By Chip Chandler — Digital Content Producer
Art exhibitions, drama, comedy, chili eating, roping and even some bumping and grinding: These are the activities headed your way through Jan. 19.
- Crack competitors will kick up some dust in McCracken Team Roping competitions beginning at 8 a.m. daily Friday through Sunday in the Amarillo National Center on the Tri-State Fairgrounds, 3301 S.E. 10th Ave. Admission is free. Call 806-376-7767.
- Cerulean Gallery celebrates its second anniversary and its move to a new location with The Sky's The Limit, a new exhibition featuring Frederica Dodson Anderson, Ron Hall, Robin Hazard, Xan Sinclair Koonce, Mitch McGee and Sloane Snure Paullus. Following a 6 p.m. Friday opening reception at the gallery, 814 S. Taylor St. (inside the Canyon Exploration Building), the show will hang through Feb. 24. Call 806-576-0063.
- Comedian Rodney Carrington will return to Amarillo with his Here Comes the Truth tour; the comic wasn't available for an interview. The performance is set for 7 p.m. Friday in the Amarillo Civic Center Complex Auditorium, 401 S. Buchanan St.. Tickets are $41.75 or $176.75 for VIP seating, plus fees. Call 806-378-3096.
- Acting troupe Merely Players tackles the two-man drama The Sunset Limited by Cormac McCarthy (Blood Meridian). In the drama, a black man (played by Brandon Graves) and a white man (Bo James Kemp) whom he just saved from a suicide attempt debate the existence of God and the meaning of life (for more details, see my preview.) I'll be staged at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, plus Jan. 20 and 21, in the Amarillo College Experimental Theatre on the Washington Street campus. Tickets are $10 adults or $7 seniors and students. Call 806-358-6215 or 806-371-5359.
- Chili snobs, it's your weekend to shine. The annual Tri-State Open Chili Championship benefiting the Make-A-Wish Foundation is set for 11 a.m. Saturday in the Rex Baxter Building on the Tri-State Fairgrounds. Admission is free, but it'll cost $5 for tasting cup. Call 806-376-7767.
- Amarillo author A.G. Howard will sign copies of her latest, RoseBlood, a retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, at 2 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 2415 S. Soncy Road. Check out my interview with Howard for more on the supernatural YA novel.
- The guys are going to let it (almost) all hang out at Girls Night Out: The Show at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at Whiskey River, 4001 S.W. 51st Ave. Tickets are $18 in advance or $25 at the door, or $50 for VIP seating. Call 806-367-6163.
- Amarillo Little Theatre revives the classic Neil Simon comedy Brighton Beach Memoirs for a two-weekend run beginning at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 19. The show — which stars Ethan Worsham as Eugene, with Jayme McBride, Patrick Burns and Harrison Stringer — runs Thursdays through Saturdays through Jan. 28, plus a 2:30 p.m. Jan. 29 matinee, on the ALT Mainstage, 2019 Civic Circle. Ticket prices vary. Call 806-355-9991. (I'll preview the show Monday.)
- Amarillo Public Library kicks off its winter Amarillo Reads focus on Mary Shelley with Frankenstein in Film, a series of several of the beast's best movies: Frankenstein (1931) on Jan. 19, Young Frankenstein (1974) on Jan. 26, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) on Feb. 2 and Victor Frankenstein (2015) on Feb. 9. The films will be shown at 6 p.m. weekly through Feb. 9 in the library's downtown branch, 413 S.E. Fourth Ave. Admission is free. Call 806-378-3051.
Chip Chandler is a digital content producer for Panhandle PBS. He can be contacted at Chip.Chandler@actx.edu, at @chipchandler1 on Twitter and at www.facebook.com/chipchandlerwriter on Facebook.
