Nicholas Cage and John Travolta play archenemies who surgically implant each other’s faces onto their own bodies. 9:45 p.m. 

Apr. 23: “Daughters of Abdul-Rahman” (Zaid Abu Hamdan, 2021). Jordanian comedy-drama about 4 estranged and very different sisters who have escaped their restrictive lives but must reunite to find their missing father. Arabic, subtitles. Presented with the U-M Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies. 1:30 p.m. 

Apr. 28: “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2” (Bill Condon, 2012). Romantic fantasy vampire film; the fifth installment in the Twilight Saga film series. 9:30 p.m.