Max Roach Centennial Celebration

The University of Massachusetts Amherst community will celebrate the centennial year of acclaimed bandleader, drummer, composer and activist Max Roach with a host of special events from Oct. 20 to 26.

One particularly special performance will feature one of the most innovative drummers in jazz today, Makaya McCraven, who was raised in Amherst and graduated from UMass and also was involved in Jazz In July, the Fine Arts Center’s summer jazz education program, which Roach helped found.

Joining McCraven in paying tribute to Roach will be Junius Paul, bass; Marquis Hill, trumpet; Greg Ward, alto saxophone; Melanie Charles, vocals; and Marc Cary, piano.

Roach, who died in 2007, “spent two decades as a member of the music and Afro-Am faculties at UMass, during which time he was instrumental in the campus’s transformation into an international center for jazz education,” according to the Fine Arts Center’s website. In addition, Roach was a mentor and friend of McCraven’s father, jazz drummer Stephen McCraven.

The performance will take place at Frederick C. Tillis Performance Hall on Friday, Oct. 25, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 to $50 or $15 for Five College students and guests under 17.

For more information, and to learn about the others ways UMass is honoring Roach during their weeklong celebration, visit www.umass.edu/humanities-arts/max-roach-centennial-celebration.

Auditions for ‘On Golden Pond’

The volunteer theater group Easthampton Theater Company is inviting actors to audition for “On Golden Pond,” a play about family and aging.

The show features roles for three adult men, two adult women, and one teen boy. Auditions will be by appointment on Tuesday, Nov. 12, and Wednesday, Nov. 13. Callbacks will be on Wednesday, Nov. 20. To schedule your audition or learn more about the show and characters, visit easthamptontheater.com/current-auditions.

Rehearsals will start on Sunday, Dec. 15, and will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons, minus a holiday break. Tech week will start on Sunday, March 9, and the show itself will run the weekends of March 14 and 21.

A Halloween ‘paw-ty’

Seasonally spooky dogs and their owners can take part in a costume contest at the Amherst Dog Park on Sunday, Oct. 26, from 2 to 4 p.m.

Dogs can win in the following categories: Best Multiple Dogs, Best Owner/Dog Combo, Best Dog as Food, Funniest, Scariest, and Best Celebrity/Character.

The event will also have raffle prizes, plus food and drinks for sale.

Event officials are currently seeking volunteers as well; if you’re interested, sign up at amherstdogpark.org.

Learn about the history of cider

The Amherst Historical Society will present an informational lecture and slideshow about the history and traditions of cider-making in New England on Sunday, Oct. 20, from 2 to 3 p.m. at Jones Library in Amherst.

The lecture, called “A Cup for a Thirsty Traveler,” will discuss the differences between what we now think of as cider (which, in the, 18th and 19th centuries, was called “sweet cider”) and what we now think of as “hard cider” (which, back then, was just called “cider” and was a regular mealtime drink).

For more information, visit https://amhersthistory.org.

A social justice book fair

Interlink Publishing, located at 46 Crosby St. in Northampton, will host Read & Resist Fest, a book sale and “celebration of radical joy, intersectional activism, and community engagement,” on Saturday, Oct. 19, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The main draw of the event will be a book sale in which all books will be 50% to 70% off, but the fest will also include a zine workshop, screen printing (bring your own t-shirt), raffles to support aid to Gaza (Interlink is Palestinian-owned), teach-ins about social justice topics, activities for kids, henna, local artisans, and more. Guests will also be able to sample recipes from “The Revolution Will Be Well Fed,” a cookbook with recipes designed for social justice organizing, written by local author Corrie Locke-Hardy and featured in the Gazette last month.

Note: masks are required, though they’ll be available for free for guests who don’t have them.

Rejection letters, live on stage

Letters Aloud will host “Letters Aloud: Thanks, But No Thanks; The Greatest Rejection Letters of All Time” at the Academy of Music on Saturday, Oct. 26, at 7:30 p.m.

The show features performers reading notable rejection letters — including those given to celebrities like Andy Warhol, Stephen King, and Gertrude Stein, plus a 17-year-old rejecting her rejection from Duke, among others — for an audience.

This show will include three local letter-readers: Nicole Young-Martin, a performer, educator and writer; Brooke Hauser, former Gazette editor who currently works as an arts editor and writer at the Boston Globe; and Steve Sanderson, event producer for the Northampton Arts Council and DJ on 93.9 WRSI. Tickets are $22 or $10 through the Card to Culture program, not including fees, at aomtheatre.com.

‘Underbellies’

Benjamin Sears, who teaches art at Amherst Regional High School, will have an exhibition, “Underbellies,” at Gallery in the Woods in Brattleboro, Vermont, from Friday, Nov. 1, through Saturday, Nov. 30. There’ll be an opening reception and gallery walk on Nov. 1 from 5 to 8 p.m.

In a 2018 interview with the Gazette, Sears noted that he enjoys making art about performance venues, which “seem to hold a lot of potential energy, even when empty” and feature in a number of works in his portfolio. Likewise, he said he’d probably be a musician if he didn’t pursue a career in visual art.