ENTERTAINMENT NOTES

Fayetteville's Walton center to host dance, drum events

Wendy Whelan and Christopher Duggan will dance Restless Creature when Whelan and her company perform Saturday at Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville.
Wendy Whelan and Christopher Duggan will dance Restless Creature when Whelan and her company perform Saturday at Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville.

Correction: Brian Brooks is dancing with Wendy Whelan in a photograph that ran with this story. The caption misidentified the male dancer.

Ballerina Wendy Whelan will headline her contemporary ballet production Restless Creature, featuring the works of four choreographers and dancers, 8 p.m. Saturday in Baum Walker Hall at Fayetteville's Walton Arts Center, 495 W. Dickson St. The center's vice president of programming, Jenni Taylor Swain, and a "special guest" will take part in a pre-show Creative Conversation at 7 p.m. in the center's Starr Theater.

Also, So Percussion, a contemporary percussion group based at Yale University, will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Baum Walker Hall. The members play standard and unusual percussion instruments, including amplified cactus, bowed marimba, aluminum pipes and the German glockenspiel.

Both shows are part of the center's 10x10 Arts Series. Tickets are $10-$25. Call (479) 443-5600 or visit waltonartscenter.org.

The Rainmaker

The life of the plain, spinster daughter of a craggy Dust Bowl, Depression-era 1930s farmer takes a twist when a fast-talking charmer shows up and promises to make it rain for $100 in N. Richard Nash's 1954 drama The Rainmaker, onstage Tuesday-May 16 at Murry's Dinner Playhouse, 6323 Colonel Glenn Road, Little Rock.

Katharine Hepburn played Lizzie Curry (and received an Oscar nomination) and Burt Lancaster played Bill Starbuck in a 1956 film. A 1982 made-for-television version starred Tuesday Weld and Tommy Lee Jones. Nash also helped adapt the play into the 1963 stage musical 110 in the Shade, with a score by the Fantasticks team of Harvey Schmidt (music) and Tom Jones (lyrics).

Curtain times are 7:45 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday (12:45 p.m. matinees only, Wednesdays through April 29), 12:45 and 6:45 p.m. Sunday. Doors and the buffet open 90 minutes before curtain. Tickets are $32-$36, $26 for children 15 and younger; show only, $25, $15 for children. Call (501) 562-3131 or visit murrysdp.com.

Symphony auditions

The Symphony of Northwest Arkansas is holding auditions for its 2015-16 season April 23 and 24 in Fayetteville. Opening spots are:

• Assistant Concertmaster/Section Violin I

• Associate Principal/Section Violin II

• Associate Principal/Section Viola

• Associate Principal/Section Bass

• Oboe II

• Oboe III/English Horn

• Clarinet III/Bass Clarinet

• Trumpet III

• Principal Tuba

• String, Wind, Brass substitutes

Applicants should send a one-page resume to personnel manager Jarrett Bastow, bastow.jarrett@gmail.com. No telephone inquiries. The deadline is 5 p.m. Friday.

Auditions require two solo works, each by different composers, one demonstrating technical proficiency and the other demonstrating lyrical style. There are also required excerpts for each instrument listed on the website.

Visit sonamusic.org.

Jazz at UALR

British musicians Trevor Watts, saxophone, and Veryan Weston, piano, bring their 40 years of improvisation experience to a guest artist jazz concert in Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2801 S. University Ave. at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Admission is free. Call (501) 569-3101 or visit ualr.edu/music.

Nat 'King' Cole

The Fort Smith Symphony salutes great 20th-century artists in its spring concert, The Nat "King" Cole Songbook, 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the ArcBest Performing Arts Center, 55 S. Seventh St., Fort Smith.

The concert will start off with Leonard Bernstein's overture to Candide, followed by George Gershwin's An American in Paris. After the intermission, Canadian jazz vocalist Denzal Sinclaire will join the symphony for a performance of songs including "Mona Lisa," "Walkin' My Baby Back Home" and "Route 66."

Tickets are $35 and $40, $15 and $20 for students. Call (479) 452-7575 or visit fortsmithsymphony.org.

ASO on the road

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra will present a concert of favorites, including "Born on the Fourth of July," "Clarinet Candy" and "Sandpaper Ballet," at 8 p.m. Saturday in Arkansas Tech's Witherspoon Auditorium, Russellville. The concert is presented by the Russellville Symphony Guild, which will also host a pre-concert reception at 6 p.m. at the Lakepoint Conference Center. Reserved seating tickets with reception admission are $25. General admission tickets are $10, $5 for students. Call (479) 880-7523.

Style on 04/12/2015

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