Extracurriculars

Beat the heat this summer by exploring an assortment of activities in and around Harvard Square, ranging from a splash of eclectic exhibitions and outdoor concerts to musical theater and a trip through cinema history.

 

Seasonal

Summer Shakespeare
www.fas.harvard.edu/~tickets; 617-496-2222

July 14, 7 p.m. Boston’s Industrial Theatre presents The Merchant of Venice in an event hosted by the Harvard Summer School. Free admission. Sanders Theatre.

Left to right: An image from the Harvard Theatre Collection exhibit commemorating American songs, at Pusey Library; the Harvard Summer Pops Band hard at work; and Paired Houses, Camden, New Jersey (2005), by Camilo José Vergara, on display at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
From left to right: The Harvard Theatre Collection; Jeffrey Pike; the Harvard Museum of Natural History, President and Fellows of Harvard College

Exhibitions

Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology
www.peabody.harvard.edu; 617-495-1027

Through August 30 — A Noble Pursuit: The Duchess of Mecklenburg Collection from Iron Age Slovenia tells the tale of an unusual woman and displays the European artifacts she unearthed.

Continuing — Reconfiguring Korea. American GI Roger Marshutz’s photographs document U.S. reconstruction and civilian life in 1950s Pusan.


Harvard Museum of Natural History
www.hmnh.harvard.edu; 617-495-3045

July and August — Looking at Landscape: Environmental Puzzles from Three Photographers. Visitors can decipher themes in American landscapes through noting scale, color, patterns, and other visual cues in works by Alex S. MacLean, Anne Whiston Spirn, and Camilo José Vergara.

The museum’s summer education program offers many events, including a July 22 family day trip to collect minerals in New Hampshire. Call 617-495-2341 for details.


Busch-Reisinger Museum
617-495-2317

Continuing — German Art of the 1980s from the Heliod Spiekermann Collection. Major works by both well-known and under-appreciated artists.


Fogg Art Museum
617-495-9400/9422

Opening August 1 — Under Cover: Artists’ Sketchbooks showcases more than 100 sketchbooks ranging from the eighteenth century through the 1990s, and includes work by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jacques-Louis David, John Singer Sargent, and George Grosz.


Sackler Museum

Opening July 8 — Cultivating Virtue: Botanical Motifs and Symbols in East Asian Art. A selection of works by poets and artists, some on display for the first time since being acquired by the museum.

Opening August 12 — The New Chinese Landscape: Recent Acquisitions. A set of paintings depicting contemporary China, including some with distinctly Western artistic motifs.

Opening August 26 — Sharon Lockhart: Pine Flat Project. The exhibit includes a film about the experience of childhood in rural California and 19 color photographs of children.

Nature and Science

The Arnold Arboretum
www.arboretum.harvard.edu; 617-524-1718
125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, Boston

Through August 20 — The Arboretum Captured in Time, 1982-1987: Photographs by Corliss Knapp Engle.

Film

The Harvard Film Archive
www.harvardfilmarchive.org; 617-495-4700

Through August 20 — Summer Double Features from the silent-era through the 1990s, including Jean Renoir’s La Chienne (1931), Jacques Tourneur’s noir classic Out of the Past (1947), and Jane Campion’s Sweetie (1989).

Music

Harvard Summer Pops Band
http://hcs.harvard.edu/~hub

August 2 at 4 p.m. — in Harvard Yard
August 6 at 3 p.m. — at the Hatch Shell on the Charles River.

The band presents its version of “From Russia with Love,” featuring the music of Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Free admission.


Harvard Summer School Chorus
www.fas.harvard.edu/~tickets; 617-496-2222

August 4, 8 p.m — A performance of Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass. Sanders Theatre.

Theater

The American Repertory Theatre
www.amrep.org; 617-547-8300

Through July 9 — No Exit. Jean-Paul Sartre’s classic thriller.

Through July 30 — Monsieur Chopin, played by Hershey Felder.


Harvard Radcliffe Summer Theater
www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hrst; www.fas.harvard.edu/~tickets; 617-496-2222

July 14-29 — The Maids, by Jean Genet.

August 4-19 — Wonder of the World, by David Lindsay-Abaire. A woman leaves her marriage to discover herself. Loeb Experimental Theater.

Libraries

www.hcl.harvard.edu/libraries


Houghton Library

July and August — Benjamin Franklin: A How-to Guide commemorates the tercentenary of the birth of the inventor and statesman (with the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Science Center). 617-495-2442.


Pusey Library

Through September 8 — Selling the Great American Songbook: Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley. Photographs, memorabilia, and sheet music related to Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and many others. 617-495-2445.

July and August — Theodore Roosevelt: Imagery for a Presidency offers illustrations, photographs, and slogans elucidating his administrations. 617-384-7938.

 

Events listings also appear in the University Gazette.

 

 

 

 

 

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