Upcoming Arts & Events: April 3–16, 2026
The first half of April brings a busier-than-usual run of touring music and campus-stage programming, with Fairfield Theatre Company, SHU Community Theatre, the Quick Center, and the Edgerton Center all in play. The center of gravity is live performance: tribute acts, long-running ensembles, a Gershwin musical, and one circus-minded family program that looks built to hold a room.
Britishmania
A Beatles tribute can go wrong by becoming either cosplay or karaoke; this one presents itself more simply, as a repertory-style night built around the band’s catalog. The setting is StageOne, which means a seated room and a show aimed less at reenactment than at the pleasures of familiar songs played live. Fairfield Theatre Company StageOne, Saturday, April 4, 8 p.m. Tickets are listed as available through the venue.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
The South African vocal group arrives with the kind of history that no longer needs embellishment: sixty-five years, five Grammys, and a repertoire bound up with the politics and memory of modern South Africa. What audiences get is a seated theater concert shaped by harmony, precision, and the calm authority of ensemble singing. SHU Community Theatre, Saturday, April 4, 8 p.m. Tickets are listed through the venue.
Nice Work If You Can Get It
Sacred Heart’s theater program takes up the Gershwins’ Prohibition-era musical farce, with bootleggers, a beach house, and enough mistaken-identity machinery to keep the plot moving at speed. The run is staged at the Edgerton Center over four performances, which makes it a proper campus production rather than a one-night showcase. Edgerton Center for the Performing Arts, April 9–11 at 7 p.m.; Sunday, April 12 at 3 p.m. Tickets are listed as available.
Lez Zeppelin: The Song Remains the Same
This one takes the familiar tribute-show premise and narrows it to a single object: Led Zeppelin’s 1973 Madison Square Garden performances and the 1976 concert film they became. The result is billed as a multimedia concert event rather than a screening, with the soundtrack performed in full in the Warehouse. Fairfield Theatre Company Warehouse, Friday, April 10, 8 p.m. Tickets are listed as available through the venue.
Janoah Bailin — meSSeS
The Quick Center’s family offering is less circus in the grand sense than circus as nimble invention: unicycling, juggling, puppetry, and a story built out of disorderly props. The all-ages format includes an optionally interactive element, which gives the show the feel of part performance, part workshop. Wien Experimental Theatre, Saturday, April 11, 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Tickets are listed through the venue.
Pat McGann
McGann’s page leads with the usual stand-up résumé markers—Letterman, Colbert, Just for Laughs—but the useful fact is simpler: this is a theater comedy date in a room large enough to change the pace of club material. The night is a straightforward seated stand-up set, scheduled for 8 p.m. SHU Community Theatre, Saturday, April 11, 8 p.m. Tickets are listed through the venue.
Lotus — Rise of the Anglerfish Tour
Lotus arrives in the Warehouse with opening acts and the full touring apparatus, which usually means a show designed for momentum rather than restraint. The band’s long-running blend of electronic textures and jam-band structure makes this the period’s most dance-adjacent date, even in a room that still starts with seats and a stage. Fairfield Theatre Company Warehouse, Saturday, April 11, 8 p.m. Tickets are listed as available through the venue.
On the Horizon
Big River: In Concert
Fairfield University’s Glee Club, Theatre Program, and the Quick Center join working professionals for a staged concert version of the Roger Miller musical adapted from Huckleberry Finn. The setup suggests a larger collaborative production than a standard campus ensemble night. Quick Center for the Arts, Friday and Saturday, April 17–18, 7:30 p.m.
Soul Asylum Acoustic
Dave Pirner and Ryan Smith bring an unplugged version of the band to SHU Community Theatre, with the page promising an intimate set rather than a full-volume revival run. For a group better known for radio-era alt-rock sweep, the smaller format is the point. SHU Community Theatre, Sunday, April 19, 7:30 p.m.
Listings are curated and verified at publication. Scheduling changes may occur. Omissions are intentional.
