Regional arts and entertainment events

Sunday

Good roots Canadian quintet the Duhks blend folk, soul, Latin jazz, and rock into a tough, winning sound - driven by Tania Elizabeth's fiddle and Sarah Dugas' powerhouse vocals - all in the service of a progressive vision. They play at 7:30 p.m. at World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St. Tickets are $29 and $34. Call 215-222-1400.

Monday

Curiouser, curiouser With a body of work that includes Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki is without question a giant of animated film. In his 2001 masterpiece Spirited Away, a melancholy girl in the middle of a family move finds herself caught in a magical world, tasked with solving a puzzle to escape. The film screens at 7 p.m. at the County Theater, 20 E. State St., Doylestown. Tickets are $8.75. Call 215-345-6789.

Tuesday

One-man band John Vesely, who performs as Secondhand Serenade, got his start as an online artist multitracking his heartfelt pop gems. These days, he's touring with a full band, but the earnest do-it-yourself vibe is still there. He plays at 8 p.m. at the Theater of Living Arts, 334 South St. Tickets are $22. Call 215-922-1011.

Wednesday

Class warfare Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.) There are more than a few echoes of recent times in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, an epic of the French Revolution, with greedy aristocrats trying to hold onto the old regime through payoffs and political repression, terrorist groups, bank failures, imprisonment without charges, show trials, and individuals trying to keep their dignity as the world crumbles. At the center of the story are two decent men, one French, one English, look-alikes enamored of the same woman. In the end, love and honor triumph - let's hope that never changes. Dwayne Hartford's stage adaptation of the novel goes on at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the People's Light & Theatre Company, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, and continues on a varied schedule to May 3. Tickets are $29 to $48. Call 610-644-3500.

Moving on Author Tobias Wolff is acclaimed as a memoirist (This Boy's Life) and novelist (The Barracks Thief), but it's as a short-story writer that his portraits of the weary vagaries of living find perfection. He reads at 7:30 p.m. at Bryn Mawr College's Thomas Great Hall, 101 N. Merion Ave., Bryn Mawr. Admission is free. Call 610-526-5210.

Old school The string ensemble Quatuor Mosaïques is known for meticulous performances of 18th-century repertoire on period intruments. They play works by Mozart, Schubert, and Haydn at 8 p.m. at the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater, Broad and Spruce Streets. Tickets are $23. Call 215-569-8080.

Thursday

In the city The invaluable Secret Cinema looks into Temple University Libraries' Television Audiovisual Collections for the program Films From the Urban Archives: Secrets From Philadelphia's Past. The collection comprises thousands of cans of 16mm footage from WPVI (formerly WFIL) and KYW dating from 1947 through the early 1980s. Highlights include Assignment: 1747 Randolph Street, a 1966 WFIL documentary on a blighted North Philadelphia neighborhood; silent late-1960s news footage of the old Electric Factory at 22d and Arch Streets; and 1952 news footage of the closing of the Broad Street train station. The program screens at 6 p.m. at Temple University's Paley Library, 1210 W. Berks St. Admission is free. Call 215-204-2828.

Friday & Saturday

Chamber pop Here's an idea long overdue: The great early-20th-century pop-music classics are given the chamber-music treatment. The Cole Porter Trio performs a program of works by composers such as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Jerome Kern along with Debussy and Tchaikovsky at the German Society, 611 Spring Garden St., at 7 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $20. Call 215-627-2332.

Books, books, books The Free Library Festival celebrates reading with a two-day gathering of authors and performers at the Free Library, 19th and Vine Streets (call 215-567-4341). Some highlights from Saturday: Actress Kristin Chenoweth discusses her auto- biography A Little Bit Wicked at 1 p.m.; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Charles Fuller moderates a panel on African American writing with poets Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez and playwright Ed Bullins at 2 p.m.; and Joyce Carol Oates reads from her new story collection, Dear Husband, at 4 p.m. Admission is free.

Sound and movement The intrepid Opus 1 Contemporary Dance performs works by Brandywine Ballet choreographer Nancy Page, with guest Zane Forshee, guitar, at the Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St. at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. next Sunday. Tickets are $25. Call 215-925-9914.