Two theater productions and the return of a celebrity concert series are featured at Pheasant Run Resort.

The public is invited to the finals for the second annual Art In Your Ear Amateur Songwriting Contest at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4, in Shannon Hall in the Eastside Community Center, 14 N. Van Buren St., Batavia.

Independent Players launches its season with William Nicholson’s “The Retreat From Moscow,” an area premiere directed by Larry Boller.

The play, which received raves on Broadway in 2003, opens as Jamie, the 30-year-old son of Edward and Alice, arrives for a visit on the day his father has picked to leave his mother for another woman.

Offering an escapist antidote to the country’s current bout of high anxiety is a celebration of the best of Rodgers and Hammerstein delivered by Noble Fool Theatricals at Pheasant Run.
 
The upbeat musical revue introduces first-timers to the standards penned by the legendary Broadway duo, while fans will find themselves enveloped in a nostalgic cocoon spun by a talented cast of five vocalists accompanied by pianist and funny man Tom Clear.

In a musical coup for two dynamic orchestras, world-renowned violinist Midori will be calling the western suburbs home during a five-day residency jam-packed with teaching clinics and arts advocacy events, capped by concerts.
 

History comes alive in Oakwood Cemetery Friday, Oct. 3, with the 19th annual Tales Tombstones Tell program presented by the West Chicago City Museum.

Lighted lanterns and luminarias mark the paths to fascinating stories told by costumed interpreters about former residents buried at West Chicago’s oldest cemetery at York Street and Oakwood Avenue.

The Fine Line Creative Arts Center will present an opening reception in the Kavanagh Gallery for mixed-media artist Cheryl Holz from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3. The exhibit titled “…in the name of the flora and the fauna” runs from Oct. 3 to Nov. 15 at 6N158 Crane Road, St. Charles.

It’s a zombie life for the Tri-Cities mother-and-daughter acting duo of Melissa and Alison Auer. They appear in The Riverfront Playhouse’s encore presentation of “Night of the Living Dead: The Musical” by Jack Schultz, on stage at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 1.

With script and lyrics by Schultz, and 11 new songs written by him and Kathleen Dooley, the play is based on the cult movie “Night of the Living Dead.”

In honor of the Kane County Bar Association’s 150th anniversary, the organization has teamed with the new Geneva theater group to perform the historic legal drama “Inherit the Wind” at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18.

The play is a fictionalized account of the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial, which resulted in John T. Scopes’ conviction for teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to a high school science class, contrary to a Tennessee state law that prohibited the teaching of anything besides creationism.

Generation, the father-and-son duo of Mark and Brian Allison of West Chicago, will appear at 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4, at Caliendo’s Restaurant and Bar in Winfield.

Chicago’s newest contemporary dance company, NoMi La Mad, which is in partial residence at State Street Dance Studio in Geneva, comes to Elburn for the first time to perform some of its newest works.

The Fermilab Arts Series presents the critically acclaimed Aquila Theatre Company performing “Comedy of Errors” by Shakespeare at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 4. A free, pre-performance talk starts at 7 p.m. in Room One West, given by David Bevington of the University of Chicago, one of the nation’s foremost experts on Shakespeare. For play tickets, call (630) 840-ARTS.

The Fermilab Art Gallery presents “Intersections: The Art and Science of Light Experiments.” It showcases works of holographic and multimedia art by Tevatron operations specialist Todd Johnson, photographer/holographer and former Fermilab researcher Ed Wesly (bubble chamber experiment E-632), and holography/light artist Lori Napoleon.
 

In a musical coup for two dynamic orchestras, world-renowned violinist Midori will be calling the western suburbs home during a five-day residency jam-packed with teaching clinics and arts advocacy events, capped by concerts.

Only two such residencies are awarded in the United States each year by Midori, and in an unprecedented move, the Elgin Youth Symphony Orchestra was granted a special request to have the famed artist not only work with its most advanced group, but to teach and perform with three of the organization’s orchestras.

“I think it’s going to be inspiring for the students and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them and their parents,” said Kathy Matthews of St. Charles, executive director of the EYSO, which has 300 students from 60 communities.
 

The nationally recognized Orion Ensemble, a five-member chamber music group, announces its 16th season, with series in Geneva, Chicago and Evanston.

Works by two women composers are among the highlights, and the final program features music from film and opera. Joining the musicians on two of the four programs is Baird Dodge, principal second violinist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The ensemble members are Kathryne Pirtle (clarinet), Florentina Ramniceanu (violin), Diana Schmück (piano), Judy Stone (cello) and Jennifer Marlas (viola).

Art will be combined with an alpaca open house from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 27 and 28, just north of St. Charles.

Visitors will meet 43 Suri alpacas and three babies, plus enjoy a professional art sale, all on the grounds of the Waldron Grove Alpaca Farm.