Weekend Entertainment Roundup for October 17th, 2024

FUN

The circus is in town! Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s North American tour offers an “all-new, reimagined Greatest Show on Earth,” 11 a.m., 3 and 7 p.m. Saturday Oct. 19, 1 and 5 p.m. Sunday Oct. 20 at North Little Rock’s Simmons Bank Arena. What you won’t see: animal acts — the circus’ owner, Feld Entertainment, announced in 2015 it would be dropping them by 2018, citing declining attendance, high operating costs and animal welfare protests; what you will see: a more cirque-like approach, with acrobats, trapeze artists and a human cannonball, plus musical, dance and narrative elements. ticketmaster.com

The 84th Arkansas State Fair wraps up Sunday, with fair food, livestock competitions, carnival rides and unique attractions, all at the State Fairgrounds, 2600 Howard St., Little Rock. Gates open at 11 a.m. each day. ArkansasStateFair.com.

For the fifth year, Benton’s Royal Players turn the Royal Theatre, 111 S. Market St., Benton, into the Royal Haunted House, 7-9 p.m. Thursday-Saturday Oct. 17-19, Oct. 24-26 and 29-31. theroyalplayers.ticketleap.com.

MUSIC

The Arkansas Symphony Orchestra plays John Williams’ score, live-to-film, for “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in Concert,” as the movie appears on a large screen behind the band and conductor Geoffrey Robson, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday Oct. 18-20 at Little Rock’s Robinson Center Performance Hall, 426 W. Markham St. at Broadway. (501) 666-1761, Ext. 1; ArkansasSymphony.org.

Country star Jelly Roll, with opening acts Warren Zeiders and Alexandra Kay, perform at 7 p.m. Tuesday at North Little Rock’s Simmons Bank Arena. (501) 975-9000; simmonsbankarena.com.

The Listeso String Quartet plays spooky tunes, illuminated by thousands of candles, for a pair of Halloween-themed Candlelight Concerts, 6:30 and 8:45 p.m. Saturday Oct. 19 at the Albert Pike Masonic Center, 712 Scott St., Little Rock. The tentative program includes Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”; “Funeral March of a Marionette” by Charles Gounod (better known as the theme from the TV show “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”); Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” (used as the theme from “The Exorcist”); the themes from TV’s “Stranger Things” and the movies “Beetlejuice,” “The Addams Family,” “Halloween” and “Ghostbusters”; Bernard Herrmann’s “Psycho” prelude; “Danse Macabre” by Camille Saint-Saëns; “Night on Bald Mountain” by Modest Mussorgsky; “The Time Warp” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”; and a medley from Danny Elfman’s score for “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” feverup.com/m/192221

THEATER

Argenta Contemporary Theater, 405 Main St., North Little Rock, closes out its run of Lerner & Loewe’s “My Fair Lady,” 7:30 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday. A consistent string of standing ovations. argentacontemporarytheatre.org.

An 1899 strike by singing and dancing newsboys temporarily cripples New York’s two biggest newspapers in the musical “Newsies,” based on the 1992 Disney film, closing out its two-week run, 7:30 p.m. today and Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in the Lucy Lockett Cabe Festival Theatre at Wildwood Park for the Arts, 20919 Denny Road, Little Rock. (501) 821-7275; wildwoodpark.org.

Three roommates face a tough choice regarding a would-be rapist as the Weekend Theater, 1001 W. Seventh St. at Chester Street, Little Rock, continues its run of “Extremities” by William Mastrosimone, 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday through Oct. 27. The play, intended for an adult audience, contains strong language, sexual content and discussion and scenes of violence that could be triggering to some audience members. CentralArkansasTickets.com.

A brutal murder interrupts a honeymoon cruise down the Nile and everybody on board the riverboat is a suspect in Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Nile,” onstage through Nov. 9 Murry’s Dinner Playhouse, 6323 Colonel Glenn Road, Little Rock. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday (12:30 p.m. Wednesday matinees only, Oct. 23 and 30) and 12:45 and 6:45 p.m. Sunday. The buffet opens 90 minutes before curtain time. (501) 562-3131; murrysdp.com.

ART AND EXHIBITS

“The Natural State in Four Seasons,” 33 photographs that North Little Rock native Brian Cormack took over 14 years that capture the beauty of Arkansas through the changing seasons is on display through Nov. 27, with a 5-8 p.m. reception Friday at the William F. Laman Public Library, 2801 Orange St., North Little Rock. Library hours are 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Friday-Saturday. (501) 758-1720; NLRlibrary.org.

“Two Minutes to Midnight and the Architecture of Armageddon,” photographic essays on the Cold War by Jeanine Michna-Bales and Adam Reynolds, on display through Jan. 5 at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History, 503 E. Ninth St., Little Rock. (501)-376-4602; littlerock.gov/macarthur.

And “Commanding the Screen: The American Presidency in Film and Television,” continues to offer a look at material from more than 30 movies and television shows portraying fictional and real-life U.S. presidents, through March 23 at the Clinton Presidential Center, 1200 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock. clintonpresidentialcenter.org/exhibits.