TUESDAY, MAY 30
THEATER The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of David Ives’s The School for Lies opens on Tuesday and runs through July 2 at the Lansburgh Theatre. The play, an adaptation of Molière’s satire Le Misanthrope, tells the story of a French aristocrat who doesn’t mind telling his society of liars how much he despises them, showing over and over again the power of the words we use. $44 to $123, 7:30 PM.
FILM The 2007 Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days tells the story of a young woman seeking an illegal abortion in Communist Romania in the late 1980s. The film will be shown at the AFI Silver Theatre as part of a series of Romanian films; this screening will be followed by a Q&A with actress Anamaria Marinca. $13, 7 PM.
DISCUSSION Author April Ryan, the Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, hosts a series of panel discussions on race in America featuring leading writers and commentators. The latest of these, at Politics and Prose Tuesday night, will include Mary Frances Berry (professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and former chair of the US Commission on Civil Rights), Avis Jones-DeWeever (founder of the Exceptional Leadership Institute for Women), Wesley Lowery (Washington Post reporter covering the Black Lives Matter movement), and Julianne Malveaux (president emerita of Bennett College for Women). Free, 7 PM.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 31
OPERA Opera Lafayette is presenting a performance of Les Indes Galantes – Part IV at Lisner Auditorium. Composed by French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau, this multinational love story finds a Frenchman, a Spaniard, and an American Indian vying for the hand of the daughter of a chief. This ballet héroïque was inspired by a visit of 18th-century American Indian chiefs to France. $25 to $115, 7:30 PM.
MUSIC Scottish indie-rock band Frightened Rabbit writes plaintive, angsty songs with a heavy emphasis on lyrics. The group released its fifth album, Painting of a Panic Attack, last year, and will be performing at the 9:30 Club with opening sets by Brooklyn-based singer-songwriters Torres and Kevin Devine. $32.50, 7 PM.
