A Chorus Line
Columbia Entertainment Company presents A Chorus Line, Feb. 11-14, 18-21 and 25-28. A Chorus Line examines, with both hilarity and heartbreak, the grueling life of  ordinary performers always auditioning for an opportunity to be members of a faceless chorus line. The show opens in the middle of an audition for an upcoming Broadway production. The formidable director and his assistant choreographer put the dancers through their paces. Every dancer is desperate for work and reluctantly open up to reveal their pasts. Click here for tickets and more information. 

Creative Fun Day
School’s out – art’s in! Have students join Columbia Art League for a fun-filled, full day art programs at a great value on CPS scheduled days off. Coming up this month on Feb. 12 and Feb. 26, 9am-5pm. 

New art explorations and activities in a range of media are introduced at each Creative Fun Day, making each program a unique experience for participating students. Children participate in gallery activities that encourage active looking and engagement with original works of art in the CAL gallery. Students also gain exposure to enduring ideas that have shaped art of the past and present, here and through other nearby cultural resources. Kids take art breaks throughout the day with children’s books, games and puzzles. Click here for more information. 

Black Pearl Sings!
Talking Horse Productions kicks off its 2016 season with Black Pearl Sings!, Feb. 12-14 and 19-21 at Talking Horse Theatre. This captivating play is the story of Alberta “Pearl” Johnson, a black woman in a Texas prison in the 1930s, who meets Susannah Mullally, an employee of the Library of Congress. Susannah is searching out and recording songs of “the people.” In Pearl, she discovers a vast wealth of music that has been passed down from one generation to the next, and an unlikely friendship is forged. A two-woman play with music, Black Pearl Sings! is a real gem! Kansas City playwright Frank Higgins is planning to make an appearance during the run. Click here for tickets and more information. 

Hearing Voices/Seeing Visions
Orr Street Studios presents Hearing Voices/Seeing Visions, Feb. 16 at 6:30pm. Enjoy poetry by Charlotte Pence and an art talk and a viewing of paintings by David Spear.

Charlotte Pence’s poetry merges the personal with the scientific. Her first book, Many Small Fires (Black Lawrence Press, 2015) explores her father’s chronic homelessness while simultaneously detailing the physiological changes that enabled humans to form cities, communities and households. A professor of English and creative writing at Eastern Illinois University, she is also the author of two award-winning poetry chapbooks and the editor of The Poetics of American Song Lyrics (University Press of Mississippi, 2012). New poems have recently been published in Epoch, Harvard Review and The Southern Review.

David Spear earned a BFA from the University of Missouri-St.Louis in 1999 and an MFA in painting from University of Missouri in 2012. His work can be seen throughout Columbia at venues such as Addison's Restaurant, the Wabash Bus Station, Memorial Union, Boone Hospital, Jefferson Middle School, the traffic box on the corner of Ninth Street and Broadway and the ROTC Cannon fired on Faurot Field after a Tigers score. Spear currently works on private and public commissions for a variety of patrons and teaches drawing and painting at the University of Missouri. Temporal Auxiliaries is currently on display at Orr Street Studios through Mar. 6. This collection of works considers and weighs the transient nature of time in terms of antecedent appropriations, historical recollections and artist as individual.

Events Calendar 

• Museum of Art & Archaeology: Museum Lecture Series with Margaret Conrads, Feb. 11, 5:30pm at Leadership Auditorium, MU Student Center; Family Event - Experimenting with Color, Feb. 13, 1-3pm at Mizzou North
• Access Arts: School's Out day camp, Feb. 12, 8am-5pm; Inkle Loom Workshop, Feb. 13, 10am-3pm
• Columbia Art League: Creative Fun Day, Feb. 12, 9am-5pm
• Mid-Missouri Traditional Dancers: English Country Dance, Feb. 12, 7:30pm at Trinity Presbyterian Church
• Barnes & Noble: Love Monster and the Last Chocolate Storytime, Feb. 13, 11am
• MU Honors College: Speaking of Culture - Sensuous Flavors: Food, Love, Culture, Feb. 14, 2pm at Orr Street Studios
• Orr Street Studios: Hearing Voices/Seeing Visions with David Spear and Charlotte Pearce, Feb. 16, 6:30pm
• Heart of Missouri Chorus: Rehearsals every Thursday, 6:15-9pm at Nifong Hall at Lenoir Woods
• Shape Note Singers: Rehearsals every second and fourth Tuesday, 7:30-9pm at Trinity Presbyterian Church
• Ragtag Cinema: showing films daily