Tacoma Symphony Orchestra Chorus. Photo courtesy TSO.

Theatre Northwest is "Educating Rita"

Tacoma’s new theatre group presents the 1980 classic comedy of a disillusioned academic paired with a perky hairdresser. Opens 7:30 p.m. tonight, then 7:30 p.m. May 16, 22, 23, 29, 30; and 3 p.m. May 30. $22/$34. Theatre on the Square, 915 Broadway, Tacoma. 253-591-5894, www.broadwaycenter.org

Tacoma Symphony Chorus sings Haydn’s "Creation"

This joyous 18th-century oratorio tells the creation story with piano, choir and archangel soloists. 7:30 p.m. tomorrow. Christ Church Episcopal, 310 N. K St., Tacoma.

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Tacoma Art Museum has just put out a call for design solutions for the museum’s plaza and perimeter, with a budget of $3 million, as part of a new five-year strategic plan for the museum. The plan calls for “a landmark civic space that enlivens downtown Tacoma.”

So what needs fixing? According to TAM’s press release, an increase of visibility via landscape, art and signage and a more welcoming entrance, plus a better connection between the parking lot (currently way down below the front door, accessed from a back street) and the museum entrance (currently achieved by a cold

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The Museum of Glass’ new Mobile Hot Shop Truck. Photo: Kevin Young.

After two years of renting trucks to transport its mobile Hot Shop to schools, art fairs and the like, the Museum of Glass now has its very own Mobile Hot Shop Truck. The 36-foot truck holds two glassblowers, a commentator, raw glass, tools, workbenches, a small furnace, glory hole and annealer, plus a tent to shelter the artists as they demonstrate.

To celebrate, the new truck will be parked on the plaza outside the Museum this weekend from 6-8

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Cue narrator:

This is a tale about an unprejudiced heart, and how it changed our valley forever. There was a time not so long ago when pigs were afforded no respect, except by other pigs; they lived their whole lives in a cruel and sunless world.

The Grand Cinema may be a sunless world (hard to watch movies, otherwise) but it’s hardly cruel. On Saturday they’ll be showing the 1995 talking animal flick “Babe” to the first 100 participants – free.

The story about the big-dreaming pig who becomes a

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Phil Roach, “Points of Departure” at The Helm Gallery. Photo courtesy Sean Alexander.

The Helm Gallery is closing. For two years gallerists Sean Alexander and Peter Lynn have brought Tacoma some of the best, the funkiest, the hippest and the weirdest of local and national art–usually 2D, but some installations and sculpture. And now, as of May 31, the trip is over. Money has been tight for about a year for the commercial art space, and their lease is up.

“We’re not that sad,” says Alexander. “It’s been a good learning process,

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If you’re down by the Pantages today, tomorrow and Thursday, you’ll probably notice all the buses transporting thousands of schoolkids. They’re downtown listening to the Tacoma Symphony’s annual Simply Symphonic concerts.

So there’s nothing particularly new about orchestras giving schools concerts, but the TSO’s program is admirable in both academic reach and sheer size. Around 4,500 fifth-graders from 82 schools and 13 districts in the South Sound–up 12 per cent from last season–will hear the orchestra play Offenbach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach and more this week. It’s a program that recently won the TSO The 2009 Impact Award from The

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Congratulations to all local film crews who competed in The Grand Cinema’s 72 Hour Film Fest, screening at the Rialto last Friday night. Over 400 people attended.

“It was a ton of fun and had easily our best quality films we’ve ever had,” said director Philip Cowan. “They truly get better every year.”

In this film competition, entrants must submit a five-minute-or-less DVD including various items specified at the start of the 72-hour filming period: a particular prop, action, line and situation.

Here are the winners of the various categories.

Best use of prop (a

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Nicholas Nyland, “Whiskers.” Photo courtesy Lisa Kinoshita.

Two really fun shows are up at the moment in Tacoma galleries: worth seeing both for the skill level and the cheer-you-up factor.

At Mineral, Nicholas Nyland (who, BTW, lives in Lakewood, not Seattle, FYI Jen Graves) explodes his neon-bright paint splashes all over Lisa Kinoshita’s hot-orange walls with child-like glee in “Objects of the Mind.” His signature short brush strokes create an abstract pattern that’s vaguely reminiscent of water, or textiles, or SOMETHING. In fact, as Nyland puts it, he likes abstraction

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