Arts & Culture

Language, culture and philosophy blend in “Heartland,” playing at New Repertory Theatre in Watertown through Feb. 9.

The Bard returns to the American Repertory Theater with The Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s “Othello” playing January 13 through February 9. Director Bill Rauch has reimagined the story, utilizing Shakespeare’s original text but setting the play in a contemporary military camp with more modernized character backstories.

Live theater takes on a whole new meaning in Manual Cinema’s production “The End of TV,” presented by ArtsEmerson January 16-27 at the Emerson Paramount Theater. Void of dialogue, the show uses shadow puppetry, silhouettes, a live band and projection to tell the story of two women who were once workers at the same auto plant in a fictional Midwestern city. Flo, elderly and white, slips between reality and her television screen while Louise, young and black, struggles to make ends meet.

On Jan. 17, Chicago-born artist Nina Chanel Abney will unveil her site-specific mural at the Institute of Contemporary Art. This is Abney’s first presentation in Boston and will be displayed on the museum’s Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall, which is accessible to the public without museum admission.

Veteran local artist and longtime AfriCOBRA member Napoleon Jones-Henderson is kicking off the new year with “River to River Deep,” an exhibit on view at The Barry Group Beacon Hill offices through Jan. 31.

Music is in the air. Get on the internet, tune into “Jazz 24/7” on wgbh.org, kick back and relax. Thanks to Tessil Collins, you can stay cozy and within your budget by listening to first-rate jazz for free.

Through Feb. 27, the walls of the Friends Meeting at Cambridge building are lined with photographs from the Chiapas Photography Project’s “Respeto/Respect” series. The CPP provides technical photography lessons and equipment to indigenous Maya people in Chiapas, Mexico.

Who is the real Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) and how did he become the most powerful vice president in U.S. history? Those are the fundamental questions explored by “Vice,” an alternately hilarious and sobering biopic written and directed by Adam McKay.

On Dec. 22, Dan Zanes, Claudia Eliaza and Pauline Jean performed their first annual Sensory Friendly Holiday Sing Along at City Winery in Boston. The music was child-friendly, and the performance was constructed to be accessible to adults and children of all abilities. The group arranged the space, lighting and sound with special-needs kids in mind.

Central Square Theater’s “A Christmas Carol” presented Dickens like you’ve never seen him before.

Barry Jenkins, director of 2017's Oscar-winning Best Picture “Moonlight,” has brought a faithful adaptation of “If Beale Street Could Talk” to the big screen. The poignant coming-of-age tale co-stars Kiki Layne as 19-year-old Tish Rivers and Stephan James as her 23-year-old fiancé, Fonny Hunt.

On Dec. 31, the Handel and Haydn Society and the Museum of African American History (MAAH) will produce their seventh annual Jubilee Day Concert celebrating the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. As part of the First Night activities, the concert will take place in Trinity Church.