Entertainment

Being a superhero comes with super-sized problems. That’s certainly the case with Iron Man and his cocky creator, Tony Stark, who’s suffering from a mega case of job-related stress at the beginning of this third movie spun from his Marvel comic exploits.

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Crystal Butler, a Benton County native who has promoted music festivals in Kansas City and Oklahoma, is putting on her biggest festival yet right in her own backyard. Or close to it, at least.

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Nine student actors at State Fair Community College performed “Cutting the Onion” on Saturday in the Studio Theatre. They didn’t know they were going to perform the play until they were actually doing it. In fact, the play didn’t even exist until the very moment they did it, and it will never exist again in the future.

Two adventurous young boys come across a scruffy vagrant living in a boat in a tree, and become involved in a plot involving murder, obsession and revenge.

Center Stage Company Dancers placed in the top 10 in all the categories they competed in and won the Best Showmanship Award during the Talent on Parade Dance Competition April 12-14 in Overland Park, Kan.

Two Smith-Cotton spring vocal music concerts will be at 7 p.m. Thursday. The Smith-Cotton High School show choirs will perform in the Heckart Performing Arts Center, Smith-Cotton High School, 2010 Tiger Pride Blvd. in Sedalia, and the Smith-Cotton Junior High bands and orchestra will perform in the junior high auditorium at the corner of Broadway Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue in Sedalia. Admission is free to both shows.

The Daum Museum of Contemporary Art on the State Fair Community College campus will sponsor “Sedalia Day at the Daum” from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday.

The State Fair Community College Theatre Arts program will present a student theater showcase at 7 p.m. May 9 and 10 in the Thompson O’Sullivan Studio Theatre in Yeater Learning Center Room 126 on the Sedalia campus.

MUSIC

The Punchline Players, State Fair Community College’s improv comedy troupe, will perform at 7:30 p.m. May 11 in the Studio Theatre in the Yeater Learning Center on the Sedalia campus.

The Katy Depot will host a special Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival presentation by Gary Kremer at 1 p.m. June 7 at 600 E. Third St.

The University of Central Missouri Dance Club will present its annual “Dancing with the Professors” spring fundraiser at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Highlander Theatre on the Warrensburg campus.

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SLATER — It’s a safe bet that the largest collection of Steve McQueen memorabilia ever brought together in one room was found on Saturday at Slater City Hall. And like the legendary actor who was raised on a farm near Slater — 42 miles north of Sedalia — all you needed was a fast machine to get there.

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State Fair Community College’s “Lucky Stiff” is incredibly stupid. But it’s supposed to be. While 1980s musical farces might not be the favorite genre of all theater-goers, this is one of the (dare I say) smarter ones, and the SFCC cast universally got into the spirit of the silliness during Wednesday’s opening night. The show continues Thursday through Sunday.

Mid-Missouri Artists’ 33rd annual Spring Fine Arts Show will be from 1 to 4 p.m. May 4 and 12:30 to 4 p.m. May 5 at the Warrensburg Community Center’s ABC Building on Commander Drive in Grover Park.

The Marshall Philharmonic Orchestra’s 50th anniversary season will conclude with a showcase of local talent, showtunes and jazz at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the Lickey Auditorium of Bueker Middle School.

Warrensburg filmmakers Josh Tomlinson and Daniel Mollenkamp won the award for Best Short Film for Mature Audiences at the Bare Bones International Film Festival for their film “The Incredible Waldo Poole.” The awards for the 14th annual festival were presented at a red carpet gala on April 14 in Muskogee, Okla.

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After the Sons of the Pioneers perform an opening set on Friday, Michael Martin Murphey will take the stage for a solo show at the Heckart Performing Arts Center. That’s appropriate, because — although he usually performs with a backing band — Murphey has always carved his own individual path.

Before the final rehearsal for “The Vagina Monologues” could get started Wednesday, there needed to be a little dance break.

The “As-Yet-Unnamed Comedy Road Show” is scheduled for 9 p.m. April 19 at Bottoms Up Nightclub, 200 Industrial Drive in Sedalia.

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For the five Smith-Cotton High School students who organized the first Carpe Diem Festival, one of the most nerve-racking elements was literally seizing a day on the calendar.

Applewood Christian School students will present the Western musical melodrama “Tied to the Tracks” at 7 p.m. April 26 and 2 and 7 p.m. April 27 at the school on Highway O just off of U.S. Highway 50.

The Center Stage Company Dancers, of Warrensburg and Sedalia, won five first-place awards and placed in the top 10 in all seven routines it competed in at the recent Starpower competition in St. Charles.

Clytice C. Duzan, author of “Reunion,” will sign books from 1 to 3 p.m. April 13 at Time For Tea, 111 W. McPherson St. in Knob Noster.