Ghosts of times gone by

Take a step back in time at the 4th annual Spirits of New Mexico and discover a diverse group of characters from New Mexico’s past. Hear amazing and sometimes little-known stories of bygone eras and events. The outdoor presentation starts at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 23, at El Rancho de las Golondrinas (334 Los Pinos Road, 505-471-2261, golondrinas.org), New Mexico’s premier living history museum. Lit by lanterns and campfires, the local historic site takes on a spooky Halloween atmosphere for this family-friendly event. It’s El Rancho’s last event of the season and the only one that happens at night. Tickets are $8 per person (discounts available); children 12 and under are free, but all will require advance tickets. Purchase tickets at holdmyticket.com/ event/381760. Masks are required for indoor spaces but are not required for outdoor events unless unvaccinated and in close contact with others. — Michael Abatemarco

The most wonderful time of year

Republican parents welcome their liberal children home for the holidays in Other Desert Cities, a play by Jon Robin Baltz. Daughter Brooke is a depressive with a family-secret-packed memoir set for publication; son Trip is a reality television producer. They still love their uptight parents, but tensions are high, with Aunt Silda delighting in bringing buried feelings to the surface. Other Desert Cities opened on Broadway in 2011 with a star-studded cast, including Stacy Keach, Judith Light, and Stockard Channing in what Ben Brantley of The New York Times hailed as a career performance. Nicholas Ballas directs a cast of Santa Fe theater favorites, including Eric Devlin and Leslie Harrell Dillen, in the New Mexico Actors Lab production. It opens at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 28, at 1213 Parkway Drive. Performances continue at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays–Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Nov. 14. Tickets are $25. 505-395-6576, nmactorslab.com — Jennifer Levin

A formal feeling comes

Melissa Green’s first book was a sensation. Published in 1987, The Squanicook Eclogues won the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America and the Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her second book was a memoir, Color Is the Suffering of Light (1995), in which she revealed an abusive childhood touched by alcoholism. Her old-fashioned, formal style has earned her comparisons to Emily Dickinson, and, like Dickinson, Green is known as reclusive. She suffers from depression so severe that in 2013 she underwent electroshock therapy treatments that wiped out her memory of being a poet. But she is writing again, and she reads at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 23, in an installment of Poets in Conversation, an online streaming series hosted by Phyllis Klein out of the San Francisco Bay Area. Green reads with Santa Fe poet Karen Petersen. The reading is free. To register and receive a Zoom link, email phyllis@phyllispoetry.com. — J.L.