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. 

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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. 

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

Docent-led tour of this 1935 English-style country manor, currently home to Concordia administration, built by former local gasoline baron Harry Earhart. It features secret panels and hidden passageways linking rooms and floors, a room once used solely for arranging flowers, and rooms so spacious that a former closet is now a top Concordia administrator’s office. 1 p.m., Concordia University Earhart Manor, 4090 Geddes Rd. $10; preregistration required. ConcordiaGuild@cuaa.edu, 995–7509.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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. 

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

U-M jazz professor Ellen Rowe leads her trio and guest guitarist Randy Napoleon in one of her popular lecture-concerts, this one a tribute to the great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson with selections from his Canadiana Suite. With bassist Paul Keller and drummer Pete Siers. 2 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.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

Talk by U-M anthropology professor John O'Shea, the U-M Museum of Anthropological Archaeology Great Lakes curator. 2 p.m., Saline District Library Brecon Rm., 555 N. Maple, Saline. Free. salinehistory@frontier.com, 944–0442.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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. 

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

This virtuosic 30-member Los Angeles music collective performs a 1974 work by avante-garde American composer and visionary Julius Eastman, a “classical music misfit” who died destitute in 1990 after achieving success in the New York music world and collaborating with such luminaries as John Cage and Meredith Monk. NPR calls Femenine a “singularly jubilant [and] mesmerizing 67-minute groove that unfolds one beautiful moment after another.” The work demands improvisation from musicians even while it contains numerous surprises from the composer. Eastman’s score for the hour-long piece is only five pages, and the entire work is based around a two-note vibraphone theme that emerges from a field of bells. 4 p.m. Rackham Auditorium. $24 (students, $12–$20). Preregistration required at ums.org/performance/julius-eastmans-femenine or 764–2538.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

Fathom Events. 973–8424 (Ann Arbor 20), 316–5500 (Emagine). Tickets $11.50–$12.50 (except as noted) in advance at fathomevents.com/events and at the door. Ann Arbor 20 (4100 Carpenter) & Emagine (1335 E. Michigan Ave., Saline), various times.

Apr. 1 & 5: “Falstaff” Live (Sat.) & prerecorded (Wed.) broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Verdi’s comic masterpiece, a brilliantly balanced blend of bawdy humor and lyric beauty. Adapted from Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor, with a few additions from Henry IV, the story finds Shakespeare’s larger-than-life rogue wooing 2 married women for money while his own daughters steal kisses behind his back. The music, one of Verdi’s most bewitching scores, is sung in Italian, with English supertitles. 12:30 p.m. (Sat.) & 1 p.m. (Wed., Ann Arbor 20 only). 

Apr. 2-4 & 6: “The Journey: A Music Special from Andrea Bocelli” (Gaetano Morbioli & Paolo Sodi, 2023). Spiritual documentary that follows world-renowned tenor Bocelli and his wife Veronica as they travel through beautiful Italian terrain on horseback to complete parts of the Via Francigena—a historical pilgrimage in which Christians journey to Rome to worship at grand cathedrals and visit revered burial sites of saints and apostles. 4 & 7 p.m. 

Apr. 12 & 13: “Beautiful Disaster” (Roger Kumble, 2023). College romance about a clean-cut freshman girl who loses a bet and has to live with a bad-boy brawler for a month. 7 p.m. 

Apr. 15 & 19: “Der Rosenkavalier” Live (Sat.) & prerecorded (Wed.) broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Richard Straus’s 1911 comic opera, a send-up of courtly love about an aging princess whose young lover falls for the daughter of a rich aristocrat. Noon. (Wed., Ann Arbor 20 only). 

Apr. 16 & 20: “The Big Lebowski” (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1998). 25th anniversary screening of this beloved comedy starring Jeff Bridges as an L.A. slacker who’s mistaken for a namesake who then commissions him to ransom the latter’s kidnapped trophy wife. 4 p.m. (Sun.) & 7 p.m. (Thurs.).

Apr. 18: “Mirando al Cielo” (Antonio Peláez, 2023). Historical drama about a 14-year-old boy who takes up arms against the Mexican government in the 1920’s Cristero Rebellion. Captured, he is taken to a village where his own godfather is the magistrate who must decide his punishment. Spanish, subtitles. 7 p.m. 

Apr. 22 & 24: “Carol Burnett: A Celebration” (Mike Trinklein, 2023). This tribute to the prolific TV comedian, one of the 1st women to host a prime time variety show, features clips, memories, and interviews with Carl Reiner, Tim Conway, Vicki Lawrence, Betty White, Cloris Leachman, Tina Fey, Phyllis Diller, Barbara Eden, Jim Nabors, and more. 2 p.m. (Sat.) and 4 & 7 p.m. (Mon.). 

Apr. 23 & 27: “Spirited Away: Live on Stage” Screening of Tony-winning director John Caird’s 2022 stage adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki’s dazzling Oscar-winning animated fantasy about a young girl who discovers a secret world of strange spirits and sorcery. Features dazzling sets, captivating musical numbers, and wondrous puppets of beloved characters. Japanese, subtitles. 4 p.m. (Sun.) & 7 p.m. (Thurs.).

Apr. 29 & May 3: “Champion” Live (Sat.) & prerecorded (Wed.) broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s production of acclaimed contemporary composer Terence Blanchard’s 2021 opera about a young boxer who rises from obscurity to become a world champion, and his older self, still haunted by the ghosts of his past. 1 p.m. (Wed., Ann Arbor 20 only).

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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

Apr. 2: “Hidden Figures” (Theodore Melfi, 2016). Well-received biographical drama about African American women mathematicians who worked at NASA during the space race. Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monáe. 1:30 p.m. 

Apr. 3: “Singin’ in the Rain” (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952). This celebrated musical is a lighthearted, dance-filled comedy about silent movie stars struggling to make the transition to talkies. Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds. 7:30 p.m.

Apr. 10: “In the Mood for Love” (Wong Kar-wai, 2000). Romantic drama set in crowded 1962 Hong Kong, where 2 neighbors realize their spouses are having an affair. A meditation on the nature of longing, the film is considered to be Wong’s masterpiece. Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung. Cantonese, subtitles. 7:30 p.m. 

Apr. 12: “National Theatre Live: The Crucible.” Broadcast of a taped 2022 National Theatre (London) performance of the masterful 1953 Arthur Miller historical drama that channels the dread, horror, and mania of the Salem witch trials. With a new staging by director Lyndsey Turner that, according to Time Out, is “full of good ideas” but not entirely coherent. 7:30 p.m. $22 (University Musical Society members, $18). 

Apr. 16: “The Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival” (2023). Short films about wilderness adventures feature adrenaline-fueled footage from high peaks and swift rapids. 7 p.m.  

Apr. 17: “Beau Travail” (Claire Denis, 1999). Loosely based on Herman Melville’s unfinished novella Billy Budd, this acclaimed drama’s protagonists are soldiers in the French Foreign Legion working in Djibouti. French, subtitles. 7:30 p.m. 

Apr. 21: “Black Panther” (Ryan Coogler, 2018). Wildly popular superhero film about prince T’Challa’s return to the African kingdom of Wakanda to assume the throne upon his father’s death, and the many obstacles he encounters. Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett. 7:30 p.m. 

Apr. 24: “Tokyo Story” (Yasujirō Ozu, 1953). Subtle minimalist drama about an aging couple who travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. Considered to be Ozu’s masterpiece, the film addresses themes of family dissolution and Westernization. Japanese, subtitles. 7:30 p.m.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal

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.

Add this event to your calendar: Google Calendar | iCal