Editor’s Note: Welcome to V3 Weekend, Vanyaland‘s guide to help you sort out your weekend entertainment with curated selections and recommendations across our three pillars of Music, Comedy, and Film/TV. It’s what you should know about, where you need to be, and where you’ll be going, with us riding shotgun along the way.
Music: Letters To Cleo at The Paradise
The frequent homecoming shows of Letters To Cleo are always so much fun, but this one’s extra special: This weekend (November 17 and 18), Kay Hanley and the boys post up at Paradise Rock Club to celebrate the 30th anniversary of breakout album Aurora Gory Alice. And they’ve enlisted power-pop luminaries Gigolo Aunts, their first shows in a decade, to open both nights. Yes to all of that. “We will celebrate by playing the album in full along with other of your favorite songs,” the band writes. In addition to these hometown gigs, Letters To Cleo have also released a pair of new tunes — “Bad Man” and “It’s Sunny Outside”, their first new music in four years — to ensure this isn’t purely a nostalgia act. A new tri-color 7-inch featuring both songs will be available at The ‘Dise before it hits their online merch store.
LETTERS TO CLEO + GIGILO AUNTS :: Friday, November 17 and 18 at The Paradise Rock Club, 967 Commonwealth Ave. in Boston, MA :: 7 p.m., $35 :: Event info: Night 1 + Night 2
Comedy: Emma Willmann at Off Cabot
We’re taking the laughs north of Boston this weekend, as Emma Willmann posts up at The Cabot Theatre’s Off Cabot in Beverly tonight and Saturday (November 17 and 18). Go right ahead and call it a homecoming for the hilarious stand-up ace and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend actor, who grew up in Blue Hill, Maine, and graduated from Simmons College in Boston. Mic’d Up serves up more: “The Boston area is already quite familiar with Emma Willmann, and that should be all the more reason to get psyched when the self-deprecating sniper brings her always-potent and honestly forged comedy force to the North Shore. Could she sell out a bigger venue? Sure. Has she before? Absolutely. But you won’t get much a better chance to see a true lover of the craft in this close of a setting, so get there while you can.”
EMMA WILLMANN :: Friday, November 17 and Saturday, November 18 at Off Cabot, 9 Wallis St. in Beverly, MA :: 7 p.m., $30 :: Advance Tickets
Film/TV: ‘Playland’ at the Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts and Wicked Queer: Boston’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival have been rolling out documentaries all week, and the Wicked Queer: Docs series wraps Saturday (November 18) with a highly anticipated screening of Georden West’s debut feature Playland at the Remis Auditorium. Diving into Boston’s queer history with a focus on the Playland Café through “a fantasia of lived-in sights and sounds,” West showcases a vital part of the city’s long-gone history. Boston’s oldest gay bar was located on Essex Street, first opening in the 1930s; according to WGBH, the exact location is now a parking lot, but Playland summons the ghosts of what once was.
Here’s the film’s description: “In the Combat Zone — what was once Boston’s red-light district populated by porno theaters and sex workers — the Playland Café was a queer bar that survived six decades. With a compelling ensemble of queer performers including the Lady Bunny, Danielle Cooper (Pose), and Aidan Dick (When Men Were Men, Frameline46), Playland condenses time and queer experience into a single evening populated by a half century’s worth of the bar’s inhabitants — and all the multitudes they bring with them. Rather than a traditional narrative tribute, the film brings to life the bar’s glory with a series of decadently shot vignettes blended with archival audio and footage, resulting in a film of uncompromising audacity and vision.”
‘PLAYLAND’ :: Saturday, November 18 at the Museum of Fine Arts’ Harry and Mildred Remis Auditorium, 465 Huntington Ave. in Boston, MA :: 2:30 p.m., $15 :: Event info :: Advance tickets