Weekly Entertainment Guide – Valentine’s Day Edition

WHYY’s Arts Calendar curator Robin Bloom sorts through hundreds of listings each week to find out what’s happening in the Delaware Valley. Here are her picks and listings.

This week, treat yourself and others you love to Valentine fun with a variety of special sights, sounds and tastes.

It’s Only Rock & Roll…and you’ll like it

The first exhibit to tell the story of rock and roll with an emphasis on the photographers who fashioned its image is available for viewing at the Allentown Art Museum starting this weekend. Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present provides visual access to some of the biggest names in the music industry over the past 50 years with more than 175 images including album cover art, rare and revealing candid snapshots taken behind the scenes, publicity portraits, and images of live performances of popular artists and their fans. Organized by the Brooklyn Museum in New York with guest curator Gail Buckland, the exhibit offers the opportunity to examine works by 100 men and women such as David LaChapelle, Diane Arbus, Linda McCartney, Richard Avedon, Amy Arbus, Annie Leibovitz, and Ernest Withers, Albert Watson (photo credit), and many more who captured the essence of rock & roll, on view through May 13 at 31 N. 5th Street, Allentown, PA. Related programming includes Preview party, Saturday, February 11, 7-11pm. $15 non-members

Curator talk, Sunday, February 12, 2-4pm.

Moe Brooker offers Evidence at PAFA

Philadelphia Art mentor Moe Brooker’s new works in acrylic, oil, encaustic, paintstik, and oil pastels are on display in the Alumni Sales Gallery in the Historic Landmark Building at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, beginning this weekend through April 15 at 118 North Broad Street, Philadelphia. Moe Brooker: The Evidence of Things Not Seen, is inspired by the biblical reference “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” and offers visitors the opportunity to purchase the artist’s newest pieces which he describes as “rhythmic patterns and layered, colorful surfaces that reflect my belief in the human spirit, the joy of the human spirit.” Brooker is the Chair of Philadelphia’s Art Commission, a member of Mayor Nutter’s Cultural Advisory council, has served on President Obama’s Arts Policy Committee, is a professor at Moore College of Art & Design, and is a PAFA alumnus.

Hip-Hop at Swarthmore College

Rennie Harris Puremovement (RHPM) brings their unique repertory program to Swarthmore College for a performance of new and old works, Friday, February 17, 8pm and a Master Class Thursday, February 16, 4:30pm in Troy Dance Lab, both at the Lang Performing Arts Center (LPAC). North Philadelphia native Rennie Harris formed the company with the belief that hip-hop is the most important original expression of a new generation, with the unique ability to express universal themes that extend beyond racial, religious, and economic boundaries. Free and open to the public.

 

Tin Angel hosts February concerts & events: Lucy Kaplansky, Saturday, February 11, 7:30pm, Andy Suzuki & the Method, Saturday, February 11, 10:30pm, 1812 Presents: A Funny Valentine, Monday, February 13, 8pm, Hoots & Hellmouth Valentine Concert, Tuesday, February 14, 7pm & 9:30pm, Matthew Santos, Wednesday, February 15, 8pm, Amy Helm, Bryon Issacs & Martha Scanlan, Thursday, February 16, 8pm, Irene Molloy, Friday, February 17, 7:30pm, Seth Glier, Saturday, February 18, 7:30pm, Close to Good, Saturday, February 18, 10:30pm, 20 S. 2nd Street, Philadelphia. Tickets $10-$22

 

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

Opening this weekend at the Players Club of Swarthmore Theater is the musical comedy I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, through February 25, Fairview Road, just off of Chester Road, Swarthmore, PA. Tickets $25 adults, $13 students

 

 

 

The Biggs Museum of American Art presents a large sample of the late 19th & early 20th century pop-up Valentine card collection of Ann Marcus, who has collected hundreds of these delicate art forms for over fifteen years, through March 25, 406 Federal Street, Dover, DE.

 

 

 

Other listings throughout the Delaware Valley:

This Saturday, February 11, 10am-3pm, visitors to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site are invited to make old fashioned Valentine’s Day cards while learning about the history of the Valentine Card industry, near Birdsboro, PA, off of Route 345. Free

Access To Art presents Music for Your Valentine, Saturday, February 11, 4pm, featuring the music of Mozart, Dvorak, Kreisler, Brahms & Monti, with Bela Horvath, violin, Aurelia Mika Chang, piano, Cape Island Baptist Church, Gurney & Columbia Avenues, Cape May, NJ. Tickets $20

The Greater Ocean City Theatre Company presents the annual “I ♥ NY,” an intimate cabaret of Broadway Love Songs, Saturday, February 11, 7:15pm dessert reception, 8pm show time, Ocean City Music Pier, Moorlyn Terrace and Boardwalk, Ocean City, NJ. $18 show and reception

Serenading violins take over the stage when the Allentown Symphony hosts Love Melodies, a Valentine concert with Simon Mulligan on piano, Saturday, February 11, 8pm, and Sunday, February 12, 3pm with Rachmaninoff’s romantic Vocalise, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll and Strauss’ opera Der Rosenkavalier, 23 N. 6th Street, Allentown, PA. Tickets $25-25, Students $10.

LiveConnections presents a noontime ClassicAlive! Performance on Sunday, February 12 at World Café Live with Astral artists Dísella Làrusdóttir, soprano, Jonathan Beyer, baritone, and Jonathan Ware, piano, performing a selection of love song duets ranging from opera and art song to musical theater and pop. Enjoy a special a la carte brunch while savoring the Valentine themed music, 3025 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. $20 general admission, $15 students

Celebrate a colonial Valentine’s Day at Graeme Park with tours featuring costumed actors portraying scenes from Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson’s life, Sunday, February 12, 12-3pm, 859 County Line Road, Horsham, PA. $12 including light refreshments

The Philadelphia Trio’s winter concert is this Sunday, February 12, 3pm with special guest Charles Salinger, principal clarinetist with the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra and the Delaware Symphony at Main Line Unitarian Church, 816 South Valley Forge Road, Devon, PA, with a program of Brahms, Haydn, and Shostakovitch. Tickets $13-18 available at the door, reception following concert

Onstage at Theatre Exile is the Philadelphia premiere of Knives in Hens by David Harrower, about a young couple’s love that is challenged by an outsider, with a non-traditional relationship between audience and performance, through March 4, Studio X, 1340 South 13th Street, Philadelphia. Tickets $18-32, limited seating

The Moonstone Arts Center hosts a Poetry Series this Tuesday, February 14, 7pm featuring the National Black Arts Spoken Word Tour in How Love Got Lost, Strayed or Stolen, poetry and spoken word performances about the trials and tribulations of finding and being in love, at 110A S. 13th Street, Philadelphia.

Cairnwood Estate hosts “Hearts & Hops,” Valentine’s Day beer tasting with music, food and samplings of beers from Stone Brewing Company and YARDS Brewing Company, Tuesday, February 14, 8-11pm, 1005 Cathedral Road, Bryn Athyn, PA. $20

Eagle Theatre hosts “A Romantic Night of Music,” with big band and romantic ballads, Wednesday, February 15, 7pm, 208 Vine Street, Hammonton, NJ. $20 general admission

The Broadway Theatre of Pitman presents a children’s theater production of The Wizard of Oz, Thursday, February 16, 10am, Friday, February 17, 10am & 7:30pm, Saturday, February 18, 10am, 1pm & 7:30pm, a one-hour performance with a mix of creative sets, music, live actors, and audience participation, for ages 3-9, 43 S. Broadway, Pitman, NJ. Tickets $7-$9

The Delaware Art Museum examines the use of plants as symbols across cultures and throughout history with Beyond Words: The Symbolic Language of Plants, through April 8 at 2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, DE. Admission $12 adults, $10 seniors 60+, $6 students & youth (7-18), children 6 and under free. Free admission on Sundays.

The National Museum of American Jewish History celebrates the Jewish New Year for Trees, Tu B’Shevat, with an inaugural exhibit at their new location, through April 22, 101 South Independence Mall East, Philadelphia. Museum admission $12, adults, $11 seniors 65+, $11 youth ages 13-21, children 12 and under free, military free.

The Philadelphia Foundation Community Art Gallery presents “Artwell: Ten Years of Poetry, Art and Possibility, through April 25 at 1234 Market Street, Suite 1800. Free and open to the pubic, Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm.

The Randall Theater at Temple University presents Pudd’nhead Wilson by Charles Smith, at 13th & Norris Street (inside Annenberg Hall), Philadelphia through February 19.

Sellersville Theater 1894 hosts February concerts: Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, Friday, February 10, 8pm, Terrance Simien Creole for Kidz Dance Party, Sunday, February 12, 2pm, Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience, 7:30pm, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Monday, February 13, 8pm, David Johansen, Thursday, February 16, 8pm, Stringfever, Friday, February 17, 8pm, Red Molly w/Beaucoup Blue, Saturday, February 18, 8pm, Terri Clark “Roots & Wings Unplugged,” Saturday, February 25, 8pm, 24 West Temple Avenue, Sellersville, PA.