Two-time Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori's powerful new opera Grounded, commissioned by the Met and based on librettist George Brant's acclaimed play, wrestles with the ethical quandaries and psychological toll of 21st-century warfare. Mezzo-soprano Emily D'Angelo, one of opera's most compelling young stars, portrays Jess, a hot-shot fighter pilot whose unplanned pregnancy takes her out of the cockpit and lands her in Las Vegas, operating a Reaper drone halfway around the world. As she struggles to adjust to this new way of doing battle, she fights to maintain her sanity, and her soul, as she is called to rain down death by remote control. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin oversees the Met premiere of Tesori's kaleidoscopic score and a cast that also features tenor Ben Bliss as the Wyoming rancher who becomes Jess's husband. Michael Mayer's high-tech staging, using a vast array of LED screens, presents a variety of perspectives on the action, including the drone's predatory view from high above. GET TICKETS  

When John Bellairs released The House with a Clock in Its Walls in 1973, he pulled from his childhood in nearby Marshall, Michigan, specifically the Cronin House. Tours are available for fans who want to make the day trip. That inspiration became text and, in turn, inspired illustrator Edward Gorey's drawings. Together, the two created one of its era's most compelling children's mystery novels. Two generations on, the book was adapted for film with faithfulness to the tale that follows the story many know well: The young orphan Lewis (Owen Vacarro) goes to live with his uncle (Jack Black) and soon realizes he and his neighbor (Cate Blanchett) have magical powers, which come in handy when Lewis mistakenly resurrects the dead. GET TICKETS!  

A cornerstone of the horror film, F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is resurrected in an HD edition mastered from the acclaimed 35mm restoration by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung. This edition offers unprecedented visual clarity and historical faithfulness to the original release version. An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, Nosferatu remains to many viewers the most unsettling vampire film ever made, and its bald, spidery vampire, personified by the diabolical Max Schreck, continues to spawn imitations in the realm of contemporary cinema. GET TICKETS!  

After moving to Salem, Massachusetts (not the best town to land in right before Halloween), teenager Max explores an abandoned house with his sister Dani (future star of American Beauty, Thora Birch) and their new friend, Allison. When Allison tells them a bit of local lore, the siblings dismiss the story as boring old superstition. As is sometimes the case, there's truth behind the legend, and Max accidentally frees a coven of witches (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy). Now, with the help of a magical cat (bearing a strong resemblance to Salem Saberhagen), the kids must steal the witches' book of spells to stop them from becoming immortal. GET TICKETS!  

Directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala are experts at creating unsettling moods in cozy spaces that are slightly off-kilter. In Goodnight Mommy, a mother (Susanne Wuest) returns to her countryside lake house after plastic surgery with her head wrapped in bandages and obscuring her face. Her ten-year-old twins (Elias Schwarz and Lukas Schwarz) are disturbed by a shift in her post-operation behavior and begin to doubt if the woman underneath all the gauze is in fact their mother. GET TICKETS!  

Martina Evans is the author of 13 books of poetry and prose. American Mules (Carcanet 2021) won the Pigott Poetry Prize in 2022. Her latest narrative poem, The Coming Thing, was published by Carcanet in September 2023 and is shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. She is an Irish Times poetry critic and fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. This event is co-sponsored by the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, the Creative Writing Program, and the Center for Social Concerns. Originally published at irishstudies.nd.edu.