Arts First Ready to Go

Many great cities across these lands of ours are excited and happy to boast when they have one arts festival ready to go for its citizens and visitors.

But Boston? An arts festival? That's too easy. What we do is plan a whole slew of 'em and work them all into the same weekend.

Take THAT, other so-called culture centers!

Bostonist will be telling you over the next couple of days about some of the festivals that will descend upon the metro area come this weekend (Somerville Open Studios, MayFair and the 48 Hour Film Project), but the folks over at Harvard are continuing their tradition of kicking off this weekend early. Arts First, the university's annual arts celebration, will open Harvard's doors to the public on Thursday, the first of four days jam-packed with theatre, music, variety shows and visual arts.

A full schedule of events is available at the official site - and it's a long, long list. Some of the things that caught Bostonist's eye included the H-Art Art Walk, which guides visitors through residential halls and galleries on campus to sample student work (Thursday); the new Crimson Film Festival (Thursday); African dance (Friday); the Chinese Yo-Yo Club (Saturday); productions of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "The Fantasticks" (throughout the weekend) and Sunday's Band Fest.

Although things get underway mid-week, the official welcome to the festivities will come at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, courtesy of John Lithgow (Class of '67) and music and dance performers.

We suggest that between now and then (or between now and Thursday, if you're lucky enough to get off work), you look at the schedule and come up with some kind of attendance game plan. Looking at the lineup, we think you're bound to suffer from sensory overload if you don't.

Photo of a performance during last year's Arts First from flickr user dianang