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I wasn’t really sure what to expect from /peh-LO-tah/. A new, multi-disciplinary work considering soccer and the African American experience. But Thursday night rolled around and it was showtime. The front half of Hancher’s theater was packed, and there was a certain excitement in the air, the excitement coming from not knowing what to expect. That feeling continued even as the lights went down and the show started.

Devout fans of literature and aspiring writers sat down under the lights of the beautiful Hancher Strauss Hall to hear a reading from multi-genre author and Pulitzer-Prize finalist Kelly Link. Link began the reading with a haunting yet humorous passage from her short story, “I Can See Right Through You.” In a somewhat conversational manner, she functioned as a ghost-story teller by the campfire, depicting the tale of an actress’ run-ins with fame, a demon lover, and a missing nudist colony.

On Monday evening, the multi-hyphenate actor-singer Leslie Odom Jr., most famous for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in the smash hit musical Hamilton, performed and spoke to a nearly full crowd in Hancher. Odom opened with two jazz-style pieces before outlining his life leading up to and after Hamilton.

Keith Lockhart has been crisscrossing the globe this winter for pleasure and business, but he ties them both together. It’s part of the mission he loves, in bringing the Boston Pops Orchestra to the masses. “We feel the Boston Pops is America’s orchestra, and that our constituency really stretches across the country,” Lockhart, 57, said by phone from Boston. He’s home, after traveling the past month on a Pops tour to Florida, a jaunt to Iceland to celebrate his wife’s birthday by viewing the Northern Lights, followed by a family trip Florida, then on to his other job with the BBC in London, then home before going back to London and “before I come out and greet the Midwest,” he said.