ENTERTAINMENT: Trio to play works by Beethoven, Ravel

FUN

Laman Con 2025

The North Little Rock Public Library System will present Laman Con 2025: Worlds of Wonder, 5-7 p.m. Friday at the Argenta Public Library, 420 Main St., North Little Rock, and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at the William F. Laman Public Library, 2801 Orange St., North Little Rock.

Friday’s lineup features a Wizarding Workshop, with “maker activities designed for teens and adults,” according to a news release. Admission is free. Saturday’s main convention offers “ComiCon style activities for all ages throughout the day,” including gaming opportunities, creative workshops, vendor and artist booths, live quests and scavenger activities, themed stations and, at 11 a.m., Fantastic Friends Photos: Live Character Encounters in the Children’s Department (“young attendees can meet fully costumed storybook heroes for photos, high-fives, and magical moments”). Admission is free.

Laman Con concludes with an adults-only after-party, 4:30-6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Innovation Hub, 204 E. Fourth St., North Little Rock, with a cosplay contest, trivia, crafts and “activities geared toward attendees ages 18 and older.” Admission is free.

Call (501) 758-1720 or visit NLRlibrary.org/laman-con.

MUSIC

Claremont Trio

The Claremont Trio — Emily Bruskin, violin; Julia Bruskin, cello; and Sophiko Simsive, piano — performs at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 4106 John F. Kennedy Blvd., North Little Rock, under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Little Rock. The program: the Piano Trio No. 1 in E-flat major, op.1, No. 1, by Ludwig van Beethoven; “Soliloquy” by Shulamit Ran; and the Piano Trio in a minor by Maurice Ravel. Tickets are $25, free for students. Visit chambermusicLR.com/tickets.

Bluegrass Festival

Bluegrass legend Rhonda Vincent performs with her band The Rage on Thursday and Friday during the semiannual Mountain View Fall Bluegrass Festival at the Ozark Folk Center, 1302 Park Ave., Mountain View.

The festival kicks off at 6 p.m. Thursday with an all-gospel show at the Ozark Folk Center’s Ozark Highlands Theater, with Mountain View Connection, the McLain Family Band, Cutter & Cash and The Kentucky Grass, Frank Ray & Cedar Hill and Rhonda Vincent & The Rage. The show will close with a $100 cash drawing at 10 p.m.

The Friday matinee opens with a special dance performance by Simply Southern Cloggers from 11:45 a.m.-noon. Cutter & Cash and The Kentucky Grass then takes the stage, followed by Roving Gambler Band, Special Consensus, Southern Legacy and Rhonda Vincent & The Rage, with a $100 cash drawing to close the show at 4 p.m.

The Friday evening lineup starts with Simply Southern Cloggers at 5:45 p.m. with Roving Gambler Band taking the stage at 6 p.m., followed by Rhonda Vincent & The Rage, Southern Legacy, and Special Consensus. There will be a $100 cash drawing to close out the evening at 10 p.m.

The Saturday matinee begins at noon with Roving Gambler Band, Frank Ray & Cedar Hill, The Country Gentlemen Show, Special Consensus, and Southern Legacy. There will be a $100 cash drawing to close the show at 4 p.m. The Saturday evening program begins with a 15-minute set by Mountain View’s Music Roots Ensemble at 5:45 p.m. with music to follow by Roving Gambler Band, Frank Ray & Cedar Hill, The Country Gentlemen Show, Special Consensus, and Southern Legacy. The evening will end with a $200 cash drawing at 10 p.m.

Host is the Mountain View Bluegrass Association Inc., a nonprofit that supports the Music Roots program, which teaches traditional string-band instruments including fiddle, banjo, guitar, upright bass and mandolin to youngsters in the Mountain View area. Thursday evening tickets are $20, $30 for premium seating (first five rows). Friday and Saturday tickets, good for all shows that day, are $25, $40 for premium seating. Call (870) 501-5105 or visit MountainViewBluegrass.com. Proceeds support the Music Roots Program.

‘La Boheme’ Live in HD

The Metropolitan Opera “cinecasts” its production of Giacomo Puccini’s “La Bohème,” “Live in HD,” from the stage of the Met in New York, noon Saturday at the Movie Tavern, 11300 Bass Pro Parkway, Little Rock, and the Razorback Cinema, 956 N. Steele Blvd., Fayetteville. Ticket information is available at metopera.org/season/in-cinemas. Soprano Juliana Grigoryan sings the role of Mimì with tenor Freddie De Tommaso as Rodolfo, soprano Heidi Stober as Musetta, baritone Lucas Meachem as Marcello, baritone Sean Michael Plumb as Schaunard, bass Jongmin Park as Colline and baritone Donald Maxwell as Benoit and Alcindoro. Keri-Lynn Wilson conducts.

THEATER

Vaudeville-esque ‘Hamlet’

The University of Central Arkansas Theatre Program stages William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” 7 p.m. Friday-Saturday and Nov. 14-15 and 2 p.m. Sunday and Nov. 16 in the James M. Bridges Black Box Theatre at the Windgate Center for the Fine and Performing Arts, 2150 Bruce St. at Donaghey Avenue, Conway. Director Chris Fritzges “reimagines the classic tale of grief, revenge and moral conflict through a vaudeville- esque lens while remaining true to Shakespeare’s poetic brilliance,” according to a news release. Tickets are $10, free for UCA students, faculty and staff. Call (501) 450-3265 or (866) 810-0012 or visit web.ovationtix.com/trs/dept/2176.

ART & EXHIBITS

Holiday sale

Works by more than 60 student, alumni, faculty and staff artists, including prints, photography, jewelry, ceramics, textiles, sculpture, furniture and graphic design will be available for sale as the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s School of Art and Design hosts its 2025 Holiday Sale and Open House, 3-8 p.m. Friday in the Windgate Center of Art and Design, 5617 W. 28th St., Little Rock. A reception and presentation of the awards for the Annual Student Competitive exhibition precede the open house at 2:30 in the Cushman Gallery. On the final day of the exhibition, visitors can buy and take home artwork directly from the gallery. Cocoa, coffee and cookies will be served.

Windgate Center studios will be open for self-guided tours; vegetarian/vegan food truck Utopia Deli will set up outside and there will be a “festive” photo booth, a student-organized Pop-Up Gallery in Room 234 and make-and-take activities for kids (“and kids at heart”) in Room 220.

Admission is free. Call (501) 916-5101 or email [email protected].

Also at the Windgate Center, “Nicole Seisler — Some Truths About Clay,” works by ceramicist Nicole Seisler, goes on display Friday in the North and South Galleries. The exhibition remains up through to Dec. 12.

Watercolors on display

“Slow Down. Look Closer.,” watercolor paintings by Matt TerAvest “exploring themes of introspection, solitude and vulnerability,” according to a news release, goes on display with a 5-7:30 p.m. reception Thursday at Thea Foundation, 401 Main St. in North Little Rock’s Argenta District. It’s the fourth and final installment of Thea’s quarterly 2025 Art Department series. The show remains on display through Nov. 27, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday and 5-8 p.m. Nov. 21 during Argenta’s Third Friday Art Walk. Admission to the reception and the gallery is free. Visit theafoundation.org.

 

World War II art

“Thomas Hart Benton,” a traveling exhibition of original artwork created by the artist during World War II, opens Friday at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 503 E. Ninth St., Little Rock. The 25 paintings and drawings, done in 1943 and 1944 for Abbott Laboratories and the U.S. Navy while Benton was aboard the USS Dorado, depict the intensity of life aboard a submarine; he created depictions in a bustling wartime ship-building yard while witnessing construction of LSTs (landing ships for tanks) at the American Bridge Co.’s site in Ambridge, Pa.

The exhibition, on loan from the Navy Art Collection — Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, remains up through July 31, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free. Call (501) 376-4602 or visit littlerock.gov/macarthur.

Joan Stack, curator of art collections at the State Historical Society of Missouri in Columbia, Mo., will discuss Benton’s paintings and their impact on the war effort at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, 501 E. Ninth St. Admission is free.

Ars Gratia Artis

For its Ars Gratia Artis (Art for Art’s Sake), the Art Group Gallery, in the Pleasant Ridge Town Center, 11525 Cantrell Road, Little Rock, is offering 10% off everything in the gallery, with a drawing for a $1,000 fine-art shopping spree, 5-8 p.m. Thursday. Visit artgrouparkansas.com.

 

Hot Springs gallery

Paintings by Dolores Justus Reuther headline the November exhibit at Justus Fine Art Gallery, 827A Central Ave., Hot Springs, opening with a 5-9 p.m. Hot Springs Gallery Walk reception Friday. The exhibition, which also includes wood sculpture by Robyn Horn and Sandra Sell, ceramic sculpture by Michael Warrick and ceramics by Michael Ashley, is on display through Nov. 30. Admission to the reception and the gallery is free. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday and by appointment. Call (501) 321-2335 or visit justusfineart.com.

ETC.

Preservation talk

Jacqueline “Jackie” Wolven, executive director of Main Street Eureka Springs, will give a talk as part of Preserve Arkansas’ “Women in Preservation” virtual speaker series, 3:30 p.m. Tuesday via Zoom — register at tinyurl.com/36b2ub7r — or live on YouTube (youtube.com/@preservearkansas1981/streams). “Admission” is free thanks to support from DEMX Architecture. Wolven’s work in the “Little Switzerland of the Ozarks” centers on revitalizing the downtown “through a preservation lens,” according to a news release, “from restoring sidewalks and historic windows to creating programs that strengthen civic trust and community pride.”