CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Cruise-In Block Party Car Show This week's theatre

Swing! The musical with a great big exclamation mark plays at Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre runs through June 9. The Tony nominated Swing! celebrates the music and dance phenomenon that swept the nation in the 30's and 40's. With the resurgence of dance shows, dance has again become one of the fastest growing trends across the country. Performances are Wednesday through Sunday evenings with selected matinees. Ticket prices range from $25 to $50. Group discounts are available for parties of 20 or more. For tickets call the box office at 278-4422. Visit www.broadwaypalm. com for information.

Rounding Third Rounding Third, a play about two Little League coaches, with quite disparate styles and philosophies on child rearing, argue their way to the championship game. At the Florida Repertory Theatre in downtown Fort Myers through June 10. The audience is the stand-in for the team, so the coaches speak directly to us about competition, character, punctuality and the importance of wearing the right equipment. This big new comedy is about Pee Wee baseball and the childish adults who complicate it. For tickets, call the box office at 332-4488 or go to www. floridarep.org.

Feelin' Groovy The Schoolhouse Theater on Sanibel presents the music revue Feelin' Groovy. It's the first of the Theater's summer shows. Feelin' Groovy features popular songs from each year of the 1960s. The cast features the powerhouse vocals of Victor Legarreta, Bobby Logue, Samantha Rotella, Tammy Truitt & Yurief Rodriguez. Performances are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. through Aug. 1. Special summer ticket prices of $20 for adults and $10 for children 16 and under. For information and tickets, call the Box Office at 239- 472-6862 or online at www.theschoolhousetheater. com.

Darwin in Malibu Charles Darwin peacefully spends his later years in a beach house overlooking the Pacific with a free-spirited young girl, until two friends come to visit, one determined to save Darwin's eternal soul and the other to preserve the theory of evolution. Caught in the middle of the debate between science and religion, this group of friends struggles to find the meaning of life, death and plastic surgery. A charming comedy full of an amusing juxtaposition of ideas. Darwin in Malibu is playing at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota until June 10. For tickets call the Asolo at 941-351-8000 or online at www.asolo.org.

This week's symphony

Festival of Great Organ Music Some of the finest organists in Southwest Florida will perform at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples on Friday, June 8 at 8 p.m. A wide range of great music will be played on the Philharmonic Center's 3,604-pipe Casavant organ. Selections will include classic orchestral works from all periods of music history - and even a duet or two. This delightful concert event features members of the Southwest Florida Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, For tickets call (239) 597-1900 or online at www.thephil.org. Sarasota Music Festival For more than 40 years the Sarasota Music Festival has showcased the talents of internationally renowned faculty artists and the best music students from around the world. Together, they present the finest in chamber music through performances, lectures, masterclasses and rehearsals. The first of the Festival's six concerts begin on Friday, June 8 and run through June 23 at the Church of the Palms in Sarasota. On Friday, June 8, students perform Ravel's Mother Goose Suite with faculty members. On Saturday, June 9, Joseph Silverstein conducts the Festival Orchestra performing selections by Bach, Schumann, Rossini and Mendelssohn. Shows begin at 8 p.m. Main floor seats are available online at www.fwcs.org; Balcony seats are available by phoning the box office at 941-953-3434.

Friday, June 8

Music - GoJona features singer/ songwriter Jona Kimbrough from Naples. Jona will perform popular and familiar favorites as well as some of her beautiful original contemporary Christian music at the Burnt Store Presbyterian Church in Punta Gorda. The concert begins at 7 p.m. For information call (941) 639-0001 or online at www. bspconline.org.

Saturday, June 9

Music - Classic Albums Live presents Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" at the

Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples on Saturday, June 9 at 8 p.m. Classic Albums Live takes the world's greatest albums and recreates them live on stage using the world's greatest musicians. Note for note, cut for cut - you have to hear it to believe it. For tickets call (239) 597-1900 or online at www.thephil.org.

Block party - Drive on into the River District in downtown Fort Myers for the Cruise-In Block Party Car Show from 5 p.m. until 8 at First and Hendry streets. Choose from a dozen restaurants to dine, shop or view more than 300 show cars. Music is from Tom's Traveling Tunes. Admission is free. Get there early, organizers said parking may be limited after 4:30 p.m.

Art - Eight Gaden Ngari Monastery Tibetan monks will create an intricate and sacred mandala sand art painting from June 5 through 9 in the Watson Gallery at the von Liebig Art Center in Naples. It is the monks' first and only appearance in Southwest Florida as part of their national tour to offer blessings from their rich tradition. From all the artistic traditions of Tantric Buddhism, that of painting with colored sand ranks as one of the most unique and exquisite. Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a platform to form the image of a mandala. The week will culminate with a closing ceremony at noon. During the closing ceremony, the high lama will put a line through the approximately 5-foot by 5-foot mandala to signify the impermanence of life. If requested, up to half of the sand will be distributed to the audience as blessings for personal health and healing. The monks will then proceed to the sea in the tradition of pouring the sand in water, which disperses the healing energies of the mandala throughout the world. Tickets are $20 for adults and $12 for students age 11 and older, with all the proceeds helping support their monestary. For tickets, call 786-521-0890. Tickets also will be sold at the door. For information go to www.naplesart.org

Ongoing events

Art - The Friends of the Cape Coral Library have a new exhibit which runs through June 15. The Gallery, located at the Cape Coral Library, 921 SW 39th Terrace, off Mohawk Boulevard, is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Lois Johnston, Patty Sole and Angela Aradia are the featured artists.

Dance - Cast members from the musical Swing! will offer free swing dance lessons in the lobby of Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre immediately after each Friday evening show. The Swing! dance lessons will start at approximately 9:45 p.m. each Friday. Swing! celebrates the music of the swing era of jazz with a mix of dance numbers; some comic, some romantic and some sexy. For show tickets call the box office at 278-4422. Visit www.broadwaypalm.com for information.

Art - The 21st Annual 2D-3D All Florida Juried Exhibition runs through July 28 at the Alliance for the Arts galleries. Nearly 250 individual works of art were submitted, and only 42 were selected for the exhibit by Juror Darby Bannard, a Professor of Art at the University of Miami. Bannard is internationally recognized for his abstract paintings, and he has had 75 one-man shows, including several retrospectives, and hundreds of group shows in a long career. His work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Guggenheim Museum and most other major museums here and abroad. The Alliance for the Arts is located at 10091 McGregor Blvd. just south of Colonial Blvd. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 to 3. Visit www.artinlee. org for more information.

Art - The Art League of Bonita Springs will host Fine Arts/Fine Crafts: Then & Now and The Princeton Art of Science Exhibition shows through Jun 29 at the Center for the Arts, 26100 Old 41 Road, Bonita Springs. The opening reception is from 6-8 p.m. The Fine Arts/Fine Crafts: Then & Now celebrates the artists of our area in this regional competition. The Princeton Art of Science Exhibition is a celebration of the aesthetics of research; the ways in which science and engineering inform art and vise versa. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturdays, Noon-5 p.m. All Art League exhibitions are free to the public. For further information on this and other Art League events, call 495-8989 or online at www.artcenterbonita.org. Art - Guest Artists Invitational at the

Cape Coral Arts Studio. This special exhibition features area professional artists who have shared their time and talents giving demos and workshops for the children during the Arts Studio's art camps from through June 29. The Arts Studio is located at 4533 Coronado Pkwy, Cape Coral. For information call 574- 0802.

Art - The 9th International Shoebox Sculpture Exhibition will be one of the most popular exhibits for the young and young-at-heart alike, at the

Bob Rauschenberg Gallery on the Lee County Campus of Edison College. Dozens of small sculptures from around the world show how artists have handled the challenges of space and scale dictated by the size of an ordinary shoebox. The display runs through June 30. An invitation-only exhibition, this triennial has attracted a large number of well-known artists from Hawaii, the U.S. mainland, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, Norway, The Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery is located on the Lee County Campus, in the Humanities Hall (Building L), next to the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall. For additional information or to schedule a group visit, call 489-9313, Monday through Friday. The Gallery's open: Monday - Friday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Saturday 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Closed Sunday and holidays.

Upcoming events

Musical - Everything you've heard is true. "Mel Brooks has put the comedy back into musical comedy." The Producers is the funniest, most fearlessly irreverent thing ever seen on stage!" (USA Today) The biggest Tony Award winner in Broadway history returns to the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall beginning June 19 for four days. Direction and choreography by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman (Crazy for You, Contact, The Music Man). The previous engagement in Fort Myers was a sell-out. Tickets are available at the Mann box office, by calling (239) 481-4849 or at www.bbmannpah.com.

Music - 'Get Down Tonight' opens at the Schoolhouse Theater on Sanibel on Saturday, June 16. Performances are Tuesdays and Saturdays. The cast has familiar faces Victor Legarreta, Bobby Logue, and Samantha Rotella. You've seen her on the island in the past, but it'll be Tammy Truitt's first time at the new location of The Schoolhouse Theater. Yurief Rodriguez will also be joining the cast. During the summer, the Box Office is only open the day of performances - from 2 to 7 p.m. All shows begin at 7 p.m. with ticket prices of $20 for adults and $10 for children. The summer seasons ends on August 25th. For tickets and information, call The Schoolhouse Theater Box Office at 472-6862 or at www.theschoolhousetheater. com.

Music - The 2007 Nashville Star Tour is coming to the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall Saturday, July 28. The 2007 Nashville Star Tour features Angela Hacker, David St. Romain, Zac Taylor and Joshua Stevens from the hit USA Network's Nashville Star TV talent search that captivated the nation. The 2007 Nashville Star Tour recreates the energy and feel of the hit TV series; utilizing an interactive video package of highlights, and lowlights, of each Artist's tenure on the show, thereby acting as a "virtual host" of the show. Tickets are on sale at the box office, by calling 481-4849 or online at www.bbmannpah.com

Music - Country music star Aaron Tippin will be at Ricochet in Fort Myers on Saturday, June 23. Tippin had a number one hit in 2000 with "Kiss This", co-written with his wife Thea Corontzo. In the wake of 9/11, his patriotic anthem, "Where the Stars and Stripes and Eagle Fly", peaked at number two. For information call 277-5700.