Check out a new play about Pittsburgh’s Freedom House, the first mobile emergency medical unit, listen to cutting-edge contemporary music at the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium — here’s what to do in Pittsburgh this weekend.

Words
“Somewhere, a man arrives home from work / in streetlight darkness, car door etching itself / on the street’s silence. Inside, leftovers on the stove. / A woman in her robe prepares his plate.” So begins the first poem in “Late Invocation for Magic,” Jim Daniels’ new collection of new and selected works. Daniels has lived in Pittsburgh for decades but his acclaimed poems and stories often evoke the working-class Detroit where he grew up. He appears Thu., Jan. 22, at Carnegie Lecture Hall, in Oakland, as part of Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures’ Poets Aloud series. Admission is free.

Theater
Maybe you knew Pittsburgh’s Hill District was the first place in the U.S. to host a mobile emergency medical unit staffed by trained paramedics. It was called Freedom House, and it ran from 1967 to 1975. Now Prime Stage Theatre presents “Freedom House: Giving Life a Second Chance,” the first stage production to tell the story. Pittsburgh-based L.E. McCullough’s play gets seven performances Fri., Jan. 23, through Feb. 1 at the New Hazlett Theater.

Opera
Pittsburgh Opera stages a rare production of legendary composer Benjamin Britten’s “Curlew River.” The 1964 opera is based on a Japanese noh play about a woman driven mad by her son’s disappearance, who then has a chance encounter with a ferryman. Britten and librettist William Plomer recast the story as a Christian parable set in England. The production, with baritone Erik Nordstrom as the Ferryman and tenor Logan Wagner as the Madwoman, is staged Shadyside’s Calvary Episcopal Church. It gets four performances Sat., Jan. 24, through Feb. 1.

Music
Pittsburgh’s Music on the Edge opens its 36th season of cutting-edge contemporary music with a free show by the Steel Collective and Pittsburgh-based composer and bassist Ryan McMasters. The Steel Collective is the University of Pittsburgh’s graduate-student contemporary music ensemble. McMasters joins them to perform works from his solo bass repertoire and more. The show is 2 p.m. Sun., Jan. 25, at the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, in Oakland.

Words
Celebrated Cameroonian author Patrice Nganang visits Alphabet City to kick off the new year of City of Asylum’s World Literature series. Nganang, known for his trilogy of novels about his home country’s history, has been arrested and detained for his criticism of Cameroon’s dictatorship. On Tue., Jan. 27, Nganang, who now lives in the U.S., will be in conversation with COAP’s Anderson Tepper about his new memoir, “Scale Boy: An African Childhood.” The event is free but reservations are suggested.

Dance
No daughter of Pittsburgh has loomed larger in dance than Martha Graham, born in Allegheny City in 1894. She revolutionized the art form, and her eponymous dance troupe remains the oldest in the country. This year, the Martha Graham Dance Company marks 100 years, and its international slate of shows includes, appropriately enough, a stop in Pittsburgh. The troupe performs GRAHAM100 Wed., Jan. 28, at the Byham Theater, courtesy of the Pittsburgh Dance Council.