See Hear Do: The Legacy Lives On

The Beverly Theater celebrates its first anniversary with a weekend of events focused on filmmaker/novelist Rebecca Miller.

For Saturday: A book signing/reading with Miller (at Segue at the Beverly Theater) at 3pm. Free.
4:30pm: A screening of Maggie's Plan.
6:30pm: A screening of The Ballad of Jack and Rose.

For Sunday: A screening of Angela at 3pm.
5pm: A screening of Personal Velocity.
7pm: A screening of She Came To Me.
8:45pm: Rebecca Miller in Conversation with Amanda Fortini. Free.

Recipient of many mentions and raves on social media (in this case I believe what I see on the internet), is Vegas Theatre Company's Topdog/Underdog. The Pulitzer and Tony-winning play has a cast of two, both African-American brothers who in the duration of this show cover large swaths of thematic ground — family, the never-ending hustle, poverty, racism — in both funny and serious ways. Check it out, and banish that Facebook feed FOMO.

Truth or fiction — an easy dichotomy with a clear difference, right? Wrong, at least in the book-turned-play The Lifespan of a Fact. Based on real-life email correspondence between essayist John D’Angelo, the author of a piece on the suicide of a Vegas teenager, and Believer magazine-employed fact-checker Jim Fingal, the play explores the friction between reality and its portrayal. How do we reconcile the story as it happened and the story we want to tell? Does accuracy depend on the facts of a situation or the tone in which it is written about? Further, is there such a thing as “accuracy” after all? See Majestic Repertory’s show to find out.

Keeping up with the Jones has never been more enjoyable! The two-generation family of artists is headed by Sean Jones, a longtime local art teacher and well-known illustrator, painter, and musician. He’s raised two artist sons as well, Dylan and Andrew, both Las Vegas Academy of Art graduates, and the apples have not fallen far from the tree in a few respects. Not only are both artists, but, like their father, they favor real-life media over digital media. So prepare yourself to see drawings and paintings — and the added entry point for viewers will be spotting the in-jokes, ironies, and playfulness inherent in the Joneses’ art, which is usually balanced by the reverence they also have for their subjects.

Three consecutive weekends full of short plays, all directed by local artists, and staged by the Nevada Conservatory Theatre — be still my beating, theater-nerd heart. True to the “festival” moniker, among its six performed plays, this one has a show for every thespian: comedy (see Prefers Bright Indirect Light by Veronica Tjioe, directed by Deseree Whitt), mystery (Wave by Jeffrey Lo, directed by Majestic Repertory Theatre’s Troy Heard), and experimental drama (From A to B and Back Again by Jean Ann Douglass, directed by A Public Fit Theatre’s Ann-Marie Pereth).

A genre not often seen on stages, sci-fi thrillers, like A Public Fit’s X, hold the potential to make you question why that’s true. The premise centers around a space station on Pluto, and (surprise!) it’s lost contact with Earth while its inhabitants battle threats to both their physical and mental selves. X is coming on the heels of the company’s excellent staging of Pipeline, so I have every reason to believe we’re in for an out-of-this-world treat.

Celebrate 34 years of beautiful music, and an even more beautiful history of community service, with UNLV’s Joe Williams Scholarship concert. This year, the musical event and fundraiser, hosted by the UNLV Jazz department, is doing something different to commemorate the recent passing of longtime local music teacher and bonafide vocal legend Marlena Shaw. You may have heard her on her biggest hit, “California Soul,” or on any number of songs that have sampled her work, or maybe you were even there when she fronted Count Basie’s orchestra during its performance at the old Sahara. Jazz, soul, blues, disco, hip-hop, dance music — Shaw’s music was for everyone, and so is this event, at the bargain price of $8-10 per ticket.

Resilience is the theme of the Las Vegas Natural History Museum’s month-long event, which provides a multi-faceted program that centers on the scientific accomplishments and cultural contributions of Black folks. Alongside a standing exhibition of creative works, there are also Saturday workshops from the likes of Harold Akyeampong (on February 24), a Ghanaian African dance performer. His demonstration on African musical instruments and their impact on music around the world is a great way to not only engage folks of all ages, but also give insight into the music-making process, which can be vague and generally unknown to the average listener. Once you’re done checking out Akyeampong’s performance, consider a lap around the rest of the exhibition and the museum’s permanent collection, and you have a solid morning or afternoon of cultural and educational enlightenment.

If you’re looking for a play that channels the more ridiculous aspects of The Golden Girls, Ripcord might be it. Absurdity ensues as part-roommates, part-mortal enemies Abby and Marilyn attempt to one up each other in a bet that determines their room placement at the Bristol Place Senior Living Facility. Spooky clowns and skydiving also ensue. The slap- stick-filled play does justice to the ene- mies-to-friends trope, while demonstrating that sunny and stormy dispositions might just complement each other after all.