Life as a teenager can be tough enough without throwing a full-time commitment in the mix, but when it’s your passion, the effort is beyond worth it.

“Mahalia, A Gospel Musical” is so much more than a biographical musical about the great Mahalia Jackson, Queen of Gospel. Full of the gorgeous church hymns and old spirituals she sang with her tremendously soulful and powerful voice, it does, indeed, tell the story of her rise to fame in the 20th Century. But in so doing, it also elucidates a crucial piece of American history.

Cari Scholtens and Jil Farheart look pretty much the same: they’re both tall, lean brunettes. But Farheart has a scar on her cheek. And while Scholtens owns a plastic sword and axe, Farheart’s sword and axe are necessarily steel; she’s a bounty hunter, and uses them when she has to. In a world of dark cults, vicious monsters, and the ever-present threat of violence, “when she has to” is pretty often.

When John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer and Tony Award winning drama “Doubt: A Parable” came out amid the first of Catholic priest sex abuse revelations 15 years ago, it was powerful and shocking.

In the final moments of Grand Rapids Ballet’s MOVEMEDIA: Handmade, dancers onstage transform into an underwater human merry go round. With linked arms, an outer circle moves clockwise, while an inner circle moves in the opposite direction in Nicolas Blanc’s world premiere “Aquatic Hypoxia.”

For 20 years, Mamma Mia! has been unavailable to local theater companies. But the time has come for troupes like Grand Rapids Civic Theatre to bring the hit musical to the stage with showstopping tunes, creative sets and lots of talent.

The art on your favorite cafe’s walls was not placed there by accident. 

Schools and libraries go hand-in-hand, both containing and spreading knowledge far and wide. Whether it’s a university or an elementary school, the library is the well of information students can dip into at any time. The same goes for Oscar Tuazon’s Water School, coming to Michigan State University’s Broad Art Museum.

When artist Tanya Tice couldn’t find a piece of art to hang above her couch in her price range, she went out to the store, bought some canvas and paint and “went to town.”

Accomplished Michigan author and illustrator Patricia Polacco was once a little girl, Trisha, who saw jumbled words on the page and struggled with reading in school.