FUN
The North American tour of the musical “Hadestown,” blending modern American folk music with New Orleans-inspired jazz as it follows two entwining love stories — between young dreamers Orpheus and Eurydice and that of Hades, king of the underworld, and his wife, Persephone — spends the weekend at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway: 7:30 p.m. Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 p.m. Sunday. (501) 244-8800; CelebrityAttractions.com or Ticketmaster.com
Ballet Arkansas will present two productions this weekend in the theater at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, 501 E. Ninth St., Little Rock:
• “Nouveau,” 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, blends “bold contemporary choreography with classical elegance,” featuring world premieres by prominent choreographers Thang Dao, Lorenzo di Loreto and Ballet Arkansas’ executive and artistic director, Michael Fothergill, set on music by composers Scott Joplin, Frederic Chopin and Maurice Ravel, performed live by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s Quapaw String Quartet. Members of the company will also perform Chopin’s “Les Sylphides.”
• “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, is set on Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music to Shakespeare’s comedy, with a community cast of nearly 70 children alongside the organization’s company artists.
balletarkansas.org/tickets.
MUSIC
The River City Men’s Chorus goes “home” in a program subtitled “Songs of Love and Life!,” 3 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Monday and May 1 at St. James United Methodist Church, 321 Pleasant Valley Drive, Little Rock. The program includes arrangements of songs from “Wicked,” “The Greatest Showman,” “Rent” and the 1976 version of “A Star Is Born”; David Glaze conducts. (501) 377-1080; rivercitymenschorus.com.
The Little Rock Winds showcase Arkansas composers, from Scott Joplin, Florence Price and William Grant Still to cartoon music by Randall Standridge and the “Strategic Air Command March” by Clifton Williams in a concert titled “Homegrown Harmony,” 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Second Presbyterian Church, 600 Pleasant Valley Drive, Little Rock. (501) 666-0777; lrwinds.org/tickets.
The finals of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra Guild’s annual Stella Boyle Smith Young Artists Competition take place at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Arkansas Symphony’s Stella Boyle Smith Music Center, 1101 E. Third St., Little Rock. At stake: a $1,000 grand prize, with $250 for the winners of each instrumental category. arkansassymphony.org.
Singer-songwriter and tale teller Paul Thorn, who proudly calls himself “the second most-famous musician from Tupelo, Miss.,” performs at 8 p.m. Friday at the Rev Room, 300 President Clinton Ave. (501) 823-0090; revroom.com.
Pianist Neil Rutman solos in Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Conway Symphony Orchestra and conductor Israel Getzov in an an all-Tchaikovsky concert, to conclude the orchestra’s 2024-25 season, 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Concert Hall of the University of Central Arkansas’ Windgate Center for the Fine and Performing Arts, 2150 Bruce St. at Donaghey Avenue, Conway. The program also includes a suite from the ballet “Swan Lake.” (501) 470-7572; conwaysymphony.org
The Bar-Kays headline a concert at 5 p.m. Sunday at Barton Coliseum, on the State Fairgrounds in Little Rock, 2598 W. 29th St. (888) 684-9998; iluvdablues.com.
And also on Sunday, MercyMe headlines, with Zach Williams and Sam Wesley, at 7:30 p.m. at North Little Rock’s Simmons Bank Arena (501) 975-9000; simmonsbankarena.com.
THEATER
Actors Theatre of Little Rock concludes its run of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf,” 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Quapaw Quarter United Methodist Church, 1601 Louisiana St., Little Rock. actorstheatrelr.org/tickets.
And opening this week at Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, 6323 Colonel Glenn Road, Little Rock: “Leading Ladies,” by Ken Ludwig. A pair of down-at-heel actors latch onto a scam involving an elderly woman’s will that leaves her fortune to two long-lost British nephews. , 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday (12:30 p.m. matinees April 30, May 78 and 14), 12:45 and 6:45 p.m. Sunday through may 24. Buffet opens 90 minutes before curtain. (501) 562-3131; murrysdp.com.
ART AND EXHIBITS
Cantrell Gallery officially reopens in its new space, 8202 Cantrell Road, Little Rock, with an after-hours reception, 6-8 p.m. Friday. The reception also marks the opening of “Treehouse Treasures: a collector’s collection” Part 2, artworks from the collection of the gallery’s original owner, Helen Scott, who is down-sizing her home. The gallery is also celebrating 55 years in business. The new space is in the same strip center, three doors west of the previous gallery. The exhibition remains up through May 24. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Call (501) 224-1335.
The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, 501 E. Ninth St., Little Rock, displays studio photographs by the late Kwame Brathwaite, who started out in the 1960s using photography to promote “Black is Beautiful,” through Oct. 12. The exhibition highlights the artist’s independent studio work in the 1970s, including a portrait of singer Nina Simone and a capture of singer Marvin Gaye mid-performance. The museum is offering an exhibition tour at 10:30 a.m. Saturday April 26. Gallery hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday. (501) 372-4000; arkmfa.org.
The Arkansas League of Artists Member Show is up through May 9 at the Argenta Library Gallery, 420 Main St., North Little Rock, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday. (501) 687-1061; NLRlibrary.org.
And “The Creative Collective III,” 80 artworks by high school students and faculty at Little Rock Central, Conway, Joe T. Robinson, Parkview, Bryant, Maumelle and North Little Rock, is on display through May 22, in the Thea Foundation Gallery, 401 Main St., North Little Rlock, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, with extended hours (5-8 p.m.) during Argenta Arts District Third Friday Art Walk. theafoundation.org.
At UA Little Rock’s Windgate Center of Art + Design, “Beverly Buys: Gone But Not,” 11 cyanotypes by Hot Springs photographer Beverly Buys, is on display through May 30 in the Focus Gallery, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. “Dawn Holder: Strange Meetings,” mixed-media ceramics by Holder, a sculptor and installation artist, is on display through July 11 in the North and South Galleries, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. And in UA Little Rock’s Fine Arts Building, “On the Horizon,” oil paintings by William Beckman, is on display 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays through June 30 in Gallery One.
The 55th Juried Exhibition by the Mid-Southern Watercolorists remains on display, 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday-Saturday through May 2 at the William F. Laman Public Library, 2801 Orange St., North Little Rock. (501) 758-1720; NLRlibrary.org.
And “Crimson Moon,” pieces from the jewelry collection of Leesa Renshaw, remains on display, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday through June 1 at ESSE Museum and Store, 1510 Main St., Little Rock, (501) 916-9022; essepursemuseum.com.