I built Curtain Times because I couldn’t find a comprehensive guide to arts and culture in Greater Boston. In particular, I was interested in gathering together in one place listings for plays, musicals, classical music, opera and dance, book talks and readings, and lectures and symposia.
I hadn’t found existing events aggregators helpful. Many are firehoses of information that somehow manage to be incomplete, even as they include scores or irrelevant results. And what more focused, curated sites gained in relevance, they seemed to lose in completeness. I’ve put a lot of work into making sure the collection of events on this site is as complete as I can make it, without ever including anything irrelevant. The events themselves are not taken from other aggregators or feeds, but curated directly from the websites of organizations and venues. So if you want, for instance, to find every Shakespeare-related show or talk that has been scheduled with 25 miles of Boston—whether it’s happening tomorrow night or a year away and still in auditions—this is the place to do it.
I also wanted a site with an intuitive interface for helping me plan my outings. Users can easily save, exclude, and filter events; and lay out their options on a well-organized calendar (or map) that clearly shows what’s happening in the coming week or weeks (and even year, for events that are announced far in advance). On a given Friday I might be choosing between a play, musical performance, reading, or something else. So I like being able to compare my different options in the different categories—via brief, informative descriptions—side by side. The alternative has been hopping around between venue websites (themselves often not intuitive or easy to use) to write down my various weekend options on a napkin, never sure if I’m missing something (or disappointed to find that I found out about something only after it had sold out).
I hope the result is helpful to others as well. If I’m missing a venue, event, or feature you’d like to see, please let me know!
Follow along
Three ways to keep up, whichever fits how you already read:
- By calendar. Subscribe in your calendar once and every event flows into your calendar app, refreshing itself each week. (On Google Calendar, add it under Other calendars → From URL with
https://curtaintimes.org/all.ics.) - By email. A short weekly note of what’s newly added — sign up just below.
- By RSS. For feed readers: the RSS feed.
Get the week’s new events by email
A short weekly note when new theater, classical music, readings and lectures are added. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Contact
Questions, feedback, a correction, or an event I’ve missed? Email me at hello@curtaintimes.org. I read everything — corrections and tips are always welcome, and every one makes the guide better.
Privacy
We use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages and outside links are used; it sets a cookie in your browser. We don’t build profiles of readers, and nothing is sold. Accounts are optional: if you sign in to sync, Google Firebase stores your email address and the events you save or hide — nothing else. Email hello@curtaintimes.org to have an account deleted. The newsletter list is used only to send the weekly digest and is never shared.