Elsewhere in arts and entertainment:
Collegiate showcase
Five Arkansas college musicians, finalists for the annual “Trinity Collegiate Performance Showcase” at Trinity United Methodist Church, will perform at 6 p.m. Sunday at the church, 1101 N. Mississippi St., Little Rock.
All five finalists will receive cash prizes. A panel of guest judges will determine the overall winner, who will receive an additional cash award. Admission is free. Call (501) 666-2813.
Pianist Ting-Huan Chang, working with Neil Rutman in the Graduate Certificate Program at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, will play L’isle joyeuse by Claude Debussy and one of the Songs Without Words by Felix Mendelssohn. Adonias Finch, trumpet, a senior at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, will perform Caprice by Eugene Bozza and an arrangement of “Amazing Grace” with pianist Lauren Schack Clark. Violinist Madeleine Hogue, a University of Arkansas at Fayetteville sophomore, and pianist Jonathan Merritt will play the third movement of Camille Saint-Saens’ Violin Concerto No. 3. Soprano Caitlin Secrest, a senior at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, and pianist Phyllis Walker will perform songs by Jerry Bock, Jonathan Reid Gealt and Gaetano Donizetti. Countertenor Matthew Walker, a senior at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, will perform an opera aria, a spiritual and a show tune with pianist Hunter Mabery.
Branching out
North Little Rock’s William F. Laman Public Library System will hold the grand opening of its new Argenta branch, in the former downtown post office, 420 Main St., at 10 a.m. Saturday with music by Rodney Block and the Real Music Lovers. A performance by the Arkansaw Toothpick Theater of The Front Porch Jubilee vaudeville-style variety show follows at 11 a.m.
Afternoon activities kick off at 12:30 p.m. with “Tail Waggin’ Tutors,” in which children get to sit with and read to dogs.Sandra Taylor Smith, director of the North Little Rock History Commission, and Otto Seay, a postal employee from 1958 to 1990, discuss the history of the downtown post office in a 2 p.m. gallery talk. Arts and crafts activities will take place throughout the day in the children’s department. Admission is free.
Branch hours will be 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Call (501) 687-1061 or visit lamanlibrary.org.
Hats and purses
Esse Purse Museum & Store, 1510 S. Main St., Little Rock, will mark the history of the hat with an exhibit, “The Milliner’s Art,” which opens Sunday with a 1-4 p.m. tea-and-scones reception. The exhibit, curated from the collections of Anita Davis and Catherine Nugent and up through June 8, covers seven decades of hat history.
Museum admission is $10, $8 for senior citizens and students; hours are 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Call (501) 916-9022.
Short-play showcase
Pulaski Technical College students will present a “Spring Theater Comedy Showcase,” featuring seven short comic plays, at 2 and 7 p.m. today and Friday in the R.J. Wills Lecture Hall, second floor, Campus Center, on the college’s main campus, 3000 W. Scenic Drive, North Little Rock. The lineup: Live Action News Now With 10% More Action and Check Please by Jonathan Rand and Close Shave, The Talking Shopping Cart, The Cell Phone Rings for Thee, Un Restaurant and Gary’s Endurance Roast by Werner Trieschmann. Tickets are $5. Call (501) 812-2338.Spa City stage
The Pocket Community Theatre, 170 Ravine St., Hot Springs, will stage Over the River and Through the Woods by Joe DiPietro at 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday and April 11-12 and 2:30 p.m. Sunday and April 13. Tickets are $10, $5 for K-12 students. Call (501) 623-8585 or visit pockettheatre.com.
Much Ado auditions
Saline County Shakes will hold auditions at 2 p.m. April 12-13 for William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing at Tyndall Park Amphitheatre, 913 E. Sevier St., Benton. Auditions will consist of cold readings from the script. Lisa Goodrich will direct. Production dates are June 12-14 and June 19-21 at the amphitheater. Call (501) 249-3169 or email salinecountyshakes@gmail.com.
One-act operas
University of Central Arkansas Opera Theatre students will perform three oneact operas - Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge, Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Telephone and Seymour Barab’s La Pizza con Funghi - at 7:30 p.m. today-Sunday in the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall, UCA, 201 Donaghey Ave., Conway. Admission is free. Call (501) 450-5762 or email roberth@uca.edu.
Banding together
The Natural State Brass Band and conductor Rusty Morris will give a concert at 7:30 p.m. today at the Maumelle Performing Arts Center, Maumelle High School, 101 Victory Lane. Larry Crenshaw will be the flugelhorn soloist on “Misty” by Johnny Burke and Errol Garner; Bill West will solo on bass trombone in an arrangement of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” The program will also include marches, tunes and arrangements of tunes by Malcolm Arnold, Leonard Bernstein, Percy Grainger, Chuck Mangione, Giaocchino Rossini and Karl L. King. Area adman and voice-over artist Neal Moore will be the master of ceremonies. Admission is $5; all proceeds benefit the Maumelle High band program. Call (501) 765-1638.
A cappella sextet
Nashville-based a cappella sextet Street Corner Symphony, runners-up on the second season of NBC’s The Sing Off, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday in Riceland Hall at Arkansas State University’s Fowler Center, 201 Olympic Drive, Jonesboro. Tickets are $30 and $20, $23 and $15 for senior citizens and students. Call (870) 972-2781 or (888) 278-3267 or visit astate.edu/tickets.
Faulkner County tales
Tales From the South has set a special Faulkner County show, 7 p.m. Saturday at the Faulkner County Library, 1900 Tyler St., Conway. Admission to the show, featuring county residents telling their true stories, is free; tickets to a pre-show, 5:30 p.m. fish fry dinner, limited to 100, $10, available online at tinyurl.com/pqbsyv2. Jeff Clanton will perform. The show will be taped for later broadcast; the broadcasts air at 7 p.m. Thursday on public station KUAR-FM, 89.1. Visit talesfromthesouth.com, call (501) 327-7482 or email Nancy@fcl.org.
Homesteading forum
The first South Arkansas Homesteading Conference on Saturday at the Pioneer Village, 200 Yaney Drive, Rison, will focus on practical information on small-scale farming and sustainable living. The conference is a collaboration between the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture’s Cooperative Extension Service and the Cleveland County Herald. Gates open at 9 a.m.; the first five hour-long seminars, “Solar Power on the Small Farm/Homestead,” starts at 10, followed by “Plant Propagation/Seed Saving,” “Raised Bed/Square Foot Gardening,” “Practical Reasons for Homesteading” and “Herbal Preparations.” Call (870) 325-6412, email ccherald@tds.net or visit arkansashomesteader.com.
Weekend, Pages 32 on 04/03/2014