Best of the Week: Our Picks for September 21-25, 2015

Welcome to Best of the Day, our recommendations for what to check out around town this week. If you’re wondering what to do in Boston this week, check out these events.

Still from Ghostbusters

FILM
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21
Bill Murray Birthday Celebration at the Brattle

The most recent incarnation of Ghostbusters has already waddled through town like a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, smearing movie goo all over Boston during filming: a fake restaurant popped up in Chinatown, the street outside MBTA HQ transformed into a NYC subway stop, and Boston’s pierced-and-tatted masses got recruited to film a concert scene.

But to celebrate Bill Murray’s 65th birthday, the Brattle’s going back to the source, and screening 1984’s original Ghostbusters. As befitting a party animal such as Murray—who has a penchant for crashing bachelor parties, singing karaoke with strangers, and wandering into random kickball games—the birthday bash isn’t limited to one night: They’re following it up with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou on Tuesday.

September 21-22, 7 p.m., Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge, 617-876-6837, brattlefilm.org.

Tangela Large in Mr. Joy / Courtesy photo by Kristi Jan Hoover

THEATER
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22
Mr. Joy

You will never meet Mr. Joy, an elderly shoe repairman in Harlem and the title character of this ArtsEmerson play by Daniel Beaty. In fact, no one will ever see him again—he’s been brutally murdered. Instead, you will meet the neighbors who mourn him. They’re all connected to the man in some way… and they’re all played by a single performer. In 85 minutes, actress Tangela Large will become nine different people, ranging from Mr. Joy’s real estate developer son to an 11-year-old HIV-positive girl with a passion for shoe design who idolizes Mr. Joy.

September 22-October 18, Emerson’s Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre, Paramount Center, 559 Washington St., Boston, 617-824-8400, artsemerson.org.

Glendalough Distillery aging area / Courtesy photo

DINING
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23
‘Brass Pair’ Dinner with Glendalough Distillery

For the latest installment of Brass Union’s “Brass Pair” dinner series—in which the Union Square restaurant teams up with brewers, distillers, wine makers and sommeliers—they’re bringing in Glendalough Distillery from Ireland for a five-course meal. Diners will have the opportunity to try Glendalough’s Irish whiskeys and craft-distilled gin with roasted apricot with goat cheese, grilled quail, and braised lamb—and you can even get a first taste of “an exclusive barrel-aged cocktail that soon will be available for purchase at Brass Union.”

$55 per person, September 23, 7 p.m., Brass Union, 70 Union Square, Somerville, 617-623-9211, brassunion.com. Tickets available via brasspair9.eventbrite.com.

National Theatre Live poster for The Beaux’ Strategem

THEATER
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
National Theatre Live: The Beaux’ Stratagem

This fall, Bostonians have two ways of seeing a show put on by London’s National Theatre: you can hop on a plane, or you can hop into a seat at the Coolidge Corner Theatre—the only venue in town that’s playing high-definition simulcasts of the NT’s productions. Later this season, they’re offering up Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet and a new staging of Jane Eyre. But first, this week, we have The Beaux’ Stratagem, Simon Godwin (Man and Superman) update of George Farquhar’s 1707 take on rake culture. Its central characters—the ‘Beaux’—are Mr Aimwell and Mr Archer, described by the theater as “two charming, dissolute young men who have blown their fortunes in giddy London. Shamed and debt-ridden, they flee to provincial Lichfield. Their ‘Stratagem’: to marry for money.” Will they succeed? Their destiny unfolds in this three-hour production.

$20, September 24, 7 p.m., Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline, 617-734-2500, coolidge.org.

Still from “Street of Crocodiles”

FILM
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25
The Quay Brothers in 35mm

Artists who devote their lives to the carpal-tunnel-crunching discipline of stop-motion animation deserve their share of accolades, and few animators have taken it to the hoop quite like the Brothers Quay. The spooky twins have been cranking out fiddly little dramas about decaying dolls, sadistic Gilgameshes, and alarmingly sexual twittering machines since 1979. And if you’ve ever wanted to see how the magic happens, you’re about to get a brand-new look: As part of the Brattle’s fall lineup, director Christopher Nolan’s short film “Quay,” which reveals the inner workings of their studios, makes its world premiere this week, alongside Quay classics “In Absentia,” “The Comb,” and “Street of Crocodiles.”

September 25-October 1, Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge, 617-876-6837, brattlefilm.org.