Boston Arts - Boston Art Exhibits, Art Galleries, Book Reviews, Dance and Theatre Reviews

Xanadu from SpeakEasy; Avenue Q at Lyric Stage
Gods and monsters BY CAROLYN CLAY

Jet setter

Interview: Nerdist’s Chris Hardwick on Mad Men, Jenny McCarthy, and why geeks get it
These days, being a nerd is more likely to get you laid than beaten up.
Interview: Marc Maron rejoins his old Boston crowd
Marc Maron's WTF podcast is essential listening for comedy fans.
Interview: Michael Ian Black's death-defying comedy
Despite the title of the much lamented comedy series he shared with Michael Showalter, it turns out that Michael Ian Black does not have all that many issues after all. He's just deeply strange.

Keeping it real

SLIDESHOW: ''Alex Katz Prints'' at the MFA
"Alex Katz Prints" is on display at the Museum of Fine Arts through July 29, 2012.
Photography ‘In Character’ at the Addison
Photography is always seducing us with its whispered promise that what you see is what you get.
Matt Rich and Zoe Perry-Wood
If street art made a baby with Frank Stella's 1960s geometric abstractions, the offspring would look something like Matt Rich's show "Ghost Muscle" at Samson (450 Harrison Ave Boston, through April 28).

News trust

Hilary Mantel's power play
Endings, perhaps more than beginnings, set the tone in historical fiction.
Getting to know Philip Larkin with a new edition of his poems
"A smash of glass and a rumble of boots/Electric trains and a ripped-up phonebooth/Paint-spattered walls and the cry of a tomcat/Lights going out, and a kick in the balls." These lines are not by Philip Larkin, of course — they're by Paul Weller.
Eileen Myles crosses all borders
"Gender is a technology," Eileen Myles says.

Free and fancy

Photos: Boston Ballet's Fancy Free
Boston Ballet performs "Fancy Free" at the Opera House on May 10-20, 2012.
Joffrey Ballet gets its due
New York has two great ballet companies, New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater. Any other ballet troupe that wants to put down roots there has to develop a personality that's distinct from those two.
The Boston Ballet’s Don Quixote
In the long string of ballet productions extracted from Miguel de Cervantes's novel Don Quixote, the delusional Don has become a minor character, charging into situations where he shouldn't go and causing trouble instead of good works.

Gods and monsters

Felder’s Maestro; Orphans’ Mary Poppers
Hershey Felder's Maestro: Leonard Bernstein (presented by ArtsEmerson on the Paramount Mainstage through May 20) begins with black-and-white footage of its subject lecturing vigorously on Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
ASP tackles Troilus and Cressida
"All's false in love and war" might be a maxim for Troilus and Cressida.
Tigers at Zeitgeist; Yesterday at Central Square
Forget the elephant in the room. Depression is a big cat in Tigers Be Still, a relentlessly quirky yet endearing screwball tragicomedy by Kim Rosenstock that debuted at New York's Roundabout Underground in 2010 and is getting a sweet Boston premiere by Zeitgeist Stage Company (at the BCA Black Box through May 5).