April 6-May 13 | Part of the Art
Courtesy of Visarts
Audiences are invited to do more than just view the artwork at Interact, Integrate, a show at VisArts featuring multimedia pieces by Heloisa Escudero, Michelle Herman, Jackie Hoysted and Denise Philipbar. Viewers can touch, rearrange and even appear as part of the pieces on display in the exhibition, which explores how the public can affect and help create art. In a past installation by Philipbar, viewers became part of the piece as they passed by a surveillance camera and appeared on a video screen being “watched” by a gang of plaster faces wearing goggles made of lightbulbs, glass jars and other found objects. In a past piece by Hoysted, gallery visitors could move colored disks to create their own shapes and patterns. An opening reception and artist talk is planned for 7 to 9 p.m. on April 6.
Noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, noon to 8 p.m. Friday, free, VisArts Rockville, visartscenter.org
March 2-3 | Spanish Steps
Lightning-fast footwork, proud and graceful dancers, colorful costumes and live guitar music are some of the most distinguishing characteristics of flamenco dance, a style that originated in southern Spain. Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana, one of the country’s most prominent cultural dance companies, stops in Silver Spring on its national tour, “Voces del Sur” (Voices of the South), with a performance highlighting the Andalusia region of Spain and the area’s Arabic, Gypsy, Jewish and Latino influences on the art form.
8 p.m. March 2, 11 a.m. March 3, $10-$25, Cultural Arts Center, Montgomery College Takoma Park/Silver Spring, montgomerycollege.edu/cac
March 3 | The Sorcerer and the Symphony
Harry Potter fans can see their favorite wizard backed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in Concert. The full movie—the third installment of the series—will be shown on-screen at Strathmore accompanied by the orchestra and the University of Maryland Concert Choir live onstage.
3 p.m., $45-$85, The Music Center at Strathmore, strathmore.org
April 6-7 | Cinema Studies
The Bethesda Film Fest features five short documentaries made by filmmakers from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., and selected by a panel of film professionals and academics. This year, it was up to American University associate professor Larry Engel, George Mason University assistant professor Ben Steger and Katherine Wilkins De Francis, Women in Film & Video of Washington, D.C. executive vice president, to choose. See their picks at one of three festival screenings, each followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers.
7 p.m. April 6, 6 and 8 p.m. April 7, $10, Imagination Stage, bethesda.org
April 18-22 | The Legend of Bart
Courtesy of Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center
Imagine a future in which an episode of The Simpsons TV show becomes a sacred legend. That’s what happens in Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn. After an apocalypse, survivors pass the time telling and retelling stories, one of which is the “Cape Feare” episode of The Simpsons. The show, a production of the Montgomery College Theatre Arts Department, explores how the story—and pop culture—changes. As time passes, new references are added and the meaning evolves.
8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday,
$5-$10, Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center, montgomerycollege.edu/pac
April 26 | Being John Malkovich
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Courtesy of Strathmore
?Two-time Academy Award nominee John Malkovich—who has built his career on playing oddballs, creeps and villains—stars as a deposed megalomaniacal dictator giving his last political speech in Just Call Me God, Michael Sturminger’s darkly comical musical drama. The show features Malkovich as dictator Satur Diman Cha, who lays out his vision of a regime in which the rich and privileged surround themselves with border fences and walls. With an organist playing music by Bach, Liszt and others, the show explores ideas about tyranny, power and corruption.
8 p.m., $65-$115, The Music Center at Strathmore, strathmore.org
April 26 | Hall American
Courtesy of The Fillmore Silver Spring
Since finishing as a semifinalist in the ninth season of American Idol, singer and choreographer Todrick Hall has built quite the résumé. He’s created videos of flash mob dances that appear on YouTube; worked with Beyoncé, Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift; starred in a self-titled show on MTV and appeared as a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race; written songs and performed in videos for Fiat, Sesame Studios and Virgin America; appeared in Broadway musicals Chicago and Kinky Boots; and even staged his own original musical, Straight Outta Oz. His tour, Todrick Hall American: The Forbidden, comes to Silver Spring, promising an original story, costumes, songs and dancing.
7:30 p.m., $25, The Fillmore Silver Spring, fillmoresilverspring.com
