Friday, April 27 — You don’t have to go to an art gallery to see a collage tonight. The Mason Symphony Orchestra and the Meridian Community Band are combining their forces for a “Collage Concert” at the Haslett Performing Arts Center.

Thursday, April 26 — The East Lansing Film Festival has rescheduled its screening of the Oscar-nominated animated film "Chico and Rita" for May 16 at East Lansing's Hannah Community Center, 819 Abbot Road.

In improvisational comedy workshops, there’s a two-person game called “Get the Donut,” in which one performer plays a hungry customer trying to buy a particular pastry and the other plays a bakery cashier who has to think up obstacles and distractions to prevent the purchase. The same set-up is used in Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel’s screenplay for “The Five-Year Engagement,” an often bittersweet romance about the pain of putting your dreams on hold. How much you enjoy the movie will depend on your tolerance for the escalating-frustration school of comedy, in which nice people with simple plans end up stuck in a labyrinth of unforeseen complications.

Tuesday, April 24 — Plants and produce filled tables Saturday afternoon instead of hardcover bestsellers inside the grandiose space formerly occupied by Barnes & Noble in downtown East Lansing.

Friday, April 20 — If you think the Michigan Theatre in Jackson is a sweet place, you're not alone: Gilbert's Chocolates is about to unveil a specially created brand of Michigan Theatre Chocolate this weekend.

Thursday, April 19 — The Purple Rose theater lights dim to a pitch-black dark. There is a moment of silence, followed by the sharp crack of a thunderbolt. Seconds later, strobe-lightning reveals movement: a writhing, convoluted Native-American ghost dance. It is the prophesied white buffalo, struggling to be born, an event that promises the end of wars, the beginning of an extended era of prosperity and peace.

Wednesday, April 18 — Country stars Pam Tillis and Lorrie Morgan take the Wharton Center stage Friday for their acoustic “Grits and Glamour” tour. The two have worked together in the past, and are singing in over 40 cities on this tour. Tillis — whose hits include "Mi Vida Loca," "Let That Pony Run" and "When You Walk in the Room" — is the daughter of country star, actor and recent National Medal of Arts recipient Mel Tillis (“I Believe in You,” “Southern Rains,” “Coca-Cola Cowboy”). In a phone interview, Pam Tillis talked about what she’s been up to and where she finds inspiration for her music.

Friday, April 13 — July 13 could be a day of good fortune for one Common Ground Music Festival ticket buyer.

Thursday, April 12 — Bill Maher, the always outspoken star of HBO's "Real Time," takes his act on the road this summer. One of his stops will be the Wharton Center, where he'll perform at 7 p.m. June 17.

When I was a kid, the Three Stooges were taboo; my mother banned them from our house because their brand of eye-poking, head-slapping, stomach-punching horseplay was exactly the sort of roughhousing she dreaded seeing in the living room or the backyard. She also deep-sixed The Monkees as well, perhaps because she didn’t want her children to fall under the spell of Don Kirshner and start a boy-band.