LITTLE ROCK — Elsewhere in entertainment and the arts this weekend:
Tickets - $75, $44.50 and $26.50 plus handling charges - for a 7 p.m. April 1 concert by country star Kenny Chesney at North Little Rock’s Verizon Arena go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday at the arena box office and Ticketmaster outlets. Chesney’s “very special guests” on his 2011 Goin’ Coastal Tour are Billy Currington and Uncle Kracker. There is a 10-ticket limit in the first hour of the sale; the arena is using its “paperless ticket” system for up to 2,500 seats. Call (800) 745-3000 or visit ticketmaster.com.
Soprano Cao Jin, who directs the opera program at East China Normal University, will sing the “Queen of Night” aria from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute; “Vilja” from The Merry Widow by Franz Lehar; and “I Love You, China” with the Conway Symphony Orchestra and conductor Israel Getzov in a concert called Beauty and the Brahms. The event will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall, University of Central Arkansas, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway. Yuan Wang of Quingdao, China, will play the guzheng, a 21-stringed Chinese zither, in Guzheng Fantasy by Jian-Min Wang to open the concert;Getzov will also conduct the orchestra in the Symphony No. 2 in D major, op.73, by Johannes Brahms. Concert sponsors are the Ralph Behrens Legacy and former CSO board members. Tickets are $6-$38. Call (501) 450-3265 or visit uca.edu/tickets.
Tel Aviv-based jazz musician Amir Gwirtzman will play more than 20 instruments in a concert titled Inhale-Exhale at7 p.m. Saturday in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, Fine Arts Building, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2801 S. University Ave. The concert is under the auspices of UALR Public Radio - stations KUARFM 89.1, and KLRE-FM, 90.5 - and the Hot Springs Music Festival. Gwirtzman, predominantly a saxophone player, will also perform on various woodwinds, horns, bagpipes and percussion. Tickets are $15, $5 for students. Call (501) 569-8485 or visit kuar.org.
A comedy show-concert featuring Mr. Brown & Cora (David and Tamela Mann) will be onstage at 8 p.m. Friday at Robinson Center Music Hall, West Markham Street and Broadway, Little Rock. Doors open at 7. Promoters Tillymann Music and Southern Torch Entertainment and local presenter Street Jam Events promise “100 percent clean comedy and musical performances.” Tickets are $32.50 plus handling charges. Call (501) 975-7575 or visit tick etmaster.com.
The Weekend Theater will offer a performance of its current production, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson, at 7 p.m. today as a benefitfor The Living Affected Corporation, a nonprofit that provides HIV prevention, testing and counseling services. Tickets are $30. Call (877) 902-7448 or visit lacorponline.org.
Conway Community Arts Association will stage two short one-act plays - Graceland by Ellen Byron, about the first day that Elvis Presley’s home opened to the public, and Chicks by Grace McKeaney, a one-woman show with Ashley Carnahan playing a kindergarten teacher who has specific opinions on life, parents and school administrators - at 7:30 p.m. today-Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in McCastlain Hall, University of Central Arkansas, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway.The plays are recommended for mature audiences. Tickets are $10, $5 for students in advance, $12 and $ 7 at the door, except for Saturday’s performance, a special fundraising event for the theater, with a 6 p.m. reception including music, food and a silent auction; tickets are $35, $50 per couple. Call (501) 733-6220 or visit conwayarts.org.
The Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas will hold a reception, 5-7 p.m. today for the exhibit “Collaborations: Two Decades of African-American Art,” on display through May 28 at the center, 701 Main St., PineBluff. The exhibit, curated by Hearne Fine Art Gallery in Little Rock and Arts & Science Center curator Howard Spencer, features paintings, sculpture, photography and limited-edition books by Arkansas, national and international artists. Admission is free. Call (870) 536-3375 or visit artssciencecenter.org.
The Thea Foundation will hold a reception for the “Martin Luther King Elementary Exhibition” during Argenta’s 3rd Friday Night ArtWalk, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Friday at the foundation’s Center for the Arts, 401 Main St., North Little Rock. The event will feature a meet-andgreet with the young artists and performances by the MLK jazz band and orchestra. Profits from art sales will go to the Thea Foundation Scholarship Program. Admission is free. Call (501) 379-9512.
Scratch Track , an “acoustic hip-hop soul” duo - MC, singer, and songwriter David “DJ” Lee and songwriter and guitarist Jason Hamlin - will perform at 7:30 p.m. today in the Owen Center Theater at Arkansas State University-Beebe, 1000 Iowa St., Beebe. Tickets are $10, $5 for senior citizens, students, members of the military and teachers; free (two tickets) to ASUBeebe students, faculty and staff with ID. Call (501) 882-8951.
Weekend, Pages 35 on 02/17/2011