Skip to content
Things To Do
Link copied to clipboard

The best events in Philly this week: Aug. 14-20

Plus a Go-Go's doc, a dinner to end mass incarcartion, Butterflies and Blooms, Ibram X. Kendi talks with authors about antiracism, and more

BlackStar Film Festival presents an all-virtual showcase this summer featuring a range of shorts, features, panels and parties.
BlackStar Film Festival presents an all-virtual showcase this summer featuring a range of shorts, features, panels and parties.Read morecourtesy Channing Godfrey Peoples and BlackStar Film Festival

📅 This calendar is updated every Thursday at noon with the best events for the week. You can always find it at inquirer.com/calendar

FRIDAY

🏛️ Eastern State Penitentiary’s Reopening (Museum / In-person / Kid-friendly) After months of closed doors, the historic Eastern State Penitentiary opens to the public with safety measures that limit crowds and require masks, social distancing, and advanced tickets. (Free-$15, Aug. 14, Eastern State Penitentiary, map, add to calendar)

📽️ Street Movies 2020 (Movie / In-person and Virtual / Free) Scribe Video Center wraps up its free movie nights with both a virtual and an in-person movie screening that celebrate community through film and live performances. (Free, Aug. 14 and 15 at 8 p.m., Street Movies 2020, add to calendar)

🚗 The Philadelphia Film Society’s Drive-In at the Navy Yard (Movie / In-person / Drive-in) The Philadelphia Film Society kicks off a socially distant, daily entertainment series with drive-in movie nights at the Navy Yard. Up to 200 cars can watch a slate of flicks including Get Out, Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, all with top-notch digital projection. ($7-$12, Aug. 14-Nov. 1, Philadelphia Film Society, map, add to calendar)

» READ MORE: How to summer in Philly: Our 2020 summer guide

🗳️ Vote Ready with The War On Drugs (Music / Virtual) It’s a big Friday for the Philly rock band: They top the bill on a show to push voter registration alongside Waxahatchee, Tarriona “Tank” Ball, and members of TV on the Radio, Our Native Daughters and Grizzly Bear, as well as releasing a remix of “Scarlet” from the Rolling Stones’ Goats Head Soup reissue. (Free, Aug. 14, 7 p.m., headcount.org/voteready, add to calendar)

✉️ Theater by mail (Theater / Virtual / ongoing) Kensington’s Hella Fresh Theater Co. is doing two plays in an unusual way: by mail. Props and elements of the plots arrive at your home until October, when the final act turns your home into the stage, with virtual actors to help finish the story. There are two plays: Frauenschlläechtere, about a German lawyer in the 1930s trying to turn a young woman into a Hollywood star, and Rusty Ruby Ruby Rusty, about an unregistered sex offender and a war criminal meeting for drinks. ($15, through October, subscribe at hellafreshtheater@gmail.com)

🎤 Live at Studio 4 (Music / Virtual) Scranton indie duo Tiger’s Jaw, led by guitarist Ben Walsh and keyboard player Brianna Collins, play live from producer Will Yip’s Conshohocken studio. Gladie, fronted by former Cayetana guitarist Augusta Koch, who were meant to open for Tiger’s Jaw on a 2020 tour, are also on the bill. ($10, Aug. 14, 9 p.m. liveatstudio4.com, add to calendar)

🎵 Best Coast (Music / Virtual) The Los Angeles rock band of Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno celebrate the 10th anniversary of their album Crazy For You, with a music documentary where they play the album in its entirety. A portion of the tickets goes to World Cafe Live. ($10-$15, Aug. 14, 9 p.m., worldcafelive.com, add to calendar)

⚖️ Boys State (Movie / Virtual / Documentary) This documentary follows about 1,100 Texas teenage boys who come together in Austin to try to build a representative government (well, as representative as you can get without girls). Unexpectedly interesting, insightful, and entertaining, and a good antidote to an election year filled with division, distrust, name-calling, and anger. (Available Aug. 14 on Apple TV+)

Project Power (Movie / Virtual / Sci-fi) Take Limitless, add a dollop of physical strength, Jamie Foxx, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and set it in New Orleans, and you’ve got this sci-fi action flick about a drug that gives people incredible power for five minutes. The side effects, of course, end up being a problem for everyone. (Available Aug. 14 on Netflix)

SATURDAY

🎶 Kimmel Center COVID Relief Concert: Christopher Jackson Live From the West Side (Concert / Virtual) Known for his role as George Washington in Hamilton, Christopher Jackson performs favorite tunes from Hamilton, In The Heights, and Freestyle Love Supreme. Concert proceeds benefit the Kimmel Cultural Campus Road to Reopening Relief Fund. (Donations of $40 and up, Aug. 15 at 8 p.m., The Kimmel Center, add to calendar)

🏡 Outdoor Guided Tour at Glen Foerd on the Delaware (Tour / In-person / Outdoors) Learn about the history, landscape, and architecture of the historic Glen Foerd mansion on the Delaware River at a socially distant guided walking tour of the grounds. (Free-$10, Aug. 15 from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., Glen Foerd on the Delaware, map, add to calendar)

SUNDAY

📚 Virtual Literary Parlor — The Heroic Slave by Frederick Douglass (Literary / Virtual) Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion hosts a virtual book discussion about abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ first work of fiction, 1852′s The Heroic Slave, inspired by an enslaved cook who led a rebellion on board a ship. ($6, Aug. 16 at 1:30 p.m., Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion, add to calendar)

✊🏾 What Now: An Antiracist Teach-In with Ibram X. Kendi (Discussion / Virtual / Multiday) Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, talks with prominent authors including Isabel Wilkerson, Angie Thomas and Robin DiAngelo about our country’s future and the antiracist movement. Tickets include your choice of book from a featured author — fulfilled by a black-owned bookstore, including West Philly’s Harriett’s Bookshop. ($50, Aug. 16-22, What Now: An Antiracist Teach-In, add to calendar)

🎶 Hot Club of Philadelphia (Music / In-person) Gypsy jazz bandleader Barry Wahrhaftig’s virtual Community Relief Concert Series is becoming an in-the-flesh socially distanced series at the Awbury Arboretum in Germantown. Wahrhaftig’s Hot Club of Philadelphia, which released their album Gypsy American this spring, plays this weekend. Tom Moon’s Ensemble Novo performs on Aug. 23. ($20, Aug. 16, 6:30 p.m. awbury.org, map, add to calendar)

MONDAY

🦋 Butterflies and Blooms at Grounds for Sculpture (Educational / Virtual and in-person / Kid-friendly) New Jersey’s Grounds for Sculpture presents a special program about butterflies and the plants they love. Tickets get you a 45-minute Zoom Q&A with a naturalist from the Mercer County Park Commission, a self-guided activity at the park, plus admission on a future date. ($5-$20, Aug. 17 from 2 p.m. to 2:45 p.m., Grounds for Sculpture, map, add to calendar)

🚗 Force in Focus: The Black Experience on Film (Movie / In-person / Drive-in) The Philadelphia Film Society teams up with Reelblack for a curated series of free Monday night drive-in screenings at the Navy Yard. The series features films by Black female directors about the Black experience; up first: Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us, about a former Black Panther who returns to Philly for his father’s funeral, starring Kerry Washington and Anthony Mackie. (Free, Aug. 17, Reelblack and Philadelphia Film Society Present Force in Focus, map, add to calendar)

👩‍🎤 The Go-Go’s (Music / Movie) Director Alison Ellwood’s documentary tracks the rise of the “Our Lips Are Sealed” Belinda Carlisle-fronted L.A. pop-punk band who, with 1982′s Beauty and the Beat, became the first — and still the only — all-female group to play their own instruments, write their own songs, and top the Billboard charts with a debut album. The reunited band’s new single is “Club Zero.” (Aug. 17, 9:30 p.m. on Showtime Showcase and On Demand, add to calendar)

THURSDAY

🖋️ Poetry is the Secret Language of Revolutionaries (Art / Virtual / Discussion) Mural Arts Philadelphia hosts a discussion with recording artist Ursula Rucker and poet, activist, curator and educator, Nina “Lyrispect” Ball about the long history of activist and protest poetry. (Free, Aug. 20, 5:30-6:30 p.m. on Zoom and Facebook Live, add to calendar)

🍽️ End Mass Incarceration Dinner (Dinner / Virtual / Fundraiser) Kalaya, South Philly’s beloved Thai BYOB, teams up with chef Kurt Evans for a take-out dinner benefiting Evans’ End Mass Incarceration. The meal features favorite dishes from Kalaya, along with a Zoom discussion led by the Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity about the collateral consequences of criminal records. ($180-$300, Aug. 20 at 7 p.m., End Mass Incarceration Dinner, add to calendar)

🍲 Triple Bottom Supper Club x Chef Leslie Frankel (Dinner / In-person / Outdoors) Triple Bottom Brewing presents a four-course, outdoor, socially distant dinner featuring chef Leslie Frankel with a feast inspired by the flavors of the Pacific Rim. Each course comes with a beer or wine pairing. ($90, Aug. 20 at 5 p.m.-7 p.m. and 8 p.m.-10 p.m., Triple Bottom Brewing, map, add to calendar)

🎥 BlackStar Film Festival (Festival / Virtual / Multiday) Black film is the star of this annual fest, which is all-virtual this year, with parties DJed by DJ Jazzy Jeff and Rich Medina, documentaries on Baltimore’s creative community and post-Hurricane María Puerto Rico, a panel with first-generation women filmmakers, and much more. ($5-$100, Aug. 20-26, BlackStar Film Festival, add to calendar)

» READ MORE: The 2020 BlackStar Film Festival is going virtual. Here’s what to look for.

Calendar contributors include staff writer Dan DeLuca (music), Howard Gensler (movies), and Jane M. Von Bergen (theater).