Chicago rapper Twista offers smart rhymes, stylish beats and new material off this year’s album Kamikaze, which he teamed up with Ludacris and Jay-Z to record. Twista’s recent number one hit single “Slow Jamz” is sure to be a crowd favorite. Tickets $20.25. 18+. 7 p.m. Avalon Night Club, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston. (SLS)

Ongoing

COMEDY | My Hometown

The Immediate Gratification Players offer fun and laughs through improvisational comedy. Free, tickets required. Friday and Saturday 8 p.m. Adams Pool House 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, won the 1968 Tony Award for Best Play. Tickets: regular $12; students (2 per ID) $8; seniors: $8; groups of 10 or more $7. Through Saturday, April 17. Loeb Mainstage. (SLS)

THEATER | Iolanthe

The Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players are putting on Iolanthe, this season’s offering of Gilbert and Sullivan 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 Theater. (SLS)

FILM | On The Run

This is the first part of Lucas Belvaux’s The Trilogy, a cinematic experiment unfolding at the Brattle over the next three weeks. The experimental aspect is that each part in this loosely intertwined series (main characters in one film are reduced to supporting characters in the next) is done in a different genre and features a different central couple. On The Run, the thriller of the series stars Belvaux, the director, as Bruno, who has just broken out of jail. Bruno desperately desires revenge and an opportunity to spread his political gospel, but has to avoid Gilbert Melki, who has a Javert like obsession with tracking down Bruno. The Trilogy makes for interesting viewing, particularly for those who have wondered what main characters would look like from another point of view. Through Thursday, April 15. 5:30, 7:30 and 9:50 p.m., with addl. 2:40 showing on Saturday and Sunday. Brattle Theatre. (SAW)

Films

Au Hasard Balthazar

French director Robert Bresson’s 1966 classic is re-released to a public desperately in need of cinema that one imdb commentator terms “Intolerably Beautiful.” The film follows the journey of Balthazar, a donkey, from his happy early life, through his sojurn as a downtrodden beast of burden to his happy end-of-life working for a miller who thinks he is a reincarnated Saint. His journey parallels that of the lovely young girl who originally named Balthazar as she grows out of her beautific childhood into a terrible relationship where she is beaten by her sadistic lover. This film packs more soul per square inch than anything from the past two decades. (SAW)

The United States of Leland

Seemingly intelligent high school student Leland P. Fitzgerald (Ryan Gosling) has just killed an autistic boy for no clear reason. In Juvenile Hall, he has to come to terms with what he has done. Outside, his alcoholic father (Kevin Spacey), his girlfriend (Jena Malone) and others in the community grapple with the repercussions of this terrible act of violence. What does it mean for their community? Although many critics have mocked it as a now predictable execration of the darkness behind modern suburbia, in this time of school shootings and anti-depressants, this is certain to be interesting and intentionally boundary pushing. (SAW)

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself

Although this is not a title you’d normally associate with humor, Lone Scherfig’s Swedish film is a dryly sweet comedy. Harbour and Wilbur have inherited their father’s used book store and Harbour has inherited the task of taking care of his suicidally depressed younger brother. One day, Alice and her young daughter Mary walk into the book shop and sparks fly. Soon, a romantic quadrangle develops and this man who has never liked life learns to love it. (SAW)

—Happening was compiled by Mickey A. Muldoon ’07 Sarah L. Solorzano ’05 and Scoop A. Wasserstein ’07.