THEATER
‘Official’ Cash concert
A band and cast of singers perform in sync with the “Man in Black” as projections of video from episodes of “The Johnny Cash Show” appear on a screen above the stage in “Johnny Cash — The Official Concert Experience,” which will kick off a national tour with weeks of tech rehearsals and tour-opening performances at 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Oct. 15 at Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center, 495 W. Dickson St. Tickets are $35-$69. Call (479) 443-5600 or visit waltonartscenter.org.
The show revisits some of Cash’s memorable words and anecdotes, stories of people whose causes he championed and performances of some of Cash’s biggest hits, including “Folsom Prison Blues,”https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2023/oct/07/entertainment-notes-official-cash-concert/”Ring of Fire” and “I Walk the Line.” The show will also feature on-screen narration by Cash’s only son, John Carter Cash.
The production will be in technical rehearsals for several weeks leading up to those first performances, during which actors, designers, creative personnel and crew bring together the show’s technical elements, including sets, lights, costumes and the band.
The show makes two other Arkansas tour stops:
7 p.m. Nov. 1 at the Coulter Performing Arts Center, Vada Sheid Community Development Center, Arkansas State University-Mountain Home, 1600 S. College St., Mountain Home. Tickets are $45, $22.50 for students. Call (870) 508-6199.
7:30 p.m. Nov. 4 at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway. Tickets are $29-$89. Call (501) 244-8800 or visit CelebrityAttractions.com or Ticketmaster.com.
‘Addams’ musical
Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, 6323 Colonel Glenn Road, Little Rock, stages “The Addams Family” (music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, based on characters created in the cartoons of Charles Addams), starting with a 12:30 p.m. matinee preview Wednesday and a 7:30 p.m. preview Thursday and running through Nov. 11.
Gomez (Quinn Gasaway) and Morticia (Moriah Patterson) face a parental nightmare: Dark daughter Wednesday (Bridget Davis) is suddenly a young woman, and what’s worse, has fallen in love with a sweet, smart young man (Ethan Patterson) from a respectable family and they must host a dinner for the young man and his parents (Briana East and Tim Cooper). Don Bolinger plays Uncle Fester and David Craven plays Lurch.
The buffet opens 90 minutes before curtain time: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday (Wednesday matinees only, Oct. 11, 18 and 25) and 12:40 and 6:40 p.m. Sunday. Tickets (including meal and show) are $42-$44, $30 for children 15 and younger; $30 show only. Call (501) 562-3131 or visit murrysdp.com.
‘The Band’s Visit’
TheatreSquared, 477 W. Spring St., Fayetteville, stages the regional premiere of “The Band’s Visit” (music and lyrics by David Yazbek, book by Itamar Moses), 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday through Nov. 5. It’s a a musical adaptation of Eran Kolirin’s 2007 critically-acclaimed movie of the same name about a group of Egyptian musicians whose unexpected visit disrupts the daily routines of a small Israeli town. It’s a co-production with Chicago’s Writers Theatre. The 2017 Broadway production won 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Actor in a Musical, Best Actress in a Musical and Best Direction of a Musical. Tickets are $20-$64. Call (479) 777-7477 or visit theatre2.org.
“Beyond the Diagnosis,” 40 portraits that focus on people living with rare and neglected diseases, opens Monday Oct. 9 at Thea Foundation, 401 Main St., North Little Rock, and includes portraits of two Arkansas children: Rex Deloneys painting of Matthew Lance of Bella Vista and Diana Shearons painting of Kynnedi Sturges of Camden. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
ART & ARCHITECTURE
‘Beyond the Diagnosis’
“Beyond the Diagnosis,” a gallery of 40 portraits that “unites art and science to inspire research and innovation of treatments for people living with rare and neglected diseases,” according to a news release, opens Monday at Thea Foundation, 401 Main St., North Little Rock.
The exhibition, sponsored by Arkansas Children’s Hospital, includes portraits of two Arkansas children: Rex Deloney’s painting of Matthew Lance of Bella Vista, who has a rare combination of diagnoses related to an extra chromosome that isn’t documented anywhere else in medical literature, and Diana Shearon’s painting of Kynnedi Sturges, a sickle cell anemia patient from Camden. It’ll be up through Oct. 26. Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday.
The exhibition is traveling to medical schools, research institutes and hospitals around the globe encouraging the medical community to look “beyond the diagnosis” to the patient. Visit beyondthediagnosis.org.
Street photos
A pop-up exhibition of 12 street photographs by University of Arkansas at Little Rock senior Jacobb Nichol is on display Monday-Friday in the Focus Gallery of the Windgate Center of Art and Design at the university, 2801 S. University Ave., Little Rock. Nichol captured the photos while “beating the streets taking candid photographs of people in street settings.” Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, 2-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. Call (501) 916-5104 or email [email protected].
Fort Smith exhibitions
Three exhibitions open this month at the Fort Smith Regional Art Museum, 1601 Rogers Ave., Fort Smith:
“ArTs at Bost: Creativity, Connection, and Choices,” marking seven years of ArTs at Bost, which provides free art classes to individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities. The exhibition opened Saturday and runs through Feb. 4.
On display Oct. 21-Jan. 21: Landscapes by Martin Peerson of western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma, plus a selection of still lifes and portraits, and “River Journeys,” prints inspired by the works of the late Susan Morrison (1942-2023) that are part of the museum’s permanent collection that “showcase her profound connection to four scenic rivers in Arkansas: Buffalo, King, Illinois, and Mulberry, interwoven with her poetry,” according to a news release.
The museum holds an opening reception for all three exhibitions, 5-7 p.m. Oct. 20.
Museum hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission to the museum and the reception are free. Call (479) 784-2787 or visit fsram.org.
Primo Orpilla, co-founder of San Francisco design firm Studio O+A, gives a lecture titled “Workplace + Belonging” Tuesday at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in Little Rock. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
Architecture lecture
Primo Orpilla, co-founder of Studio O+A, a multidisciplinary San Francisco design firm, will give a lecture titled “Workplace + Belonging,” the kickoff for the Architecture and Design Network’s 2023-24 June Freeman lecture series, 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller Lecture Hall, Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, 501 E. Ninth St., Little Rock. It is also the Evo Business Environments Endowed Lecture in Interior Architecture and Design, in partnership with the University of Arkansas Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design. A welcome reception with refreshments will precede the lecture at 5:30 in the museum’s Cultural Living Room. Admission is free. Email [email protected].
On display at the Fort Smith Regional Art Center: “King River Falls 2” by Susan Morrison, “September Clouds” by Martin Peerson and “Self Portrait” by Katrina Norwood. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
On display currently or soon at the Fort Smith Regional Art Center: “King River Falls 2” by Susan Morrison, “September Clouds” by Martin Peerson and “Self Portrait” by Katrina Norwood. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
Street photographs by University of Arkansas at Little Rock senior Jacobb Nichol goes on display Monday in the Focus Gallery of UALR’s Windgate Center of Art and Design. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
Rom Barkhordar (left) plays as Tewfiq with Yael “Yaya” Reich as Dina in TheatreSquared’s production of “The Band’s Visit.” (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Wesley Hitt)
