Things to Do This Weekend

in Boston
Your frequently updated guide to getting
off the couch and out of the house.

by MALLORY MATTHEW DINARO

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Head of the Charles regatta takes place this weekend. / Photo

via Getty Images

Jump to: | Monday, Oct. 21 | Art & Exhibitions

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Ongoing through Monday, October
28 (and Beyond)

HALLOWEEN FUN

Boston’s Wicked Haunt Fest

Haunted houses, a staple of spooky season,
usually happen in the suburbs or exurbs, but this
one, with four different “ghoulish experiences”
utilizing animatronics, live actors, and special
effects, plus a beer garden, autumnal food, photo
ops, pumpkin painting, and kids’ activities, is far
more accessible to urban dwellers—if they dare!
$25-$90, through November 3, 10 Stack St.,
Charlestown

See also: The Top Haunted Houses in

Massachusetts

THEATER

Bumbled
Tír Na Theatre and The Here Comes Everybody
Players have brought us the story of an Irish bee
named Pascal (Colin Hamell, in a one man
production). He’s here to evangelize on the
importance of bees to the global ecosystem, and
maybe also get in some time with his honey,
Marion.
$52, Thursday, October 24 through November
3, Central Square Theater, 450 Mass. Ave.,
Cambridge

Pru Payne
SpeakEasy Stage brings us Steven Drukman’s
story of a witty critic at large at the end of her
storied career. Tasked with writing her memoirs,
Prudence “Pru” Payne discovers her memory
failing. Her family sets her up with excellent
care, but how is she going to cope?
$25-$80, Friday, October 18 through
November 16, Roberts Studio Theater, Boston
Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston

The Real Inspector Hound and After

Magritte
Deadword Theatre Company presents a classic
pair of Tom Stoppard plays. The beloved
Inspector Hound sends up both theater critics
and murder mysteries at the same time; After
Magritte transposes the great surrealist
painter’s visual universe into the realm of
theater, somehow managing to be funny rather
than pretentious.
$18.50, through October 30, Plaza Theater,
Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont St.,
Boston

Nassim
Nassim Soleimanpour’s experimental work,
presented here by The Huntington, involves the
Iranian playwright inviting a new person,
described only as a “local VIP,” to share the
stage with him each night. The script,
meanwhile, sits in a sealed box. What follows is
a unique testament to the ambivalent power of
language and the ability of people to transcend
the borders that divide them.
$59-$99, through October 27, Calderwood
Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, 527
Tremont St., Boston

Harry Potter ™- A Forbidden

Forest Experience
Harry Potter

MUSIC

Boston Symphony Orchestra: Also sprach

Zarathustra
London Symphony conductor Sir Antonio
Pappano takes the BSO for a spin with one of the
classical canon’s most recognizable works,
famous for its use in the opening sequence of
2001: A Space Odyssey. The Richard Strauss
piece is accompanied by Liszt’s second piano
concerto, featuring soloist Jean-Yves Thibaudet,
and the premiere of Hannah Kendall’s O flower
of fire, which uses music boxes as instruments.
$38-$167, Thursday through Saturday, October
24-26, Symphony Hall, 301 Mass. Ave., Boston

COMEDY

Natasha Leggero
You may have seen Natasha Leggero on CBS’
Broke, alongside husband Moshe Kasher on
Netflix’s The Honeymoon Stand Up Special, or
on Comedy Central’s Another Period. Her
standup is loaded with sharp-edged
observational humor.
$33, Friday and Saturday, October 25-26,
Laugh Boston, 425 Summer St., Boston

Will McKenzie
This up-and-coming comic, winner of his
hometown’s 2024 Funniest Person in Cincinnati
Contest, has a few clever sketches on Instagram,
including a succinct demonstration of code
switching, a few moments with a disturbingly
relaxed 911 operator, and an impossible
newscast from the 18th century.
$22, Friday and Saturday, October 25-26,
Nick’s Comedy Stop, 100 Warrenton St., Boston

DANCE

Boston Ballet: Fall Experience

This year’s autumnal offering includes Crystal
Pite’s The Seasons’ Canon, Sabrina Matthews’
Ein von Viel, Jorma Elo’s Plan to B, and the
world premiere of Lia Cirio’s After World. The
Seasons’ Canon, featuring 54 dancers at once,
may be the most stunning of these works—for a
sense of its incredible scale, here’s a segment of
a previous production.
$25-$225, Thursday, October 24 through
November 3, Citizens Opera House, 539
Washington St., Boston

Complexions Contemporary Ballet

Celebrated for their syncretic, revisionist
approach to ballet, Dwight Rhoden, Desmond
Richardson and company will perform some of
their favorite pieces from their boundary-
collapsing 30-year history, including STAR
DUST, a tribute to the late great David Bowie.
$58-$85, Friday and Saturday, October 25-26,
Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater, 219 Tremont
St., Boston

Harry Potter ™- A Forbidden

Forest Experience
Harry Potter

CIRCUS

Boston Circus Guild: Cirque of the Dead

For their popular annual Halloween show,
Boston Circus Guild draws inspiration from the
waning days of the spiritualist movement to tell
a tale of skeptics, mediums, and a craze to
contact “the other side” that lasted well into the
roaring 20s. The action takes above and around
the audience, on all sides, making every set a
unique perspective.
$43.84-$67.30, Thursday, October 24 through
October 31, Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland
Ave., Somerville

MULTIMEDIA

Boston Immersive Music Festival

If you’re looking for something a bit different,
Boston Cyberarts is presenting a series of far-out
concerts combining avant-garde jazz, classical,
and other genres with the visual delights of a
device called the Outerspace Visual
Communicator (how Star Trek is that?!), plus
virtual reality and projection elements.
$9-$40, through October 26, Boston Cyberarts
Gallery, 141 Green St., Jamaica Plain

FANDOM

Harry Potter: The Exhibition

Kids and adults awaiting the next nugget Harry
Potter media can visit the Wizarding World in
spirit at this interactive show, a wonderland of
props, costumes, and recreated sets and scenes
from the main films, the Fantastic Beasts series,
and the stage show Harry Potter and the Cursed
Child.
$25-$51, through January 5, 2025,
CambridgeSide, 100 CambridgeSide Pl.,
Cambridge

The Friends Experience

If you’re ever watched Friends and dreamt of
living in a perpetual ’90s New York full of
spacious, mysteriously affordable apartments,
cute cafés, and good times, this traveling
exhibition, with recreated props and whole sets
from the iconic sitcom—even the couch from the
show’s intro—might be the closest you’ll get.
$29.54-$33.32, through January 19, 2025, 343
Newbury St., Boston

OUTDOORS

Boston Lights: A Lantern Experience

This dazzling after-dark installation transforms
the Franklin Park Zoo into a labyrinth of hand-
crafted lanterns inspired by creatures real and
imagined—an enormous Octopus, a
mythological Chinese fish, seas turtles, and
more. In a special India-inspired section, you’ll
find lotus flowers, elephants, monkeys, rhinos,
and a splendid palace.
$19.95-$21.95, through November 3, Franklin
Park Zoo

The Lawn on D
Much more than a mere patch of grass, this
summer hangout spot offers lawn games,
pickleball, a pair of very Instagrammable
interactive installations, food and drink, live
music, and special events sprinkled throughout
the season. Note: it’s not always open to the
public, so check the calendar to see what’s up on
any given day.
Free, through October 31, 420 D St., Boston

New England Aquarium Whale Watch

Cruise
How long has it been since your last whale
watch? Set sail for Stellwagen Bank Marine
Sanctuary, a popular gathering spot for various
cetaceans (dolphins, humpbacks, finbacks and
minkes) and other marine creatures. The New
England Aquarium’s experts will have plenty of
fun facts about these remarkable animals.
$70, through November 27, leaves from 1 Long
Wharf, Boston

Harry Potter ™- A Forbidden

Forest Experience
Harry Potter

MOVIES

GlobeDocs Film Festival

Opening with a biography of iconic
Massachusetts politician Michael Dukakis
(Dukakis: Recipe for Democracy), this fest
continues through the week with a profile of
Martha Stewart (Martha), a startling vision of
the near future from director Asif Kapadia
(2073), the latest from Errol Morris
(Separated), and more.
$15-$150, Tuesday through Sunday, October
22-27, various locations, Boston area

Magpie
Daisy Ridley and Shazad Latif star in this neo-
noir as Annette and Ben, a couple whose child
lands a role in a major film production. It’s all
very exciting, but tensions mount when Annette
starts to believe Ben is having an affair with the
film’s beautiful adult star (Matilda Lutz).
$10.99-$14.49, opens Thursday, October 24,
Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd., Boston

Anora
The winner of this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes,
this rags-to-riches romance from Sean Baker
(The Florida Project, Tangerine) weds a New
York sex worker (Mikey Madison) to the scion of
a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn). They’re
happy, but his scandalized parents are
determined to undo the marriage.
$15.50, Thursday through Sunday, October 24-
27, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St.,
Brookline

Boston Palestine Film Festival

Palestinians speak for themselves from both
their homeland and across the diaspora in this
annual selection of recent cinema. Highlights
include the documentary Aida Returns, about
director Carol Mansour’s efforts to return her
mother’s ashes to the Palestine, the haunting
animated short Mar Mama, Bye Bye Tiberias,
which documents actress Hiam Abbass’ return
to her Palestinian hometown, and closing film
To a Land Unknown, about a pair of friends who
take a great risk for a stab at a better life.
Free-$15, Friday, October 18 through October
28, various venues, Boston area

Harry Potter ™- A Forbidden

Forest Experience
Harry Potter

Boston Asian American Film Festival

Highlights of this year’s documentary-heavy
festival include All That We Love, starring
Margaret Cho in a dramatic role, a profile of
artist and activist Nobuko Miyamoto, a look
back at the Vietnamese American new wave
aesthetic of the 80s, and And So It Begins, which
covers the 2022 election in the Philippines.
$20-$25, Thursday, October 17 through
October 27, Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle St.,
Cambridge, and Emerson Paramount Center,
559 Washington St., Boston

Rumours
Part of a trend of recent films in which the rich
and/or powerful have a really bad time,
Rumours, co-directed by Guy Maddin, Evan
Johnson, and Galen Johnson, imagines what
would happen if the G7 got lost in a spooky
forest, encountering zombie bog bodies, a giant
brain, and other things their elite pedigrees have
not prepared them for.
$10.99-$14.49, opens Thursday, October 17,
Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd., Boston

We Live in Time
Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh star in this
affecting romantic drama, written by Nick Payne
(The Last Letter from Your Lover, The Sense of
an Ending) and telling the story of a couple’s
relationship over the course of a very
consequential decade.
$16-$18.50, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema,
355 Binney St., Cambridge

Piece By Piece
Pharrell Williams isn’t the first celebrity to be
closely involved in the making of his own biopic,
but he is the first celebrity to elect to have his life
depicted in Lego form. Piece By Piece covers
Williams’ life before and after becoming an
iconic pop producer and star in his own right,
with lots of famous friends lending their voices
to their alter-Legos.
$7-$14.49, opens Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport
Blvd., Boston

The Apprentice
With the election in weeks, it’s a perfect time to
take a trip back to the dawn of Donald Trump’s
infamous career via this biopic from director Ali
Abbasi. Sebastian Stan plays the young would-be
tycoon, who finds a mentor in the crooked but
shrewd lawyer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong).
$13.50-$15.50, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290
Harvard St., Brookline

Roger Corman: King of Cult

B movie tycoon Roger Corman was one
America’s most prolific producers and directors,
and some of his best work makes for perfect
Halloween viewing. This month, The Brattle
revisits The Little Shop of Horrors, A Bucket of
Blood, House of Usher, Dementia 13, Chopping
Mall, The Slumber Party Massacre, and a host
of other cult classics and countercultural
touchstones.
$12.50-$14.50, through October 24, Brattle
Theater, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge

Joker: Folie À Deux

Though Todd Phillips’ unsettling 2019 cultural
touchstone Joker was meant to be a one-off, it
wasn’t long before those plans were changed.
Joaquin Phoenix returns as the mad clown,
opposite Lady Gaga as the woman destined to
become Harley Quinn. And—just to make
everything even more insane—this time it’s a
musical.
$7-$17.49, Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd.,
Boston

Megalopolis
A grandiose, divisive vision of a parallel world
from Francis Ford Coppola, Megalopolis stars
Adam Driver as Cesar Catilina, an architect
whose discovery of a new building material
stands to make him more than just a creator of
dazzling real estate—but powerful forces stand
in his way. Is he a heroic innovator, or just a new
kind of monster?
$11.59-$15.49, AMC Boston Common, 175
Tremont St., Boston

The Wild Robot

DreamWorks brings us the film adaptation of
Peter Brown’s novel of the same name, featuring
the voices of Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal,
Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu,
Mark Hamill, and other notables. Our hero, Roz,
is an android that finds itself marooned on a
desert island and gradually learns to thrive in its
new home.
$16-$18.50, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema,
355 Binney St., Cambridge

Revolutions Per Minute Festival

This artist-organized fest focuses on “poetic,
personal” cinematic expressions—video essay,
documentary, animation, audiovisual
performance and more, created by a globe-
spanning group of filmmakers and artists, many
exploring the reverberations of history and
humanity’s impact on the environment. Don’t
necessarily expect a plot—some of these films
are more about experience than narrative.
Free-$15, through December 8, various
locations, mostly Boston and Cambridge

The Substance
This dark commentary on beauty and anti-aging
culture from writer-director Coralie Fargeat
stars Demi Moore as a middle-aged aerobics
guru who turns to a product known simply as
the Substance to preserve her looks. It works, at
least initially, but the costs prove to be more
than monetary.
$16-$18.50, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema,
355 Binney St., Cambridge

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Tim Burton dusts off one of his fan favorites,
with returning cast members Michael Keaton,
Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara and new
players Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna
Ortega, and Willem Dafoe. The plot: unwittingly,
Lydia Deetz’s daughter (Ortega) causes a
spectral problem that can only be solved by “the
ghost with the most”—but, as usual, he’s got his
own agenda too.
$12-$16, Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Sq.,
Somerville