Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features big band prog-jazz fusion by Elliot McConnell, jazz-rock by Punto de Fuga, country-folk jazz by Maddy Ringo, moody indie by Dick Texas, and two new drum 'n' bass releases on the AGN7 label.

Ghosts are haunting the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre this weekend with a gothic opera based on Henry James’ spooky and unsettling novella The Turn of the Screw.

British composer Benjamin Britten’s score is chilling, a perfect screech of modern music to tell the tale of an inexperienced and disturbed governess and two neglected children.

The University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance Department of Voice & Opera and the Contemporary Directions Ensemble are presenting The Turn of the Screw composed by Britten with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, March 27-30 at the Mendelssohn. Two casts will perform. The cast from Thursday, March 27, will perform on Saturday, March 29. Another cast will perform on Friday, March 28, and Sunday, March 30.

The opera begins with three people exchanging ghost stories on a chilly Christmas Eve in a manor house. The most complex story is about the timid, anxious governess at Bly House who was hired by the uncle of two unruly children who may or may not be seeing ghosts. The governess is helped and advised by the housekeeper who tells her the story of the previous governess Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, the uncle’s manservant. Both are now dead. The children, a boy and a girl, are having a hard time—and maybe they’re in touch with ghosts.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features Persian fusion by Babak Soleimani, electronica by Broomway, hip-hop by Blaine Nash, singer-songwriter soul by Jeff Karoub, and synth-pop by Same Eyes.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features sample-heavy electronica by Obsolete Aesthetics, fuzz-fi by Lantern Lens, Irish-steeped instrumentals by Kitty Donohoe, multigenre pop by Andrés Soto, and an experimental jam by Laserbeams of Boredom.

The Neighborhood Theatre Group’s small, minimalist theater is an intimate space for what it calls an anthology play in four parts.

The seating is limited. The stage area is small. The audience is practically part of the scene.

All these limitations are a plus for a theater that emphasizes a tight story, engaged actors, and a very different theater experience, especially for a production like The Hotel Del Gado.

The anthology drama will conclude its two-weekend schedule March 14-16 at The Back Office Studio in Ypsilanti. 

Its four plays are set in a cheap, rundown hotel room. The time is the 1970s. The Neighborhood Theatre Group (NTG) co-founder and literary manager A.M. Dean created a conceit that many of the NTG plays will be set in a place called the Huron Valley Universe, drawing on the college towns of Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, and East Lansing.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features worldly improv-rock by Jesse Stiles and Bombici, healing ambient by Golden Feelings, political metalcore by Loss of Life, hyper-pop emo by Sacha, and electronica by Delphine Delight.

You realize which adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel Sense and Sensibility has left the strongest impression on you when—in the opening moments of a stage performance—you find yourself thinking, “OK, that’s the Emma Thompson sister, and that’s Kate Winslet.”

Yes, the much-celebrated 1995 film, directed by Ang Lee, casts a long shadow, but Sense & Sensibility: The Musical, now having its Michigan premiere at Dexter’s Encore Theatre, nonetheless offers its unique spin on the material.

With a book, music, and lyrics by Paul Gordon (who also previously adapted Jane Eyre into a Tony-nominated stage musical), Sense streamlines Austen’s world of characters down to the bone, a move that—given the economic and relational complexities of the story—occasionally makes plot turns confusing.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, dear reader, but first, a synopsis.

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features hip-hop from Dre Dav, drumcentric world-music jams by Muruga-Sikiru-Trance Tribe, noise-rock by Horse Bomb, big-synth music by Orka Veer & Zakoor, and chamber-pop by Cedar Bend.

Dark, steel gray walls loom ominously as the moody setting for Aaron Sorkin’s breakthrough, lacerating portrayal of a troubled military.

Sorkin’s A Few Good Men seems like just the right play at just the right time for the University of Michigan Department of Theatre and Drama's on-point production at the Power Center.

Director Geoff Packard writes in his program notes that he began to see the play through “a different lens with a new set of images in my mind.”

“Like many of you, I find myself grappling with a complicated relationship with America today, questioning who we are, who we’ve been and where we are headed as a nation,” he writes. “The world in the play, as I read it now, is no longer the hopeful vision I once imagined. It has become grayer, darked and more monolithic.”

Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features folktronica by Rabbitology, disco-house by John Beltran, soundtrack grooves by KUZbeats, synth-pop by Same Eyes, and indie by Luna Pier.