Culture Curve: April 2012

Matthew Reed Baker's guide to this month's events, from the rowdy to the refined.

boston arts and culture

Untitled, 1932, by Lyonel Feininger. Harvard’s Sackler Museum will exhibit prints from Feininger’s photography collection from March 30-June 2. (Photo courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University.)

1. In The Luck of the Irish at the BCA’s Calderwood Pavilion, Medford’s Kirsten Greenidge explores the complications when a 1950s African-American family hires some white folks as a front to buy a house. 3/30 to 4/29

2. Cubist painter Lyonel Feininger was also an accomplished photographer. Now, Harvard’s Sackler Museum shows off his rarely seen personal collection dating from 1928 to 1939. 3/30 to 6/2

3. Forget Eric Clapton or Yngwie Malmsteen: The globe’s most face-melting guitarist is Spain’s Paco de Lucia. Watch him shred with his flamenco sextet at the Boston Opera House. 4/11

4. Christian Slater in a Bulgarian thriller … who knew? Catch Sofia and nearly 100 other flicks from around the globe during the Boston International Film Festival at AMC Loews Boston Common. 4/13 to 4/22

5. Hard-core Rasta punk legends Bad Brains give the Paradise hell on 4/16

6. It’s a four-day Muppet marathon at the Brattle, featuring the complete oeuvre of Miss Piggy and the gang, as well as Jim Henson’s sci-fi outliers, Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. 4/20 to 4/23

7. Charlestown’s code of silence gets the thriller treatment in Under Oath, the second novel by BC law prof Margaret McLean. out 4/24, $26

8. The wool will fly and the baa’s will blare at Gore Place’s 25th annual Sheepshearing Festival in Waltham. 4/28