We received this notice from the Musuem of Glass today:

Due to the snowy conditions, the Museum of Glass is offering limited programming today, Thursday, December 18.

The Museum is open. However, the Hot Shop and Studio are closed. The galleries, store and cafe are open. Admission today is $4. The Museum will not be open for this evening’s Third Thurday Artwalk.

We will NOT be open 5 pm to 8 pm tonight.

We plan to reopen at 10 am tomorrow morning with full programming. Please check www.museumofglass.org for updates.

The Oprah Winfrey produced musical version of “The Color Purple” opened in Seattle last night bringing soaring voices, powerful anthems and poignant love songs to a packed Paramount Theatre.

Borrowing from both the Alice Walker novel and the Steven Speilberg movie, the musical adds a few new elements but remains true to the story.

The musical opens with the young Celie (Jeannette Bayardelle) pregnant with her second child. She is quickly sent off to marry a man, Mister, who openly disdains her as ugly.

The

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Jimmy Shields performed in last year’s KRUNK. (Drew Perine/The News Tribune)

In a time of shrinking payrolls, budgets and optimism a nonprofit Hilltop arts group is growing its season.

Now in its sixth year, The D.A.S.H. Center for the Arts is expanding its offerings of dancing and theater. The organization serves primarily African-American, inner city and other minority youth and allows these kids to develop dancing and acting talent that might otherwise go untapped.

I attended one of the nonprofit group’s KRUNK dance showcases at Mount Tahoma High School

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Two movies you’re almost sure to be hearing about at Oscar time open at the Grand Cinema Friday.

Buzz has been strong that Sean Penn will earn a Best Actor nomination for his portrayal of slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk in "Milk." And it’s certainly possible that Gus Van Sant will get a nod in the directing category for his work on that picture as well.

Also opening Friday at the Grand is "Slumdog Millionaire," a gritty, violent, yet ultimately upbeat drama about a young man from the slums of Mumbai who becomes a top contestant on

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Tacoma Art Museum is holding its popular Snowbound! community festival Sunday, Dec. 14. The f
ree celebration runs noon–5 p.m.

Here are the highlights:

– A
 room-sized snow globe.

– Tacoma’s "Feisty Knitters" will install knitted sleeves throughout the museum.

– A hand bell choir will perform.

Visitors can participate by:

– Making snowflakes.

– Try your hand in a knitting circle.

– Engage in a sing-along.

– Drink hot cocoa.

And yes, there’s art:

– Tacoma artists Marc

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It is a ritual that many of us partake in this time of year: Rising before the sun, gathering with other devotees in the dark and then finally gaining access to the flamed-filled inner sanctum.

I’m talking, of course, about the Hilltop Artists in Residence annual holiday glass sale. It’s 9 a.m. – noon, Saturday, Dec. 13 at Jason Lee Middle School. But veterans know you can arrive as early as 7 a.m. to get a numbered ticket for entry later.

Those

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Some talented local performers will be at this month’s Classical Tuesdays in Old Town.

Baritone Charles Robert Stephens, Tenor Gino Lucchetti and Tanya Stambuk on piano will perform at the 7 p.m. concert on Dec. 9.

Stambuk is a terrific local pianist, UPS professor and national performer. Stephens is a wonderful opera singer who gave up New York to live on Fox Island. This should be a great recital, and this concert series is well worth supporting.

The concert, "Wine & Song", is at Connelly Law Offices,

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They’ve gone and restored the "Godfather" movies and the results, by all accounts are spectacular. "These films haven’t looked this good since the first week they played in theaters," raved Newsweek’s Malcolm Jones. "Robert A. Harris’s painstaking digital restoration of the first two "Godfather" films is stunningly beautiful," effused blogger Dave Kehr, who writes a DVD column for the New York Times.

You maybe perhaps ought to go and check out what all the shouting is about. Which is to say, go see these movies the way they were meant to

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