Weekend Entertainment Roundup for August 22, 2024

FUN

The Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau, in partnership with the Downtown Little Rock Partnership and city officials, celebrates the pending five-year anniversary of the River Market Entertainment District with a birthday bash, 6-8 p.m. Friday featuring live entertainment and with some River Market establishments offering special discounts and promotions. Parking in the parking garage at 500 E. Second St. will be free.

Designation as an entertainment district allows patrons 21 and older who have purchased official wristbands and cups to carry their alcoholic beverages in public spaces and in and out of local businesses within the district boundaries. Visit littlerock.com/river-market/play/rmed.

THEATER

The Arkansas Repertory Theatre, with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra as the “pit” band, puts on a semi-staged, semi-concert version of the Jerry Herman musical “Hello, Dolly!”, 7 p.m. today Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday at Robinson Center Performance Hall, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway, Little Rock. Tony nominee Amber Man plays the title role of a turn-of-the-20th-century matchmaker really looking to land a wealthy husband of her own, heading up a cast split between “imported” actors and locals. (501) 378-0405; TheRep.org.

Robert Harling’s “Steel Magnolias” is onstage through Sept. 17 at Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, 6323 Colonel Glenn Road, Little Rock, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday (12:30 p.m. matinees only on Wednesdays Aug. 28 and Sept. 4) and 12:45 and 6:45 p.m. Sunday. The buffet opens 90 minutes before curtain time. Call (501) 562-3131 or visit murrysdp.com.

Up Fayetteville way, three generations of a family on Chicago’s South Side struggle to retain dignity amid a harsh and ever-changing world in “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry, onstage at TheatreSquared, 477 W. Spring St., 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through Sept. 15. (479) 777-7477; theatre2.org/raisin-in-the-sun.

Celebrity Attractions puts tickets on sale at 10 a.m. Monday for performances at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 11, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Oct. 12 and 1 p.m. Oct. 13 of the Tony- and Grammy-winning musical “Dear Evan Hansen” at Robinson. (501) 244-8800 or CelebrityAttractions.com or Ticketmaster.com.

LIVE MUSIC

Arkansas Americana/country performers Erin Enderlin and husband-and-wife duo Cliff and Susan Erwin Prowse, who go by Cliff & Susan, perform at 7 p.m. Friday in the Robinson Center’s William Grant Still Ballroom to benefit For Every Family, A Family Doctor, a scholarship program for young physicians. (501) 316-4011; arkansasafp.org.

ART AND EXHIBITS

And “Commanding the Screen: The American Presidency in Film and Television,” featuring original costumes, set pieces, props, design sketches, scripts and other memorabilia from more than 30 movies and television shows portraying fictional and real-life presidents of the United States, remains up through March 23 at the Clinton Presidential Center, 1200 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock. clintonpresidentialcenter.org/exhibits.