It’s a rare, special occasion when the two big art organizations in Grand Rapids team up.

The Muskegon Museum of Art has more than one ambitious exhibition taking over its remodeled galleries throughout the coming months. Whether you’re looking for the best Michigan-made art or would just like to contemplate death, the MMA has you covered. We talked with the staff about what makes these shows worth visiting — maybe more than once.

Pilobolus wants to help you come to your senses. The East Coast dance company knows you can watch performances on your phone, but that doesn’t at all compare to seeing a dance show live.

Having gotten lost in a great forest, Prince Ivan finds himself in the realm of Koschei the Immortal, a terrible villain whose soul lies hidden inside an egg. The prince falls in love with a princess, triggering Koschei’s wrath. It is only through the intervention of a firebird, who has herself fallen for the prince, that the egg is destroyed and happiness gained.

Ebony Road Players’ new show tells stories all about the experiences of women of color, and the theater group says the stories are for everyone to hear.

A local comedy club is teaching people the skills of comedy writing, performance and improv, but not all of those people end up onstage. Many of them simply want to apply the skills in their everyday life, whether it’s as a writer, an actor or just in social settings.

It’s a very different world today than the one in which “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” burst onto the Off-Broadway scene in 1998. This critic was tits-deep in queer theory and Judith Butler’s ideas about gender identity formation as a wide-eyed undergraduate, and mainstream culture wasn’t in any way ready for a rock musical/cabaret featuring a heart-broken, foul-mouthed, East German, gender fluid rock star who suffered from botched sex reassignment surgery. But the theater world was — as it always is for a brilliant character with righteous dramatic flair.

One of the most beautiful aspects about live theater is its ability to take people back to a moment in their own lives, a memory that’s ingrained in their brain from long ago or an event that recently happened. With the Wharton Center’s season opener, Come From Away, most members of the audience will probably have at least one memory or two of the event at the center of the musical: 9/11.

The Barn Theatre has a way of playing to its strengths, which turns out to be all kinds of things, from big sweeping musicals to off-color farces to classic dramas to rock operas to family friendly comedies and beyond. They’ve offered much of that this year in their 73rd summer stock season, but to bring this excellent season to a close they’re offering something completely different—that yet also plays to their strengths as comedians, character actors, as well as phenomenal singers and dancers.

A complete preview of art exhibitions and events in West Michigan for the 2019-2020 season.