Theater and Art

Summer theater traditionally kicks off with Shakespeare outdoors, and Cal Shakes in Orinda handles that nicely next weekend with the elegiac late masterwork "The Tempest." Of course, you can ignore Shakespeare and the outdoors all together with other offerings, from Danielle Moné Truitt's "3," which receives its Sacramento premiere June 7, to the classic Music Circus, which debuts at the end of June with a revamped schedule.

B Street Theatre stalwart and associate producer Jerry Montoya along with his 11-year-old son, Malachi, have taken something of a "Wicked" route with their new adaptation of "Hansel and Gretel" for the B Street Family Series.

The human figure has been a central image in art since prehistoric times. As demonstrated by "Focus on the Figure," a show of works by nine artists at the Pence Gallery, it still is a vital focus for contemporary artists.

This to do, starting today with ZuhG, Element of Soul and Playboy School bring funk and jam to the Cesar Chavez Plaza

Ticket sales for events through the summer

The young playwright A. Rey Pamatmat unevenly merges two different themes in his new drama "Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them," now at the B Street Theatre in its B3 series.

Paula Vogel's knotty, time-shifting memory play "How I Learned to Drive" takes a meandering road to a gloomy lesson learned for its main character, Li'l Bit.

Jay Welden's watercolors of mountainous landscapes and watery byways are big, bold, and vigorous. Hiking up into the remote country around his home near Strawberry up Highway 50, Welden gives us plein-air paintings done on site, as evidenced from a group of photos that show his working process.

"Wicked," a different story of the Wicked Witch of the West and what happened in Oz before Dorothy and Toto got there, is on pace to become the most successful musical in Broadway's history.

Parks officials in the Truckee-Donner area are seeking community input on the feasibility of a performing arts center in the area.

From some of the earliest days of professional theater, acting troupes have traveled from city to city and town to town with their productions.

Local legend Kathy Barwick has been a reliable, sought-after player on the local music scene for the past 20 years. A nationally known flatpicking guitarist, Barwick also is a virtuoso on dobro, plus she can more than ably handle the mandolin and banjo.

As Capital Stage artistic director Stephanie Gularte sat comfortably on a stool on a bare stage in her company's new theater on J Street, colorful slides flickered by on the screen near her.

The Sacramento-based Instituto Mazatlan Bellas Artes de Sacramento has been chosen for a National Endowment for the Arts "Art Works" grant.

At 66 and desperately ill with the recurrence of an aggressive form of non- Hodgkins lymphoma, Davis artist Gay Powers needed to move closer to the Sutter Cancer Center in Sacramento to prepare for the stem-cell transplant that doctors say is her best hope.

The works of legendary Bay Area Figurative painter Theophilus Brown, who died in February at the age of 92, were prized by his fellow artists.

Lisa Lacy carries a great deal of ambition for her Images Theatre Company, both in the present and the near future.

Carlo Gozzi's dark 18th century commedia dell'arte fairy tale "The King Stag" takes us to the Kingdom of Serendippo and a court full of amorous intrigue. The king is auditioning women to be his queen, while all along there is one who loves him for who he really is rather than the power and wealth he enjoys.

First it was a rock concert by Korn. Then came the Metropolitan Opera. And now boxing and live radio are being shown in cinemas across the United States.

The Sacramento Theater Company has announced its new season of productions for 2012-13, which will see it stage seven shows in its two theaters, including one world premiere musical on the Main Stage.

Clay can be thrown on a wheel, molded, coiled, rolled into slabs, carved, kneaded, thinned and poured, burnished or glazed, and then fired into a hard substance that mimics nature or revels in its own materiality.

Obscured by elevated Interstate 5 and overshadowed by its glitzier cousin, the Tower Bridge, the utilitarian I Street Bridge is finally getting some attention after a century of carrying trains, trucks and cars between downtown and West Sacramento.

"Once" began as a whimsical little film, an unlikely love story that was charming enough to become an unlikely cult classic and even unlikelier Oscar winner for its hypnotic love song, "Falling Slowly."

Playwright Kate Fodor's sharp-witted, laugh-out-loud new comedy "Rx" poses a familiar vexing paradox for its main characters.

Alan Menken and Howard Ashman's popular chamber musical "Little Shop of Horrors" has always thrived on cheeky simplicity. The story of a Faustian bond between an otherworldly plant that feeds on human blood and the unassuming florist shop worker who nurtures it provides comic guilty pleasure.

Gina Werfel's abstractions at Alex Bult Gallery prompt comparisons with the works of abstract expressionists Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell.

Sacramento's art community is buzzing over the sudden closure of the Solomon Dubnick Gallery, one of the region's most prestigious and venerable art showcases.

KOLT Run Productions continues its "Revelations: 2012" season with comic writer Rachel Axler's dark spoof "Smudge." Axler, who won an Emmy Award writing for Jon Stewart's "Daily Show," also has written for the often hysterical television show "Parks and Recreation."

The Bee picks of the best things to do this week.

Two shows that explore the art of angling prompt thoughts about the relationship between fishing and making art.

Last year at this time, the Sacramento Theatre Company was in the process of cutting loose its then-artistic director Matt K. Miller and replacing him with an executive director, Steve Barkett.

The Crocker Art Museum announced that it will be the recipient of a collection by California Impressionist painter Guy Rose.

Considering the fact that most people think playwright Jane Martin is actually former Actors Theatre of Louisville artistic director Jon Jory, it's fascinating that Martin's expertise lies in creating smartly developed women characters.

The solidly entertaining "Million Dollar Quartet" is less about the ground-breaking rock 'n' roll stars of the title and more about the man who discovered them.

California Musical Theatre announced today the lineup for the 2012-13 Broadway Sacramento series, the 24th year the company has presented touring Broadway musicals.

Elvis Presley strolled into the Memphis studios of Sun Records with his friend Marilyn Evans on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 1956, and when they left a few hours later, history had been made.

The heartbreaking beauty of Stephen Sondheim's moving "Merrily We Roll Along" inevitably comes in its final moments.

The next-to-last program of the Sacramento Ballet's 2011-12 season has a fitting title, and it comes from the company's co-artistic directors, Carinne Binda and Ron Cunningham.

This artist commits herself, all-or-nothing, to interpreting each song. Now 66, she has welcomed new fans since the release of 2010 album "Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook."

People still remember the TV show. In 1996, PBS produced a one-hour special on "Sagebrush Symphony," the Michael Martin Murphey album that brought Western music and orchestra together.

Veteran vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson represents the gold standard in not only jazz musicians but human beings.

Entertainment events in the Sacramento region.

Gina Werfel's gestural abstractions are layered with evidence of the actions of their making. Her immediate and improvisational markings achieve a kinship with music and dance.

In the new one-man show "Barrymore" at the Sacramento Theatre Company, the sodden John Barrymore comes off like an amiable drunk.

Less than 12 hours after learning of Thomas Kinkade's death, gallery co-owner Nathan Ross found himself trying to handle the overwhelming demand inside the two-story building on Placerville's main drag.

Most galleries have some sort of back room, where they keep examples of works by artists they represent. Some are as small as file drawers where works on paper can be stored. Others are warehouses where large paintings and sculptures dwell.

Thomas Kinkade, the "Painter of Light" who made a fortune as art critics scoffed at his paintings of landscapes, cottages and churches inspired by his boyhood in Placerville, died Friday at 54.

The clock is ticking for the B Street Theatre in its effort to raise the remaining $8 million sought for a proposed $24 million theater complex.

Today Easter Eggstravaganza

In 1965, a relatively unknown singing group with the name the Fifth Dimension, very much in sync with the times, recorded a song called "Up, Up and Away" with unlikely lyrics about flying in a "beautiful balloon."