FILM | Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation

Deeply troubled festival organizers Spike and Mike celebrate their 25th year of showcasing crude, ultra-violent and occasionally thought-provoking shorts. This year’s show is all new, featuring such titles as “How To Cope With Death,” “Mama I’m a Thug” and “The Big Abandoned Refrigerator Adventure.” Approach with caution and a strong stomach; once you’ve paid the admission fee, you’ll feel obligated to sit through even the most shudder-inducing clips. Tickets $9. Fridays and Saturdays, midnight. Runs through May 22. Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St., Brookline. (BBC)

THEATER | The Crucible

The Harvard Law School presents a modernist interpretation of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Director and professor Bruce Hay envisions the play as a parable of racial intolerance, including a controversial scene from the original script that’s found in the appendix and rarely performed, suggesting racial undertones in the work. Tickets $5 with Harvard I.D. (HBO). 7:30 p.m., with additional Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. Runs through April 24. Ames Courtroom Auditorium, Austin Hall, HLS. (BBC)

THEATER | Iolanthe

The Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players are putting on Iolanthe, this season’s offering of Gilbert and Sullivan’s zany operatic musing. The operetta follows the story of a band of fairies, residents of Fairyland, who attempt to reunite the half-fairy, half-mortal son of Iolanthe with his true love. Tickets: Evenings $12/$10 regular, $8/$6 students and seniors; Matinees $10/$8 regular, $6/$4 students and seniors. Through Saturday, April 17. Agassiz Theatre. (SLS)

THEATER | Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

The Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club presents a production of this drama by Tom Stoppard (author of Travesties, The Real Thing and Shakespeare in Love). The play, an imaginative retelling of Hamlet from the perspective of two of its minor characters, won the 1968 Tony Award for Best Play. Tickets: regular $12; students (2 per I.D.) $8; seniors: $8; groups of 10 or more $7. Through Saturday, April 17. Loeb Mainstage. (SLS)

THEATER | A Streetcar Named Desire

Tennessee Williams’ classic play is coming to the west end of Eliot’s now cramped dining hall, under the direction of David Kimel. The production also marks the revival of the Eliot House Drama Society. Tickets $5 with Harvard I.D. (HBO). Through Saturday, April 17. Eliot House Dining Hall. (BBC)

VISUALS | Bussewitz Photography Exhibit

The exhibit presents the work of naturalist-educator Albert Bussewitz, a dedicated student of the Arboretum landscape. His photographs are on loan from the Masachusetts Audubon Society’s Visual Arts Center in Canton, Mass. Through May 17. Hunnewell Building Lecture Hall, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain. (BBC)

VISUALS | Design-Recline

Chair enthusiasts won’t want to miss this new exhibit at the Busch-Reisinger, which tracks the development of the chaise lounge from 1928 to 1955. The exhibit promises to examine “in a fresh way the now well-known tenets of modern architecture, from the radical use of new materials and technology to concepts of indoor-outdoor living and issues of sickness and health.” Runs March 20 through July 11 at the Busch-Reisinger Museum. (NAS)

VISUALS | Gary Schneider: Portraits