In the spring of 2021, Boston's cultural life existed in two registers at once — the digital and the tentatively physical — as a city still navigating pandemic isolation reached for connection through screens, stories, and, at last, the open air. From a historian unpacking the African American roots of barbecue to thousands of herring making their ancient upstream journey, the events of mid-April offered what culture has always offered: a reason to pay attention to something larger than oneself.
Five cultural events to explore in Boston this April
Nearly ten thousand river herring swimming upstream to spawn
Mark
Why does a list of five events matter enough to write about? Isn't this just a calendar?
Mimi
It's a calendar, yes, but it's also a portrait of what people in Boston could actually do in mid-April 2021. We were still mostly locked down. These events—especially the virtual ones—were lifelines.
Luke
Fair, but I want to know: how many people actually registered for these things? The piece tells us what was available, not whether anyone showed up.
Mimi
That's a real gap. We don't have attendance numbers. But the fact that these institutions were offering them—that they'd adapted, that they were still trying—that felt important to document.
Mark
The herring run is the outlier here. It's the only thing that's not about human culture or art. Why include it?
Mimi
Because it's what April actually is. It's not just concerts and theater. It's also the natural world doing what it does every year, and families being invited to witness it.
Luke
But we don't know if the herring run was unusual that year, or if it was just a normal spring thing. The piece doesn't tell us whether this was worth noting beyond "it happens every year."
Mimi
You're right. It's presented as a thing to do, not as news. That's a choice the original publication made—to treat it as an event on equal footing with the others.
Mark
What strikes me most is how many of these are explicitly about difficult subjects. Barbecue history, Ferguson, Mars survival. Even the music seems to be about connection across distance. Was that intentional?
Mimi
I don't think the original publication was making that argument. But yes, looking at it now, there's something there. People were reaching for meaning, for context, for ways to understand the world and each other.
Luke
But we're reading that into it. The publication was just listing what was happening. We shouldn't pretend there was a curated theme.
Mimi
Fair. It's a calendar. But calendars tell stories too, if you look at them right.
Der Puls
- A pandemic-era Boston was still caught between the couch and the world, and its April calendar tried to honor both impulses at once.
- Adrian Miller's talk on Black Smoke threatened to rewrite how audiences understood something as familiar as barbecue — turning a backyard staple into a story of history and erasure.
- A Pulitzer-finalist play about Ferguson's grief streamed into living rooms, asking viewers to sit with injustice on their own time, in their own silence.
- MIT dangled the rare chance to watch a Hollywood survival story and then interrogate actual Mars scientists — collapsing the distance between fiction and the frontier.
- By April 24, one event finally demanded people leave home entirely, gathering families at a Plymouth mill to watch ten thousand herring do what they have always done, indifferent to any human calendar.
In the spring of 2021, Boston's cultural life existed in two registers at once — the digital and the tentatively physical — as a city still navigating pandemic isolation reached for connection through screens, stories, and, at last, the open air. From a historian unpacking the African American roots of barbecue to thousands of herring making their ancient upstream journey, the events of mid-April offered what culture has always offered: a reason to pay attention to something larger than oneself.
April 2021 in Boston was a month of in-between — the pandemic still present, but the world pressing gently back in. The cultural calendar that emerged was a hybrid creature: some events lived entirely on screens, others began to reclaim physical space, and all of them offered a way to think beyond the immediate.
On April 15, food historian Adrian Miller was set to appear through the Boston Book Festival's living-room series to discuss his book on African Americans and barbecue — a conversation about who built a culinary tradition and how that history gets remembered. That same evening, four singers from Women of the World would perform music rooted in Bulgaria, Japan, Haiti, and beyond, then open the floor to questions. Both events asked audiences to let something unfamiliar into their homes.
Beginning April 17, Merrimack Repertory Theatre offered Dael Orlandersmith's Until the Flood — a Pulitzer-finalist work circling the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown and its aftermath — available to stream through May 2. It was the kind of theater that doesn't let you look away, even when you're watching alone.
MIT's April 23 movie night paired The Martian with a live webinar featuring researchers who had actually worked on Mars missions — turning a story about survival into a conversation about real science at the edge of human reach.
The final event was the only one requiring shoes and a drive. On April 24, Plimoth Grist Mill in Plymouth opened its doors for the annual herring run — nearly ten thousand river herring swimming upstream to spawn, as they have every spring for longer than anyone can remember. Children could make fish artwork at stations along the way. It was, in its quiet way, the most ancient thing on the calendar: life insisting on itself, right on schedule.
April in Boston offered a scatter of reasons to leave the couch—or, in the pandemic moment of 2021, to stay on it and invite the world in through a screen. The month's cultural calendar held something for nearly everyone: the curious eater, the music lover, the person who wanted to think about injustice without leaving home, the parent hunting for something to do with restless children.
On April 15, Adrian Miller was coming to talk about barbecue. Not the casual backyard kind, but the deep history—the African American architects and practitioners who shaped what barbecue became in this country. Miller had written the book on it, literally: Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue. The Boston Book Festival was hosting him through their Authors Live in Your Living Room series, a pandemic-era adaptation that let people tune in from their own kitchens. Tickets started at fifteen dollars. The event began at 6:30 p.m., and the festival's website had registration details.
That same evening, four singers from different continents were gathering virtually. Annette Philip, Débo Ray, Giorgia Renosto, and Ayumi Ueda, all members of Women of the World, planned to perform songs rooted in Bulgaria, Japan, Haiti, and other places. The Concert Series of Boston was presenting it. They would sing at 7:30 p.m., then stay for questions. It was free, though you had to register ahead of time.
Starting April 17, Merrimack Repertory Theatre was streaming Until the Flood, a play by Dael Orlandersmith, a Pulitzer finalist. The work circled around the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and what came after—the protests, the grief, the searching for something to hold onto. You could watch it anytime between April 17 and May 2. Tickets began at twenty-nine dollars.
On April 23, MIT was hosting a movie night with a twist. The film was The Martian, Matt Damon stranded on Mars, a story about survival and problem-solving. But after the screening—which you'd rent and watch on your own at 6:30 p.m.—you could join a live conversation with MIT researchers who had actually worked on Mars missions. The webinar was free. You just had to sign up.
The last event was the only one that required you to leave the house and go somewhere real. On April 24, Plimoth Grist Mill in Plymouth was hosting a herring run. Nearly ten thousand river herring were expected to swim upstream to Billington Sea to spawn, as they did every spring. The mill had set up stations where children could make fish artwork while everyone watched the migration happen. The mill was open from 1 to 4 p.m. Admission was $6.95 for kids, $7.95 for seniors, $8.95 for adults. If you wanted more details, you could call 508-746-1622.
These five events, scattered across two weeks, represented the shape of cultural life in that particular moment—some things still digital, some things beginning to venture back into the physical world, all of them offering a way to think about something beyond the immediate and the ordinary.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
Adrian Miller was discussing the stories and impacts that African Americans have had on barbecue as an American cuisine— Boston Book Festival event description
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