Arts & Culture

“Downtown Crossing,” a world premiere theater performance written by David Valdes and produced by Company One Theatre hits the virtual stage on Oct. 22. Streaming live (and for free) for five performances, the play explores the experience of undocumented immigrants in Boston.

Earlier this month, 12 regional artists transformed utility boxes in downtown Boston into enigmatic visual representations of Boston’s culinary history. Organized by the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District (BID), the display ranges from Chinatown through the Financial District and into Government Center.

Last Friday, the Banner sat down with Jeffrey Stewart, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography “The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke,” to discuss all things Black power and aesthetics, from Alain Locke’s contribution to the Harlem Renaissance to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Saturday Night Live” performance.

The fourth and latest project from co-directors Jamil McGinnis and Pat Heywood is “Gramercy,” a narrative short film currently screening as part of the American Film Institute’s virtual film festival, AFI Fest, through Thursday, Oct. 22.

“Betye Saar: Call and Response,” on view through Jan. 31, 2021 at the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan and also online is the first exhibition to bring together both Saar’s finished works and the sketchbooks that illuminate what Saar describes as “the mysterious transformation of object into art.”

Chucho Valdés, Cuban-born pianist and composer, is performing in a solo streaming concert through the Boston-based Celebrity Series on Sunday, Oct. 18 at 7 p.m. The performance, which will be prerecorded, features Valdés from the New World Center in Miami. Following the concert, there will be a live question-and-answer session moderated by Argentinian-born jazz journalist Fernando González.

A new and unusual exhibition space has appeared at Roxbury Community College, on a chain-link fence along Columbus Avenue. Created by RCC and MassArt’s sparc! the ArtMobile program run by Ekua Holmes, the curbside exhibition space is displaying “Stream of Consciousness,” by local artist Larry Pierce, as long as weather allows.

The documentary “The Way I See It” is a riveting and surprisingly emotional film that gives an unparalleled behind-the-scenes look at the presidencies of Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan, as seen through the eyes of renowned photojournalist Pete Souza, official White House photographer in both administrations.

The heart of Boston’s Seaport district has been overtaken by a series of bold portraits of some of Boston’s best, and least-known, citizens. The “Uncornered Project” presents 30 five-by-eight-foot black and white photographs of former gang members and public figures who all have overcome systemic, traumatic and social challenges to pursue their dreams.

Author Claudia Rankine recently took part in a virtual conversation hosted by Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge. Joining her in the online event was Kierstan Carter, a doctoral student in African and African American Studies at Harvard.

Director Garrett Bradley (“Alone” and “America”) has created a remarkable documentary with “Time,” a moving tribute to the power of love between Sibil Fox Richardson and Robert G. Richardson (known as “Fox Rich” and “Rob”).

Six new murals have sprouted on the East Boston waterfront at the HarborArts outdoor gallery. Presented by Linda Cabot in collaboration with PangeaSeed Foundation and its Sea Walls: Artists for Oceans public art initiative, the murals all address different components of climate change and environmental activism.