By Jeanine Budd
The new year is here, bringing with it a semester full of things to do. Starting now and taking students all the way to the end of the semester, theatres and museums around Boston offer plenty of entertainment.
Students looking for free entertainment can visit the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), located on Huntington Avenue. Admission is free with a Northeastern ID. Currently, the museum has exhibits that highlight notable and ornamental shoes, contemporary German photography, Sumo wrestling and more.
The “Rhythms of Modern Life” exhibit, on display from Jan. 30 through June 1, features British prints, from lithograths to woodcuts, from 1914 to 1939. From April 13 through July 27, the MFA will host an exhibit of approximately 60 paintings by Antonio L’oacute;pez Garc’iacute;a.
The MFA will also show many films, which cost students $8 to attend. As part of a music-with-film series that will continue through January and February, “Bodysong,” a film featuring a soundtrack written by Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead, will be showing from Jan. 9 through Jan. 23. The MFA’s website described the film as “… an epic story of love, sex, violence, death and dreams.”
The MFA will host the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival Jan. 16 to Jan. 20. The festival will display films about topics ranging from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. More information can be found at the MFA’s website, mfa.org.
Students who don’t mind taking the T across the river to Cambridge can see ImprovBoston, which recently moved from Inman Square to Central Square. Admission to shows is $10 for students with a college ID.
Every Friday, ImprovBoston puts on “Laugh Track,” which mimics the filming of a sitcom, where the audience gets to help determine how the episode turns out. At the end of the filming, the episode is broadcast on a screen for the audience to watch.
During the week of Feb. 25, ImprovBoston will host its annual college improv tournament. The tournament is called “the Beanpot Tourney” and features comedy troupes from local colleges competing before an audience.
“It’s important for everybody to have some humor in their lives,” said Elyse Schuerman, managing director of ImprovBoston. “Students can come and just relax, and have a good time and see some good theatre and good comedy and have a good laugh.”
ImprovBoston has 11 rotating shows that go on every week and offer “a fresh, funny approach to improv comedy, showcasing today’s best performers and training tomorrow’s stars,” according to a press release.
At the Huntington Theatre Company, another venue close to campus, plays that feature topics ranging from female actresses and Shakespeare to war in the Middle East will be featured during the semester.
“Shakespeare’s Actresses in America” is the company’s first play this year, starting Jan. 27 and running until Feb. 11. The Huntington Theatre’s website describes it as a “…one-woman tour-de-force… [that] reveals the varied interpretations of Shakespeare’s heroines and explores how women have shaped our understanding of the world’s greatest playwright.”
Tickets to these plays range in price from $15 to $50.
