If you’re hungry for an interactive dinner theater experience, it’s time to make some reservations.

The University Singers will present a Gala Concert to mark the group’s 50th anniversary at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in Cabell Hall Auditorium.
The world premiere of a commissioned work from American composer Stephen Paulus is part of the festivities. Paulus has written a new setting of Psalm 46 based on a translation by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Local audiences will get the chance to hear an ensemble that reached the spotlight after West and East Germany reunited in 1990 and wowed American audiences on its debut U.S. tour in 2005.
Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin will present music by Antonio Vivaldi, Alessandro Marcello, Johann Gottlieb Graun, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach and J.S. Bach for the Tuesday Evening Concert Series at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Cabell Hall Auditorium at the University of Virginia.

Fifty years ago this spring, William Faulkner served his second and last term as a writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia. To mark the anniversary of his Charlottesville visit, there will be a symposium at the Harrison Institute/Small Special Collections Library Auditorium at 2 p.m. today.

No foolin’, it’s already time
for April’s opening receptions

l CCDC GALLERY:
In celebration of Architecture Week, the gallery will showcase the “RE:Design Matters” exhibit, which has been held over for April. The show examines the principles of sustainability incorporated throughout the design and renovation process. CCDC’s new space is at 100 Fifth St. NE. There will be a reception from 5 to 8 tonight. 984-2232.
Other events on tap for Architecture Week include Crozet Green Building Tour 10 a.m. Saturday; AIA Kids Day from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday; a film series starting at noon Monday, Tuesday and April 11; and a GreenMatters Workshop on Wednesday.

Transformation Ministries First Baptist Church will be bringing PrazeFest 2008 to the Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood saw their most recent CD releases debut at No. 1. Next week, the Grammy Award-winning country stars will make another debut — at the John Paul Jones Arena.

Judy Collins has sung traditional folk songs, important works by top songwriters and plenty of her own compositions, picking up. Getting around to the songs of John Lennon and Paul McCartney took a long and winding road.
Collins recorded the Lennon-McCartney composition “In My Life’’ in 1966, on her album by the same name, but it was her only venture into Beatles territory until last year.
Collins, who’ll be performing Thursday evening at the Paramount Theater, released “Judy Collins Sings Lennon and McCartney’’ last summer. It includes “And I Love Her,’’ “Norwegian Wood,’’ “Yesterday,’’ “I’ll Follow the Sun’’ and, of course, “Long and Winding Road.’’

Maybe you’re already a Savion Glover fan and thus familiar with high-energy tap dancing. Perhaps you have a fondness for Irish step dancing and can’t resist “Riverdance’’ and the spirited footwork from the group Bowfire.

The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields can serve up a dreamy pastoral passage as smooth as a pearl. That doesn’t mean, however, that the musicians don’t remember where pearls come from.
“I’ve always thought that a program, like an oyster, should have a little bit of grit in it,’’ said Kenneth Sillito, who will direct the renowned   chamber ensemble in Friday’s concert at the Paramount Theater.

Play On!, the relatively new community theater in the old Ix building, has produced a nice variety of shows during its short life.
With Beth Henley’s “Impossible Marriage,” it moves toward the end of its second season with whimsy and heart.
Henley may be best known for “Crimes of the Heart,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in the early ’80s, and on film for “Miss Firecracker.”
Henley is a Southerner, and “Impossible Marriage,” like her other plays, is based around Savannah and features quirky characters not quite in touch with reality, which is what can make them lovable. Or at least interesting.

The Eagles will perform 8 p.m. May 21 at Charlottesville’s John Paul Jones Arena, the arena announced this morning.

The Music Resource Center has planned “A Big Easy Evening’’ for Sunday that evokes the music and style of New Orleans.
Events begin with Crescent City cocktails at L’Etoile restaurant at 817 W. Main St., which will be filling in for the New Orleans fixture Antoine’s.
At 6 p.m., there will be a New Orleans-style jazz procession down West Main Street.

Piedmont Virginia Community College will present “UP (Ugly Prince) and UP (Ugly Princess): The Musical’’ at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the college’s V. Earl Dickinson Building.
Kay Bethea, professor of music and theater at PVCC, wrote the original book, lyrics and music for the show. Piedmont’s production is adapted from her satirical twist on “happily ever after’’ fairy tales.

The University of Virginia’s McIntire Department of Music is marking a musical milestone Saturday in Cabell Hall Auditorium with an evening concert and an afternoon of historical context.
The 100th anniversary of the installation of UVa’s E.M. Skinner organ will be observed with an afternoon symposium starting at 2 p.m. and a recital at 8 p.m. featuring Ken Cowan, professor of organ at Westminster Choir College.

Mira will present “Pilgrims, Knights and the Blessed Virgin Mary’’ at 8 p.m. Saturday at Holy Comforter Roman Catholic Church.
The Charlottesville early-music group will be singing 10th- and 11th-century chants from Ireland and England, as well as four centuries’ worth of polyphonic works by such composers as Dufay, Byrd and Crequillon.

San Francisco isn’t known as a hotbed for string bands, but the Waybacks have made the Bay Area proud with the band’s brand of progressive Americana.
Sure, the band likes to jam, and has even toured with hometown friend Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, but the four-piece, which features James Nash on guitar and mandolin, young fiddle ace Warren Hood, drummer Chuck Hamilton and Joe Kyle Jr. on bass, more often tastefully expands on the territory first made popular by Sam Bush and his work in Newgrass Revival.
On their latest release “Loaded,” which hit stores last week, the Waybacks’ range of string work shows off a skilled propensity to cover multiple genres, including Memphis-style soul, honky-tonk and swing.

Can’t decide whether you’d rather see high-energy tap dancing or spirited Celtic footwork? It’s time to step up — and choose both.
The StepCrew will bring a new mix of Celtic dance and modern tap to the Paramount Theater at 7:30 p.m. Monday.

Montana Repertory Theatre is coming back to the Paramount Theater — this time with a sizzler of an American classic.
“Cat on a Hit Tin Roof’’ will be presented 7:30 p.m. Thursday, and after the performance, there will be a discussion with members of the company.
Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play follows the members of an affluent and dysfunctional Southern family who reunite at a Mississippi Delta mansion to celebrate the birthday of Big Daddy, their patriarch.

The story of a woman who pins her financial hopes on profiting from war might be called the mother of darkly comic dramas.
Tonight is opening night for Live Arts’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children,’’ and director Satch Huizenga said audience members will be struck by the timeliness of the piece.

The City of Angels’ unholy underbelly has provided Walter Mosley with twisting plots and a wealth of fascinating and often shadowy characters.
  But the declarative sentence that started the best-selling author on his literary career had nothing to do with his hometown.
“A lot of people will tell you they knew they wanted to be a writer from the time they were 10 or 12 years old,” Mosley said during a recent telephone interview from Los Angeles. “For me, I was in my 30s before it ever became clear that that was something I would want to do.

So how long can eight seconds really last? Fans can find out at the Professional Bull Riders’ Charlottesville Invitational, which begins 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the John Paul Jones Arena.
Up-and-coming riders and veteran cowboys will be trying to spend at least eight seconds on the backs of writhing, 2,000-pound bulls.

The Dave Matthews Band has announced its annual summer sojourn, which will stop June 28 at Nissan Pavilion in Manassas with Spearhead and Aug. 7 at Virginia Beach Amphitheater with TR3 opening.

A number of major corporations arranged for their products to be placed in “Drillbit Taylor.“ They should ask for their money back.

DJ Drama will host an album release party for “The O’Drama Coalition: Tha PuppetMaster,’’ the latest CD by H.I.M., the King of Kings, on April 12 at the John Paul Jones Arena.

Take 6 member Alvin Chea once saw a magnet on a friend’s refrigerator that said, “Leap, and the net will appear.’’ He found the sentiment a familiar one.
“That’s how we approach things,’’ Chea said of his Grammy Award-winning vocal group, which is at home in gospel, jazz, rhythm and blues and many more styles. “Being an a cappella group in an electronic age is a bold thing.’’

Most folks aren’t crazy about the idea of taking their work home with them. For the members of the Battlefield Band, it’s a pleasure.
That’s because the traditional Scottish music that the internationally respected band performs isn’t quaint period material played to oh-so-exact specifications on the right reproduction instruments. It’s a thriving genre back home in Edinburgh, Scotland, and when members are home between tours, they’re likely to be found jamming with friends and neighbors — and getting new ideas all the time.