Durham
The Tempest
Common Ground TheatreShakespeare’s having a good week in the Triangle, with productions of Much Ado About Nothing at UNC and this, his classic tale of a shipwreck on a mystical island full of secrets (um, tell your less-literate friends it’s like Lost, only with fairies and a giant named Caliban). This show at Common Ground concludes Bare Theatre’s latest season; the production, directed by Carmen maria-Mandley, features a cast of 20 doing “a cappella singing, modern dancing and cirque-style clowning.” It promises to be an energetic and colorful production of one of Shakespeare’s most mystical and haunting dramas. For more information, visit www.cgtheatre.com/events. Zack Smith
Raleigh
Love Hangover
The Pour HouseUnlike love, which thrives on lack of logic, the origin of the annual Love Hangover show makes perfect sense. Richard Alwyn organized and performed at themed shows around the Triangle in the late ’90s, and he wanted to stage a love-centric show for Valentine’s Day 2000 with male-female duos. And if “love-centric” sounds a bit loose, that was by design. “I wanted to do songs about love however you wanted to interpret that,” recalls Alwyn, who with singing partner Sara Bell offered The Velvet Underground’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror” and Elvis Costello’s “Almost Blue” as two interpretations. This Pour House show marks the 10th anniversary of that first Love Hangover, and Alwyn, who moved to New York City in 2003, hosts his fifth NYC-based edition. There is also a Love Hangover in Kansas City (for the second year) and the debut of a Dana Kletter-led Ann Arbor, Mich., affair. I’m feeling Lincoln, Neb., in 2010. Love is the drug, after all.
The rosters from the previous Raleigh Hangovers, most of them held at the late Kings, present a free-range who’s who: Peter Holsapple, Tift Merritt, Scott Phillips, Caitlin Cary, Ash Bowie, Caroline Mamoulides (who’s missed only one over the years), Anders Parker and Aimee Argote, to present merely a cross-section. And with vets like Mamoulides, Cary, Phillips and Lynda Wittig Dawson of the Kickin’ Grass Band joined by rookies such as Steve Storms, Christy Smith and Matt Douglas, this year’s version promises to, based on the interpretations, break or mend hearts. Tickets are $7, and the love starts pouring down at 8 p.m. Rick Cornell