Weekend Arts Roundup: Intime, Improv, and More

Two weeks in (doesn’t it feel longer?) and campus arts events are up and running! As the semester goes into full swing, this batch of events is the perfect antidote to daunting workloads and overtired brains:

• Theatre Intime, Princeton’s oldest entirely student-run theater company, starts its 2011-2012 season with Neil Simon’s Lost In Yonkers, directed by sophomore Eric Traub.  Part comic coming-of-age story and part family drama, this Pulitzer-Prize-winning play is one of Simon’s best, and features an all-star student cast. Thursday-Saturday at 8pm in Theatre Intime: tickets $8, Student Events Eligible.
• The Department of Music’s Making Tunes concert series, which features a range of international musicians who blend traditional and improvisatory folk music traditions, continues its second week with Appalachian fiddle player Bruce Molsky.  The Tunes series’ first concert was completely sold out, so buying ahead is a smart move: tickets are available at Frist or via phone at 609-258-9220, and the event is Student Events Eligible.  Thursday at 8pm in Taplin Auditorium at Fine Hall.
• If you’re hoping to glimpse the next Amy Poehler or Ed Helms, don’t miss The UCB Touring Company’s one-night improv comedy show at McCarter Theatre, sponsored by Quipfire! improv troupe.  Friday at 11pm; free admission, but get there early to get a good seat! It’s sure to fill up fast.
• Princeton’s Program in Theater opens its season with The Monkeys Are Coming!, a Russian avant-garde drama directed by senior Gabe Crouse as part of his senior thesis.  First published in 1923, the play appears here in a brand-new translation by several professors in Princeton’s Slavic Department.  It’s a genre-bending (and brain-bending) performance–and its 50-minute length makes it perfect for a pre-Street study break.  Friday and Saturday at 8pm in Matthews Acting Studio at the Lewis Center for the Arts (185 Nassau Street); student tickets $10, Student Events Eligible.
• Speaking of theses, seniors Eddie Skolnick and Jeff Hodes will present an All-Mozart Senior Thesis Recital for the Music Department’s Performance Program on Saturday at 8pm in Taplin Auditorium.  Skolnick will play and conduct Mozart’s Adagio in E for Violin and Orchestra and his Violin Concerto No. 3; Hodes will perform and conduct Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto; and both musicians will be backed by a fifteen-person student chamber orchestra.  Free admission, with a reception to follow.