THEATER
Silver bells, gold records
Following the success of 2023's "Motown Christmas," the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, 601 Main St., Little Rock, offers "A Merrier Motown Christmas," featuring "favorite holiday songs in fresh arrangements inspired by your favorite Motown artists," according to a news release, 7 p.m. Wednesday-Friday and Dec. 22; 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday and Dec. 23. Music director Nygel D. Robinson rejoins local singers Bijoux, Tawanna Campbell and Antonio Woodard, with musicians Corey Harris, Ricardo Richardson and Josh Starks. Ken-Matt Martin directs. Sponsor is Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Tickets are $45, $25 for students. Call (501) 378-0405 or visit therep.org/merrier-motown-christmas.
The North American Tour production of "Shucked" is onstage this week at Fayetteville's Walton Arts Center. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette/Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
Aw, 'Shucked'
A semi-neurotic New York comedy writer paired with two music superstars from Nashville come up with a farm-to-fable musical about ... well, corn, in the Tony Award-winning show "Shucked" (score by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, book by Robert Horn). A touring company brings the show to Fayetteville's Walton Arts Center at 7 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday; 1:30 and 7 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Dec. 22. Tickets are $42-$109. Call (479) 443-5600 or visit waltonartscenter.org.
DANCE
Fort Smith 'Nutcracker'
Western Arkansas Ballet stages its 39th production of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker," 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Dec. 22 at the ArcBest Corp. Performing Arts Center, 55 S. Seventh St., Fort Smith. Artistic Director Jared Mesa leads a cast of more than 115 area children and adults. Western Arkansas Ballet alumna Kelsey Corder, currently a member of the American Midwest Ballet company in Omaha, Neb., dances the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy with Casey Kelley, also with American Midwest Ballet, as her Cavalier. Tickets are $30, $20 for children and students (with a valid student ID). Call (479) 785-0152 or visit waballet.org.
Zoo series works by Texas artist Douglas Darracott in the "Our World" exhibition at the South Arkansas Arts Center in El Dorado include "Dallas 4," "Fort Worth Zoo" and "Zoo Atlanta 3." (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
ART
'Our World'
The South Arkansas Arts Center, 110 E. Fifth St., El Dorado, hosts a reception, 5:30-7 p.m. Tuesday for artist Douglas Darracott, whose recent paintings in four series -- the Zoo series, the American Dream series, the Sculpture series, and the People and Places series -- are on display there through Jan. 3 in an exhibition titled "Our World." Gallery hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Admission to the exhibition and the reception are free. Call (870) 862-5474 or visit saac-arts.org.
Mural grant
The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the University of Arkansas at Little Rock a grant of nearly $80,000 to create a curriculum and digital education tools around Joe Jones' 1935 mural, "The Struggle in the South."
The 44-by-9-foot mural, which Jones created at Commonwealth College in Mena in 1935, now resides at UALR Downtown on Little Rock's President Clinton Avenue. It portrays the plight of ordinary Southerners, including striking miners, sharecropping families and Black Americans facing violence in the 1930s. The university bought it in 1984.
The $79,233 grant is for the project the university is calling "Contextualizing the Struggle in the South: Place-Based Experiential Learning as a Path to Public Humanities." It continues through Dec. 31, 2026.
"The project centers on the history encapsulated in Jones' mural, focusing mostly on Arkansas during the 1920s and 1930s," says Marta Cieslak, director of UALR Downtown and principal investigator on the grant. "Too many people in Arkansas don't know the mural exists, and we're happy to have this opportunity to make the mural more accessible to the public."
The grant team will collect archival documents and develop two college history courses: an Arkansas history course taught during the spring 2025 semester and a public history course taught during the fall 2025 semester. The project team will also create a website to map the mural-inspired history of Arkansas.
A cappella quintet The Edge Effect performs for the VoiceJam Kickoff Concert, April 4 at Fayetteville's Walton Arts Center. (Special to the Democrat-Gazette)
AUDITIONS
VoiceJam auditions
Deadline is Jan. 26 for a cappella groups of two to 20 performers from across the country to submit video audition materials for Fayetteville's Walton Arts Center's annual VoiceJam A Cappella Competition, set for April 5 at the center, 495 W. Dickson St. There is no age limit to participate and no school affiliation is necessary to audition; up to eight groups will be selected, with the announcement of those set for Feb. 3. The winning group will receive a professionally produced video of their set; judges will also hand out awards for outstanding arrangement, vocal percussion, soloist and choreography. Find more information and submit materials at waltonartscenter.org/voicejam.