Crimson Arts Calendar Nov. 14-16

Friday, Nov. 14

“All Fall Down”

This psychosexual 1962 trip stars the young and beautiful Warren Beatty as a womanizing delinquent who captures the hearts of repressed suburban Key West women of all ages. Idolized by his brother Clinton and in a very weird place with his parents (screen legends Karl Malden and Angela Lansbury), Beatty decides to seduce his bro’s crush to tragic results. An early work by John Frankenheimer, who later went on to make equally uncomfortable family dramas like “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Seconds,” the piece bubbles with the youthful sexuality that would explode later in the decade. Line up early, as the incomparable Lansbury will be at the screening to talk to the crowd about her six-decade career! Also notable: Beatty and the female protagonist of Kanye West’s similarly-titled “All Falls Down” have a staggering amount of personality overlap.

Harvard Film Archive, 7 p.m.

“KEYCHANGE”

KeyChange, Harvard’s self-titled “blackapella” group, presents its fall concert, a collection of hits spanning the diverse history of the African diaspora from Ray Charles to hip hop (props for taking on wildly disparate musical stylings, soloist Aaron L. Gravely ’13). The intimate Lowell Lecture Hall is a fitting locale for the group’s tight neo-soul-tinged harmonies. The Arts Blog’s in-depth investigative team has determined that the group may be singing some songs from Béyonce’s self-titled fifth album (i.e., every promotional material for the event is in the same shade of violet-pink that colors Queen Bey’s name on the album cover).

Lowell Lecture Hall, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Nov. 15

“Concert II”

This minimalistically-titled event by the Bach Society Orchestra, one of Harvard’s most prolific chamber ensembles, features (no Bach, ironically) the overture to Mozart’s “Let It Be” (“La Clemenza di Tito,” which he started before his “Abbey Road,” the far more iconic “The Magic Flute”) and Grieg’s pastoral “Peer Gynt” suite. For more modern kicks, the group is offering “4 Encores for Stan,” a recently-premiered tribute to the Minnesota Orchestra’s music director emeritus Stanislaw Skrowaczewski composed by local Macarthur genius, Pulitzer Prize winner, and groovy dude John H. Harbison ’60.

Paine Hall, 8 p.m.

“November Resonance Poetry Night”

The Advo presents a night with world-famous Harvard-centric poets Christina Davis, Briggs Copeland lecturer Josh Bell, Peter Gizzi, and Chris Hosea. Davis, who also serves as the curator of Lamont’s least fascist and most comfortable study space, the Woodberry Poetry Room, recently published “An Ethic,” a collection of minimalist meditations on loss—will she read from this somber collection or her more referential work from earlier in the decade? And what will Gizzi read from the recently published retrospective of his work from 1987-2011? Early work? Recent work? Work that isn’t even in the retrospective? What is advertised as a “cozy” night of poetry has an awful lot of unknowns.

Harvard Advocate House, 8 p.m.

Sunday, Nov. 16

“Sweeping Horizons”

The Newton Choral Society rolls through Sanders to offer a performance of Ralph Vaughan William’s prodigious 1910 “Sea Symphony,” a star-making work that brought the young composer to the fore of modernist symphonic music through its liberal use of voice and narrative. “A Passage to India,” the E.M. Forster-inspired climactic movement, is a whirlwind soundtrack through the colonial proclivities of Edwardian England. If you’re more nostalgic for summer days at Revere Beach (take the Blue Line to Wonderland) than institutionalized oppression, check out the second movement, “Alone on the Beach at Night,” which includes the shattering refrain “A vast similitude interlocks all / All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets.”

Sanders Theatre, 3 p.m.

“Players”

Alice Abracen ’15 is already a theater mainstay in the Harvard arts community—last year, her direction of Julius Caesar received high marks from Crimson Arts czar Jude D. Russo ’17. She has now written a war polemic set in an unnamed conflict-ridden city. Amidst the chaos, a director tries to get his old friends back together for a production of “A Midsummer’s Night Dream.” The play, which also features the directorial efforts of veteran auteur Lelaina E. Vogel ’15, is an intriguing cross between an Orwellian sociological hellscape and an Apatowian midlife crisis farce.

Adams Pool Theatre, 8 p.m.